Saturday, October 2, 2010

Big score at the Freebee Tables™ !

The Freebee Tables™ are a unique feature here in the Hermitage Arms community. It's a tradition that makes a lot of sense when you think about it, considering the transitory nature of renters.  The Freebee Tables™ (show below, disappointingly devoid of free stuff at photo time*) are where tenants donate all kinds of trash and treasure; from home-grown produce to magazines and calendars to snack food of indeterminate age to antiques that might actually be worth something.



Recently, TSG acquired several items worth mentioning, and we thought we'd take this opportunity to show them off.

First, we have this set of early 20th Century apothecary jars.  They were subsequently [re-] donated to E. Linton for use in an art project:



The next artifact, manufactured about 50 years later, is this desktop item from 1956:



And last but not least, is this nearly mint-condition book on perhaps our favorite airplane ever:




Not a bad haul, not bad at all.

Now, here's the twist: these 3 items were donated to the Freebee Tables™  by people named Dave. (Dave Whitver used to own the Connie book, and the Paper Welder & Jars belonged to Dave Forgothislastname. 


*That computer table is up for grabs, though.


3 comments:

Parm said...

Yes, that book has TSG's name written all over it! Very nice indeed!

Those jars were pretty cool, too; happen to have any pix of that art project?

As for the paper welder, well, that's enough to make any patent attorney purr.

This is all enough to make me consider throwing some worthy junk into a box and mailing it straight to one of the Freebee tables.

It's this kind of thing, by the way, that makes me proud to be a human being (plenty of other things seem to have the opposite effect).

Willard Biscuit said...

Sorry, no pic of the art project is available yet--I believe the final design is still being mulled over.

I must say that I have a major pet peeve in regards to Freebee Table™ numero uno. As you can see, the table sits in between the washers and dryers, where one would normally place one's laundry basket when depositing and removing items from the machines. It's kind of a pain in the butt when one walks into the laundry room to find that the Freebee Table™ is loaded with a bunch of stuff and there's no good place to set your hamper down.

Also, I don't think it's kosher to donate items that are broken, missing pieces, or simply don't work...that happens pretty frequently. What really makes me scratch my head is finding a "donation" that consists of a stack of someone's junk mail. Come on people, it's not that much farther to walk to the dumpster, is it?

Parm said...

I agree - treating those tables as a dumping ground for junk (true, genuine "junk") is very bush indeed.

But who knows? If you are, say, an identity thief, perhaps you consider someone's bulk junk mail to be a treasure trove of opportunity rather than useless and worthless?