Last Saturday, my wife and I, along with friends from a neighboring county, gathered our goods in our garage and driveway and joined the vendors of the vanished and venerable to hold our first ever yard sale.

Unbeknownst to us, it was a day on which it seemed every block in our development had also scheduled a yard sale. (And, as it turned out, one of the most gorgeous sunny days of the late spring.)

When my son and his friend went out to the main roads the night before to post signs pointing to our sale, they discovered a half dozen other signs already in place pointing to yard sales in our neighborhood.

"That's good," I told my son. "We're on the main drag to every other house in the development. We don't need advertising. They'll all drive by here to get to the others."

And so it happened.

We're new to this. My next door neighbor, who doesn't miss a neighborhood trick and sauntered by about mid-morning, said to me: "You were a little late getting started this morning."

Incidentally, he purchased a tiny flashlight from one of our tables. I'd marked it for sale at a buck. He offered me fifty cents.

"Give me seventy-five cents and it's yours," I countered. He did. We're still friends.

Chests of drawers seem to be a hot item this season. We sold two, and both weren't on the macadam of our driveway for more than 10 minutes.

The whole family got into the spirit. My teenage son sold two of his athletic shirts (no matter that one was purchased by his younger brother). He also made $25 selling baseball cards. My daughter sold some clothing that was too small for her, and my youngest, seeing there was profit to be made in this enterprise, threw a few of his books into the sale. I don't know if they sold or not, but we made sure he got a couple of bucks out of it.

The kids also set up a lemonade stand under the shade of a tree in front of our house. I think, counting the paper cups I bought, it cost us about five dollars to supply the stand (not counting ice). At last count, I think the kids had just about broken even.

I overheard someone say, "I had a yard sale once, but I decided it wasn't worth it. I did too much work and didn't make a whole lot."

We made mistakes. I put out a book for sale at a dollar that had a bargain-book sticker on it noting it had been purchased for 99 cents. I'm sure some people walked away with small items they didn't pay for.

Unless one is a flea-market entrepreneur, this conclusion is inevitable: There is no profit in yard sales; they take lots of preparation and will use up half of a leisurely weekend.

Nevertheless, one walks away with some pocket cash one wouldn't have had before, and the money came from getting rid of a bunch of things that were largely forgotten and taking up space in the basement, the garage or in some corner closet.

During the morning, I met neighbors I hadn't known before. I had small talk conversations about some of the books that were sold. Good friends who rarely get to our house came by to see how things were going.

I even convinced a woman to buy a copy of "1000 of Milton Berle's Favorite Jokes," by telling her it was a book we'd kept in the bathroom for a while for light reading, but my wife decided after a couple of months that too many of the jokes were derogatory. Berle's book became a piece of junk in our house. For fifty cents, it's now going to delight an elderly couple for another season. I only hope it winds up in their bathroom.

I figure everybody wins at yard sales. The professionals, who scour these sales at the earliest possible moment, drive off with items they will place on a store shelf somewhere and earn maybe 20 or 30 times what they paid for it; some neighbors will find "just what they were looking for" at a price that is a fraction of what the stores are selling the item for; some will find items they didn't know they needed or wanted that will prove invaluable (that's happened to me frequently with books purchased at yard sales); some will get needed items to nursing homes and hospitals, and the seller winds up getting rid of something that was not useful or profitable and in fact may have been costing something just in taking up space.

I don't know many aspects of American culture of which it can be said, "Everyone goes away happy."

I think the neighborhood yard sale may be one such event.