AUSTIN, Texas, November 6, 2005 — I had promised to help for four hours today at the Settlement Home Garage Sale. Several women I play tennis with volunteer. These ladies work eleven months on this event. Every Monday for months on end. I figured I could be a pair of hands for a few hours.

I didn't feel well yesterday but felt pretty good when I got up. I had a little coffee and didn't eat anything and gathered up some gear and went to the Palmer Events Center threading my way through crowds from the Race for the Cure. Austin is full of events. I understand the KKK mustered fourteen people yesterday and the anti-KKK (would that be LLL for Life-Liberty-Love?) mustered about 3000.

I parked in the garage at the Palmer events center (free today) and went in and registered as a volunteer. The lady I'd agreed to help wasn't there yet but I found where I was supposed to be and wandered off to say hello to another buddy who works in clothing. I couldn't believe how much stuff was still left after several days of selling. They can't display it all so they just keep pulling it out. They made $100,000+ yesterday so they are just filling in the gaps when things sell things.

I found my niche. A narrow bit of table with markers, tags, staplers, sacks, tape among the CDs, LPs and cassettes. They had been $3, $1 and fifty cents but today we were peddling them for half price. We were surrounded by books so we sacked up and priced a lot of books, too. Right next to us was religion and special interest and some children's stuff. One young girl bought a box full of books ($40) and we sold a box of albums (and some empty covers he found and wanted) to a guy for $33. We made a guy a deal on an enormous load of sheet music for $50. We were up to thirty-something dollars and tired of counting up fifty cents, one dollar when we got permission to make a deal. A guy made me a turkey sandwich around 12:30 and we went to a crowded break room and I had that with some water and some soy crisps and a Halloween cookie. I tried to just not eat until I was done, but they insisted. The volunteers all looked a little glazed. I suspect they had been there all weekend as well as working all year. The troubled young girls they provice shelter for probably appreciate it. They were there to do some work, too, later selling boxes for the final rush. Except for that break (about ten minutes) and a bathroom break I was busy most of the time. I didn't know the answers to a lot of peoples' questions but I tried to be helpful and get them on their way. Somehow they got the people all through the cashiers a little after two. We had to remove anything that wasn't going to be sold: clothes covering the tables, bookends holding up rows of books. We had to take stuff off some fixtures that were going to go to storage. This was a busy, dirty time. My friend and I rushed to get her signs and boxes out of there before the people came in with the boxes. At three they sell people boxes and let them have at what's left, filling the box for one price. I didn't want to see that. Scary.

This thing is no bargain for the volunteers but the cause is good and a lot of the people seemed to be getting things they needed for cheap. At the end I was bagging up cassettes and CDs for a film maker who was probably looking for weird music as placeholders in films (or even to use if permissions could be had).

What is really amazing is that after the box sale they give most of the stuff to the Salvation Army and then they begin collecting thousands of pounds of stuff from people for next year.

I stopped by Central Market because it was on my way home and I thought the Austin Stories crowd was meeting there. And for all I know, they were. I looked around everywhere but upstairs looking for a face I recognized,Jette or Greg or someone. I got a Root Beer and sat down a minute but then I realized I was too exhausted to chat if they came or were somewhere among all the kids and families. So I just left. I was just hoping that they'd act as a support group and talk me out of wasting time on an online journal. But, after all, who would be worse to accomplish that?

At home I made backups for the bookkeeper's machine, looked up some stuff on the WEB for FFP, showered (there was all this secondhand dirt on me and I'd been sweating at the end so I definitely had to have another shower) and got ready to walk up to Fonda San Miguel and celebrate their being here thirty years.

The party at Fonda was free. Free is not always a bargain, but this was a good party. They had stripped the interior of almost all tables and chairs, put in few stand-up tables. They had a buffet of pretty simple apps and a couple of bars and waiters circulating with wine. Tom and Miguel were signing the new book they have out with Virginia Wood.

I think everyone I've ever known was there. The restaurant business was well-represented and we saw all kinds of other people including a guy I worked with a couple of decades ago who was in town and visiting with a neighbor (across the creek) whom I hadn't seen in a while either. I don't know how many hundreds flowed through the restaurant but FFP and I had a great time making the rounds over and over and talking together or individually with people like Sharon Watkins, Ron Weiss, Eddie Bernal, Robin and Bud Shivers, Turk and Christy Pipkin, Augie Garrido, Margaret Perry and many more. Usual suspects in Austin.

We walked back to our house and settled in to watch some of the night's TV. FFP snoozed through Desperate Housewives although he professes to like it. Boring. I tried to watch the live presential debate on West Wing but found it as boring as real politicians. Sleep seemed a better idea.