Community Corner

The Road Not taken…

Made quite a difference for finding people and things of value.

Tag sale’ing is like beach combing – you go for a walk to see the sights and hear the sounds. The hope is that, this time, the universe has left something for you to find. The hunt for *whatever-it-is* continues.

Last weekend I hit the trail alone, my daughter having opted for the fruits of retail shopping. I picked a destination from the newspaper and dutifully following the prompts of my GPS for about 15 minutes. With each passing phone pole more and more signs beckon me away from my destination. Like trying to follow the pea in a shell game, the attempts to distract are many and finally one takes me off course.

Such was the case in Bethel last weekend. After accepting the challenge of several cleverly constructed signs, I turned down the road to see what they promised. At first, it looked like it was just a driveway with a few portable tents and tables. Then, the garage doors were opened and 2 bays and a full basement revealed themselves to me.

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Avoiding the racks of clothes, and resisting the boxes of aging electronic accessories, I weaved my way through the crowd to a deeper place in the basement. There, I found a tool to warm the heart of any gadget-ologist – The Dremel.  If you’ve never seen one, then you are missing out on an attachment- rich experience. The Dremel is a powered tool that fits in your hand and comes with an wide assortment of accessory bits – it drills, sands, brushes, carves, cleans, polishes, etc., etc.

What would I use for? Buff the crud from and ancient coin or Ming vase? No! Patina, or crud, should never, never be disturbed as it reduces the item’s value. Actually, as a budding cartoonist who recently sold a few stone etchings done with a nail, I plan to carve something bigger, or at least create a much larger dust cloud in the process.

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Regaining my composure, I needed to haggle the price down from the $25 on the tag. The deal began with a search for the person in charge, who immediately needed to find her mother-in-law for approval of my offer. She quickly returned with a counter offer that would go no lower than $20. The haggle and the deal would have ended there, but then she added an important piece of information.

“She was going to use it for her artwork, but she’s not able to grasp it anymore.” The daughter-in-law, in describing the owner, had rekindled negotiations. I responded, “That was my plan, to use it for an art project.” Feeling the artist in me cry out to let the twenty in my wallet go, I handed her the money. This was just in time to save it from the hands of another shopper who begrudgingly surrendered it to me. From there I was taken on a short tour of the artist’s work, which concluded with a sit-down with the artist herself, Linda Varno.

Linda, who is 72 and under the care of a nurse assistant shared her views on being an artist. Most of her life she has used it as a means to feed her and her family. She has worked in many mediums and was at one time a cartoonist for a weekly paper in New York State. Creating the single panel strip “Bess the Mess.” Her many moves did not permit her to preserve her work, which I was disappointed to hear. Our talk, but not our meeting, ended with a unique description for a way in which she painted watercolors. A friend approached and asked her if she wanted to go. Enthusiastically, she turned to me and said, “We’re going to an estate sale! Want to come?”

Coincidently, they were headed to the very sale my GPS was prompting me to when I decided to take this detour. It’s funny how a quick decision on a random corner led to a chance encounter with a fellow cartoonist and the purchase of a tool to take my art to a new level.

If that wasn’t enough to tempt your pallet, take a look at these menu items from this 1904 Libby’s ad. This ad is literally tongue-in-cheek.

Greg Van Antwerp is a Brookfield resident and blogger, who can be found on the weekends in search of a good “dig” or a good story.  You can read more about his adventures by visiting his blog: www.videomartyr.blogspot.com   



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