The Great Ameican Yard Sale

One VIVID memory I have from living here 19 years ago is the Great American Yard Sale.

"Oh, I have been to yard sales before," says you...WELL...you have NEVER been to a yard sale like THIS before...I guarantee!!

Fort Leavenworth has been a transient place to live for many years because of the year long school located here. There are 2 kinds of people who live here: students and permanent party. The students leave 2 times a year now: a few in December and most (about 1000) in June.

Each year, the Post sponsors 2 yard sales: one in October (geared toward those people who are moving in December) and one in April (geared toward those moving in June.) EVERYONE on Post can have a yard sale. AND those living off Post can bring their items to central locations and set up a sale.

We did not sell anything in October...we just people watched.

This time around, we knew there were items that we did NOT want to haul to our new duty station AGAIN. I rounded up 3 other neighbors and we all agreed to host a yard sale in my yard.

We set our alarm for 5:30am. After my shower, I peaked out of my window to see people swarming our neighborhood...WITH FLASHLIGHTS!! We started bringing items out at 6:15/6:30...and people were practically helping us!! We sold Alan's bed within the first 20 minutes!!!

Here is a picture of our yard at about 9am. A lot of the big items were already gone at this point...but you can still see how MANY people were out!!


Not only did we sell our "jun-que," the kids set up a food booth!!! Coffee, muffins, cookies, lemonade and soda. Our neighbor, Julie, even made fresh egg rolls...and fried them TO ORDER!!! Before I go any further, I will tell you...the kids did GREAT! The stuck it out about 2 hours before they were DONE and the adults took over...and between the 4 families...we made $124!!!



OK: I threw in a picture here of our street on a normal, quiet day just for reference. I took this picture at about 3:30pm today.


Here is a picture of our street just 5 hours before:


I can count 37 cars in this picture...including the cop car. Just as this cop was cruising the street, the oddest thing happened. The red car parked on the side of the street at the exact same moment the brown car parked on the opposite side. Traffic was completely blocked from moving in BOTH directions. The cop and a couple of guys (including Jim) had to direct traffic for about 10 minutes to sort the whole thing out!!!

The Cop had to call for backup. No kidding...the golf cart cop had to come and put up NO PARKING SIGNS...


In the end, we made...just our little family...not including the 3 other families at the yard sale...$180! I can't imagine the amount of money that must have changed hands on this Post today!

Bring on the movers...