Today started out normally enough for a Saturday. Following an early breakfast the next thing on the agenda was cutting the grass, a task that we assumed following our son’s return to school. I was getting worked up to that, wanting to get it done before the sun rose too high when my wife commented that the people across the street are having a garage sale.
Now God only knows where this guy comes up with some of his stuff because he manages to have a garage sale about once every two months as he has for the two years that we have been living here. Granted, there are some things that he has been trying to sell for the past two years, like the shotgun shell loading equipment, the washer and dryer and various crafts that seem to have been hacked out of wood using a dull axe with a short handle. Either he does not craft, and I use that term very loosely, these items of wood; he crafts them and is extremely non-accident prone; or he gets them from someone else for he neither lacks any of his fingers nor does he walk with a limp. I make this assumption as I picture craftsmen of quaint picturesque countries where native artisans create intricate native crafts with crude weapons while using their bare feet as a vice.
Despite these Familiar return items I discovered from my first visit that they have some very interesting items for which I have absolutely no use but have an intrigue that I cannot resist. Now this is not a malady with which I was recently afflicted, as proven by an incident a few years ago when we were obliged to move out of the country. Selling the house and moving required the holding of three garage sales grossing well over two thousand dollars in order to empty the garage and the attic.
Three thousand plus dollars worth of junk is a lot of junk by any standard of measure, metric or otherwise.
My first visit across the street shortly after moving to our present address was, like the first trip to Disneyland, the best. All of the collection was a new experience, including the Baja buggy, which I did not buy, nor did I buy the washer, dryer, handicrafts or shotgun shell loaders. What caught my eye and my wallet were the pieces of vintage aluminum luggage manufactured around 1950 by Halliburton before they became Zero Halliburton. I purchased the two for fifteen dollars. That was two years ago and I haven’t used them for anything but I stand ready to restore them both to near mint condition at a moment’s notice. I don’t remember what if anything I bought the second time I visited the garage sale across the street but I do remember his feeble attempt to punch my “regret” hot button by pointing out that during the previous garage sale that I missed, he had sold an aluminum attaché case that matched the two pieces of luggage. I responded dryly that he would most likely come across another one. He must have taken offense because as far as I can tell he has gone well out of his way not to come across another one like it.
“The people across the street are having another garage sale this morning.” She said, and my mind wandered directly to the possibilities. My eyes rolled back into my skull and a hint of drool appeared at the corners of my mouth as I moved mechanically out the front door and across the street to inspect the wares. The wife of the family was minding the store when I got to their drive. “It’s the same old stuff.” She quipped as I approached. I bid a courtesy hello to the old mismatched laundry couple and gently patted the splintery old cedar dog that sat upon the door and sawhorses table. Neither the door nor the sawhorses as far as I could tell were for sale, although the saw and random doorknobs were. I suspected that the quaint table beneath them might be also at the right price.
The driveway keeper and I chatted amiably while I looked around. We were in fact chatting about the bumper crop of non-edible mushrooms that were sprouting up on everyone’s lawn following the torrential downpours over the past few weeks while I looked around at the merchandise. We had moved from the mushroom topic to that of the mosquito population when it caught my eye. At the edge of the drive, toward the back sat a small black case covered with leather grained black paper which was so common during the forties and early fifties of the previous century. Perhaps you think that it has rightly occurred to you that I seem to have some kind of luggage or case fetish. Maybe I do, but out of decency we will leave my fetishes alone for the moment.
Actually this is a common thing, the desire to open the closed case, just to see what treasure might lie within its confines, always considering in the back of one’s mind the chance that it may be the ever possible Pandora’s box. It was coated in a thin layer of dust on the sides with a liberal layering of old sawdust on the top. Dimly aware of the mosquito dialogue between us, I puffed away the layer of sawdust and pressed the two buttons that released the two chrome latches.
Now despite observations by Einstein, Fehnman and Hawking regarding it’s universal relativity, in our world time has a way of moving progressively forward one second by second, ushering us steadily ahead, year by year, with absolute rigidity. When I opened that insignificant black case though, I got the feeling that the clock which governed its interior began ticking again only when I lifted the lid. The only thing that suggested the passing of time within was the faint mustiness that issued from it.
