Our Adventures Amongst The Ducks: Adventuring Into September

The second week in September was the first normal weekend in September as the previous one included an extra day for the Labor Day holiday and very little in the way of saling opportunities. This weekend was different and, after looking through all of our resources to find sales, we had two days of saling planned. We had three sales planned for Saturday and one for Sunday and that made it much better than last week. With a list in hand and hope in our hearts, we began our Saturday adventures.

Our first sale was a "huge basement digger with plenty to dig through". It was a sale run by one of our favorite tag sale companies. Unfortunately, the two brothers who run the company don't run that many sales anymore but we always to make the ones they run. We arrived a few minutes before the sale to find the dreaded line. We would not have been among the first group inside but the brothers saw us and extended the number first allowed inside to include us!

It had a great basement guarded by scary clowns!

There was a great basement bar.

Of course, there was a mounted pencil sharpener there, too!

The tool room in the basement was cluttered and a lot of that clutter was on an old kitchen counter.

That kitchen counter was boomerang! We did not take any boomerang home with us but we did take home one book, some 1970's Warner Brothers glasses, some records, some old clown cake toppers, some vintage Tupperware and some poodle small liquor bottle covers. It was a good first stop.

Before moving on to our second sale, we stopped for breakfast at a bagel store in Morton Village Plaza. This shopping center has been around since the 1950's though all that remains from its beginning is this great old sign. For years, it held a discount movie theatre where ticket prices were the same as the year (a movie ticket was 76 cents in 1976) and Rob went here often. Sadly, the theatre closed in 1984.

Our second sale was just five minutes away in Rob's hometown. It was listed as an estate sale but there was no description and no pictures. Most of the items were spread out on the lawn though there were a few things inside the house. We left with some books, a small tiki mug and a ceramic leprechaun.

Our third and final sale on Saturday was listed as "57 plus years" with "vintage 1950's through 1970's" and "Christmas supplies". There were no pictures in the ad and it was the second day of the sale so we weren't sure what to expect. We found a friendly cat outside which Monica can be seen petting.

There were Christmas things but they were all newer items. We didn't find anything from the 1950's through 1970's except for one cookbook which came home with us. To us, it didn't seem likely that there was anything worthwhile the first day either.

When we left, we found another cat but he was trying to hide!

Before going home, we stopped at Bobb Howard's General Store. Bobb Howard's began as a service station in 1946. About thirty years ago, they converted the office into a novelty store filled with novelty toys, old time candy and lots of nostalgic memories. The service station is still open and the businesses have been in the same family since 1946!

Bobb Howard's General Store. When you see Gumby, Popeye and a sock monkey standing outside of a store, you just know you have to see what is inside!

There are lots of cool signs on the walls!

Lots and lots of old time candy!

The store is filled with lots of cool stuff!

Behind the counter, there are many more great things. Retired bobbleheads, out-of-print bubblegum cards and many more things are for sale here. There are few things that are just for display and not for sale.

This is a genuine working 1940's popcorn machine just like the ones that were in movie theatres back in the 1940's! Just pull a bag from the slot, insert your dime and your bag is filled with fresh popcorn. All paying customers get a free bag of popcorn!

Rob bought an Oh Henry! and a Clark Bar. Monica bought some string candy and a package of Broadway strawberry rolls. The gum is for both of us.

These paddles balls were free to us as first-time customers. If we didn't get these for free, we may have bought them anyway!

Rob bought a Bozo stress squeeze toy for work. Rob feels that his coworkers can breathe a little easier now.

We had one sale on our list for Sunday and we got an early start. When we saw the sign, we knew we were in the right place.

This sale was run by another of our favorite tag sale companies. It was the estate sale of a retired American Airlines mechanic. Records and a few Christmas things were in the pictures and we were hoping to find some good things for us.

We didn't have to look hard for the Christmas stuff. When we walked in, they were brought right over to Rob for his review.

This was a pretty cool looking racing set for collectors of this sort of thing.

The basement was amazing! Look at the bar! Look at the knotty wood paneling! Look at that floor!

These cabinets were solid wood and had to be original to the house though they clearly changed the hardware. If we bought this house, we would change the hardware back to what was probably there originally. Monica loved it, too, but, by now, she was already searching for other things.

The mounted pencil sharpener! We should have known!

The bathroom was originally yellow and the tub, toilet and wall hamper were still there from its original construction. Everything else in that bathroom had been changed.

It was a fun sale and it is always good to see our friends who run this tag sale company. When we left, it was with records, books, some bottle openers and some Christmas things.

When we left, we decided to get an early lunch instead of breakfast. The Texas Ranger has been on our list of places to try. It was about twenty minutes from the sale but on our way home. It is one of those new burger places that have been cropping up almost daily but its history is a little different.

Texas Ranger was a very popular place in the 1940's through the 1980's when it closed its doors. It was famous for its chili and its hamburgers. The "Ranger Special" was a hamburger topped with its unique white chili-based sauce. The new Texas Ranger was opened by someone who claimed to have the original recipe. When we went, it was pretty busy. We each had the "Texas Ranger" burger and fries and while it wasn't exactly like going to the original. Still, it was on our list and we are glad we stopped by to absorb a bit of its history, albeit a broken history.

When we got home, we had to look at the weekend's finds. This is what we saw: