July 9, 2010--Midcoast: Tag Sale (Concluded)

In Part One, I confessed my hitherto disdain for anything having to do with tag sales. Prior to this year it was impossible to drag me to one. Lots of musty books of no value or interest and too much pressed glass. But a friend who does well on eBay by selling items she "steals" at yard sales and the need to fill our new cottage by the bay with McCoy pottery and seascapes has softened my resistance, and for the last few weekends we have been getting up at dawn so we can be among the first on line to rummage though barns and garages in search of books of resale value and things such as walking sticks to collect and display in out new home.

So in Part Two, we continue to hunt for . . .

Though we were among the first to line up waiting for the sale to begin, it turned out to be a disappointment. The barn itself was charming and therefore suggested that it might contain some hidden treasures. Perhaps an old nautical chest or some locally-carved duck decoys (we had a budding collection of these), but it turned out to be filled primarily with woven baskets and boxes and boxes of pressed glass--something we are resisting the temptation to collect.

I whispered, “Let’s get out of here. I don’t see anything of interest. It’s still early and if we leave now, since the landscape artist’s tag sale is only five minutes from here, we can get there before it’s picked clean.”

There was no need for Rona to say anything. She too feels we have more than enough baskets and has thus far shown no interest in glass vases.

Our instinct had been right; it turned out to be a huge display entirely filling a two-car garage, the driveway, and a sprawling lawn. And it was no yet overrun by tag sale regulars. Happy to be free of the musty barn full of old bottles, we noted that the ranch-style house had a view of picturesque Round Pond which suggested that the artist who owned the house would only have to cross the road to have years of subject matter for his paintings. A nice seascape of the harbor or surrounding bay was just what we needed. There was a spot in our bedroom for something special that would complement the three local landscapes already in place.

“Let’s begin in the garage,” I suggested, “From what I can already see on the lawn there aren’t any paintings. Just lots of linens and cooking things. None of which we need.”

“And no teakettles,” Rona said. Like me she had done a quick perusal, an essential tagsaler’s skill.

“Most likely the paintings will be in the garage,” I said. “To protect them in case it rains.” I was already halfway up the driveway heading quickly toward the garage. Some of the other browsers looked spry and I wanted to be among the first to get a look of the artist’s work. The ad in the paper indicated there would be dozens to consider.

Dozens, it turned out, was an understatement. There must have been at least two hundred. Good, I thought, years of work to sort through. Surely there would be a few for us. The ad had said he was a “prominent” local artist and so how hard would it be to discover two or three that would be perfect for our budding bedroom mini-collection? Enough for us to try to make a deal. We had by then learned one could get things at the best prices by buying in bulk, making a single offer for everything we wanted. An offer of $50 cash for five hickory walking sticks had worked well three weekends ago. The seller had held out for $60 but threw in a sixth cane at no extra cost.

The paintings were mostly watercolors, which would be fine, stacked in batches of twenty or so in large leatherette portfolios that lined the walls of the garage. But flipping through the pictures, like at the barn earlier, also turned out to be a disappointment. Yes, there were a few landscapes, including some of the harbor across the road, but none were in any way noteworthy much less distinguished. It was clear after going through just half of the first portfolio that these were less the work of an artist than a weekend hobbyist. All well and good, especially if they had a naïve, untutored look, but these were not of that sort and therefore not something we wanted for our bedroom. Or even the guest room.

The bitchy part of me wondered what he meant when he advertised himself as a “prominent” artist. Maybe among his friends. But this is the nature of tag sales and advertising. When it comes to them you have to be skeptical, patient, and lucky. I was learning fast.

Almost all the pictures were unimaginative garden scenes and still lives, mainly of cut flowers in ceramic vases. But about one of them Rona said pointing, “I like the looks of that.”

“Really?” I said. It was early and Rona was still working on her first cup of coffee. Perhaps not yet fully alert.

“Not the painting, silly, but the vase. I bet you’ll find it out on one of he tables on the lawn. If they’re selling it, it might be something we’d want.”

So while Rona flipped through a couple of more portfolios I drifted out to the driveway and worked my way down toward the road. No vases were in sight but there was a battered colander for sale for $1.50 that I put aside thinking Rona might feel it was both a good price and cottagey. I even had a place in mind where we could display it in our country kitchen.

And then there among a stack of old-fashioned but not collectable aluminum pots was the vase. From other tag sales where I a couple of times had to fight off other bargain hunters also interested in an unusual and thus desirable walking stick, knowing there was likely only one vase of this kind for sale and not wanting to take the chance of being too slow afoot and miss out on snatching it, I instinctually lunged toward it though that turned out to be unnecessary since there was no one else nearby.

Except a middle-aged women who was obviously a member of the family that had put so many of their things on display. “That’s a nice piece, don’t you think?”

