eBay the Right Way
Learn how to sell on eBay the right way. Suzanne A. Wells has been selling on eBay since 2003 and has been an influencer in the eBay community since 2007. This podcast is designed for the full or part time at-home seller who loves the reselling process including the thrill of the hunt, rehoming used items, and building a home business they love. eBay is a way of life, not just a side hustle. Suzanne has been featured in Money Magazine, Martha Stewart Magazine, Women's World, and All You magazines as an eBay expert. You can find her on YouTube and Facebook as Suzanne A. Wells.
eBay the Right Way
Candid and Funny Chat with my Brother Johnny the Dulcimer Maker: Growing Up in the 70s and 80s 😁
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Hey, everybody out there in podcast land, I'm Suzanne, and this is episode number 247, of eBay the right way. Today's date is December 10, 2025 and due to crazy holiday schedules and illness, my scheduled guest, Becky was not able to do the Zoom call for the podcast, so stepping in is my brother, Johnny in Georgia. No announcements today, so let's go straight into the conversation. Welcome back, everybody. I have a very, very special guest with us today, one who was a little reserved about coming on this podcast, but I think we're going to be okay. So we have my little brother who goes by John out in the world, but he'll always be Johnny to me. So there you go. How are you doing today,
Unknown:Johnny? I am doing great.
Suzanne Wells:Okay, so I wanted to do something a little different for my listeners. It's the holidays. Make a little different, make it more fun. I wanted my people to meet my brother. Here you are, so let's start off with us as kids and stuff like that. So we are two of four children. Our older sister Jenny is number one, I'm number two, you're number three, and our youngest is Trina, who is the baby. So we are in the middle. What year were you born again? 68 so we're a year and a half apart, in
Unknown:May 31 Yeah. Since we're in the middle, we remember, we remember a lot of same things. I feel
Suzanne Wells:like you and I are the closest in like relationship, even though Jenny and I are a year and a half apart, you and I kind of bond better.
Unknown:Don't you think? Do you want me to introduce you?
Suzanne Wells:They know me, but I'm sure you're going to talk about me
Unknown:so about you, because that's part of getting to know me. So Suzanne was really adamant about doing my homework when I was younger.
Suzanne Wells:Not really. Yeah, no, that was, that was mom saying, Suzanne, you need to help Johnny with his homework, because Suzanne was a really good student, and we didn't know at the time that you had some learning disabilities, and it just didn't come to you the same as it came to me. So our parents got divorced when I was 13. You were, what, 11, and our mom went to work, and so we were 80s kids. We just had to figure it out all the
Unknown:good stuff. And we, we were
Suzanne Wells:latch key kids. We came home from school and let ourselves in and got a snack, and I did the laundry. And you, as we got older, you had activities you and Trina that i i drove you to, and all of that. I saw something on reels the other day about that 10 o'clock thing at night where the celebrities are, like, it's 10pm Do you know where your children are? Yeah, because our parents, they didn't, we'd be up in the street playing kick the can or whatever they didn't know, going
Unknown:through sewer pipes, playing in the creek with your Barbies,
Suzanne Wells:yeah, getting under the sewer, going through those and we saw the most giant spiders down there. Yet we still would go back for more. And, yeah, yeah, and just no bicycle helmets. No. I think Trina had a sort of a crappy, rickety car seat. But it wasn't for safety. It was just for something for her to sit in.
Unknown:Well, we had a lot of fun riding down the driveway on the big wheel into the street without looking for traffic. That's one of them that was really safe.
Suzanne Wells:Oh yeah, you and Michael Caine trying to be evil. Can evil, and setting up that ramp with the bricks and the board ramps, and like he did a I was watching y'all and he did this complete flip on his bike and fell on his head. It, I think you had to go hospital, didn't? You did? Yeah, yeah. And you were, what, like, 810, I don't know. Y'all weren't teenagers yet.
Unknown:No, you know, you did torment me a good bit, like rolling me down the stairs in a cardboard box.
Suzanne Wells:No, you misunderstand. We were playing Six Flags. That was, that was a ride, and so I put you in a box and pushed you down the stair.
Unknown:So, Freon, I don't know, you may know, Suzanne is very academically. High School. She got academics college, she got good academics, and she was a gymnast on a high level. She excelled in everything that she did. You know, I was thinking this morning, I can't ever imagine you working for I remember when you worked for Wachovia, but I can't remember you ever working into a business, working for somebody else, ever again, because you've always been a step ahead of everybody else. Yes, because I
Suzanne Wells:don't take direction very well. I gotta be deciding what I'm doing. So no, I did. I did work going all the way back. I started teaching gymnastics after I injured my knee and couldn't do it anymore, so I taught the little kids, and then I worked at Kroger grocery store, and I was, I was a bagger, because everyone started as a bagger, and then they're like, Oh, well, we have an opening in the seafood department, and it paid a lot more than bagging. I remember the smell, I do, yeah, I'm sure. And, and I did that for, I don't know, six months, and because it paid more, it was hard. You had to set up the case and take break down the case, and I made the clam chowder for the customers to sample, and I got on a loud speaker. And although we've got salmon steaks for this much, and that's when they have a lot of lobsters, right? Yes, and we have live lobsters, and that was a great experience, because I learned how to filet and steak salmons, and do all kinds of different things, but it was a stinky job, that's for sure. I would come home and wash in tomato juice and like, get to get the smell off. Thank you for remembering that. Okay, so then after that, I did temp work with Kelly Services, and like, receptionist and Secretary as I was going to Georgia State at night, and then started working for banks.
Unknown:Yeah, so where was it that you went to the World Fair? Oh, that
Suzanne Wells:was 1982 in Knoxville. Our gymnastics team went there. Okay? Like, for three days, we did three performances a day. It was exhibition, yeah,
Unknown:okay, yeah. I remember that was a big deal. I was a little young, but I remember that,
Suzanne Wells:yeah, that was a big deal. Actually had
Unknown:a balance beam in our backyard, yep, yep, and yeah.
Suzanne Wells:But we were, we were the typical 80s kids. I remember you and the neighbor down the street blowing up your army men with firecrackers.
Unknown:We did that. And do you remember those, those turtle sandboxes? I think they still make them with the lid. Uh huh, yeah, yep. Friend and I would take that, and we must have been really small, because we would take that, sit in it and float out on the lake with it.
