Are you a secondhand shopper? Do you take pleasure in sifting by way of racks, bins and cabinets to discover a cut price or a one-of-a-kind merchandise? Do you store at thrift shops or on web sites like Depop? What about at in-person occasions like storage gross sales or flea markets?

Would you wish to store the world’s longest yard sale?

In “4 Days, 690 Miles, Numerous Stalls: Behold the ‘World’s Longest Yard Sale,’” Kendall Waldman writes about an annual occasion which takes place alongside a freeway that stretches from Alabama to Michigan:

To the customer driving in from out of state, the 127 Yard Sale looks as if a form of Ironman for thrifters. The “world’s longest yard sale” is a check of endurance and a focus. Spanning six states, 690 miles and hundreds of stalls, it traverses dramatic landscapes, delicate cultural terrain and two time zones. Seeing all of it within the 4 allotted days — Aug. 3 to six this yr — is sufficient to induce vertigo in even probably the most stable-minded deal hunter. However a few of us are silly sufficient to attempt anyway.

The occasion was designed to advertise cultural and financial change. In 1987, Mike Walker, then a 28-year-old county govt in Jamestown, Tenn., conceived of it as a technique to lure vacationers off the Interstate and into the small cities alongside U.S. Route 127, from Jamestown to Covington, Ky. Within the following many years, it unfold south to Georgia and Alabama and inched north to Ohio after which Michigan.

The 127 Yard Sale is fluid, kinetic, alive. This makes it a bit onerous to search out its official starting. Driving down 127, I began to see “yard sale” indicators lengthy earlier than reaching its northernmost level in Addison, Mich. We requested some guys at a gasoline station the place they thought it began. They pointed to a close-by Baptist church, and shortly we have been standing in an orderly market on a plot of pine and grass. Right here I noticed the primary arrays of glassware, the primary piles of free bare dolls, the dubbed VHS tapes, the free silverware, the strains of floating attire.

This couldn’t be a contiguous sale — or might it? The Fb group I’d joined instructed that Michigan was the sparsest part. However even right here, we might hardly drive 1 / 4 mile with out spying a Sharpied invitation to a “Barn Sale” a mile away, or “1000’s of Gadgets, CHEAP, 4th Home on Your Left.” A refined terror started to take maintain — a respect for the big scale of the factor.

Ms. Waldman additionally shares observations in regards to the folks and locations she encountered whereas touring the route of the sale:

Mennonites grew to become fixtures of the sale. They bought conventional gadgets: dilly beans, horse-churned ice cream, fresh-cut flowers, picket carvings and a heartbreaking variety of puppies. Their kids have been shy however excitable within the face of so many nonbelievers. Among the many piles of pilled Lycra blends and polyesters, their plain gown stood out. It learn as luxurious, utilitarian high fashion. I purchased myself a bonnet at certainly one of their stands. Nodding approvingly, the vendor knowledgeable me: “Most of our clients are defiant ladies.”

Deep in farm nation, the pull of northern industrial cities might nonetheless be felt. One couple had a baroque quantity of German sausage recipes, printed by the Oscar Mayer company. The house owners knew it was certainly one of their prize items. The husband grew up in Wisconsin close to one of many sausage conglomerate’s greatest factories and advised me that it shut down just a few years again. There have been only some copies left, he mentioned.

The variety of gross sales elevated in Kentucky. Individuals have been pleasant, chatty, open about every little thing however their politics. The church could reign supreme right here, however folks don’t faux to be purists. They’re frank about their lapses and relapses. I heard folks telling their neighbors, buddies and excellent strangers about remedy facilities for opioid habit, about family members struggling by way of it, about those that didn’t make it and the place their graves are.

Generally the friendliness and good humored dialog masked an anxiousness about making a sale. My boyfriend flirted with shopping for a chicken-shaped fan, discounted due to its lacking tail. The 2 ladies promoting it — good-humored buddies who had helped one another by way of a sequence of hardships — have been pleased with the piece, and disenchanted after we left with out it. “We’ve solely made $8 to date,” they mentioned. They’d a bunch of photograph frames on the market, certainly one of them containing an indication for a diaper raffle. An indication over one other stall marketed “Outdated Bottles and Basset Hound Puppies.” The vendor’s son held one of many fat-bellied puppies — $450 every — tenderly in his lap, unhappy to see them go. A close-by needlepoint wall hanging, listed for 50 cents, learn: “Associates are the perfect collectibles.”

College students, learn your complete article and look fastidiously on the accompanying pictures, after which inform us:

• Primarily based on what you learn and noticed, do you wish to go to the 127 Yard Sale subsequent yr? Why or why not? Would you wish to journey all 690 miles of it, like Ms. Waldman did? What particulars from the article or from the images curiosity you probably the most? Why?

• What has been your most notable secondhand acquisition, whether or not you obtain it at a yard sale, discovered it on a resale web site or got it by a member of the family or good friend? What do you’re keen on about it?

• What do you take pleasure in in regards to the expertise of secondhand buying? For you, is it in regards to the cut price costs, the distinctive finds, the low environmental influence or one thing else? In case you’ve by no means finished this form of buying earlier than, would you wish to? Why or why not?

• Have you ever ever bought any of your personal gadgets secondhand, corresponding to at a neighborhood storage sale, at a consignment retailer or on-line? Would you wish to take part in a large multistate occasion just like the 127 Yard Sale?

• Have you ever ever encountered attention-grabbing folks or locations on a secondhand buying journey that you just may not have in any other case, as Ms. Waldman did on the 127 Yard Sale? In that case, inform us a couple of memorable expertise.

College students 13 and older in the US and Britain, and 16 and older elsewhere, are invited to remark. All feedback are moderated by the Studying Community employees, however please remember that as soon as your remark is accepted, will probably be made public and should seem in print.

Discover extra Scholar Opinion questions right here. Lecturers, take a look at this information to study how one can incorporate these prompts into your classroom.