Accents
Cash from clutter
California, USA—We were hurrying up for Mass last Sunday. No time to drop by the garage sale we passed along the way. Just a glance at kid’s clothes, toys, bags, shoes, etc., etc. laid out on the yard. Oh, the things that crowd in their house and occupy space needlessly, people put up for sale. Need one lazy afternoon to give the clutter a once-over. Clutter? I found use from people’s discarded items in many a garage sale I had been to.
Why the term garage? Garage is an important feature of the houses in the U.S. of A. It does not only accommodate a car (or cars for the moneyed or slightly moneyed), it also provides a convenient storage space for things seldom used or especially no longer in use like clothes and toys that one’s children have outgrown. And the best way to get rid of these, at the same time providing space for new purchases, is to put up a garage sale. Or yard sale, a more apt name since the whole kit and caboodle are spread out in the yard for people to buy. Clutter is thus turned to cash.
My friend Rosa says she enjoys weekends going to garage sales every time she comes to visit her son’s family in the States. So do I. Blankets and bed sheets I got from a church-sponsored yard sale sometime ago are still in use back in the homeland; some pieces I shared with relatives. My granddaughter proudly wears to school a designer leather bag I bought for a dollar in the yard sale at Hilton Head, South Carolina’s island resort. With minimal dollars and cents on hand, one can find bargain prices for items that will otherwise empty the wallet if bought from a department store.
Back in the ‘90s, the Bill Clinton era, recession was not in America’s dictionary. The government boasted a huge surplus in its budget. “Shop till you drop” was the order of the day. In the so-called “land of milk and honey,” consumers shopped like crazy. In short, much of America was steeped in consummate consumerism. Alas, with the onset of the Bush years, that phrase has gradually melted with the economic meltdown. Upper and middle classes—add upper middle and lower middle rungs in this highly stratified society—are now burrowing into their closets for items to be turned to green bucks. Some coats and shoes on display even have price tags still attached, meaning unused. Gosh, no brake for the acquisitive nature. (Remember Imelda Marcos of the thousand shoes.) People accumulate things way, way beyond their needs. Bad for the environment, bad for the pocket.
The Stateside garage/yard sale custom has not quite caught up with us Filipinos. Here in Redding and environs, no weekend is without one yard flooded with goods by owners happy to get rid of their clutter. The closest the Philippines has come to this practice is not by an individual family or house but through the “ukay-ukay” in public markets. If I enjoy the garage sales here in the States, I enjoy just as much doing the “ukay-ukay” in Oton, my hometown. I still wear my favorite Liz Claiborne shirt I bought in Iloilo’s supermarket; carried it with me to California, then to South Carolina, and you bet it, back to Bayan Ko. That’s a 5-star score for the green movement. You can be star-studded, too, if you’ll just observe the Big Three: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. Not just a mantra to mouth. Act ‘em out!
Parade magazine, a supplement of the local newspaper here, published The Biggest Yard Sale in America, indeed one for the Guinness’ world records. Known as the World’s Longest Yard Sale (WLYS), it’s a “four-day, 654-mile annual extravaganza that stretches from Ohio to Alabama along a single road.” Now on its 22nd year, WLYS includes two other states, Tennessee and Georgia. Roadside lawns, driveways, parking lots, and playgrounds display a cornucopia of miscellanies to the delight of garage sale devotees, some of them coming from other states. Wish I could join bargain hunters who come in big rental cars to accommodate their choices.
I was so fascinated with this popular aspect of mainstream America that in 1995 when I was alumni president of the Oton National High School, I suggested holding a garage sale as a way of raising funds. The idea was not pushed through mainly because—unlike the nouveau riche—we had so little clutter to turn to cash. Moreover, whatever excess clothing and the like we have in the house, we usually give these to the less privileged rather than put them up for sale.
Us in the Third World make-do with the “ukay-ukay” for most of our needs, especially apparel. Never mind if we don’t get that dress first-hand. Not an issue to die for. There are more important things in life to stand and struggle for, as my mother used to say. So, don’t sweat the peripheries in life. Just enjoy the bargains you make in the garage sale.
Garage sale presents a classic example how one man’s trash could be another man’s treasure. Useless to one, useful to another. In politics, one man’s friend is another man’s enemy. Rather an unlikely metaphor to use here, but I’ll let it go considering the cha-cha (charter change) maneuvers that never die in the beloved country. What’s good for the goose, ain’t good for the gander. What’s the loud-barking lapdog of Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo but a lowlife in the opposite camp. What is black to Juan is white to Pedro. And so it goes…
(Comments to lagoc@hargray.com)