Rummage Roundup

2006-09-06T06:45:00.000-04:00

The first day of rummage today: fall 2006 edition. I was out briefly on sunday and Monday to do a little work on the carts and such. Mary went out yesterday and was in a car accident at the gate, where the "Bridge Out" sign obscures the view of oncoming traffic. Possibly the sorting tent is not yet up; this may make our tasks difficult.

2006-03-04T14:18:00.000-05:00

2005-01-24T19:53:00.000-05:00

Department Guidelines: a first draft.

2004-04-12T06:38:00.000-04:00

New Jersey Monthly plugs the sale.

2003-10-13T17:59:00.000-04:00

Was the Whitman story true? I didn't hear it for a few days, but supposedly she came in with a donation. Unfortunately it was a few minutes after one, and our greeter sent her away. Politely but firmly. The next day the alleged former governor returned with her donation, during our legitimate hours.

2003-10-07T18:11:00.000-04:00

SALE DAY THREE. Hurricane Kate is off Bermuda. In Far Hills it is temperate and sunny. I arrive just before opening; the traffic picks up just at the corner. I leave the flowers in the Main Barn and go off to Vintage. They are adequately covered so I move on to Toys. I check back in mid-afternoon. At Toys there is a big confrontation between a young customer and the staff; did she pay

2003-10-06T18:44:00.000-04:00

CLEAN UP MONDAY. Frosty, clear, warming later. I stop at the corner to take down the sale signs. The banner is stiff with frost as I try to roll it. A few others are at work as I arrive. I unlock the barns. W and N are taking the leftovers from Bon Ton to a little rummage sale next weekend. I hash over the dispute again with K and K. Work is stalled when the trucks are full of trash and

2003-10-04T18:07:00.000-04:00

SALE DAY TWO. Steady rain and raw tmperatures early, lightening and moderating as the day goes by. W comes over from Dry Goods to help out, and staff outnumber customers at the beginning. I tell K she looks like Brigitte Bardot. By ten thirty we are rather busy, even with the rain. I go to Action and get a blue raincoat. Later, my gloves are soaked, so I go back for a pair. I find a pair I

2003-10-03T18:21:00.000-04:00

SALE DAY ONE. Cold; light frost, warming later. Calm. I am the first volunteer down. I put up the entrance and exit signs on the main barn. An early arrival asks many questions. Retrieve boxes from J's car. Everyone is tense. I tell k she looks like Rambo. The new sweater racks collapse when we move them in ront of the Bon Ton door. K and I transfer the sweaters to the rods as the

2003-10-02T17:46:00.000-04:00

Day Twenty-five. Cool, occasional brisk wind. Shopping for guests and staff. I take over the cashbox in Vintage while B and J disappear. J arrives later for a while. Later to cover the door at Toys. K and K discuss internet porn, but we are constantly interrupted by the customers. things are slower the last hour, as it starts to feel pretty cold. I open the locks, close some flaps, talk

2003-10-01T19:12:00.000-04:00

Day Twenty-four. Colder, clear. Everyone is set up, and the volunteers go around to do their final shopping, and pay up. J is seen with a volume of Jane Austen. I look around a while and shop very little; it doesn't seem worth the effort. I get some more books, settle with men's haberdashery, get some napkins and placemats for Bob, walk through Furniture with eyes unseeing. B picks up the

2003-09-30T18:00:00.000-04:00

Day Twenty-three. Cool, crisp, autumnal. Tuesday, where's the man? He's with J, and he sits down in the mud. later, asleep in the wagon with his shades on. some more shopping, some signs go up, but it is a quiet day today. I put up the karma sign for J. I push, she pulls. W was up all night with her jewelry. I talk to the guys about the bike for S's neighbor. R contrives to misplace

2003-09-30T06:32:00.000-04:00

Day Twenty-two. Clear, cooler. By the end of the day most of the departments are starting to look ready to open. The mud is not as bad as I had feared. I do some shopping, sell a few things for Vintage, and do various odd jobs. The Baker and Drexel tables come inside. Tomorrow is P's birthday. I get my guest passes and paperwork for my flu shot. J runs through. I must bring clothespins

2003-09-28T15:20:00.000-04:00

No rummage Intermittent hard rain. Back to it tomorrow.