“How much are you asking for this?” I queried. Inside was a small black sewing machine that sported a golden Singer logo. The interior of the case was lined with a dark gray delicately subtle fleur de leis textured paper. The black paint that covered the sewing machine had a luster of newness as did the small Sherwood Forest green instruction booklet with the gold lettering on the front.
I don’t know that much about sewing machines. My grandmother had a plain Singer treadle sewing machine when I was a child. It sits in the foyer where my wife and I now live. We also have a “portable” singer sewing machine of 1930’s vintage. It is in an oak veneer case.
I don’t know much about sewing machines. I just come from a long line of packrats.
“Oh, twenty dollars I guess.” She responded as though it was an item of endearment that she was not certain she was ready to release. She went on to tell me that a friend had given it to her with the possibility that her mother might like to use it. It had belonged to his wife, she informed me and she had died about fifteen years before. Her mother declined with “Thank you dear, I think I’ll continue using my old one.” As a result it had sat unattended somewhere in her house for an undetermined amount of time.
I nodded slowly at this new knowledge. I moved just as slowly toward the street, commenting that I would mention the thing to my wife in case she might be interested. When I got home I told my wife that there was an interesting looking sewing machine in a case that she might want to look at. I moved toward the bedroom to get my wallet.
Normally my wife takes a faintly begrudging tolerance of my acquisition of random objects, anticipating the possibility of an unsuspected major move sometime in the future that might necessitate the shedding of unneeded belongings (junk). This time there was no hesitant questioning of judgment, just a simple “OK.”
I have developed a phobia in the past two or three years which involves venturing very far from home base without a cellular telephone. Unexplainable. Anyway I was delayed slightly by my second trip to the bedroom to retrieve that electronic wonder. When I arrived at our neighbor’s drive my wife was already there, chatting amiably with our neighbor, whose name I do not know. When I arrived we moved toward the little black case. I opened it and showed the contents to my wife. She made a non-commital comment or two and the conversation moved to the bumper crop of mushrooms on the neighborhood lawns and the insatiable appetites of the mosquitoes.
I have never been the master of idle chat, and in fact I cannot remember very many times during my residency on the Earth in which I have participated in it for very long. My wife, sensing that I was beginning to fidget, asked “How much did you want for this?”, pointing at the small black case.
“Twenty dollars.” Our neighbor replied.
“Well, let me go home and see if I have twenty in cash.” My wife responded as I pulled a ten, a five, four ones from my wallet, four quarters from my pocket and handed the lump sum to the garage keeper.
I bade courtesies to her, watching the sun rise above the trees to beat down on the un-mowed lawn. “Don’t forget your sewing machine.” I said as I moved toward the street once again. My wife said good-by, picking up the newly acquired case. Overwhelmed by chivalry, I took the case from her.
Neither my wife nor I participated in the slightest of idle chat until we were almost back in our own yard. She was the first to speak. “We got a deal, babe.” This is a featherweight.
You might ask why the question loomed in my mind. It did, it came from nowhere and it was unexpected. “What the Hell is a featherweight?”
She must have anticipated my query before I queried it. “The ladies in the quilting newsgroup would kill for one of these. In this condition these things sell for between three hundred and five hundred dollars.”
This did not answer specifically the question “What the Hell is a featherweight?” but it satisfied my curiosity well enough.
It’s good I guess that they would be willing to kill for one of these things, because it made my theft-by-taking-for-a-relatively-ridiculously-small-amount-of-money seem small indeed.
I got out the lawnmower and cut the grass. Following that I showered and then participated in the-rest-of-the-morning-long internet session in an effort to pen down the exact year of manufacture of our newly gotten goods. It turned out to be around 1953 and according to the scale of condition this featherweight addition to the household is a nine on a one to ten scale, ten being mint condition.
The grass is cut. I wonder what we will do on Sunday. If I were Catholic I’d probably go to confession. However, as a non-participating protestant turned Unitarian turning stale I’ll have to just live with my guilt of theft-by-taking-for-a-relatively-ridiculously-small-amount-of-money.
One good thing came of this though. We’re not coveting my neighbor.
For more interesting stories about sewing machine adventures and related stuff, you should go to http://www.featherweightFanatics.com/. It used to be http://quilt.com/fwfanatics/truestories.html. In case you have not guessed, the “fw” in “fwfanatics” stands for “featherweight,” and the “fanatics?” Yeah, well.