Suzanne Wells:Oh, really, I didn't know that, yeah.
Unknown:And that was pretty dumb, but it it worked.
Suzanne Wells:You you duct tape this neighbor kid to a tree one time.
Unknown:But we're always testing our limits, you know? And what was big at that time was, what, $6 million Man, Incredible Hulk, all those that exemplified strength, and I don't know it's just a bunch of weird things boys did back in the 80s. Yeah, superhero stuff 70s. That would have been mid 70s,
Suzanne Wells:but superheroes is what you were doing, right? Yeah, yeah, but that was the 80s, and we just played outside. You know, you'd come home from school and get a snack and go outside and play with your friends. Yep, or, or, when we were older, and I was driving, I would come home from school and take a nap. Unbeknownst to me, you were driving around the neighborhood in my car, and you were like, What 13
Unknown:I would at first, it was just going up and down the driveway, and it kind of worked like a go kart. I thought, so
Suzanne Wells:it's a car, but to
Unknown:live in a neighborhood, drive around the block and think that, oh no, neighbors, neighbors won't see me. Nobody called the house, yeah, but that was, I felt like. That was
Suzanne Wells:because that was the 80s. All the parents, all the moms, were inside day drinking, or they were too busy covering up what they were doing. They weren't worried about us, you know, yeah, and then we had those houses that were built behind us where the some farmland was sold, and they started building houses. And you, you and your friends would go back there and find, like the construction workers wallets, and you find all the stuff.
Unknown:Oh, well, you we remember we would go pick up cans and take them to Treasury drug, I mean, bottles, yeah, and buy candy with it. And probably a lot of people
Suzanne Wells:our age did that. That's what you were doing, was picking up cans and bottles to get money for it, and you just happen to find more stuff. Yeah, I was too busy doing my homework and being studious. I didn't do that.
Unknown:Yeah, we'd feed the horses sugar cubes in the backyard, which, yeah, it's now a subdivision right. Jump out of the hay loft into the hay. I mean, it was a, it was a good ride your bikes five or six miles from the house without telling your parents and just
Suzanne Wells:hanging out and anywhere, just anywhere y'all
Unknown:just be back before dark. So
Suzanne Wells:yeah, and we crossed the busy roads, and there was that produce guy that would come up at the corner of North Peachtree And Tilly mill. And it was just a guy with a big truck, and he'd sell produce off of it. And so our mom would send all four of us up there together. That's right, I think she just wanted to get rid of us for a while, and we, you know, get tomatoes and corn and okra and cucumbers. And that was some pretty good produce. I remember, yeah,
Unknown:and come back and do it, shut corn in the garage. Uh huh, yep. And that was a family. I was actually a family. Thing we did, yeah, I remember that. And then we get all itchy. Dad was there. And, yeah, it was, it's a family. You know what we did a lot as families when we're young? Yeah, well, that's one
Suzanne Wells:thing I was going to mention. Was we grew up in a big family, four kids and the parents for most of it, and I think we were one of the biggest families we knew.
Unknown:Yeah, they were. Our parents were good at keeping us busy. We all were on swim team. We ride our bikes to the pool for practice. And then Jenny was on the diving team. Our older sister was on the diving team. I'm not sure when you got into gymnastics, but
Suzanne Wells:Well, I did, I did swim team, and I did not like it. I was not fast and, well, I mean, I just that wasn't my thing. And then I was like, Well, I want to try diving. And because I was taking gymnastics at the same time, and those two kind of went together, I won a bunch of stuff in the diving competitions. But, you know, they never made Trina do swim team. They didn't make her. She just stood on the deck and would go to the concession stand and just eat hot dogs and drink Coke and watch us. And I thought that was so unfair. Why do I have to do this? I don't want to.
Unknown:Well, let me tell you, those hot dogs were good. I know. I love collecting my swim ribbons and hanging them from my shelf. Mm, hmm. And now that gave you a lot of pride because, but back then they didn't give you. Not everybody got a trophy back then, remember,
Suzanne Wells:that's right, and there are no goggles and no swim caps. You just go, you know, you just jump in and go, and, you know, your eyes are burning because you're open your eyes underwater. Yeah, and we didn't, and we didn't have, like, one parent brings the snacks for practice. No, you just came after school, or in the summer, it was early in the morning and just did your practice. And we didn't, you know there. We weren't bubble wrapped children, so to speak. We just had to know. I remember
Unknown:after the winter and our first swim practice at seven in the morning that water was freezing. You would lose your breath. Yes, just but if the first few laps, and you're like, Why do I have to do this? But, and you know, back then, all the pools were outside. Now they have all these aquatic centers with heated pools, and
Suzanne Wells:you wanted to be at home in the kitchen with your feet on the counter, watching the tiny TV and eating fruit, Fruity Pebbles,
Unknown:right? And Oreos and
Suzanne Wells:everything that wasn't nailed down. Yeah, yeah, and
Unknown:we didn't see each other a whole lot. But you know what Suzanne reminded me today? We talk frequently now, but Suzanne was in and out. She was downstairs in the basement studying. She was a gymnastics and the only time I'd see her was when she was just walking by. And so that was a joke. That's a joke now it says, I don't I never see you. I only see you when you're
Suzanne Wells:walking by. I see you for like one minute when you're walking by.
Unknown:Very serious. I know you
Suzanne Wells:were and I was very serious. One. Time when you were watching TV, and I don't even know what the argument was, maybe you ate the last cookie or something, I don't know, and you made me so mad. And I had just got home from school, I had on my jeans and my Mia wooden clogs, and you smarted off or something. And I took that clog off my foot and I threw it across the room, and miraculously it hit you in the head. I've never hit anything in my life. I'm a terrible thrower, but somehow I hit your head and
Unknown:back then we sat like two feet from the TV, and with your feet up on the TV, changing the channels with your toes, she threw that like 20 feet, hit me in the back of the head, and I, oh, I just felt my whole head ring, and you
Suzanne Wells:just couldn't believe that I hit you,
Unknown:no, but I think I sassed you. And so then I kind of learned a little bit of respect
Suzanne Wells:that a little Yeah, well, have you had a clog thrown at your head since then? No, okay, well, then you, you did learn. And he moved on. I did. So there was that. And then, so, yeah, my bedroom was in the basement because we had an unfinished basement, and our older sister came up the idea of, like, having a room down there. And okay, so we would all get our own room, because I was sharing with Trina, the sloppy pig. At the time, she was just such a slob to live with. I hated it, because I'm very meticulous and orderly, and just drove me crazy. Anyway, Jenny moved down there, and they may have made her room in office or something. I didn't get my own room. She spent she spent the night down there one night, and she was creeped out. I think she saw a spider, or she just didn't like the vibe down there. And I'm like, I'll do it. I'll take it. I'll sleep in a tent back yard. Just have my own room. So, so I moved down. I loved it. It was nobody would come down there. I had privacy. And then, and then you got the drum set. Where are we going to put the drum set for Johnny? Oh, let's put it right next to Suzanne's room. Suzanne, the studious one who's doing her homework and stuff.
