Pet Rocks for Sale

Queens Village in the 1970’s was an idyllic place to grow up.  When my sisters and I arrived in 1974 it was an entirely new world for us.  Housing developments were an enigma because who would want a house that looked exactly like their neighbors? We were too young and unsophisticated to comprehend the cost savings and building efficiency of a planned neighborhood.  After our first weeks there we were greeted by the twins living in the original farmhouse on the corner across the street.  Theirs was one of the only houses that were unique on the block with a screened in porch, basement to attic living spaces, real fireplaces and a woodshed on the side of their property that was roomy enough to serve as our occasional dark and creepy clubhouse.  How they knew we had just moved in I’m not sure since our older siblings and parents had been there for a few months before us younger ones joined them in America.  The neighborhood grapevine that caused a selling frenzy was probably abuzz with the three new Bees that had just joined their family at 92-07.  The twins came over to introduce themselves and brought over a bird with a broken wing they had recently rescued as a conversation starter.  We became fast friends and soon realized that we attended the same Elementary School, P.S. 135; loftily known as The Belaire School.  We would do homework together on our stoop as we were not allowed to leave the yard and my mother never allowed friends inside the house.  We happily complied and spent all the warm days of summer playing in the yard or the street.  Summer provided more time for ingenuity and profit making.  We engineered a scary house tour where our blindfolded neighborhood friends would be led on a ghost tour, by touch only, in the backyard for .25c apiece (afterwards we refunded some money, not because of complaints, but because we felt the tour was too expensive).  Next, we glued pictures and handwrote magazines (I think my sister Bernie was an unpaid intern with this business venture due to the amount of copying) and sold them to the neighborhood kids. 

One summer we realized that we could capitalize on the Pet Rock craze that was sweeping the nation.  There was essentially no overhead as we could gather all the required materials from our yards and have a pet rock sale.  We searched around and found the best specimens of varying sizes and rummaged through our closets for materials to adorn the rocks.  We glued seeds for eyes, put a fur cape on another from a scrap of rabbit fur someone had, and painted designs on others.  The optimism was palpable and our neighbor Bobby decided to join our endeavor.  As Bobby was the best artist on the block he was given the largest rock to decorate.  It was enormous and was probably rescued ballast from a long ago sailing ship.  Bobby cleverly designed the rock as a ladybug.  He painted it red with a white face and plentiful black polka dots over the body.  He found some wire and twisted antennae to the front of the face.  It was a thing of beauty and would be our centerpiece.  We met to plan the advertising and, seeing that people attached garage sale signs on trees and poles, we decided to do the same for our pet rock sale.  We created flashy signs advertising a pet rock sale at 92-07 and posted them all over the neighborhood.  We were marketing geniuses! That is until my mother got wind of it.  “You put signs all over the neighborhood inviting strangers to our house?” “Well, yes we did because we are marketing geniuses.” Later that night with my older brother guiding us with a flashlight we scoured the neighborhood grudgingly removing our flashy signs.  The next morning our crack team met for a reconnoiter.  We decided to have the sale but move the location to the twins’ house across the street since their mom was more supportive.  We set up a table in their front yard with a big sign “PET ROCK SALE” and waited for the hordes.  Our rocks were priced by size and intricacy of design from .5c to .25c and finally a budget busing $1.00 for Bobby’s beautiful ladybug rock.  And people came, not the droves that was expected, but we had a trickle of curious customers. Our biggest supporter was Bobby’s grandma who quickly sent over $1.00 to buy her grandson’s prized ladybug.  We debated whether we should charge her but that dollar was just too tantalizing.  In all we probably made a whopping $2.50 that day.  After the sale we had a heated discussion about what to do with this windfall.   We decided a candy picnic would be most equitable.  So, we took all of our pennies, nickels, dimes and dollar bill and triumphantly walked over to Helen’s Candy Store.  Helen’s was a neighborhood icon filled with shelves of colorful, loose penny candies and an ice-cream counter where for a rarely afforded  .25c you could get a scoop of the best tasting ice-cream on a crunchy cone.  The only downside was that you had to put up with surly Helen when you walked in.  She would bark at you if you took too long looking and was just overall marvelously grumpy.  We spent all of our earnings and left with a paper bag full of candy.  Then, we set up a blanket on the twins’ front lawn and joyfully feasted.  I don’t remember if we invited Bobby.