First Historic National Road Yard Sale was a Success

Pretty cool, huh? Five miles of yard sale-ing, all within our own zip code. Catonsville did itself proud last Saturday at its first ever Historic National Road Yard Sale. It’s something we’ll be telling our grandkids. No, wait a minute, I already did that on Saturday afternoon.

Dawned the day, and, I don’t need to tell you, it was almost too good to be true: sunny but not too sunny, low humidity, comfortable temperatures – all of this after that awful record-breaking heat we suffered through last week. And things only got better as time went on. We were up early on Saturday, anxious to see what the day would hold, and within minutes of turning onto Frederick Road, Ken and I were smiling. We met up with Sharon, my partner-in-crime, and together we cruised the entire length of the National Road in Baltimore County.

We had originally planned on doing the route west to east, a la Easy Rider, but ended up following our forefathers, the pioneers, going east to west. I will say this about us: whenever we saw signs emblazoned with the words “National Road Yard Sale,” we went nuts. We had previously discussed the possibility of augmenting our trip along the route using the transit bus. It was so pretty out that we nixed that idea and ended up walking more than we had planned.

Highlights of the day: seeing a prominent member of the community known for being at every yard sale march up Frederick Road with a stuffed raccoon under his arm, a fab yard sale find. Then there was the DJ at Emanuel United Methodist in Paradise. He had set up speakers from his van and was serenading yard sale customers – and the neighbors – with toe-tapping hits from another era. But the icing on the cake was a tour of the Christadelphia church down by Dunkin’ Donuts. I don’t know how many times I’ve sat in the drive-through line of Wachovia Bank and wondered what was inside that gem of a building. Now I know. If you appreciate lovingly maintained old buildings, check out the sanctuary the next time it’s open for visitors.

And now for the lowlights: no 78 rpm records. Not one. Not even Hawaiian stuff. Man, I know there are boxes and boxes of scratchy lacquer records sitting around in attics and basements that no one else wants, much less covets. But on Saturday, nada, nothing, none.

No white milk glass jewelry, not even overpriced pieces. No, wait a minute, I take that back. I saw a pair of pierced earrings that were quite attractive, and the price was really reasonable, but I have a thing about buying previously worn pierced stuff.

And finally, no “Last Supper” paint-by-number pictures, although someone noticed us lingering over a not-so-rare PBN landscape of which we already have at least one example. We walked.

Oh well, maybe next year. Saturday, June 2, 2012. Mark your calendar.