The number of garage sales in Grand Forks has fallen off considerably over the last two to three weeks and the last couple Saturdays have seen only six to ten new sales. There’s nothing to suggest that tomorrow will be any different, so I’m hoping a little travel will make tomorrow more productive than if I stayed in town.

I’ll be leaving the house sometime between 5:00 and 5:30am Saturday morning and, fortified with a large cup of strong black coffee, will make the 110 mile drive to Barnesville, Minnesota for their area-wide Fall Rummage Sale.

That means burning a lot more gas than staying in town would, but according to their ad in the Fargo Forum there will be more than forty rummage sales in Barnesville and the surrounding area. That many sales is just too tempting to pass up this time of year.

Tomorrow I’ll let everyone know whether it was a wise decision or not.

Photograph by brendan.lally.

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Going to garage sales last week was a lot like going to a FOL or AAUW book sale. It seemed like everywhere I looked there were books.

Thursday there were 16 garage sales in Grand Forks and the only thing I bought were books. Friday wasn’t much different. There were 29 fresh garage sale and I spent $59.50 for books and only $8.00 for anything else. The 26 fresh sales on Saturday did produce quite a few non-book items, but there were still books to be looked at and purchased.

The second sale I stopped at on Friday turned into a book buyer’s bonanza. The ad said nothing about books but when I stopped to look at a box of teacher’s aids, the lady running the sale asked if I was interested in books. When I told her ‘yes”, she told me the back patio was filled with books.
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Part of Grand Forks is undergoing a lot of street repair right now. A lot of streets are blocked off making getting around a challenge. One sale this morning was located on a short street that, due to the construction, was particularly difficult to get to.

An early start time along with an ad in the newspaper that would make any serious garage saler’s mouth water insured that all the die-hards were there early waiting for the garage door to go up. All except one that is. The ad mentioned books and one of Grand Forks’ serious book buyers was nowhere to be seen.

Finally, just as the garage door started going up our missing book buyer was spotted rounding a corner a block away on foot. After spending fifteen minutes trying to figure out how get through all the construction, he’d abandoned his car three blocks away and began walking.

The moral of the story - if you put the right words in your garage sale ad people will do just about anything to have a chance to buy what you have for sale.

The question of the story - everyone else was able to find a way to drive right up to the sale. Why couldn’t he? Perhaps it had something to do with the fact that he’s a college professor in the real world.

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There ended up being a total of five garage sales that opened in Grand Forks today.

My first stop was a church sponsored sale where I paid $2 for the opportunity to get in at 8:00 am, an hour before the general public was admitted. My purchases there amounted to a 3 DVD set titled Legendary Lighthouses for $1 and the A & E mini-series Pride & Prejudice on VHS for $2.50. Legendary Lighthouses was listed on Amazon for $26.99 and Pride & Prejudice will go on eBay.

My second stop was a sale that had advertised ‘lots of books’. They weren’t lying, but they were nearly all old romance paperbacks with water damage. My guess is they were in someone’s basement eleven years ago when Grand Forks was almost entirely underwater. I did buy about a half dozen Great Northern Railway Historical Society fact sheets and calendars at this sale for a dollar. These will go on eBay starting Sunday evening.
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Today is the beginning of a big weekend in Grand Forks.

The North Dakota State Democratic Convention is taking place here this weekend and in just a few hours both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton will be addressing the Convention. Several hours before either candidate is scheduled to speak, the line outside the Alerus Center, where the convention is taking place, appears to contain half the people in Grand Forks.

For those not interested in seeing either candidate for the Democratic Presidential nomination, at about the same time Senator Obama (the first speaker) steps onto the podium, the opening ceremonies of the week long World Curling Championships take place at the Ralph Engelstad Arena. While the line outside The Ralph isn’t as long as the one outside the Alerus, it’s still plenty long due to the number of people from our neighbor to the north, Canada, in town for the Championship.

Both events are receiving a lot of television coverage. Part of that coverage has focused on the lines waiting to get in each venue.

But the most important lines won’t appear until tomorrow morning and without any media coverage. Tomorrow morning will see the first garage sales of the year in Grand Forks and the people will be out in force. So far, there are four that have been advertised and they offer a range types of sale.

There will be an estate garage sale loaded with antiques, another sale that advertised lots of books, a church sponsored sale charging $2 for early buyer rights one hour before it opens to the public, and the last along the lines of an everyday garage sale.

Photograph by Mike Licht.

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