CORNVILLE — Brandy Pinkham hadn’t been born yet when the first Cornville yard sale on West Ridge Road happened 27 years ago.
This year, Brandy, 26, and her husband Josh, 30, will open the Chuck Wagon lunch stand next to their home, right on the yard sale route and brace for the crowds Saturday and Sunday.
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The forecast is for sunny skies with temperatures in the 70s.
“It was a lifelong dream,” Josh Pinkham said of their “take-out joint” situated near Cass’ Corner and Route 150. “I grew up in the kitchen with mom and my great-grandmother. I love cooking, Brandy loves cooking and we’ve always wanted to run a restaurant-type business.”
The Chuck Wagon, which features full dinners and homemade pies that Josh makes, is patterned after a similar place called The Shed, nearby on Route 150, which closed a couple of years ago after many years in business.
“What we’re trying to do is bring that old Shed atmosphere back,” Josh said. “Every Friday night was our Friday Shed night.”
For those who have never experienced it firsthand, the 10-mile yard sale is a bumper-to-bumper shopping spree on more than 50 lawns and vacant lots that are transformed into one long flea market.
It runs from Route 150 in Cornville, all the way — just over 10 miles — to Route 2 on the Kennebec River in Skowhegan. This year the yard sales will extend into Athens.
On sale will be everything from tractors to toys, antiques, tools, military artifacts, books, games, farm goods, baseball cards and clothing.
“It’s my junk, but it’s your treasure,” 10-mile veteran Sandra Goodell, who lives along the yard-sale corridor, said last year.
Event organizer Janet Bernard of Nelson’s Candies, also along the yard-sale route, said it started 27 years ago with a few families getting together for a lawn sale that soon stretched six miles. It went to 10 miles when Skowhegan got in on the fun — and the profits.
The Pinkhams say they will put on extra help beginning Saturday at 6 a.m. for breakfast, when the first of the bargain hunters arrive in Cornville.
Sellers along West Ridge Road have said they can sometimes clear $1,000 over the two days of the sales. Some say that 70 percent of the visitors on yard-sale weekend are serious buyers, with dealers coming from the coast to find a bargain and make a profit back home during the tourist season.
As for the Pinkhams, they are hoping their first year on the other side of the counter will be a good one, but they will miss yard-saling themselves.
“We’re kind of missing a little bit because we don’t get to go this year,” Brandy said.
Josh agreed, saying a lot of his mother’s passion for yard-saling has rubbed off on him, but he is ready to get behind the grill and get to work.
“I think it’s going to be a little bit of craziness,” he said. “We’ve shopped the yard sale many times so we know the hectic craziness that it’s going to be — but it’s great; it’s going to be great. I expect to be what they call tore up, I guess. It’s nice to be able to live our dream.”
Doug Harlow — 474-9534
dharlow@centralmaine.com
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