2003-09-27T18:06:00.000-04:00

Day Twenty-one. Warm, humid, sudden showers in the afternoon. I have to work first so by the time I get down the Ds are there and a few more. I have an irritating cold, on top of rummage psychosis and exhaustion. The last is sorted by ten after ten, and we get to work setting up Vintage, Costumes and Jewelry. R has a minor meltdown. J is being rather nice, though, most of the time. I

2003-09-26T17:45:00.000-04:00

Day Twenty. Warm, clearing. I do a little shopping in Books and Kitchen. The sorters have mostly finished the backlog. G tries to catch the bees with a vacuum cleaner. G Camera shows me a Speed-Graphic. J and B consult on vintage; we will start setting up tomorrow. K and I sneak into a department after hours and find Bon Ton quality stuff.

2003-09-25T19:04:00.000-04:00

Day Nineteen. Clear. Donations heavy. I leave a message for J at the office but find her at the fairgrounds. K and K are literally crossing off the minutes as the end of donations approaches. Still muddy. We are trying to line up trucks for the trash runs over the next few days. going through shoes and bags. D pops the top on a bottle of champagne as the donation time ends. P's truck

2003-09-24T19:15:00.000-04:00

Day Eighteen. Clear, calm. Except for the donations. K is talkiing about radically shortening the donation time. Can we lose a department? I am trying to organize the transition to sales space on Saturday. Purchases: 2 pair of shoes. A new volunteer wonders if R and I are married. Still mud everywhere. A buttefly overhead. I bring K a cast iron tractor. Tomorrow at one.

2003-09-23T19:43:00.000-04:00

Day Seventeen. Heavy rains in the morning, clearing afternoon. JC and CC return and plunge into congratulations and rummage. The relentlessness of the donation period has the volunteers demoralized by now. There is standing water about, which turns gradually to a thick, sticky muck. By tomorrow, maybe, we'll start to dry out again. The Tuesday man comes in after a long nap, astride his

2003-09-22T19:04:00.000-04:00

Congratulations, T and J!!

2003-09-22T18:43:00.000-04:00

Day Sixteen. Moderately warm, partly cloudy. The baby was born on 9/21 at 9:21, or so they say. A good archer is not known by his arrows, but by his aim. In other news, the competing signs have started to pop up at the corner. It was a very heavy donation day. R puts the "Closed" sign on a ladder. I grab boxes for K and H. K is buying the guitar for her daughter. J drops by with

2003-09-21T18:51:00.000-04:00

Sunday. I drop in at the fairgrounds, where a soccer tournament is taking place. A few volunteers are working in Action. There are stealth donations. J has pretty eyes.

2003-09-20T19:47:00.000-04:00

Day Fifteen. Saturday; warm, sunny, wind light. I open up early. W shows a valuable jade ring. J puts the dates on the sign with velcro: not enough dates. Donations pour in and the workers are hot, tired, and cross. Shoes are retrieved from the recycling. The mud has muckified. S wants records to spill out into the aisle. I am offered a Rudolph hat. The bride at today's wedding is O

2003-09-19T18:04:00.000-04:00

Day Fourteen. The storm Isabel knocked out the power, ate up a chunk of the outside of Bon Ton Barn, and dropped a confetti of green leaves over the Somerset Hills. A branch fell and hit a car. Was that T I saw? Donations were off again, in the aftermath. J growls and drives back to work. A cowboy hat from W. No Holiday department again. There isn't really THAT much mud, considering.

2003-09-18T18:03:00.000-04:00

Day Thirteen. Warm, wind, clouds: Isabel approaching. Donations are somewhat light, and the sorters clear up their area fast and everything is secured as well as possible. I hang more signs. The new dumpster is already full. J is down on her lunch hour to pull vintage: the message puzzled her and I am too incoherent to explain. K talks to the town. I take some tarps to boutique

2003-09-17T18:55:00.000-04:00

Day Twelve. Clear skies, warm, nice breezes. I have my first pictures back, including the fertility photo. Delivering more than usual; K is not around with special requirements. There is some concern about the storm, but not a lot of anxiety; it is sounding less ominous today. But we're out of reach of the weather reports. The mud is going to be terrible. The vocal toys scream from their

2003-09-16T18:16:00.000-04:00

Day Eleven. Clear and comfortable. The Tuesday man returns. D and I put up the banner at the corner. B gives me a hammer. I admit my confusion about the jewelry. Another green van is in th shop, so K has her daughter's Neon. The mud is less than I would ahve expected after last night's storms. I don't know why I leave anyone messages. K leaves early to take the Tuesday man home for a

2003-09-15T18:30:00.000-04:00

Day Ten. Cloudy, humd, periodic cloudbursts. I return Mrs. Noah's hat. There is another door open this morning so I take more time securing the place at the end of the day. I hand off the jewelry to W. She cut her hair but her car is still dirty. The potholes are full of brown water and the mud tracks are starting to appear. B and L are back from their trip, AS also back; a lot of

2003-09-14T19:37:00.000-04:00

Day of Rest. She was the parade marshal.

