Off Campus Corner Ten-Cent Treasures Buried in the Barn

Author: Lynsey Waite
Staff Writer

The Clothes Barn, a friend informed me, is just that: a barn full of clothes. Piles of used t-shirts, jeans, skirts, and coats. And the tantalizing possibility of an overlooked treasure. Plastic booties are placed over shoes and you wade, tossing rejects aside as you struggle through heaps of clothing.

Two roommates and I piled into the car and took a left on Route 7, heading north out of Middlebury. The Clothes Barn had no listed phone number and no website. The lack of contact had caused mild panic. Our generation is accustomed to cell phones and 411, colorful websites offering detailed histories and cheerful voices reciting set business hours.

I imagined a large, drafty barn sitting alone in a desolate field, silent except for shrieking gusts of wind, doors bolted shut and windows dark. This morbid image was somewhat dimmed by my friend's assurance that the Clothes Barn did exist. I just had to stop being boring and go.

So we went, following Route 7 North to South Burlington and cutting across to Interstate 89. After half an hour on 89 North, the familiar path to Montreal, we took the St. Albans exit. Then we proceeded to become very lost. Our directions were vague. One line read, "Take road out of town. Turn right on (Burroughs?)." This at least provided an opportunity to explore St.

Albans, as we searched for any road that began with a B.

Main Street was old brick and cheerful Christmas lights. A friendly lady in a candy shop (homemade fudge…yummy) gave us slightly less confusing directions to the Clothes Barn and we set off again.

We found a barn on Bringham road. The surrounding fields were snowy and silent, although not as foreboding as I had imagined. The driveway was muddy and icy, a treacherous combination for my roommate on crutches.

We slowly circled the house and barn, trying to determine if we had actually found the Clothes Barn. There was no welcoming sign, but we could see piles of clothes through a window. A dark window. The Clothes Barn was not open for business.

We tentatively knocked on the front door. It was opened by a small brown-haired woman. She was wrapped in a red flannel shirt; the television glowed behind her. Her name was Pauline, and she told us the history of the Clothes Barn as we stood in her living room.

She began the Barn as a charity, washing bags of used clothes from local churches. Eventually, she decided that people would be more willing to accept help if they didn't feel patronized, and she set a price of ten cents for any piece of clothing.

Today, that price remains. The Clothes Barn is open spring through fall, and anyone can enter looking for a ten-cent treasure. It will reopen in April of this year. So on a warm spring day, drive to St. Albans with a few things you don't need anymore, have a chat with a very special woman named Pauline and find a great vintage shirt for the next McCullough.