Why Why Why Says the Junk in the Yard

The first time my husband drove into my parents’ neighborhood in Columbia, South Carolina, he raised his eyebrows. In front of just about every house was some trash. Near a toilet, I spotted a serviceable chair.

“Want it?” I asked, not expecting an answer.

You see, my husband is from a small town in New Jersey where every lawn is perfectly manicured. There is no clutter. Even children’s toys are scattered according to some principle of Feng Shui.

I wouldn’t say I come from the other side of the tracks, just another culture. When I was growing up, we lived on the fringes of a ritzy neighborhood. Although our house always needed a coat of paint, we had everything we needed: the best schools in town within walking distance.

Buying that house meant that we did without a few things. Designer clothes for my mother, for example. New shoes for my father. My mother could sew, however, so she always looked like a fashion plate. And my father kept such good care of his shoes that he could wear one pair forever.

Even there, in that polite neighborhood, trash sprouted on curbs like mushrooms after a rain. Once a week, the day before the trash trucks came, people put stuff out, fully expecting the scavengers to swing by first.

I remember the time my brothers and I found a whole box of books in front of a house where somebody had died. Inscriptions from the nineteenth century caught our eye, and we took a few books home. One of those, Mothers of the Wise and Good, remains my mother’s favorite. Another with essays by Montaigne is her second favorite.

Then there was the time somebody down the street threw out some paraphernalia from World War II. My brothers and I sported leather flyer helmets for a spell, and now I have one my son can take to school for show and tell.

But this was the treasure: the Barbie dolls. I had my own Barbie dolls, two to be exact. But you know kids. They always want more. Then my friend Debbie decided she was too old for dolls and put all of them on the curb one afternoon. I’m not proud. I took the dolls. They were as sturdy as my father’s shoes. I still have them.

Inside the house where I played with my Barbies while wearing a leather flyer’s helmet, my mother reading Montaigne in the background, I should note there was no couch. All of our furniture was either some antique inheritance or some donation from miscellaneous relatives upgrading their homes. Oriental rugs with the palest of stains, offered by my Aunt Nell, who had a poodle, graced our wood floors. It wasn't until the early seventies, after we were grown, that my cousin Frances gave my mother a couch.

When I moved out on my own, I followed tradition. I accepted hand-me-downs. I scavenged. It never occurred to me to purchase new things from chain stores. I bought my first bed at a Salvation Army, a store my mother and I loved to shop in together in much the same way mothers today take their daughters to the Gap. My cousin Frances gave me a Victorian side table.

When I moved to Meadowview, Virginia, where I now live, I was making more money so I bought a new mattress. I bought some new chairs, unfinished wood that I finished myself. Still, thrift was in my blood. Other things came from flea markets and yard sales. My rugs came from Roses. A friend lent me a couch.

Then I got married. I guess you could say I married up, in terms of furniture. My husband owned a house full of it. Over the years, we have accumulated new things, donating the old. Some things, however, you can’t give away. Take my old exercise bike, for example. It’s a great exercise bike. For months a flyer has hung at the post office. The bike’s still in the basement.

I know that if I put the bike in front of our house, next to a box of clutter, the bike and the clutter would be gone in no time. But we don’t do that on my street, even if it’s not New Jersey.

I love to visit my mother. It feels so much like home to drive into the neighborhood where she now lives. If my timing is right, I see the weekly scavenger’s market. I take her around the block to check it out. Her most comfortable chair comes from somebody’s trash pile.
Once I got to set up my own pile. After my father died, my brother Graeme and I cleaned his study. By the time we were through, the curb held an old computer, an even older printer, a broken air conditioner, and a paint-scattered desk.

That afternoon a man walking by with a pocket-sized store of tools quickly unscrewed the motor from the air conditioner and went merrily on his way. It was a sunny afternoon. Who knew what else was in store down the street?

Felicia Mitchell. First published in Washington County News (Abingdon, VA), 18 June 2003, p. A4-A5. WCN is a publication of Media General Operations. Copyright 2003.