Unknown:I can't believe it, you slept through that, my journey and my Van Halen and my kiss. And you know, back then, you didn't have a headphone, so my boom box was cranked up loud trying to play over the mute with the music. Mm, hmm, and yeah, I can't believe how tolerant you were. You must have
Suzanne Wells:had some well, and I didn't have I had a Walkman with cassette player. But I don't like to listen to music when I'm doing my homework, I like it silent, so I guess I just put up with it. I don't know. I don't know, but yeah, that was hilarious, that you
Unknown:had tremendous focus. You had focus. So you
Suzanne Wells:mentioned the band KISS. You were obsessed with Kiss, and you got to go to a concert, didn't you?
Unknown:Yeah, we went to the Omni in Atlanta. I was my first concert. Who's we? Oh, I'm sorry, um, my neighbor. And we cut out all this confetti with hole punchers, a bag of confetti. And I remember dad took us, I guess I was seven or something eight.
Suzanne Wells:Oh, to a concert when you're that little.
Unknown:Dad took me to the concert, and he it was so smoky. And he told me after the fact, when I was older, that, yeah, they there was everybody was smoking marijuana around us, and he had such a bad headache afterward. What? I didn't know what it was. I thought it was just cigarette smoke.
Suzanne Wells:But how would you
Unknown:I know? So that was my first concert. My dad. Dad always remembered it as being something else. That's what
Suzanne Wells:he was well, and he took Jenny to see Ted Nugent when she was like 13. I did not get to go to a concert. I got to go to go to the World's Fair and do gymnastics, yeah, he took her to see Ted Nugent. I'm like, Oh, my Lord, that is not going to be good, because Ted Nugent is pretty rough back then.
Unknown:Yeah, we also, I also, went back with Jenny to see Ted Nugent again. Oh, I
Suzanne Wells:didn't know that, yeah. But were y'all y'all grown? I sure
Unknown:did a teenager, okay, oh, oh, yeah, yeah. And then we were leaving the concert, Jenny had a, y'all might remember the Celica
Suzanne Wells:two door. Yep, remember the Celica she was,
Unknown:she was working at a salon, and she was paying, you know, she bought that car, and as soon as we're leaving the concert parking lot, I said, Jenny, let's how fast your car can go. Well, she stepped on it for like, I guess, I don't know, about 100 feet, and a cop pulled her over, and we were both in the back. My friend and I were in the back. And he was she had to walk to the back of the police car, and you shouldn't be doing this with minors in the car. So, yeah, that's something that we laugh about. Like, yeah, can't believe you told me to do that.
Suzanne Wells:I can't believe she just listened to you. He was a little kid,
Unknown:yeah, showing off, you know, well, and then
Suzanne Wells:she really put you in your place on that beach trip when, because they are after our parents got divorced, our dad would take us, like, on a beach trip in the summer. Yeah, it was like the very lowest accommodations you can imagine. It's like one step above a military barracks. They were not great. They were not Airbnbs back then, folks, let me tell you, it was usually like Gulf Shores Alabama, because he grew up in mobile, and that's what where you like to go. And we go to Apalachicola and eat seafood and all that. And so on the way back, you and Jenny were fighting in the backseat, and she's like, sub it. Sub it, Johnny. Sub it. If you don't stop it. I'm gonna put this gum in your hair. And you did not stop it. And she put the gum in your
Unknown:hair, she did.
Suzanne Wells:And we have pictures. We okay. You tell it, go ahead. No.
Unknown:So what? We pull over to a Hardee's. We pulled over to something, something like that. And dad had his pocket knife. He says, I'll get it out. He cut my hair. I had a big bald spot back there.
Suzanne Wells:We have pictures of this, yeah, him sawing out a chunk of hair with gum in it. And it was just, it was like, you, you learn some respect for Jenny on that day. We learned that she says it, she means it, she didn't do it.
Unknown:You bigger sisters have power, yeah?
Suzanne Wells:Well, I mean, growing up with three sisters could not have been easy,
Unknown:you know? Yeah, no, and you'll, I don't even remember you said that you used to do my laundry and do my ironing, do my laundry and
Suzanne Wells:Okay, that was more like when we were, yeah, that was when we were teenagers, because mom would was like, I need you to get the laundry going before I get home. And so I was, you know, 1314, it was not a problem, and I just did everybody's laundry. And but you you can go back to the part where you're talking about all the great things about me if you want
Unknown:helping you with your homework. No, so yeah, I can't believe I'm not doing eBay, because I did do eBay for a while, like nine years ago, and I was selling things, and I was making some money and but when I met my wife, Kim, about 12 years ago, she was into antiquing, and she had a couple antique booths. So for me to attract her, I had all the tools in the garage. So I went and got a bunch of pallets, and I started making things and buying up on a dresser redid. It kind of impress her. And that became, that became something that we did together. She no longer has her antique boost. I'm sure she would love to have him back, but she's really busy now. Yeah, always admired how you got started doing
Suzanne Wells:ebay so well, and y'all your life was just busy and with work and your your real job. And so you're born in 68 How old are you now? 57 so you know retirements coming, and that's what that's another reason I wanted to have you on was because you're another one of those people that sees the value of reselling in your retirement and wants to get it going and get it set up so that when you do make the jump, you've got something going. And Johnny has exceptional woodworking skills. Not only is he a musician, piano, guitar, drums, what else do you play?
Unknown:And you dabble in things. Anything
Suzanne Wells:he picks up he can play because I sucked at that. I could not do it. And you started making dulcimers, which is kind of like a renaissance type guitar instrument.
