The old man carrying wood

 Some people love garage sales. It’s not for everybody and it can be a terrible time-waster. It can also become a way of spending money for stuff you don’t really need. However, there are plenty of people out there who have found little gems, some even made a fortune discovering an obscure painting or sculpture worth literally millions. Sometimes you can find useful things, like tools and household items, for little money. You know what they say: one man’s garbage is another man’s treasure. (For those of you who are politically correct replace ‘man’ with ‘woman’. I’m not going to use the word ‘person’. I hate it.) Garage sales are also a nice way of getting rid of unwanted stuff and making a bit of money. Money you can spend at the next garage sale you visit.

We are not ‘Garage-sale-people’, but once-in-a-blue-moon we get the urge to go. Which means not often. Most of the time we come home with nothing, or perhaps an old knife I picked up for 25 cents. We went to a garage sale Saturday. It was in one of the churches in the neighborhood. I must say it was a good day. I bought quite a few fishing lures, a nice fishing rod with a reel (which doesn’t work well, but that’s the chance you take), and I also bought another knife for the usual 25 cents. I don’t need another knife but the price was right. It’s an old knife that has seen better days, but it still has a nice blade on that  holds an edge and the handle is solid. I’ll probably use it in the garage somewhere, because my wife doesn’t want it in the kitchen. Go figure. Just because it’s old and a bit worn doesn’t mean it should be discarded. That type of thinking scares me. I also bought a 23 liter glass carboy for my wine-making. I paid $5.00 for it. I have a few carboys already, but I can actually use another one. It allows me to have more than one sets of wine going. My wife did find a few useful items, also, which didn't make me feel guilty for spending money on stuff I hadn't missed until now.

Could this be our ticket to who-knows-where?

However, what excited me most was the little carved wooden statue of an old man carrying a bundle of wood we bought for $7.00. It was hand-crafted in France. I have no idea how old it is. When I saw it I knew I wanted it, but I had to talk my wife into buying it. “Where should we put it?” she asked. “We have enough stuff standing around on the shelves already.” I told her we’d find a place for it. It isn’t a big statue. Not even a foot tall. I’ve always liked statues. Mind you, it was statues of nude women I liked, but that is just a minor detail. So why did I buy a carved statue of an old man? Beats me. I just liked it. Maybe I’m going through a change of life and that scares me, too. Could it be that I’m older and more mature now? Is that why I liked the statue of an old man?

Now, of course, my wife wonders if we might have stumbled upon a treasure that could be worth millions. It would mean we’d be selling the little statue of the old man with his bundle of wood on his shoulders and I’m not sure if that would make me happy. I like this statue. I immediately went on the internet and did a search about a statue of an old man carrying a bundle of wood. I found only one made from terra cotta (what the heck is terra cotta? I have to look that one up). The bidding for that little treasure starts at 99 cents, no bidders yet, which is a far cry from the millions of dollars we envisioned for our little statue. Except ours is carved from wood. I don’t know if that makes a big difference.