2003-09-13T18:35:00.000-04:00

Day Nine. Intermittent rain, moderately cool. I am down early, before the wedding. K and I have both been researching the guitar. I lend her a catalog. The rain slows donations some, but it is harder to sort and deliver. I am mocked by J: "It's all David's fault!" W will pick through her jewelry at a table in the men's department. K polished the silver while watching bios of Johnny

2003-09-12T18:08:00.000-04:00

Day Eight. Suuny, warm, then clouding over with a portentous breeze. Donations pick up at the end of the week. I arrive a little too late to get much work done before the donation time stops. I get the camera out to finish off the roll. A carpet goes down in notions. The bees are less annoying. W takes a bunch of jewelry to be appraised. The mystery of the shelving and the big red

2003-09-11T18:32:00.000-04:00

Day Seven. As above. Donations seem to have been light for the third day in a row. S needs black pant and seems to have complicated requirements. P and R are taking the chrome shelving units off the truck. J in the truck bed in her cute office garb, pushing the boxes to me. I tell her it was a cicada. A sign for sorting? Not too soon. Going through the discarded shoes in dismay.

2003-09-10T18:32:00.000-04:00

Day Six. Sunny, seasonable. It does not seem to have been a memorable day. J and S approved of the coffee cups. K went to a meeting but most everyone else didn't show up. The sorters are starting to catch up with the donations, and some of the departments are keeping up pretty well with the deliveries. The rest of the signs went up without my help.

2003-09-09T18:56:00.000-04:00

Day Five. Sunny. It felt hotter than the temperature. K says the donated material is "crappy s**t" which is true, and the intensifier is poetic. P is beestung but perseveres like a brave little man. I put up some more signs. The tent guys put up the flaps, incompetently, and put up more to make up for their mistakes. The fencing goes up, so my closing activities are long. A and A of HH

2003-09-09T07:01:00.000-04:00

Saturday's mystery bug was probably a Cicada.

2003-09-08T18:26:00.000-04:00

Day Four. Sunny, warm, humid. The flood of donations continues. By now the storage area is two-thirds full; one fence gave way under the weight of the clothing. K and K have a lot of fun playing with the toys. They send an accordion (actually a concertina) over to records. The brunch brings out a crowd, and the yellowjackets drop in. The green van is still sick; the red jeep is now the

2003-09-07T18:01:00.000-04:00

Sunday. No rummage.

2003-09-06T20:30:00.000-04:00

Day Three. Sunny and warm. First day of donations. The donations started coming in today; we were overwhelmed from the opening until well after closing. A big claimjumping dispute settled, to noone's satisfaction. A familiar face returns. I left the chaos early to go to work. Tomorrow is a day of rest.

2003-09-05T17:25:00.000-04:00

Day Two. Sunny and warm, with light breezes. I was at work today and didn't get to rummage until after three; there was only one volunteer around by then. I locked a doorand left. Heard some rumors but all in all the day seems to have gone well.

2003-09-04T17:57:00.000-04:00

Rummage: Day One Set Up the weather was humid with occasional heavy rain. I stepped in a puddle and my feet were soaked. There was a hole in the ground with trash in it. Patrick stood in the blue tubs and played "peek-a-boo". The new tent configuration seems to be coming together well, and the Orange Men got a lot of our supplies out and set up. Kathy went to Belgium. Steve says that

2003-09-04T07:11:00.000-04:00

Today Rummage Season starts. The tents went up last week, the prisoners come today and tomorrow to get the big setup done, and on Saturday we start accepting donations. More as it develops. VNA website.

2003-07-08T06:49:00.000-04:00

The San Jose, California FLEA MARKET HOME PAGE.

2003-07-05T20:08:00.000-04:00

Must See TV for all rummage volunteers:Flea Market Finds With The Kovels.

2003-06-21T06:49:00.000-04:00

What to get at Rummage that you can use for crafts.

2003-06-01T06:53:00.000-04:00

For the Record Department: an archive of the Picture Sleeves that 45 rpm records used to come in.

2003-05-24T19:42:00.000-04:00

All hail Katie Dooley!! Million Dollar Duck (VHS).

2003-05-20T07:00:00.000-04:00

Roland George died last week. A picture at my rummage album.

2003-05-08T13:48:00.000-04:00

VNA Rummage weblog. Submit links to me.