Pawn WorldWhat's wrong? Can't afford to pay your rent? You owe NYSEG $17,000 in utility bills going back to January? Been eating at the soup kitchen every day? Living in your car until it was recently buried in snow and towed by the city? Now they want $85 to hock a piece of junk you couldn't sell for $5 as scrap?
Well, if you haven't aleady figured this out, it may be time to sell that priceless collection of Time Life books that have been sitting in a storage shed. Yep, those classic examples of American photojournalism at its best will fetch you say, 20cents at the local book sharks on the Commons. That represents an 80cent profit for the dealers when your valuable heirlooms are shunted off to the dollar carts parked in the entrance. Yes, child, the poor man's Borders, those carts. You get some mighty fine books for a buck.
Or, perhaps, it's time to sell off your collection of tie-dyed sweaters. Empty those closets brimming with yesterday's couture. If enough Ithacans buy their duds at the Salvation Army or Trader K's, do you think that skinny ties will come back? Ez has about 70 of them from the days back when he sold venetian blinds for a living.
How about music, man? Got some Fabulous Thunderbirds' albums, the best of Lou Rawls? There's a new shop on the Commons that specializes in used music. Or, if you're a collector, you can go down to the sleazy basement of Autumn Leaves and rummage around for a Marianne Faithfull classic. Remember Marianne? She did that montone version of Sister Morphine. Come back to you now? Well, you can live in the past, or you can subsist in the present, but don't plan on a future in Ithaca, New York unless you have lots of cash or a basement full of priceless crap you can pawn off to pay your bills. Because living in Ithaca ain't cheap, and most people don't live well. And the evidence of that is right before your nose. Look at how many people eat at the soup kitchen every day. Check out the constant parade of your fellow citizens who daily trudge to Ithaca' pawn shops or resale merchants, hauling garbage bags full of clothing or crumbly boxes full of vintage romances. Or observe, if you will, how the Salvation Army Shop has had to move to larger quarters out there on Elmira Road to accomodate the droves of Ithacans in hot pursuit of the cheap. Hell, go past it anytime of day and the parking lot is full.
Pawn world. That's Ithaca, New York. It's the 4th largest industry after education, parking, and restaurants. There are more second hand shops per capita than any other small city in the US. Hey, they don't tell you that in the glossy brochures they pass out at the Chamber of Commerce.
Comments invited at: ezrakidder@gmail.com - Peace, Ezra at 5:54 AM
