What's Cool About Free

July 26, 2005 |

Back when I lived in Los Angeles, I loved using the Recycler newspaper to buy and sell stuff for free. (This was before the Worldwide Web.) I missed it so much when I moved to Ocala that it's one of the reasons we launched Ocala4sale.com. Living in an apartment in Pasadena, it was never convenient to have a garage sale, but it was always easy to sell stuff through the Recycler. It was even cool to see how fast you could give something away. I remember placing an ad for a set of free kids encyclopedias that I didn't have room for — and being shocked at how many calls I got from all over the Los Angeles area.

I hoped that someday Ocala4sale.com could offer something similar in Ocala. A few days ago — after only seven and a half years of labor — I saw that vision come to life. My wife put an old computer on the curb with the trash. It was still working, but it was so old that it wasn't worth anything. I decided to put it on the site in our Free Stuff category and see if anyone was interested. Fifteen minutes later the phone rang, and a couple asked if they could drive up from Belleview to get the computer. 30 minutes later it was gone, and they were delighted to get some additional use out of the machine.

Is that cool or what!