Unknown:They're, they're considered on the professional market market, Martin would make a a backpack guitar. It's a, it's a three string guitar. And for those of you that know music and it's, it's tuned differently, but yeah, I made those guitars. I don't know if you have that picture of me or not. Yeah, that's, that's going to be on there. Uh huh. Okay, so if you're a woodworker out there and you want to I was going to do it as a challenge or to make some extra money, but I enjoyed doing it so much that I started to give them away. Because what I would do is I would go to Lowe's, I would buy a stair trip. It, which was 36 inches long, I'd rip it with my saw. I would make four guitar stocks, so I can make four guitars out of a out of a stair tread, and I only used four tools to make those guitars. So I used a table saw, a chop saw, a drill press and a belt sander that turned upside down to be my sander. So I learned that on my own. And so yeah, like I said, I sold two of them, but I started giving them away, because I I put so much into them. And so after that, we started thrifting a little bit more and trying to resell things. I moved up to the north Georgia mountains, near Tallulah falls. We have a great goodwill down. A lot of the things that go to that are in the Goodwills in Atlanta that don't sell what they have like they mark them down three times or something
Suzanne Wells:like that. I don't it keeps changing, I don't know,
Unknown:but it all comes up, up to where I live, and they sort through it, and they bail all the clothing, and they send it overseas to other other countries. But we have a lot of great picks down there, and one big goodwill in our county, and mainly the rest of the places are thrifting stores, because we have a lot of private schools, and these stores provide
Suzanne Wells:for the, oh, they're just, like, independent, like, the Humane Society or something like that. Yeah, like,
Unknown:Habitat for Humanity. We have a Catholic school. They have their own store. We have a church, their own store. So there's a lot of different places to pick things from. We don't have a lot of garage sales because it's in a mountain to mountainous area. So there's really no subdivision. It's just mountain mountain roads, and nobody has a garage has a garage up here. But yeah, so we'd have a lot of unique finds up here.
Suzanne Wells:Okay, so you said pallets a little bit ago, yeah, to tell the story about the lady with the pallets. What job were you doing, and what was this all about?
Unknown:When I worked for an a trucking company, I would deliver to these stores where, you know, you you bid on the returns,
Suzanne Wells:right? Like pallets, like store returns, yeah, probably
Unknown:deliver them. And close to where I live, retail space is scarce, so half of the post office was leased out to a lady where she could have a thrift store. So I delivered, or a pallet of goods from Target, I think, and I mentioned, I just, I always mention you, and I run into somebody that's doing eBay in the garage, what have you. She goes, No way. Suzanne is your sister. And it was like, okay, so I guess my sister's famous. So I started to pay attention a little bit more about to what you're doing, because you have a lot of lot of videos. What?
Suzanne Wells:270 Oh, podcasts I'm on. This will be number 248, I have almost 1000 videos on YouTube. And then I have my my school, where I have 650 lessons. But what I wanted you to get to about delivering this palette was that it wouldn't fit,
Unknown:yeah, though, yeah. So we had to take all apart and pull it in the all in the door, and so she could set it up. But she's got a great little store and it's not that big. It's like 20 by 20, really, 20 feet by 20, yeah, but she has a big store room, so storefronts aren't uncommon, like that.
Suzanne Wells:No, no, I've had several people on this podcast that have their own thrift store. They just decided to start one because they could get stuff so cheap. And, yeah, but I just, I just cracked up when you told me that story, and you're like, oh, and we couldn't even get the pallet in the door. We had to break it all down and take it in a little bit at a time.
Unknown:Is that? Is that something common with eBay that people bid on pallets?
Suzanne Wells:Yeah, yeah. A lot of people do that. Store returns is a big one, like Costco, and now it's Amazon returns. Because, yeah, Amazon. It does not go back to Amazon. It's not cost effective for them to ship it back. It just go. When I was living in Greenville, I learned this, that it your returns don't go back to Amazon. They go to an Amazon return center that then sends the stuff to these places called bin time, or or something with a bin, and they just, they just dump all the the store returns, the Amazon returns in these bins, and go for it. But, yeah, that's been a thing. I think that kind of started maybe 2010 where people really started getting into that when they're selling on both eBay and Amazon. Because at the time, you can only sell brand new stuff on Amazon or books or media that kind of thing,
Unknown:but your eBay sellers are doing a great service to our communities by not throwing things away. They're actually just, you know, it's just like recycling, yeah, you know,
Suzanne Wells:keeping stuff out of the landfill. Yeah, absolutely, and I love that's one thing I'm really passionate about, is the cycle so like, okay, somebody passes away. Their stuff gets donated to Goodwill. I come along, find it, I market it, put it out there. Somebody buys it, they enjoy it for a while, and then they're going to die one day, and then it's going to go somewhere else, and it's just, it just keeps getting passed around. But like the other day, I sold a bundle of cashmere sweaters. All of them were not perfect. They had holes in them, like a lot of moth holes, that it was be too much of a pain to fix them, so I think I paid a couple dollars for each one. I put them together in a bundle and sold it as a craft supply. They would call them cashmere cutters, because people cut them apart and make scarves and hats and all kinds of things, and they sold for $40 in one day. And I did not make a ton of money on that sale, but I provided a craft supply for someone. I kept some things out of the landfill. And cashmere is a luxury fabric. It's not cheap, so I love that part of it is just, we get to be in that cycle of giving goods a second, third, I don't know, 50th, life, whatever it is that's to me, and then helping people learn about how to do this business, because it's so empowering be able to make money from home, like it's a real thing. It's not telemarketing, it's not, you know, all these scammy things that are out there. It's real. So that was, that's me being passionate
Unknown:Well, you know, and I mentioned you to this before, but it's hard. We had at a church where we once lived, there was a quilting club and a a knitting club, and it was more successful than I thought. So that when I go to Goodwill and I see, I've sold quilts and things like that, when you go and you see, you know how much time it takes to invest your time, and somebody that you've loved has made it, or they would have not have liked to see it, see it going to trash. So I picked up 10 of them one time, super cheap, for $5 a piece. And, you know, somebody spent a lot of time on those. Oh, yeah, so that's, yeah, I've sold many of those. And that's something that people overlook, especially this generation. They don't think about the time it took for somebody with their hands to make it,
Suzanne Wells:yeah, and handmade stuff sells very well. It it depends on what it is, of course, and how intricate it is, but that's something that the average person on the street doesn't realize. Well, why would somebody want this wedding announcement that's cross stitch and has the date of my wedding? Well, they take it apart and take that off and put somebody else on there, make it for another person, or just take the date off and use it themselves, or whatever. And what I think
Unknown:fascinating is those pictures that you find, the old pictures from the 20s and 30s and 40s. Uh huh. We've picked up a stack of postcards. It's like 300 postcards up in a in a mountain thrift store, and we've resold. My wife Kim sold those in her auntie store. People love to sit down just read through them, like love letters and right?
