The other morning my SIL called and said she saw an ad for a yard sale in the country, with canning jars. Pulled up to the yard sale and saw an Amish women looking over other things. Thank goodness she wasn't interested in the jars, I would have hated to fought with such a nice woman! hee hee BUT, after we had loaded up the jars, I went back to look around and came upon a large old box of books. Being a sucker for any kind of book, I paid the 5 bucks and barely could lift the box in the car, because it was so heavy. After I got home, I started going through the box and was estactic. There's an old bird book dated 1887, a romance novel dated 1926, food and household management dated 1914 (need to read this book!), a book for young folk on animals dated 1887, a gardening book ( it's the newest of the bunch, dated 1954), and various text books on english, arithmetics and history from the early 1900's. The text books has kids names written in the front and different scribblings. But the neatest thing (and why the box was so heavy), was a set of encyclopedias from 1902! Teddy Roosevelt was the President, when I looked under United States, the map didn't even have Oklahoma. It was listed as Indian Territory, the Dakotas was Dakota Territory. Fasinating, how our country and in fact, so much, has changed in 100 years. At this time, there were no World Wars, no Depression, the Civil War was closer to their memories than WWII is to ours. Been thinking of things that have been invented around that time to look up, so I looked up automobile. The pictures are priceless! Here's a quote from the book with autos..."The inventive American mind has but recently been turned toward the automobile in it's modern aspect and the enormous possibilities of the machine have only begun to be worked out or realized." They couldn't have ever realized just how much the auto has changed the way we live. Wow. In the "Food and Household Management" textbook, is a chapter on fuel and stoves. It looks as if coal, gas and kerosene were the fuels of choice and wood if "by those who own wood lots or who live in districts where wood is abundant". "Electricity is not in common household use, and is still the method of the future for the average family". Boy, how things have changed. Looks like I've got a lot of reading and learning to do, think I'll start with managing the household first!

-- Annie (mistletoe@kconline.com), July 28, 2001

Answers

Sounds like a wonderful find, Annie. You just never know what you will find at a yard sale. Maybe we will be seeing you on the "antiques road show" one of these days. Well done. Hope you get many hours of wonderful reading.

-- Kari (wildcatt@telusplanet.net), July 28, 2001.

Sounds like a great deal, Annie. Congratulations. If you grew up near a good sized city and still live nearby let me share an idea with you. Try to find an old city directory from sometime in your childhood or youth. Looking through that will bring back more memories than you can ever imagine. You can mentally walk through downtown that year and see all the store that are there no more. You'll be amazed at how many times you say, "Oh, I remember that" or "I hadn't thought of them in years." It's like a time machine.

-- Gary in Indiana (gk6854@aol.com), July 28, 2001.

Oh, I love yard sales! What a deal you got! I love old books, also and have a few myself. The pages are a sort of time machine!

It just feels great when you feel you got an extra special bargain. 2 weeks ago i happened upon an estate sale, on the last day. They were desperate to get rid of things and a lot of the good stuff was already gone. However, stuck back in the corner of a clothes rack was a nice navy blue wool jacket. I love wool & have always wanted a wool jacket. When i asked the lady in charge how much, she simply said, "all clothes are .10". What a deal! After a $15 dry cleaning, it's as good as new!

:-)

-- Buk Buk (bukabuk@hotmail.com), July 28, 2001.

My daughter and I went "yard saling" this weekend and found a great old Radio Flyer wagon with just a little rust on the handle. It was the end of the day so the lady GAVE it to us! That was really a great bargain!

-- Trevilians (Trevilians@mediaone.net), July 30, 2001.

Man, what a great buy Annie. I envy you, especially the old set of Encyclopedias. The old sets had MUCH more information in their contents; you could get as good an education from them as taking college courses! Except for the obvious political and scientific advances since then, I think the old encyclopedias are much better. When I shop Salvation Army stores, I always look for the old sets; I understand that the 11th Edition Encyclopedia Britannica is the one to get. Still looking for that one.

All in all, not bad at all for five bucks.

-- j.r. guerra (jrguerra@boultinghousesimpson.com), July 31, 2001.