SECOND
HAND ROSE
By Janet LeBlancq "Do I just take this?" he asked, holding a decent looking electric floor sweeper at arms length. It was as if he was expecting me to snatch it back, or at least tell him how much it cost. I loved telling him "Yes, you just take it." This is the Free Store, you give and take. For us in the Use Again business, that is all there is to it. There are memorable stories about the best scores. Colleen Work once drove a truck that came from the free store used car lot. It was white with a wooden deck. Ran well, but only for one summer as I recall. When Paul and Carole were courting, I invited them for dinner. They wore identical shoes. I knew then that the romance was serious. Paul's Gucci shoes were Vancouver store bought while Carole's were Free Store found. There I was at the RCBC convention banquet in Richmond, decked out in Free Store finery and they called on me to receive our award. Wendy Hanford once told me that her Free Store wardrobe was sufficient and more to see her through a realtor's convention in Vancouver. And this month, an islander is on the quest for the perfect bra. How do you feel when you see your 2"d hand bra draped across the display area, with a baby stored in one cup while her mother shops? Oh God. "Twiggy, where are you? Come out, come back, wherever you are." How do you feel on those occasions that you see your shirt walking around the Co-op wrapped around someone else? Now the politically correct thing to do is say nothing. Or you could exclaim, "That shirt looks great on you", while thinking, "Much better than it ever did on me." Or you might wonder why you ever gave it away. Be patient, you can get it back someday from the Free Store. Save wool for Kay Inglis, she knits socks, and potential quilt squares for Una Keziere and the quitters. Gather plastic bits for Stevi's child artists in training; last spring, we also had a run on red shoes and musical instruments. One year we saved all toilets for the theater group who returned them in mint and polished condition. Yvonne from Denman harvests appliance parts. He can only take as much as he can carry on his bike. Emery Alstad finds lawn mower parts. Max Metal's old ambulance transmission is now in Don Cartwright's van. We cut the top off another van for Timber, tho I don't know the intended use. I just know it was Very Important. Doug Nixon was compacting the Dumpster loads last summer when a bolt was lost from his backhoe shovel. We searched the Free Store and found a replacement bolt that worked fine. The most unusual Free Store score? It was a summer day
at the depot and Kathi Linnman was doing an early bird visit. She sailed
into the office, carrying a small plastic detergent pail. She handed
me the pail and declared. "You won't believe this." I wouldn't
have. Inside that Tide pail in a labeled bag were the "cremated
remains of Jean Sheils". Because she had been a member of the Recycling
Committee, we figured Jean was just checking in. Though we were tempted
to keep her around, Jean did not remain with us. We laughed about this,
but on the edge of a tear.
The kids are getting more into the Free Store rhythm each year. Often they come to the office and ask to be volunteers and "can I wear the badge?" They are usually assigned the children's section, and under the watchful eyes of the veterans, they learn to sort and tidy and not take everything they see on the first trip. This really is a story about us. We've been recycled into
this space and time, converging, we know not why, at Hornby's Free Store
where the search and rescue of needful things continues.
The Recycling
Dept & Free Store
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The
depot office is a treasure trove of Use Agains. The computer came from
the R.C.M.P. offices in Courtenay: the filing cabinet was once in the
government buildings in Victoria. The coffee maker made Java for the
Radio Free Hornby gang before they were busted, the water taps used
to be in the Hornby Clinic, and the table hails from up North. Dennis
Zbirun rescued the big office chair from the Dumpster at the Pidgeon
Lake landfill.