Suzanne Wells:Well, what I learned is that people take those and letters and any of that old it's called ephemera paper stuff, and they make journals. They'll get a booklet, and they'll put it in there. So it's like telling a story through time or whatever they're interested in. They cut the things apart and put them in these journals. And you can google ephemera journal and see what I'm talking about. That's, you know, anything old paper could be valuable. You just, you just have to look it up and see anyway I wanted to talk about with your, your life history that you went into the Marine Corps in. Was it 89 Okay,
Unknown:graduated boot camp in August of 88 actually. Okay, okay, so that was something I always wanted to do. You know, we grew up. Our generation grew up watching Vietnam movies and the black and whites and things like that. And I remember I always wanted to be prepared to. If there was ever a draft, you know, I don't want to be a newbie, so. But went through boot camp, which
Suzanne Wells:was great. Really enjoyed. It wasn't great. It was very hard. It was hard.
Unknown:But let me tell you, if you're a wrestler out there, wrestling, wrestling practice was harder than boot camp.
Suzanne Wells:Okay, yeah, you did say that. So you, yeah, you, we, we both did a lot of sports in school. So you did football and wrestle,
Unknown:yeah, play football and I wrestled. Then, yeah, play football.
Suzanne Wells:Did you run track?
Unknown:No, I didn't run track
Suzanne Wells:because usually the football coaches want you running track to be in shape in the off season.
Unknown:Well, my senior year, I didn't I did not play football. I decided to work, which my coach told me, I wish you wouldn't do that. Well, it's funny, I saw my coach five years ago, and I I was able to thank him. I said, Thank you. You were right. I shouldn't have gone to work. I should have played my last year of football at high school. But after that, I had several jobs
Suzanne Wells:I've done, but you had that sleek, sexy, cutless car that you were you wanted to put the stereo in it, and you had to have these rim covers and all. That's where all your money went. Was into that car.
Unknown:Yeah, working at Winn Dixie. Yeah, that was
Suzanne Wells:working at Winn Dixie, breaking open dog food bags you could bring home the dog
Unknown:food, unloading trucks den and can't, yeah, so I didn't, I didn't know got I was married early, had kids early. Realized that when I had kids that you can't make, it's hard to make a living. So I went there to go driving a truck, which was local job. I've done that for almost 30 years on and off. I was a manager at Target, lived in Hilton Head, lot of different things. So gotta
Suzanne Wells:you had a real estate license for a little while. You tried a lot of things, yeah, well, real
Unknown:estate during the day, and stock shelves and at a grocery store at night, keep insurance. So, you know, when you have a family young you just, you try to try to make it work. So, but I learned a lot of skills. So now life is good.
Suzanne Wells:Well, you learned so you were in, I think, Camp Lejeune. So you what, you were there for a little while. And me and my husband, at the time, were in Charlotte, and I think it was your first Thanksgiving away from home. Why don't you just come over, you know, come on over here. Because it wasn't what, two or three hours
Unknown:rode the bus.
Suzanne Wells:I know you. You took the bus out of Fayetteville, and I want to thank you for that, because it was the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. We went down to the Charlotte bus station, which I'd never even been in, a bus station like that. I was just mortified. There's just like, you know, homeless people and people in boxes, like, sit in their cardboard box, you know, drunk, and that bus station was packed, and it was, it was kind of scary for my little sheltered self. And your bus was, like, six hours late. Oh, I did not remember it came in. It was like, we just wanted to lay down and go to sleep on that nasty bus station floor, but we didn't dare. Yeah, we waited and waited, and you finally got there, and I was like, Oh, that place is horrible. So we go back to our place. We did Thanksgiving. I think Trina might have come too. She wasn't living in Charlotte yet, because she moved there in like 90 and
Unknown:so my, my, my sandwich that I made,
Suzanne Wells:I'm gonna talk about your eating. So that's all you did when you came over to visit, was you ate everything in sight. And we lived right next door to an A and P, so you just kept walking over there and getting stuff. So one thing you made was the peanut butter and marshmallow cream sandwich and you poured syrup all over it. Do you remember that? Yep, Ah,
Unknown:I remember that. And I don't I had a sweet tooth. That was crazy. But then again, we got all those Krispy Kreme donuts. That was my
Suzanne Wells:next thing to tell. Ate a wall. Yeah, you and William went to the Krispy Kreme and got a dozen. I didn't think I had them in the storage yet. I think it was just you had to go to a Krispy Kreme. Yeah. So, and it was Krispy Kreme was founded in Winston, Salem, North Carolina, so we're right, right in the homeland of that. And and y'all came back with that, and I had been doing something, working on my cross stitch sewing. So I was like, I'm gonna go take a nap. I came back out a couple hours later, and y'all were watching football, and you were just slumped over on the couch, like drooling, like in a sugar coma, because y'all ate that entire box of donuts and we hammered.
Unknown:Down on that one? Yeah, we hammered down on that one on you need to stop.
Suzanne Wells:Yes, that was well, because Krispy Kreme was found at the same year dad was born, 1937 that's why he knew all about it. And you know, the same year that the Hindenburg crashed, and like all the events in that year. So I just remember, and I was like, Johnny, do they not feed you there? He's like, Yeah, but it's terrible. It's just mushy, whatever. You know, it's not good, yeah. So yeah, we had a big joke about that. Okay, times, yeah, good times. And eat Kristy cream. Now, though it's, I can't either. It's too much. I don't even know if they make them the same. Everything tastes different. Now it's, I just don't think, I don't think Dairy Queen ice cream is the same.
Unknown:It's probably the fructose corn syrup they use. Oh, I'm sure, yeah.
Suzanne Wells:So yeah, that was, that was hilarious. Now, one year I when I was thick in the eBay stuff, I think you turned 40, and I bought you all these vintage toys for your birthday. Yeah, that was so do you remember what those were? Do you still play with them?
