Another Community: Gargage Saling and Selling

Today, two days after Christmas, our daughters held a garage sale to "downsize our stuff." This was something they planned with their dad--I was totally against the idea because I thought NO ONE would go to a garage sale so close to the holidays. I thought all college students would be on vacation and everyone else would be too tired or too engaged in holiday activities. I was not going to participate in any way.
The night before, the girls put up signs (they posted it on Craigslist the day before) in the neighborhood and organized everything in the garage (many of the items were the result of our cleaning of the garage a couple of months ago (part of freetirement). My only job was to wake them up at 5:00 a.m., but I still had very low expectations.
To my surprise, hordes descended by 6:20 a.m. (the ad said 7 a.m. until noon and NO EARLY BIRDS). There appeared to be a "garage sale community." Most of the early birds knew one another, had lots of garage sale lore to share and knew that the best stuff goes verrrrry verrry early. By 7:00, the original starting time, much of the stuff was already gone. Some in the community told the girls that ours was one of the few garage sales close to this area so the girls would be swamped with people.
They closed shop at exactly 12 noon and took all unsold items to the Salvation Army (Christmas Day we had all volunteered to feed the homeless, a project of the Salvation Army). It was amazing to see that there are so many communities that I had never thought of as communitites. Most of these people see each other week after week at garage sales. I am a garage saler--it was quite different, seeing it through the "eyes of the seller." It was profitable, a great way to get rid of stuff (it's also easier to have someone else do it so "separation anxiety" does not creep in, and it was fun, even though I was in the house 95 per cent of the time.
As cliche as it sounds, "One person's junk is another person's treasure." People will buy ANYTHING.
I am proud of our daughters--they know how to do so many things, and quite efficiently, even when I didn't believe, they went right ahead like truee "O'girls." Our son-in-law was a great help as well.
Once again, freetirement offers one the opportunity to pay close attention, even during the holidays.