We have just experienced an achingly beautiful New England weekend – perfect temperatures and blue, blue skies. This was lucky, since we decided to have a yard sale at our house or what they call here, a tag sale. After clearing out your attic or garage, you put an ad in the paper and local people come round to buy your excess stuff. Mostly though, it’s an opportunity to meet neighbors. We had a good time and met some very nice people, after the real pros came early to snag any bargains.
An old buddie of mine, a bass player, by the name of Steve Buslowe, came by, and we caught up on things. Steve did many world tours as part of Meatloaf’s band. Then, a gentleman in the financial trade stopped by with his wife (she does travel for bands). He gave us some of the low-down on events on Wall Street while letting drop that he’d experienced his first acid trip at a Wishbone Ash concert at the Academy of Music in Manhattan back in the day. Another neighbor turned out to be a scientist, one of those chaps that knew everything about everything, in addition to being a guitarist (go figure).
Anyway, one conversation went along the lines that it is apparently now officially unsafe everywhere in the world (other than in the good old USA apparently) to drink water out of plastic bottles because they contain the carcinogen bisphenol A. The business of bottled water is a multi billion dollar a year affair, of course. I just wonder what we did back in the 50’s and 60’s before this particular business existed. I know; we drank tap water or cups of tea. I still do drink both of these. You know, London water for example, tastes fantastic. In fact, tea made with London water is the very best. I drink tap water all over the Western world and never get sick (yet) – what a concept.
Getting back to the tag sale; where did all these very ‘important’ things come from? It’s like a tsunami of stuff trying to work it’s way into your place. No matter how much you get rid of, more appears. Actually, most people don’t do yard sales any more. They either have everything they need or they like to shop on E Bay for things they don’t need. A friend of mine told me that most of our stuff is moving eastwards towards China. Apparently they want all our old stuff now. If I go to our local post office, it now takes twice as long to buy a stamp, due to having to wait behind little old ladies shipping disused warheads around the world on E Bay.
You used to be able to pick up old guitars at these sales and also at pawn shops. We used to have a blast during early American tours guitar hunting and we frequently picked up all sorts of bargains. Laurie Wisefield, I remember, during his first tour with Wishbone Ash, purchased a 1954 Stratocaster (first year of manufacture) in a pawn shop for $300. They now go for $50,000, if you can find one. An original 1959 Les Paul just sold at Mandolin Bros. on Staten Island for $325,000 (probably to one of those Wall Street guys!) Can you believe that? Original 1950’s Flying V’s go for more. The original catalog price for one of these was just $150. Can you believe that? More madness.
The tag sale, you’ll be pleased to know, went pretty well and will actually enable us to buy more stuff. I did an inventory of suitcases that we had on sale, and yes, I have many. Other items that we had many of, were hats and also baskets, for some reason. Those that did not sell went to the town dump or should I say, re-cycling center. This, by the way, is one of my favorite places. You can be a ‘real man’ there, going about the manly duty of dealing with trash. You get to hang out with all the good ol’ boys (who actually run the town) plus, you meet young folk doing community service for drink / drive offenses or something like that. Yes, these are real folk. I like it. You get to to shoot the breeze and moan about all the annoying things troubling you that week. Of course at the moment, it’s just about everything. Sometimes, in our rural town you actually meet a real neighbor, one you may not have seen for years.
Oh yes, finally, all you drummers will get a kick out of this, I met this lady, also at our tag sale, who personally knows Fred Gretsch, the one time owner of world famous Gretsch drums. He is now 100 years old and lives in a nursing home nearby, where she visits him. He is apparently always ready to sit down and talk with people about drums and music. You just never know who you’ll meet or hear about when you clear out your garage. It’s certainly true what they say, that one man’s trash is another man’s treasure.
Oh and I almost forgot, the most important info this lady imparted to me was that she had known the original couple who built our house back in the 60’s. There had been a pool party going on when the neighbors house caught fire, burning to the ground. It was the summer, so the flames were heading towards our place moving through the dry undergrowth. The firefighters apparently doused the vegetation all around with water pumped from the pool itself. Now I never would have known about any of this had it not been for that tag sale.
~ A.P.