Unknown:Bought me Evil Knievel,
Suzanne Wells:which I used to play with, yeah, the wind up thing, yeah, okay,
Unknown:um, $6 million Man lunch box with thermos, right? You got me. What else
Suzanne Wells:did you get me? I got you the Fisher Price bus, yes. And so then what you did at 40 years old. You set up the bus so the evil can, evil could jump over it. It was in your kitchen. And you, you're like, look, we can use these two together.
Unknown:They had the best toys back then, all the superheroes, all the Batman and Robin and the Superman. I wish I, you know, I need to start looking for those. Those are really cool, like the Batmobile that would shoot the little darts out of the back. Uh huh, yeah. There's, if you
Suzanne Wells:want any GI Joes, I can hook you up with one of my previous guests, Paula, who was talking about she recently got remarried, and her current husband, he was a widower, and so he had a hassle of stuff, and she had just tubs and tubs of GI Joes.
Unknown:See, that's what I remember, the GI Joe that had a little lever in the back of his head. His eyes would move. He could move the lever. Oh, that was great. I enjoyed climbing trees and hanging him from rope. And I'm like, he's climbing the tree. And y'all might remember the the $6 million man that had the the bionic eye you could look through. It was like a and the arm, the skin on the arm, would roll up, and it would have electronics in, oh, I remember that, yeah, rolling it back down. I mean, those are some great well,
Suzanne Wells:and GI Joe was cool. He had that beard, you know? And, yeah, we used to, I don't know if you were there with us, out on the deck, we would play Barbies, and we we'd use your GI Joes, because we just thought Ken was a little I remember that was not our vibe. We like GI Joe better,
Unknown:yeah, but what a great opportunity we had to, at that age, to use our imagination and go out in the woods and go out in the sandbox and go out in the dirt and play. It's just too bad.
Suzanne Wells:Do you remember that time we went out in the woods with rakes and we raked it all? We're talking about half an acre, probably, yeah, and we it was, it was hilly, so you it was fun to ride the big wheel down through the woods, but we raked up all the leaves to make it like a track. And then dad comes out there. He's like, What? What did you guys do to the leaves? And we're like, we made a track. And he's like, No, put those back. We had to put it all back. Don't remember that? Yes. And then we would take when we were little, little and just moved into that house in Dunwoody. We played in the sandbox a lot, you know, out sort of near the woods. And one day, we took their fine sterling silver that they got for their wedding, like it was Gorham Chantilly. That's the pattern. It was Sterling. We took it out there and played in the sandbox with it.
Unknown:But it's the only, it was the only thing that had the same size as a shovel,
Suzanne Wells:good, because I don't even think we had plastic stuff, and we just were digging with sticks, and somebody had the idea, let's go get some stuff in the kitchen. So and then, of course, Mom was horrified. That's my fine silver. You children. Bring that back. Up here. And, yeah, that's why we became children of the 80s who didn't tell our parents what we were doing, right? Hey, oh, we were, we were behind the so and so's house. Play with matches in the woods, like we're not going to tell anybody that.
Unknown:Yeah, I remember that time that I was, we were, I think there was a swim meet, and I was behind the pool in the woods, and friends and I were making a fire back there, and all the smoke blowing over to the the
Suzanne Wells:swim match, oh, they didn't know what it was from. They didn't know where it was from.
Unknown:And if somebody came out there and saw that it was us. I mean, when you're a kid, making fires in the woods, that was fun. That's just part of growing up. Yeah, cook things and, yeah, science,
Suzanne Wells:catch things on fire.
Unknown:It's science. It's just, really is
Suzanne Wells:good cover story. But I'm not buying it. Not okay. And so, yeah, we were talking about all the great toys from the 80s. You had Dapper Dan, the one where you would, you know, do the clothes, the clothes were attached to him, but you would practice tying and zipping and buttoning and all that. And that was before
Unknown:the GI Joe. Everybody,
Suzanne Wells:right? That was when he was little, little and then Trina had dressy Bessie, which was the girl version of that, yeah, um, those are quite collectible. Now, if they're in good condition, I had missus Beasley. I do remember that, and I don't know what, well, I know what happened to her, because I went off to college, and mom sold all my stuff, I came back to visit, like, I came back for a weekend and I wanted to ride my bike around the neighborhood, out there and that hidden bluff place. And I was like, where's my bike? And she's like, Oh, I sold that to a neighbor. I'm like, what I love riding my bike. Why did you do that? And like all my treasured, my treasures from childhood, she had a garage sale and just sold them. And when
Unknown:you move, I tell you, it's you gotta decide what to hold on to.
Suzanne Wells:But we were not, we were not raised with going to garage sales and going to thrift stores. We we did the every fall clothes from JC Penney, although you always got new stuff because you were the only boy. I did not I got hand me downs from not only Jenny, but her friends, and some of them were, like, four sizes bigger than me, and it was not pretty, but it was free. So, yes, yeah, I got all her hand me downs, and I just hated that because they didn't fit. I and then Trina got new stuff, because by the time everything got to her, it was worn out. So she got new stuff. But, you know, we'd go to, we'd go to JC Penney or Sears, shopping for school clothes. Remember that? And she would, we would do it all in one day, all four of us. So, I mean, I always got new shoes for school because your feet are bigger. Yeah. And I saw another reel that made me laugh, that was all these kids dressed in, like, 70s clothing, with striped pants and a polka dot shirt and a, you know, camo jacket or something. And it says, you know, in the 80s, we didn't care what we wore, we didn't care if it matched, and apparently neither did our parents, because they're they're the ones taking the pictures of all these kids dressed in nothing that matches. I mean,
Unknown:it was a big thing to wear camel pants to work, camel pants to school, camel pants boots, members only, jacket.
Suzanne Wells:Oh, members only, that's right, Adidas was big, Yep, yeah, I wish we had saved some of that. And did you have any concert
Unknown:T shirts? No, it, no, I don't. I wore mine out.
Suzanne Wells:That's what I meant. You had them back in the day. I did. I would buy them at the
Unknown:because I work, I would buy them at the concert. Mm, hmm.
Suzanne Wells:Those are, are very collectible. You didn't know that till I told you, but they were like, what, $7 back
Unknown:then, and I know there's nothing now, they're like, 50 and 60, oh, when you go to the concert now, yeah, yeah.
