That was the summer of 1963, when everybody called me Baby, and it didn’t occur to me to mind.

That was before President Kennedy was shot, before the Beatles came, when I couldn’t wait to join the Peace Corps, and I thought I’d never find a guy as great as my dad. That was the summer we went to Kellerman’s.

For those uninitiated, those are the opening lines to 1987’s Dirty Dancing. It was the “Coming of Age” movie that hit just as I started thinking of such things.

Its relevance to this post will be clarified as you read on.

Our community association had their fourth annual community garage sale this past weekend.

Basically, everyone in our ‘hood plans their garage sale for this day, posts it to the community site, and then everyone trolls for treasure.

As someone committed to entertaining my kids for a few hours on Saturday morning, we were out of the house by 8:30!

My two young and discerning shoppers quickly struck gold.

First? We found Butterfly’s home. She was my eldest’s Spark’s leader last year.

And she had a Barbie bin.

The winner? The pink haired dolly above.

Why?

Because she is THE SAME BARBIE they have played with at a specific play-care on summer holidays!

My daughters are now eager to reunite these long-lost twins.

Next? We found a former coworker who sold my youngest a lovely sparkly hat she’s been sporting ever since. Next house? A random Christmas decoration.

Upon purchase my youngest dropped it and it broke: little wooden snowman falling off of little wooden train.

The garage sale vendor promptly offered to crazy glue it back together while we wandered about a bit more.

As we did, we found the requisite lemonade stand. There we bought lemonade (50 cents a glass) while they gave us Girl Guide cookies and sold us two hair bands (25 cents a piece). My heart smiled when my eldest gravitated to the Guatemalan worry dolls hair band. I still own a barrette somewhere featuring those same dolls.

After that we looped back for the ailing snowman.

He was having trouble staying on the train and the vendor offered to refund our quarter.

We kept Frosty instead and hopped in the car, moved a few blocks, and found the house of a bilingual comic lover.

There, we picked up 10 Betty & Veronica, Sabrina, Archie & Jughead comics, all in French, for a dollar. I’m hopeful they help with the reading over the summer.

Next? We hit the house that sold my eldest fairy-topped perfume (but actually an Earth Angel from Arbonne!) for a quarter.

Moving right along, we got back in the car and hit our last walk-about. First? We found the house we thought would be a dud.

No obvious kid stuff.

But there, I struck gold.

I found a replacement for the Dirty Dancing DVD my youngest had destroyed by “accidentally” skating all over our basement hardwood floors on it.

Well over a year ago, my youngest and I still remember my less than motherly reaction when I found it under the couch (not my proudest moment, but I clearly made my point as she is now SUPER careful with DVDs) and both our somewhat punctured hearts had clearly not completely mended given I still look for it sometimes in stores and she recently suggested Daddy find me a copy for Mother’s Day.

No luck until last weekend when there it was!

The exact same 20th anniversary edition DVD.

That was my garage sale girlhood perfection.

My youngest’s moment happened at the next house.

There we found a young woman cleaning out her stuff from her parent’s house.

My daughters were first charmed by her jewelry boxes.

They still had stickers from her childhood on them.

Honestly?

The random Scooby Doo and Cosmic Adventure Birthday sticker made me like them more. Like she was passing on pieces of that stage of childhood to my girls.

Then my youngest noticed her painted rock.

I don’t think she was selling it, this craft from years past. I think it was out to hold stuff down. Perhaps it was just in with the rest of this collection from childhood when she’d unpacked it all this morning.

My 4-year-old LOVED that rock.

She WANTED that rock.

I could tell the owner was moved by the whole thing, and after a moment? She gifted the rock to my youngest.

Should that no longer quite so young artist ever read this, four days out, your rock still owns a place of privilege in your former jewelry box.