They were hawking my stroller. My means of transportation! Utterly upsetting! My five year old mind could not comprehend this unfair exchange of paper for a comfy hammock with wheels. I was consoled when my dad took my hand and we went to get Superman ice cream from a stand at the Flea Market, the kind that turns the whole lower half of your face blue as you lick your lips in satisfaction. Satisfied I finished my ice cream off in an unrealized lesson in life.
I watch the old ladies dragging along their grandchildren through our maze of piled high tables and trailers full of baby clothes and watch as the kids ask for the mermaid I didn't even realize we owned until my parents pulled it out of a box for the yard sale. Two quarters for a new(to them) toy. A pittance, but the lesson is passed on to the grandchild as they clutch the half woman, half fish to their chest, and just like the Ice cream the mermaid is the vessel of the lesson this time.
Some call it recycling, some call it getting rid of old junk, but the lesson is the same. Thrift. I wish it hadn't taken so long for it to sink into me, but watching unused items that my family had stock piled for our yard sale walk away in the hands of new owners I realized that a valuable lesson had been taught to me back when I was five. Because thrift doesn't only work through Goodwill or Flea Markets, it works everywhere. Saving things for the use of other people and giving to them what can be given again. Recycling the old for the new and useful to you and me. It can be almost anything, boxes full of baby clothes being resold, newspapers being recycled, collecting leaves from you town for compost instead of a life in a landfill.
My lesson of ice cream with money from a stroller and other items we had set up at our Flea Market booth that one day when I was five will be with me through my whole life. Utterly upsetting, no, completely empowering, yes! Because thrift is transferable to anything, and if you resell in the name of thrift, than you recycle, if you recycle, than you reuse, and by reusing you reduce.
Now that calls for some Superman ice cream.