Suzanne Wells:But you know some of them, like Metallica, that's the one that comes to mind, or any, any of those 80s bands, you know, motley crew, and what was the one that Twisted Sister and crazy bands? And, you know, a lot of them aren't together anymore. Obviously, a lot of them are. And boy, they look like they're 120 but they lived a hard life in the 80s, with all that hair and all those drugs,
Unknown:yeah, and all that smoking indoors and, you know, you should could smoke it in McDonald's.
Suzanne Wells:I'm pretty sure we poked a hole in the ozone layer from all the hairspray we used in the 80s. Aqua net, final net, adorn all that stuff. That we had, we had the big hair, three sisters with big hair must have been, must have been a lot for you. Yeah, it was a lot.
Unknown:No, we had a good time. Yeah, we did. So what? So what sells now? Do y'all still like sell the old, Easy Bake ovens and,
Suzanne Wells:yeah, you just have to look it up and see what's selling. The thrift stores, Goodwill have gotten smarter about what they put online. So, oh, I agree that people aren't finding what they used to find in the thrift stores because of goodwill online, they pull it, I think they go through the stuff, like with magnets, and that's how they identify what is like sterling silver or gold. Things that won't stick to a magnet are going to be your fine metals. And so, because I never, I personally never see any Sterling, but other people have found it, so I don't know what the process is. And maybe somebody listening to this could inform me, or be great if we could get somebody who worked at a goodwill to come on this podcast incognito and, you know, muffle their voice so it's not recognizable. And, like, get all the inside scoop on that. Like, that would be good.
Unknown:I found six little Sterling Silver Goblets, and I've sold them since.
Suzanne Wells:But did you sell them to be melted down or online?
Unknown:No, I sold it to a person that buys gold and silver. Okay, yeah, that's what a lot of people do with it. And what I didn't realize is that a lot of the silver the knives have concrete in them, like the ones back from the
Suzanne Wells:right, 20s and 30s.
Unknown:They weigh it up, and you're thinking, you're thinking it, you know, you got 20 pounds of of silver. But then they're saying, Well, we're only paying you for 12 pounds. But because there's concrete in the knives, that's what they used back then, you know, and then I still it'll still shank What is your regular job now? Oh, I still drive a truck 15 days a month. But then my wife and I work at a a nearby vineyard, which is fun up here in the mountains.
Suzanne Wells:So you're the you're the handyman at the vineyard, and anything else they need to fill in guy for, like, making charcuterie plates and working in the kitchen, or you just do whatever, right?
Unknown:Yep, pouring wine and doing the whole, the whole gamut. So now we have weddings coming up, so it's going to get getting pretty busy. So yep, I'll be doing that full time, hopefully some point.
Suzanne Wells:And what's the name of the vineyard? Do you want to share that? Yeah, it's Tiger
Unknown:Mountain vineyard in Tiger Georgia, just north, north Georgia. So Kim,
Suzanne Wells:would she start waiting tables there or something,
Unknown:working, learning the wine. And then, actually, you know, when you go to a winery, you want to know what the wine is, where it comes from. And so she, she's educated about the wine, and serves people the wine. And she's in, you know, the wine sales portion of it selling did so
Suzanne Wells:Kim's background is, she's very high up in the Pampered Chef organization three years and she, she, yeah, she does a lot of that, and she had her antique booths for a while, and now she this kind of just fell in her lap, and they're like, well, we could, we'd love to have you work here and do be a buyer for the wines or whatever. How that happened? It just kind of fell out of the sky. And then they were, they, Oh, we need, we need somebody to help us build these, these cabins, houses for our guest events. You know where it's like a wedding, and they have all these different houses. I call them cabins, but I know they're bigger. They call them villas, but yeah, they needed some help. Yeah, and she was and you're like, well, I'll do it. And that's us. That's you and me. We're like, the entrepreneur, well, I'll do it. So they, they hire you as an independent contractor to hang ceiling fans and finish out the bathroom and do all this, this work. You're like, the the all purpose guy that does all kind of things. And I think that's great that. I mean, you're kind of like not together when you're working at the same time. Are you
Unknown:sometimes we are when there are big parties. Yes, we are. So it's I never thought I would be serving, but I am, and I enjoy it. Those people are all over the country, so that's great talking to him and sharing what I know about the wine. And it's a beautiful place. It is. Yeah, we didn't plan on moving up here. We were going to move up here 10 years from now, but it just came early, and it's just feels like retirement, almost. So, so, yeah, but I, I do. I. Would like to get back into selling some things on eBay and find me a little niche. But I enjoy listening to your podcast so I can kind of get some ideas. It's fascinating. How different, how many different avenues people go and what they sell. And some of them like I was listening to one of your what was it?
Suzanne Wells:Craig from Yeah, Craig in Missouri,
Unknown:and he has a thrift he has a some booths at some thrift stores, right?
Suzanne Wells:I think they have antique booths, like at the antique malls.
Unknown:Yeah, yes, there's a lot of that up here.
Suzanne Wells:Well, there's, you know, when you're in into reselling, which we're going to get Kim, your wife, on here to talk about this. But you, you try every platform. You try Facebook marketplace, and if you're doing clothes, you do Poshmark and eBay and Amazon. And, you know, she did the antique booth, and she's got a lot of insight on what works and what doesn't work, or at least for her, yeah, she did she ever sell anything online, or was it just the booth?
Unknown:No, just, just the booth.
Suzanne Wells:Okay, yeah, yeah. I mean, some things are just, you're not going to ship them, so you put them in the booth. But yeah, she says, when I asked you to come on, she's like, Oh, I'm like, okay, yeah, I don't turn it, you know, my
Unknown:problem is that when I buy something, it's usually something I like, and I keep it and I end up not wanting to sell it. Like I have a lot of these old lights, you know, the the yellow pendant lights back in the 70s, from the chain. I bought several of those. And I love those, so I keep those, but I know that would sell pretty good.
Suzanne Wells:But well, maybe I need to come over and when you're taking a nap, I will get those pendant lights and put them in my car.
Unknown:Maybe not, and just
Suzanne Wells:turn about is fair play on the taking a nap thing as people are like, I don't want to come into my house, because she's going to see what I got. She's going to want to sell it.
Unknown:That's right, you do need to. You need, do need to come up. We need to go thrifting, and there's check out our Goodwill store.