Typically I hate it when the people doing the selling try to engage me in conversation. I like to do my nosing around unattended. Chitchat takes up valuable time when things are selling fast and breaks my concentration. To spot those prized graduation albums or an overlooked Audubon print among the dross requires all my senses to be on high alert. So I ignored her though I grunted something to indicate I had heard her, was not being impolite, and to signal that I did not want to be interrupted in my rummaging. Also, I had by then been trained not to show too much enthusiasm for anything we were serious about buying—Rona says it gets in the way of striking the best deal. Indifference is the best pose to adopt and, in truth, feigned aloofness is my preferred style of browsing.

I continued to drift around nonchalantly but was headed back up to the garage to check to see if the vase was the one in the painting. Nothing else was of interest and I could see even at a distance that Rona as well had come to the same conclusion. The vase was marked $10 and I wondered, if Rona liked it, what we should offer. I probably would say $5 (I am a rather timid bargainer) whereas Rona would probably try to get it for $3.

“That was my mother’s favorite.” It was the woman again, ample as she was now fully blocking the path to the garage. “She must of painted it at least twenty times.” So her mother was the “artist.” “Mainly with flowers she cut from right over there.” She was pointing to a lush perennial border that wrapped around the front of the house. “In the vase, I mean. Though if you went through all the pictures you’ll see sometimes she painted just the vase itself. On that table over there with that blue runner on it, which by the way is also for sale. And did I mention that the table is as well. Pretty much everything you see is. For sale, I mean.” She turned to take in the full expanse of the many tables lining the driveway and filling the lawn on which hundreds of household goods were piled.

Unable to break away and not wanting to seem rude, I too took it all in and said as little as felt appropriate, “It does look pretty much like everything.”

“We have her over at the Cove.”

“The what?” I asked.

“In town. It’s the nursing home. Poor thing.”

“She’s . . .?”

“That’s right. She has that Alzheimer’s. Doesn’t even recognize no more. My husband and me and the children. Her grandchildren. Though we get there most every day. Just sit next to her and hold her hand and tell her what’s happened back at home.”

“My, my,” I said. I saw Rona, who was ready to leave, waving at me. I pretended not to notice and remained standing there clutching the vase.

“They say she can’t hear nothing so why bother talkin’ with her like we do? But I say you can’t be sure about those kinds of things. So we visit every day and bring her the news. She especially loves her grandchildren so I feel for sure that she likes hearing about what they’re doing for the summer and their plans for next year. My youngest is getting ready to go to college.” She smiled broadly at me and I nodded back at her. “She, my mother I mean, never had much schooling herself, but as you can see from her art that she was, I should say is a very refined person.”

“It’s so sad.” I signaled to Rona, who was waving at me again, this time more urgently, that I would be with her in a few minutes. I noticed that the fog was finally lifting from Round Pound and I thought wouldn’t that be a lovely scene to paint, but caught myself almost suggesting it.

“But we know she’s happy. It’s hard on us, her family, but she is in a peaceful place.”

“I know.”

“And if that weren’t enough there’s also my father.”

“He’s . . .?

“Got the same thing, if you can believe it.”

“And he’s . . .?”

“No, not at the Cove. We can’t afford to have them both there. He’s at another place, almost as nice, up in Rockland.”

“That must be . . .”

“It is. Real difficult to work in the visits. My husband and I alternate. One day I go to see my mom and the next day my dad. He does the reverse. So one of us gets to see them every day.”

“That sounds . . .?”

“Everything you imagine it to be. And then some. ‘Cause we still have one of our children living with us. My youngest, as I said. We live up near Damariscotta. This here’s my parent’s house. Need to sell it too. All their things,” she again turned to survey the yard, “and the house as well.”

“At this time . . .”

“Indeed. More bad timing. But it costs quite a sum to keep them in the Cove and the Knox Center. That’s the place up in Rockland. Take a guess. What do you think they get by the month?”

“I wouldn’t know, but I’m sure it’s . . .”

“And then some. The Cove costs us $9,000 a month and Knox almost another $8,000. How much is that a year?” She was doing the calculations on her fingers.

“That’s about $200,000 a year,” I said incredulously.

“I think $200,000 to be precise. Plus the medications. It’s amazing how quick you get to that donut hole.”

“I know about that from my . . .”

“But we’re happy to be able to do it. Pete, my husband, has a pretty good pension coming from the telephone company and I have a steady job working the kitchen at the school up the road.”

“But . . .”

“All it means is that we’ll have to put off retiring for a few extra years. But everything the kids earn this summer they’re wanting to put toward their grandparents’ care. Though I’m making them save half of it. We’ll manage on our own, Pete and me. I want them to have a bank account of their own for college. That’s the way it should be. And what their grandparents would want if they had the ability to tell them.”

With Rona now heading toward me I told her we wanted the vase and quickly handed her $10.

“Thanks so much,” she said, “Every little bit helps.”

I thanked her and tried to find words to express my admiration for her and her family and to add something that might in a very small way ease her burden. But nothing that felt right came to me.

Sensing this, before I could formulate any words, smiling radiantly she said, “Now don’t you worry about us. We’re fine. Doing what we want and what God intends.”

I looked around again at a whole life crammed into that garage and spread out on the driveway and lawn.

And, later in the day, after I told Rona about them, we came back to buy the watercolor of the flowers and the vase.