Dumpster Diving and a Rare Find

     After our dinner on a bright, crisp, and breezy Thanksgiving afternoon, my daughter, son-in-law, granddaughter and I strolled out into the yard of Grandmother's (my mother-in-law's) home out in the retirement community she lives.  We strolled and rambled down to the lake and enjoyed being outside after a very highly carbohydrate-loaded meal.  Fearing that Ashley Marie was getting sleepy and maybe too chilled, we headed back to the house.  We'd wandered the equivalent of maybe two or three blocks, down around the lake and across the road. 
     Coming back and heading up to the house, we saw a couple (and I'd like to call them an older couple but they were probably just a scant few years older than me) going through a couple of trash bins that had been set out to the street.  I called to them, "You two dumpster diving?"  They looked at me the same way my mother-in-law looks at me sometimes, when the real meaning of what I've said has completely escaped them.  "Looking for keys," the lady said to us in what sounded like a German accent.
     I'm not clear as to why they were looking for keys, how they'd come to lose them in a trash bin, or what they'd been doing at that particular house but over the next several minutes I was able to get from them that they lived in the house next door and for some reason, they had been watching the house.  It appeared to be empty, especially with all the odd items in the trash bin.......a multitude of misshapen coat hangers; old, broken Christmas ornaments; an old bent popcorn tin with a Christmas teddy bear on it; miscellaneous curtain rods....you know the stuff.  Odds and ends of what's left from someone's life when they've lived in one place for many years.

     There was, however, a box that caught my eye.  It was a torn brown cardboard box that was full of Reader's Digests.  I pulled one from the box and.....oh. my. gosh!  The one one I had pulled was dated September 1944. Brand new it cost 25 cents.   This was a box full of someone's collected issues of Reader's Digests.  The oldest one I've found was dated April 1937.

There's also about a dozen similar magazines called "Coronet" which I've never heard of but that my mother-in-law remembers having around her home when she was younger.  My goodness.  All you have to do is look at the covers to realize that these things have been around a while. Already I've found several articles and items of interest that I will just have to share with all of you.  Some of the advertisements are very............hysterical!  So when I can think of a really good title for a continuing series of interesting old magazine items, I'll share them with you.