Not long after I moved my laundry baskets into Parker Residence Hall, I had the strong compulsion to go.
Overwhelmed by a sea of overeager 18 year olds and pre-planned activities, I needed to be somewhere that didn’t feel my own age. The PTA Thrift Shop didn’t, and so, though Carrboro seemed a bewildering string of alphabetical bus names away, I went.
Call it an affinity for used things, or if you’re being generous, a genetic love of treasure hunting, but I loved that place.
Earlier this week, it closed its doors. No fear — they’ll open again in eight months, and meanwhile operate a temporary facility near Weaver Street! — but an ode is appropriate now because in eight months, I’ll be graduating.
Living on a spacious campus doesn’t preclude the need for more space. Every student feels the urge at some point to find his or her way out of the proverbial bubble and get lost off campus.
It feels good and necessary to be around people that did not graduate from high school the same year you did, to touch furniture that has a history beyond the Target college aisle.
Going to such a place might only be for an hour or two, but it’s a way to reabsorb the predicated knowledge that while we live in a college town, it is still a town with a lifeblood of its own.
The thrift store is a particularly lovely example of this lifeblood: It benefits local schools, and it depends on a philosophy of mutual community generosity and the belief that what is old can be made new. It’s more than a store; it donates its profits of more than $200,000 to schools every year.
For me, as for countless other students, the PTA Thrift Shop off Jones Ferry Road was the place to be reminded of what it is to be a student in a larger community.
