It’s not exactly a Hallmark holiday.

Yet.

Give it time, though, and you just might find cards celebrating the All-American event that occurs this weekend: National Garage Sale Day.

Not that I need to have a day set aside to celebrate this seasonal phenomenon that occurs late March through late October. I celebrate it every Saturday -- and sometimes on Friday and Sunday as well, if it is a heavily scheduled weekend.

Why? I have no convincing answer for myself or for anyone who asks.

Nor can most of the regulars whom I meet on the trail week after week explain their attraction to the cast offs of strangers. Such as Carol, a friend since childhood. I saw her last weekend, as she was entering a sale that I was leaving.

We exchanged typical garage sale greetings.

“Find anything good so far?”

“You been to the Bellevue Terrace sale yet?”

And then she looked at me and said with a smile, “It’s an addiction, you know.”

“Yeah, but we could be doing worse,” I answered.

Her-self analysis is true, of course. It is addictive. So addictive, in fact, that during the darkest days of last winter’s withdrawal, I decided to write a journal of this season’s “Sale Trail,” as I have come to call it.

Why? I have no convincing answer for myself or for anyone who asks.

It’s up to about 25,000 words, at this point, plus photos.

Remember:

“It’s an addiction, you know.”

“Yeah, but we could be doing worse.”

And so it begins with my entry of…

February, 2009

I have been thinking about writing this journal for several years now. It has no real purpose. I have no delusions of its ever becoming a coffee table book, but it should be fun putting together a memoir of one of the great joys of summer: garage sales.

I started “saling” several years ago -- 10, at least -- collecting along the way a variety of odd lamps, my bust of Elvis with the shade coming out of his head being one of my best pick-ups at $10 from the front porch of a house on Chalfonte Avenue in West View.

Yes, I remember it, even after all of these years. The lamp was perched on a porch rail, a rather precarious setting for a lamp that possibly would fetch a few hundred bucks on eBay today. But that sale, prior to the popularity of eBay, was typical of the bargains one could find -- treasures set out for Saturday morning idlers to pick over, pick up, set down, come back to, maybe buy. Today, the sale trail is a totally different game, with buyers running regular routes in search of specific items.

“I’m looking for comic books and old post cards…”; “Any vinyl albums?...”; “War memorabilia -- any war. Medals, letters, anything?”

And it goes on.

They are the “professionals,” so to speak, the ones who approach the garages, yards, side porches, with eyes glazed, in search of The Big Find: the lost copies of the Declaration of Independence lurking behind a watercolor rendered by Aunt Penelope in the 1950s or an album recorded in 1954 by some doo wop group who only had 15 copies pressed, but one song became a big hit as a 45 rpm and now the album is gone, gone, gone. And worth $100,000, at least.

And their searches go on.

Most sales do not hold such troves, of course, and in addition to the Elvis lamp -- which I would gladly sell to any interested fan -- I have had only two finds that truly excited me.

The first was a wrist watch with a face design based upon windows in Frank Lloyd Wright’s Tokyo Hotel. The watch was still in its original case, proof that it had never been worn. The seller apologized for the dead battery and offered it for 50 cents. A fan of Wright, I bought it, not caring if it ever worked, reasoning that the time would be accurate twice a day even if it were hopelessly broken, and that I would wear it just as a conversation piece, since I never check time on wrist watches anyway. A few weeks later, I installed a new battery and noted that it operated with total accuracy. When I visited Fallingwater with a few friends, I showed the watch to a sales clerk and asked if I could see another one.

“No longer made,” I was told.

“And when it was available, what did it cost?” I asked.

“Oh, $135, $150. Something like that,” she answered.

“Wow,” I muttered to myself as I sauntered off.

Ten years later, it continues to record time. I wear it occasionally. It has never been a conversation piece.

My second find occurred during the summer of 2008. A lady was disposing of her late sister’s possessions, a collection of cat and kitten objects among some oddities that included a few wedding gowns hanging on clothes lines stretched between trees in the front yard. The feline collection was on long tables stretching down a driveway. Salt and pepper shakers, napkin holders, candy dishes, porcelains. Among the items was a clock on the face of a green, clear-glass cat with red whiskers, two of which represented the hour and minute. It was on the 50 cents table, too good to pass up, a Christmas gift for a friend.

Waiting to check out, I noticed a“Murano/Venezia” sticker on the clock.

“Could be, probably not,” I thought to myself.

But an on-line check confirmed that indeed, it was Murano, the expensive crystal manufactured near Venice, Italy. I felt bad. It was from the seller’s sister’s estate. At 50 cents, it was robbery. I returned to the sale and gave the seller $20, explaining the actual value of the clock. My extra payment had not been really generous, but it assuaged my conscience (somewhat) and my return amazed the seller and her husband.

Such action really contradicts most salers’ philosophy of “finder’s keeper…” but this was a bit extreme.

And the trail goes on.