30 Nov December at Experienced Goods (2024)

By Jennie Reichman

We are entering the time of year when shopping is tantamount. Somewhere around the week before Thanksgiving, everyone really gets it that summer is over, winter is in the wings, and Christmas is (yikes!) a few weeks away. For several days before we closed the shop for the Thanksgiving holiday, donations seriously spiked, telling me that people were cleaning out that spare room/closet/kitchen in anticipation of visiting guests and the desire to present them with a tidy, welcoming place to stay. Shopping also shifted into high gear. Every day we met people from places outside the Brattleboro area, visiting Experienced Goods for the first time and thrilling to the amazing array of quality goods and the low prices. I feel so proud of our store and the work all of us put into making it the delightful place it is.  

I’m also proud of the fact that so many people choose to shop for holiday gifts at Experienced Goods. In a world where big box stores and online shopping dominate the retail arena, finding unique, carefully selected presents for loved ones at a thrift store is a kind of radical act, a way to short circuit the drive to purchase newer, bigger, fancier products that are relentlessly marketed to us on our devices. I admit, I am a brand and quality snob, especially when it comes to clothing. I sometimes mindlessly scroll through the websites of companies I like, imagining wearing the latest, coolest, cutest thing. But I know that eventually that great item of clothing will come into Experienced Goods, so I rarely even consider buying it brand new at an exorbitant price.  

There is also the issue of need versus want. I have been reading a book of autobiographical essays by one of my favorite authors, Ann Patchett, entitled These Precious Days. One of the chapters is called My Year Of No Shopping. Following the example of a friend, she realizes how she had been using shopping to numb herself to distressing aspects of the world, and that it left her feeling worse rather than better. She decides that for a year she will only shop for essentials, and use what she already has rather than buying a new dress/lip balm/electronic device. She marvels at how not shopping saved an astonishing amount of time. How it freed up space in her brain for thinking about how she could help people who have less and need more. I feel like shopping in thrift stores, especially Experienced Goods, embodies these ideas by both benefiting people in need (Brattleboro Area Hospice) and at the same time scratching the shopping itch. Time spent poking through the housewares section, perusing the book section, looking through the racks of interesting clothing is usually time spent de-stressing and is anything but mindless. What you buy in a thrift store, while it may fulfill a want rather than a need, is better for our community, our planet, and definitely for our heads.   

As the year draws to a close, I want to acknowledge someone who was much loved by all of us at Experienced Goods and by the larger community: Shirley Cutler, mother of our own Eric Cutler, passed away in mid-November. Shirley worked at Experienced Goods first as a volunteer and then as an employee for many years, known for her sweet disposition and ever-present kindness and generosity. Shirley’s life revolved around service to others. She worked as a victim’s advocate for the Vermont state’s attorney and was a trained paralegal, a voice for people who might not otherwise be heard or treated fairly. She loved to bake, and had a dream of opening a little chocolate shop she wanted to call The Chocolate Forest. She loved Eric, her only child, with a fierce, unwavering dedication, always tremendously proud of his talent as an artist and performer. Shirley was independent and engaged with the world to the end, a much tougher cookie than her gentle demeanor betrayed, and I hope I can emulate her tenacity and positive outlook as I age. As we move into this dark, introspective time of the year, light a candle in your heart to remember her, and maybe bake something involving chocolate.