{"id":24052,"date":"2019-06-20T18:42:56","date_gmt":"2019-06-20T22:42:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=24052"},"modified":"2019-06-20T18:43:05","modified_gmt":"2019-06-20T22:43:05","slug":"inside-aurora-duck-et-al-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/inside-aurora-duck-et-al-season\/","title":{"rendered":"INSIDE AURORA: Duck (et al) Season"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Scott Johnston<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Who would buy a slightly used stuffed duck?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We all have stuff to get rid of, whether it be well-used but\nstill functional items that are no longer needed, or things we\u2019ve been given\nthat we graciously accepted, even if we didn\u2019t necessarily want them, or\nobjects enthusiastically obtained in the heat of the moment that subsequently\nhad us scratching our heads as to why we allowed that impulse to come over us in the first place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Often these unwanted things\nend up cluttering closets, garages and basements, until eventually they will be\npulled together for disposal.  If you\u2019re\ncrafty, they can be re-gifted, but most will be thrown out or donated to\ncharity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But for some people, they\nprovide the perfect opportunity for a garage sale.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ve participated in running\nsome sales over the years, and my memories tend towards them being a lot of\nwork, for little financial return. And one never gets rid of everything.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But some people are obviously\nunfazed by and even thrive on spending hours finding and tagging items, setting\nthem out on tables, and having people scrutinize their lives (\u201cwhat were they\nthinking having one of these?\u201d), just to sell 20 things for an average of 50\ncents each, then having to dispose of all the unsold items.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maybe it\u2019s the social aspect\nof meeting new people. Or perhaps it\u2019s the result of some sort of excessive\nhaggling gene being expressed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But you can\u2019t discount these\nsales\u2019 popularity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This likely explains why the\never-imaginative folks at Town Hall came up with the idea of holding a\ncommunity garage sale.  This idea isn\u2019t\nnecessarily new in Town. After all, the annual Street Festival on Yonge Street\nhad its beginnings as a sort of mega-garage sale.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, the first Saturday in\nJune, I headed over to the SARC to check it out, passing masses of signs along\nthe way encouraging folks onto the side streets for other local garage sales.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite getting there just\nafter it opened, many people were already returning to their cars armed with\npurchases. Others were poking hopefully amongst what was on offer from the few\ndozen or so sellers on hand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For the most part their tables\nwere laden with the usual garage sale fare: kitchenware, books, cds, movies,\nclothes, artwork, knickknacks, sporting goods, toys and games.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In their zeal to sell, it even\nlooked like some had taken to stripping their houses, as there were also floor\nduct covers, hardware and electrical fixtures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But it was the stuffed duck\nthat drew my attention.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The taxidermy job wasn\u2019t bad,\nand the pose, with wings outstretched as if in flight, was a nice touch. I\u2019m\nsure in its prime it was a fine specimen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But it was obviously a mallard\nof a less than recent vintage, as it was now somewhat faded, shedding some\nplumage, and just generally bedraggled looking. I didn\u2019t see a price on it, but\nI expect it had a more than motivated seller, so it would be a bargain for\nwhomever was interested.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But having passed the table a\nfew times in my wanderings, it was still there when I left.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since there was a fair-sized\ncrowd, people seemed to be enjoying themselves, and it\u2019s probably one of the\nless expensive activities put on by the Town, I\u2019m sure it will be back again\nnext year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As, no doubt will be most of\nthe items purchased there last week, as their new owners remove them from\nstorage and return to try to offload them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Who knows; if you\u2019re really\ninterested, you may even have another crack at that duck, although it may be a\nlittle dustier and few more feathers lighter by then.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Feel free to e-mail Scott at: machellscorners@gmail.com<\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Scott Johnston Who would buy a slightly used stuffed duck? We all have stuff to get rid of, whether it be well-used but still functional items that are no longer needed, or things we\u2019ve been given that we graciously accepted, even if we didn\u2019t necessarily want them, or objects enthusiastically obtained in the heat […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[29,28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24052","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-columns","category-opinion"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-6fW","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-05 00:03:28","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24052","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24052"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24052\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24052"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24052"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24052"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}