Furniture, dishes, clothes, books, bikes and baseball bats are spilling out of open garage doors all over town. It's spring, it's above freezing, it's yard sale season.
In garages and on driveways the sales are as much a part of summer here as mosquitoes and barbecues.
The 50-year-old cultural phenomenon sports its own regular "clip and carry" section in the classifieds. It's small so far but poised to explode as May arrives.
Some people throw yard sales because they need cash. Some want to replace old stuff with new.
The Kamiloses, a retired couple, are moving into a fifth wheel next week and heading south soon to search for a new home. They put the stuff of their Alaska life on sale this weekend and hoped to get rid of everything.
Lael Kamilos said the good stuff sold Saturday -- Lazy Boy chairs and couches, a teak bedroom set, even a small car. Furniture was the hot seller, she said. But, like most yard sales, the real deals start on Sunday, when sellers want the goods gone.
Kamilos' clothes were all half off; sets of nice, neatly stacked dishes cost $2. A paper shredder was selling for $5. "Mostly what's left is junk," she said Sunday. Whatever didn't sell was going to Goodwill or the Arc.
Gary Shields, store manager for the Salvation Army Northern Lights, said yard sale leftovers are a big part of business this time of year. And a lot of people buy things at the thrift store to sell at yard sales, he said.
According to people who study such things, yard and garage sales started in the 1950s and 1960s, the offspring of an affluent economy, an increase in home ownership, and the desire to keep up with the Joneses. Suburban yards and garages bred a venue for discarding unwanted extras and finding great deals. By the 1970s, such sales were mainstream.
Lael Kamilos said most of her early garage sale shoppers on Saturday were men. Charlie Barr, a big white-haired guy with a bit of stubble and a baseball cap, was an early bird Sunday morning -- he arrived before the advertised start time as the sun was poking through clouds and melting patches of frost off the Kamiloses' lawn.
"If you're gonna go, go early in the morning or everything's gone," he said.
Barr seemed more interested in shooting the bull than bargain hunting. He said he's not generally fond of shopping but enjoys garage sales because people can be friendly and fun.
He spent about an hour talking to the Kamiloses and other shoppers. Barr and Paul Kamilos, two big, grandfatherly men with graying hair and glasses, stood around swapping stories about the price of gas, fishing, taxes and how Alaska has changed. A lot of stories started with, "Years ago ... "
Between conversations, he spent $14 on some metal bowls, a pack of gun locks, a handsaw and a lamp. Then, with the grainy laugh of a former smoker, he joked about getting ripped off.
Seriously, he said, "I'm a lousy negotiator." He never even tried to bargain with Lael.
As other shoppers trickled in and out, Barr could be heard: "I told my wife, why go on a diet? It'd be an insult to her cooking."
Barr: "Did you see ol' Mike Gravel is running for president? That just tickles me to death."
Kamilos: "I was fishing on the Deshka one time ..."
After Barr drove off in his white Cadillac, Kamilos said, "I could sit and tell lies with him for hours."
Daily News reporter Anne Aurand can be reached at aaurand@adn.com or 257-4591.
