I don't know if you experience anything like this in your neck of the woods: We live in a university town, and the landlords near campus have synced up their leases, so that most of the students move between August 14-16. It tends to be a madhouse of traffic and hundreds of overflowing bags of trash on the curb. But it's also a trash picker's paradise, because so many of the selfish little brats -- sorry, I mean students -- can't be bothered to take stuff they don't want to St. Vinnie's or Goodwill (even though they park semi-trucks right there in the neighborhood to collect stuff) so they dump it on the curb along with the pizza boxes and beer kegs than never got returned to the liquor store.
Well, last weekend when he was at the grocery store, Mr. Ether was cajoled into taking a newspaper that is published by homeless people here in town, and on the front page there was a big article referring to student moving days as "Hippie Christmas." That kind of tickled my funny bone.
The other phenomenon at that time is that there is usually a gap of a day between moving out of the old apartment and into the new one. A lot of times, students just move all their stuff to the lawn of the new house and camp there for a day. A few years ago I was picking up my child at her day care center on campus, and witnessed a yard full of furniture, lamps, etc. A young woman was sitting on a chair in the middle of it all, reading a book entitled Feng Shui Made Easy. Oh, to have had a camera!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
10 comments:
Nothing quite so organized around here, but with dumps miles away, there are usually a free items in driveways after big yard sale weekends. My latest greats, four wooden folding chairs and a Nordic track. I always stop to "shop".
I have fond memories of a "haul" I made as a kid; I think it was after an estate sale, and I got a carnival glass cake plate and one of those "fox biting its tail" stoles. Woo hoo.
I still stop if the stuff looks good, but I'm pretty picky these days.
I wonder if Grace Episcopal is set up as an E-Bay re-seller? They could be on to something......
Since my aunt passed away at the beginning of the summer, I'm currently a little overloaded with extra stuff since they cleaned her house out, but I'm sad I missed the spectacle. Was out of town.
It's the Catholic Church on Gorham Street -- the one with the black clock on the steeple and the Spanish-language Mass -- that makes room for Vinnie's and Goodwill trucks.
I suspect that enterprising people -- hopefully some who really need the income -- find things to re-sell on eBay.
Welcome back, Jess.
What a great image... no camera, no worries, you have the words that evoke.
There are several houses around where we live that have furniture and random things on the lawn all the time! If only it was for a day!
When I used to live in a university town several years ago, I found a reasonably new laptop - just a few years old - thrown away. I also found books, hard drives, monitors - all sorts of computer equipment - and a 13 inch TV.
That was in one weekend.
:)
Hippie Christmas though - I like that. :)
~*
Hi, Chani! Long time ...
I hope all is well.
Moving out was a multi-day affair at my college, and we used to refer to the whole moving period as "Hippie Christmas".
So you'd heard the term before? It's endearing.
Post a Comment