Central Ohio’s garage sale season kicks into high gear
There is deer season, grilling season, the holiday season and, starting around the first weekend of May, garage and yard sale season.
As the sun lit the dew on lawns across Bexley and Merion Village, and far into the suburbs along many a subdivision, folks staggered out of their homes Saturday morning. They placed old toys, beds, knickknacks, record players, paintings, jogging strollers, heaps of children’s clothing, dusty weightlifting sets, tubs of tattered baseballs and even
some dear-old aunt’s fake flower collection out for all to see.
“I just hope we can sell some stuff,” Priscilla Schick said as she helped her daughter set up a sale along Cassady Avenue in Bexley. “I’m just glad it’s not raining.”
Bexley held its annual community sale Saturday, as dozens of residents lugged their unwanted, outgrown or unneeded stuff onto their front porches and into their driveways and plopped stuff all over their lawns. They pined for someone else to take it away. One person’s clutter, after all, is someone else’s cache.
“I’m looking for decorations and little things like that,” Ebony Johnson said as she looked through the assortment of odds and ends that Schick had helped to arrange. “I found a cast-iron skillet and a plant stand.”
The official kickoff of the sale in Bexley was 8 a.m., but everyone knows real hunters arrive early.
“We had someone here at 7:30,” Tyson Fleming said as he surveyed the superfluous items he hoped to sell: a mini fridge, his son’s toddler bed and a set of golf clubs among it all. “If I could get rid of all this stuff I’d be excited.”
Over on North Ardmore Road, Frank Shyjka prepared for his first-ever garage sale. He set out unused irons, a string of garland (the lights don’t work), a box of big silver ornaments and trinkets
collected over decades.
“We’ve lived here since 1979,” Shyjka said. “It’s a chance to move stuff on. This is our introduction to downsizing.”
Buyers chugged along the streets in minivans and pickups, edging near a sale to scope it out from the curb. The intrepid popped out to investigate further and the rest moved on.
John Lytle of North Linden takes a bike with him to such sales, strapped into the bed of his truck, so he can park and then scout easier among the many sellers.
“I usually have good luck at the big community sales,” Lytle said, carrying a freshly purchased package of socks.
He mostly hunts for lawn mowers, old bikes — like his shiny, red 1972 Schwinn — and odds and ends. His favorite sales are in German Village and Victorian Village later in the season.
“You might see me riding that bike and dragging a lawn mower,” he said. “I’m pretty good at it.”
There is something for everyone, even for those who didn’t come to shop. Aaron Thompson, from Port Clinton in northern Ohio, visits family in Bexley each year for the community yard sale.
“We come for the weekend and enjoy walking around all day,” he said.
“I didn’t plan to buy anything,” he added, though he had a giant pink doll-size vehicle for one of his daughters secured under one arm. “Now I have a luxury Barbie camper. I’m good.”