Suzanne Wells:It's really great. Oh, absolutely. Let's wait for spring where we don't have to worry about ice and cold and all that stuff anyway. Well, we didn't talk much about reselling, but that kind of wasn't the point of this. It was the point of my audience, meeting you, my little brother. You'll always be my little brother. And I think you know, based on the all the tragedies in our family over the last two years, the four of us have gotten closer because, like, we're, like, the Final Four of the family, you know, right? This is it. You get busy raising kids and living your life and working and moving, and you gotta work on relationships. They don't just happen, you know,
Unknown:yeah, and make the effort, especially this time of year, make the effort to go be with family if you can. Yeah, because you take it for granted
Suzanne Wells:and talk to your people before they are sick and dying. Because, right, I wish dad had told us a lot of the things he told us there at the end, earlier in life, you know, I think it would have explained a lot of things. And, you know, people hold grudges because this happened, but you misunderstood the situation and all that kind of stuff. And, you know, he told some funny stories. And I'm glad that Jenny, she either recorded them or wrote them down. Yeah, she wrote them down and put him in
Unknown:that book, yeah. She was very diligent about Yeah.
Suzanne Wells:And we learned, we we didn't learn a lot of these things because he didn't want us knowing them, how poor he was growing up, and all that stuff. And it explained a lot, you know, and and then he got to where he couldn't speak, and then he wasn't conscious. And you know that window closes and you can't get it back, just like I wished I had talked more with Mima, our maternal grandmother, about her life. She was born in 1908, and you know what she saw in her lifetime is unbelievable, cars and highways and aviation and technology and modern conveniences, and just imagine being in that generation where when you were born is like vastly different than when you're old. I would love to have a voice recording of her telling some of these stories
Unknown:wells like selling on eBay, your sellers, they relish the past. They like stories of products. So I've learned in the past, I guess four years, I had a neighbor that was 91 and he was passing away, and I would go sit with him all the time in this driveway. But learn. To ask questions like, What was your favorite food growing up? What was your favorite toy? What was your favorite pastime? When's the first time you ever went fishing, and who was it with? They just love talking about it and the history it, the things that you learn and things you may come across at Goodwill or online that tell a story, but I did that with dad. Before he passed away, I asked him all those things, his favorite food it was, it being a sausages. I don't remember, but I wrote it down. Favorite food is a child well, he said that he would just take to school, he would take a sweet potato, and that was his lunch for the day. Yeah. So things like that, like, wow. So what a great thing to teach your grandkids.
Suzanne Wells:Remember that fishing trip we went on at St Simon's Island, and we got up at, remember Mr. Neff went, Oh yeah, it was you and me and this friend of our dads, and we got up at before sun came up, got on a boat, went out fishing, and 10 o'clock in the morning, he pulls out the cooler, and it's got, like, sardines and me and a sausage. And just like, like, I wouldn't eat that if I wasn't seasick, I'm definitely not eating that.
Unknown:Now, you ate when you were back then, do what? That's what you used to eat back then.
Suzanne Wells:I definitely like it. But yeah, yeah. And then we, we went out to eat seafood, and he taught us how to eat, you know, raw oysters, and with the Tabasco and the cracker. And I love raw oysters. Oh, I don't really run into a lot of people that just love them, you know, I do.
Unknown:Oh, well, good. We have a great oyster bar up here. Oh, yeah. So every Wednesday, they have special like dollar oysters. So yeah, get your, get your, your hot sauce ready,
Suzanne Wells:and yeah, we'll do it, yep. Sign me up. If there's food involved, you're more likely to get me there.
Unknown:Okay, there's a lot of food up here.
Suzanne Wells:Okay, okay, Johnny, well, what are you up to for the rest of the afternoon, chopping wood and hunting or what? Well, I
Unknown:kind of realized up here, since I haven't lived in the mountains, that I had this roof line in the back, and it's 50 foot, and I put a gutter on it. And now I know why that people that lived here never had a gutter on it, because it's 30 foot in the air, and so I cleaned out the gutters in the front and the rest of the day, I will wait for my wife to get home and make some dinner,
Suzanne Wells:and I'll wait for my wife to get home and let her
Unknown:clean out the gutter, the gutter. No, no, oh, don't have anything planned. I might even listen to another one year podcast.
Suzanne Wells:Well, you've got, would you listen to two of them? So you've got 246
Unknown:to go. Okay, well, I do drive a good bit, so I have plenty.
Suzanne Wells:Yeah, you can listen to them in your truck. There you go. It's, it's really neat. Well, thanks for coming on and meeting my audience and sharing some funny stories, because that's what I wanted this to be like. I'm a real person, just like you. I have siblings, I have family. Here's here's our dynamic. You know, it's a lot of laughing and being sarcastic, so it's fun.
Unknown:And I love your new place. I'm glad. Hope you enjoy it there.
Suzanne Wells:Yeah, got it all decorated and and it's very festive, so this Christmas is going to be a lot better than last year. We were running back and forth to the hospital and hospice, and it was just not a good time. So we are just, we're all making an effort to make up for it this year, right?
Unknown:Enjoy family. Okay, well,
Suzanne Wells:go enjoy your day of and, you know, take a nap, whatever, whatever you feel
Unknown:that's not that may happen.
Suzanne Wells:Good that's not completely out of the question. Good question. Well, you're home alone on a Saturday. Do it?
Unknown:That's right? Well, thank you for including me in this that was so nice of you. Well, thank
Suzanne Wells:you for agreeing to do it, and we'll check in again another time in the future. And if, if the listeners like this kind of thing, it wasn't super educational, but it wasn't supposed to be.
Unknown:So it's just something to listen to when you're driving and go out of town.
Suzanne Wells:Yeah, it's something like, it's not like the news is so depressing or people are so negative, yeah, I'm not doing any of that, so we're going to keep it light and happy. Good, okay. Well, have a good rest of your day. Love you. I love you
Unknown:too. Talk to you. Bye, bye. You.
Suzanne Wells:Next week, my guest is Kelsey, who recently posted the fabulous silver vintage Christmas tree that sold for $1,500 she's had some outstanding sales lately, so we will check in with her. Thank you all for supporting this podcast, and let me know if you liked this format more candid and casual than normal. I hope you have a prosperous and productive week on eBay and enjoy the holiday season. Bye for now. You you.