Yard Sold

 Someone once said that "parting is such sweet sorrow," but I'm guessing he wasn't talking about having a Yard Sale. 

My family had put off having this suburban ritual for quite a while and when it came time to drag everything that we had carefully selected to be done with, we filled several tables and spread what would be our former belongings out for all to see. 

After more than fifty years of hanging on to Spider Man comics, I chose to make these available to anyone who found their way through our front gate. Initial perusals of this collection by early arrivals found one gentlemen select twenty-five of what he considered the best and the brightest. For him. This made only the tiniest dent. This is when my son, who was there to watch his childhood treasures find new homes and to assist his parents in that task, hopped up and began taking a few quick photos of what was left of the comic display. I had just begun to dread the piecemeal dissemination of my youth to those who might continue this pick and sneer process. That is when my son asked if I would take one hundred fifty dollars for the lot of them. It seems that he has sent along those digital photos he was taking to a friend of his who he knew collected such things, and without pawing through individual issues, he was going to pay us for whatever was left. 

I let them go. We put them in my son's car as a wave of relief swept over me. A couple hours later, a gentlemen strolled into the yard, He asked if we had any comics left for sale. My son, still fresh off his nominal sales triumph told him no, they were already gone. This brought on a series of offers that eventually stopped at three hundred seventy-five dollars. To my considerable relief, my son did not waver. He had made his deal and he wasn't going back. When the gentlemen finally shrugged and went on his way, we both breathed a sigh of relief. It wasn't about the money as much as it was about finding a home for the treasures I had hauled around with me for half a century. 

Contrasting mightily to this exchange was the fellow who initially wandered past our front gate, but was lured in by the curious display of what was once our lives. We kept a banter up as he wandered through the tables, finally stopping at a set of plastic drawers. "There's a clown suit in there," I suggested. our j

"Really?" he asked as he pulled out one of the drawers, revealing the purple polka dot clown suit I knew was there. He held it up to admire its gaudy glory. "My son's going to clown camp next week."

"Really?" I returned. "How about a dollar for the clown suit?"

He faltered for a moment. "I don't have any money on me. I just stopped by to look," and he trailed off.

"I'll tell you what," I offered, "How about you just take the clown suit?"

His face lit up. "Really?"

"Really." 

He left with effusive thanks and we once again felt the joy of releasing our past into the wild again. It wasn't about the money. It was about spreading the joy.