N. Jackson preps for whole town yard sales

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For some people, the event is a reunion of family and friends.

By JEANNE STARMACK

VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER

NORTH JACKSON — If you come into town this weekend, the residents will be more than glad you did.

They'll welcome you and do everything they can to make sure you have fun.

The parking will be free. The corn will be hot and buttered, and only 50 cents an ear. Grab some hot dogs, two for $1, while you're at it.

The weather will be hot — 90 on Friday, high 80s on Saturday. So dress cool.

And be prepared to search through town for something else really hot: deals.

You'll have plenty of company. This town of 2,021 people is expecting around 20,000 visitors starting at 9 a.m. Friday and Saturday, when communitywide yard sales begin.

In a tradition that began eight years ago as a fundraiser for the Jackson Citizens Association, residents are paying $5 to participate in the sales.

In a field next to Olin Harkleroad's house at 11349 Mahoning Ave., vendors will also set up their goods. He charges the same $5 for space for the two days. The Knights of Phythias will sell the corn and hot dogs there, along with their usual 12-oz. fruit cups — pineapples, honeydew, watermelon, grapes and a fat, beautiful strawberry on each one. Where else can you find a fruit cup like that for $1.50, Harkleroad wants to know.

Getting ready

Setup began Wednesday afternoon. Harkleroad's field was partitioned with yellow tape into sections for the vendors. He took Billy Williams, an evangelist who lives near Newton Falls, out in a golf cart to check his spot. If you stop there this weekend, Williams will sing you a gospel song.

He was there last year, too. "It's a wonderful thing," he said. "The community gets involved. Some people say it will be as big as Rogers one day."

Harkleroad said there are other deals to check out. Restaurants will be offering weekend specials, he said.

And if you're brave enough, go to the Things Remembered warehouse on Bailey Road, where surplus items are saved especially for yard-sale weekend.

"Last year, women were fighting ... all you could see was elbows," Harkleroad said. "It's a madhouse up there. Afghans, two and three dollars. Pen and pencil sets — a wide variety, and it's cheap."

Just down the block from Harkleroad's, Jeanne Sudimak and her sisters Rosemary Laughlin of Alliance and Natalie Dechant of Portage County were setting up in the yard at their mother's house.

"It's a whole different picture," Dechant said about the transformation sleepy, little North Jackson goes through on yard-sale weekend. "It's amazing what this town turns into."

The women were expecting a fourth sister from Pittsburgh to join them at the sale. The hardest part, they said, was lugging out and arranging their stuff — a large part of which is farm gear from their father's estate.

"From the depression days, they kept everything," Sudimak said. "Yokes from the draft horses, milk cans."

But once everything was set out, the best part would begin, they said. They'll sit and talk while their stuff sells. For them, the weekend is a reunion.

Reunion

Across the street, Marilyn Ritchie was looking forward to the social side of the event as well. Her daughter, Melanie Stecker of Salem, had already set up her RV in the yard. Other friends would be coming soon to set their stuff out.

"It's a lot of fun," Ritchie said. "We see people we haven't seen for years. It's visiting, too."

One thing you won't find in town this weekend, said Harkleroad, is for-profit vendors selling food from trailers. That's so nonprofit organizations can sell their food without the competition, he said.

The money the citizens association raises supports school and church groups, Harkleroad said. It donated to the North Jackson Veterans Memorial, and donated to have a blue jay, the school district's mascot, painted on the water tower.

Harkleroad, who founded the citizens group and is now a township trustee, believes that people will keep coming back to yard-sale weekend if they find low prices and a pleasant experience, where they're treated with respect and they end up having fun.

"It's a 'Welcome to North Jackson,'" he said.

Thursday, August 2, 2007