This morning I got up very early (6am) and went to Hampstead, a wealthy neighbourhood just west of the Decarie Expressway. It was the coldest morning yet – you can see the frost on the lawns in this picture – but I was pretty well prepared.
Hampstead has pretty strict garbage collection policies. You must use a black bin for your trash, and if you have more garbage than you can fit in your bin you have to use special yellow trash bags that you can buy from the city for 1$ each.
I didn’t make any particularly good finds here, however. I’m sure that there are some treasures to be found made but unfortunately not on this particular day. Too bad, it’s far enough away that I doubt I’ll make it back any time soon, as least not without a car.
It was also trash day in the north-western part of NDG (Notre-Dame-des-Graces) and the western part of Cote-des-Neiges (CDN), which is where I ended up finding some decent stuff.
I came across this pile on Coolbrook somewhere near Van Horne, which I’m pretty sure rests within the boundaries of CDN. Inside one of the bags was some sporting/outdoors equipment, including a snorkelling set, a life jacket and some rubber boots.
I also found five hockey sticks and a few golf clubs. I left them in Parc Ex on the way home, I figured someone there will put them to good use. This is the second time in the last week that I’ve saved some good hockey sticks from the trash. Maybe people are buying new ones as the hockey season approaches.
Inside another piece of luggage were three different jewelry boxes, all of which I think are quite nice, possibly even fancy. The one on the right has a built in mirror that comes out of the top. The one on the left has a few chips of the paint but is still in very good condition. I think I’ll keep these as they (especially the one with the mirror) would make very good display cases for my found jewelry at yard sales.
This might be my favourite of the boxes, though. It looks like it might be quite old. It definitely has a “hand-made” look to it.
Lastly, I found this wind-up light/radio somewhere in NDG. It might be useful come wintertime.
In sorting through the finds from last Tuesday I came across a few more things I had to show you. First are these death notices for JFK and RFK. They have prayers on the back (the same prayer, in fact) and look to have been given out by funeral homes back when they were assassinated. Thinking about it now it seems pretty crazy that these two brothers were killed in such a short time span while both being obviously very prominent politicians. I can understand how shocking these assassinations must have been at the time.
There was also this beautiful piece of ephemera, a card made in remembrance of a 7 year old girl who died way back in 1910. I looked up the phrase “For Auld Lang Syne” which appears on the front, apparently it’s a line from an old Scottish poem that translates roughly to “for (the sake of) old times.” It’s often used in reference to endings and new beginnings, which include death but also graduation, the New Year, and so on.
The poem on the inside is also interesting, if oddly Christmas related.
I just think it’s remarkable that such a thing, which I assume to be now over a hundred years old, is still in such terrific shape. I’ve never seen anything quite like it before. It’s definitely the kind of thing that makes you think.
Tomorrow morning I’m going to TMR to see what I can find this week. Over the last month it has become my favourite route, providing me with jewelry, oddities, and lots of good ephemera to boot. We’ll see if that trend continues.