If you are open to new experience, new experience finds you. In my time in Washington County, I’ve been drawn into the world of my farm, into the powerful struggle of dairy farms, county fairs, the world of livestock, hospice work, the Adirondacks.

Now, in my life with Maria, I have been drawn into what is for me the curious world of Thrift Stores, a key element in the struggling rural economy, and an important part of my wife’s life. They have their own niche, bigger than boutiques, smaller than department stores, places that institutionalize the American pastime, the pursuit of the bargain. Places that give poor and struggling families a chance to clothe themselves. This morning we went to the Salvation Army Thrift Store in Queensbury, N.Y., and my fascination with these places deepens. These “stores” defy class – you see rich and poor people there. Maria has been shopping in Thrift Stores for much of her life, sometimes because she had no money, sometimes because she loves bargains, sometimes because it fits her artistic notions of dress, and most recently, in search of material for her quilts, pillows and potholders.

Tomorrow we are heading to another store in Schuylerville. I always want to go along, partly because I love being with Maria, and in part because I want to take photos that try and capture the eerie, lonely, sometimes frantic atmosphere of these places. Veteran Thrift Store shoppers tear down the aisles like buzzards on a country road, picking the racks clean. Maria scored this morning, an armful of future fiber art for $16. I heard a father telling a clerk that he needed to clothe his two young daughters, as they wanted to go to a party and he had been out of work for a year. Behind him, a well-dressed suburban matron was plowing through the women’s dresses aisle, hauling out dresses to try on.

On this grey day, in this place, it seemed sad to me, and the photos reflected that. I will keep hanging out in these intriguing places.