One mantra of the environmental movement is “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.” Surely voluntary nonconsumption is the highest principle, but reuse works great. As we were householders in New Vrindaban while it was still an avocation and before it became a vocation, reusing wasn’t an option, it was a requirement.
We learned that flea markets, yard sales, and auctions were great ways to get reusable things cheap. We were poor but we were good at it.
The flea market in Glendale is a great buyers market. While some dealers are there, it hasn’t been taken over by them and there are still lots of individuals going there and cleaning out stuff, just trying to get rid of it. Not that dealers don’t have good stuff cheap, but some great buys can be found amongst the amateurs.
Yesterday Adiguru took me in. I showed him how you can get all the kids clothes you want at $.25 a piece and toys for a fraction of new cost. He pointed out that for the $2.50 a new Hot Wheels car would cost in the store, you could get ten of them at the flea market.
I got a soccer ball for a dollar, a Ross ten speed bike in good condition for $10, some home grown tomatoes, and a come-along for $10. The come-along was about half new price. While I usually look for stuff at about 25% of new or better, I need one for a job this week so it was still a bargain for me.
Adi bought some shovels for the first installment of the Bahulaban cleanup project and got a steal of a deal on a scythe for $3 which those things aren’t even in the regular stores anymore and would have cost $140 for a blade and a snath new.
He also got a nice wooden framed mirror with a peacock design down one side of it for $1 which he needed for applying tilok and a basket for one dollar that had two bike helmets in it he needed for his kids.
Part of flea marketing is the money you save and the energy saved by getting something that would have been thrown away instead of buying it new, but a big part of it is the thrill of the hunt, the finding. It may even qualify for the glorious title of hobby.
The Glendale flea market is held at the Drivein Theater Sunday morning from about 7 am to 11 am. That is next to the car wash on Route 2 and across from the Tractor Supply Company, TSC, where we went to buy a bundle of gloves for the Bahulaban cleanup. Usually there is a glove guy at a flea market but not this time so we weren’t dogmatically opposed to buying at retail pricing, just disappointed. :-)
