When we moved from Oklahoma to Texas 35 years ago, Pennie and I would get up at the crack of dawn every Friday and Saturday morning so that we could cherry-pick all the best stuff at garage sales, take it home and write creative, engaging descriptions about it, then reprice it and put it on display in our booth at the Austin Antique Mall.

This gave us enough money to pay the bills while we were building our ad-writing business.

Replaced by eBay and Craigslist, garage sales are no longer a big thing in most cities. But they were here when we needed them, and for that, we are thankful. – RHW