Yard Sale Bloodbath

First we had all those ’60s college kegger photos … now let’s see what those crazy WSU kids got up to when they weren’t out drinking in a field! These pictures were taken in what I assume is either a dorm or a frat — some place where a bunch of these guys must have lived. I recognized some of the same kids from the outdoor pictures, but there are no girls in this bunch.

Apparently these guys liked to pull pranks. Here’s a shot of the old “let’s fill up his room with crumpled newspaper” gag.

I’m not sure what is going on here, but it looks suspicious.

Even in the shots where not much is happening, you kind of get the feeling they’re up to something.

Then there’s a series of shots where they’re bandaging a guy up and putting him on a stretcher.

What happened after this, who knows — the photos only show him being carried down the hall.

But there is a picture of what was underneath all those bandages!

Along with the pranks, they liked to play cards.

And drink.

We think that shot was probably staged. But this one looks genuine.

There’s this one photo where someone has a gun.

And a couple of amazing underwear pics.

Man. Have I mentioned how much I love these photos?!? The entire set is here — all these and more, including a few shots of the field at a college football game, even though that’s way less interesting in my book. Enjoy!

A while ago I wrote a post about an estate sale I went to with some pretty cool vintage items, including six small yellow plastic “Picture-Tainer” boxes — each filled with old photos.

I usually look at any old photos I come across at an estate sale, hoping for something amazing. This almost never pans out, but when I opened the first box and saw this picture, my spidey-sense started tingling.

All of the cases were filled with similar gems and I bought them all (for $1 each). There are well over 70 photos, all of college students at Washington State University sometime in the early-to-mid sixties. There are really too many for one post, so this first batch consists of all the pictures from a kegger held out in some field.

The more I look at these pictures the more completely in love with them I become. There is something about the vibe that just kills me. Part of it is pure nostalgia — the early ’60s, a time I wasn’t even around for and that’s now long gone. Though a lot of these kids would blend right in with the hipsters of today.

Maybe there’s also nostalgia for the equivalent time in my own life, when a bunch of us would hike up into the Berkeley hills for a sort of beer-fueled picnic. In my case, that was a bit younger than college — funny how back then these students would’ve seemed almost grown up to me, and now they look like kids.

I wonder about the previous owner of these photos — does he appear in these shots, or was he always behind the camera? Did he stay in touch with his college buddies? Did he marry one of the girls in the pictures?

If I’d spent more time looking at the other (more boring) photos at the sale, maybe I’d be able to piece more of the story together. Then again, just looking at these pictures and wondering might be better than knowing the real deal.

Today, it’s completely normal to have this kind of documentation at almost any event, but it seems amazing to have so many pictures taken here. Seeing them now, probably close to fifty years later, we know that all these kids have grown old. I wonder if they’ve forgotten about this keg party. Maybe some of them still think about drinking, laughing, and stumbling into the grass on a youthful college day.

The whole batch of these pictures is here — and stay tuned for part two, featuring some of these guys’ indoor hijinks!

Jenny sent out a group email to me, Leslie, and Karl about a sale where a woman that we knew was selling loads of vintage clothing, all for $3 apiece. At first I thought she was talking about the woman that has irritated me twice at her sales (along with her husband managing to irritate me too). Not excited. Jenny tried to soothe my nerves by explaining who it was. Then I thought it was the woman from the first sale last week that had tons of vintage. I didn’t find much last week, why would I care if the leftovers were all $3? Still not excited.

We met at my house at 8:15 on Saturday and headed to the sale. As soon as Jenny told me the address I knew who the woman was. I never seem to remember her name, but she has come to our sales and we have gone to her sales over the years. When we see her at sales she is always cool.

Her ad said it would be over 1000 pieces ranging from the ’20s on up, and sure enough … OMG doesn’t even cover it.

The sale was about 10 blocks from my house — a good thing, since we could barely get the trunk closed when we were done. We all bought so much stuff! Everything was $3 — all logic went out the window. We did get there before any wacko-pickers and I am not sure if it even would have mattered, since there was so much stuff. Some of it was really amazing and I’m sure there was more stuff we didn’t even unearth.

Why did she have this much stuff? Well, we have seen her at sales for years and I guess she was getting out of the vintage clothing biz. Her man seemed very excited about the extra room in their house being free of clothing.

The box that I purchased was so big that it had to be forceably pushed into the trunk. The photo below only shows me and Jenny’s hauls … Karl and Leslie had another box each that they just had to set on their laps for the ride home.

It was the first time we have filled the whole car on the very first sale and needed to go home to unload. (We did hit a bunch more sales, Jenny will fill you in on those later.)

My best score is a crazy bathing suit that fits me perfect. Sadly, I found a black velvet formal that was too tight and I wanted to cry a little.

This was a complete sale high!

Jenny is still organizing our photos from this weekend, but I thought I would do a quicky post about one item that sort of turned into the theme of our sale day. It’s BABEE TENDA!

While packing up the car after a really amazing sale I noticed a sign on the side of what they were using as their cashier table: “Babee Tenda – $5.” All I could think was WTF is that?!?!?

It looked like a normal small kids table, but as soon as you lift the green table top up you see it has an alphabet and animals. The main part of the table opens and becomes a seat.

You can see it in action in this old ad (with great commentary) over at Do What Now. Apparently one of the guys having the sale used to get put into this contraption as a youth. I had to snag it. The graphics on it are awesome.

Of course we felt the need to say BABEE TENDA about 50 more times thoughout the day.

They still make them.

I posted about finding these photos a while ago and I finally scanned them. They were taken at the Tin Hat Bar in Seattle in the late ’60s or early ’70s. Enjoy.

On Saturday morning, I had a really queasy stomach. I had a root canal earlier in the week and woke up at 3:00 a.m. in pain, so I rolled out of bed and took a pain pill. I forgot that you can’t take pain pills on an empty stomach, so in the morning I was in agony.

Being the yard sale trooper that I am, I thought that I could work through it. I drove to a sale that started at 8:30 and when I pulled up I thought I might get sick, but I turned off the ignition and just stopped to get some fresh air. The sale was a total bust, but I was proud of myself for keeping my composure. I was able to get about 15 blocks before I had to pull into a parking lot and get sick out my car door. I was really embarrassed.

I was feeling pretty defeated and I headed home for a day of TV and the couch. I washed up, drank some water, and after an hour was feeling good enough to give it another try.

I hit a couple of sales, but I didn’t buy anything and I wasn’t feeling very good. Then I saw a sign for a block sale. Most of the sales on the block had family items, baby clothes, toys. I was thinking that I should just go home.

Then I saw a box of new Aveda products and I started grabbing stuff before even asking the price. I had my hands filled to the point of not being able to hold anymore. I spotted another box of large size Aveda hair products. A few other shoppers had started to grab stuff and in my weakened state I wasn’t very pushy. All small items were $1 and all large ones $2. I filled one box, then started in on another box. The woman owned a salon and didn’t want to carry the Aveda line anymore.

Most of the items still had price tags with the original boxes. I ended up spending a little over $50. I think you can see from the photo that I got a screaming deal.

I went home happy.