What I bought: A precious little porcelain doll dressed in a pretty dress and seated in an aged wooden snow sled, a tiny classic car set, a little stuffed pillow saying “You’re A Very Special Neighbor” A Norman Rockwell Saturday Evening Post Book, A framed print of a Norman Rockwell print, A book celebrating the hundredth anniversary of the city Auburn, Maine published fifty years ago. A plaque saying “One Day At A Time,” that started with “Help me believe in what I could be and all that I am.” Hold it! Just that little bit sold me on that one.
A little porcelain make up compact with a guitar and music notes on it, a LOVE table top decor stating “ Love as though your heart knows no bounds.” Irresistible, definitely. A pewter heirloom Santa Clause ornament, A Limited Edition 2001 Flying Eagle Sun Catcher, A spiritual rustic Artwood Plaque with a dynamite prayer for an old coot like me, A Laurel and Hardy DVD, A DVD starring John Wayne titled Angel and the Bad Man, The Lost Episodes of Vol 1 and 2 of Red Skelton. If they found them do you still call them lost?
I bought singer Roy Clark’s Bio and a Brooks and Dunn book titled Adventures of Slim and Howdy plus a beautifully preserved old surplus book opened and turned to the page of a poem by Edith Bond, 1987 titled, “What Mom took.” A lot of this stuff you’d have to see to appreciate.
Gosh, I found a mess of Christmas Cards showing Santa Claus and an old steam engine, takin’ me back to the early seventies when we created our Santa Claus Train took it all over the Grand Trunk Railroad together with the top officials and their families and several thousand employees visited the train and it led to the greatest years of labor harmony in the history of that railroad.
There were fancy boxes with bars of sweet smelling French soap and top it all a little unopened 4 ounce bottle with a spray dispenser of “The Healing Garden Cold Comfort Therapy, Pillow and Room Spray with essential oil of eucalyptus. We all know how good that is for all of us.
There were a few things I know I forgot but the ladies running yard sale added up the prices of all of the above and they packed it up for me in a big box and I learned that I had spent almost $15 on that whole box of treasures.
Now my challenge is to find just the right person to present each of these treasures to as a special reminder how dear my friends and neighbors are to me and how I appreciate it.
All of this reminds me of a wonderful quote from William Arthur Ward “Feeling gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a present and not giving it.”
Jan put the “duality to unity” stained glass circle on the window to her little study area so we both really appreciate that gift Art.
While you were publishing this “yard sale” piece on the solstice I got up to Pilot Mountain and spotted at the very moment of the solstice a sun dagger going through a tiny hole in the mountain. Had suspected that was the case like the one out at Chaco Canyon in New Mexico and thought about it for months.. Had my good camera and good 50 mm f/1..8 lens but forgot I had the polarized filter on it so the image turned out kind of dark but had that “dot texture” like the link below. Took a bunch of images but was perched on a little ledge precariously so it didn’t turn out like I was seeing it.
So it goes…a tiny bit more proof about my theory that Pilot Mountain might very well be the very center of the ancient “mound culture” of America that puzzled the early settlers. The first publication issued by the Smithsonian Institute was on that very issue available online for free now at archive.org called “Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley.” that runs 452 pages in PDF form.
Here is an image of the Chaco Canyon sun dagger almost just like the one I saw at Pilot Mountain…
.http://www.jeffposey.net/2015/06/16/the-anasazi-sun-dagger-of-chaco-canyon/