continued from previous page little punctuation and zero explanation. Curious, we tracked down the creator of that last one via email and got the simple explanation: typing practice for a man with no word processing program. “As for McCarthy,” he wrote, “there’s a rythem [sic] that ‘The Road’ has. It sounds artsy, I know, but my digital dexterity has never been better.”
PHOTOS FROM RECENT ADS ON CRAIGSLIST.
Craigslist is understandably
popular among people who are new to the area and looking to acquire a few things — a job, furniture, friends — and those looking to offload some items on their way out. Jim King recently moved from Shasta County, where he’d been a counselor for troubled teens, to Eureka, where his new wife was born and raised. The two were blending their families, and with three kids apiece that meant a Brady Bunch-sized clan to support, with only his wife’s office manager paychecks for income. Their plan, which they’d been working
on for a year and a half, was to start a consignment store selling designer clothing for women. But whenever they got ready to make a down payment on a storefront, some financial setback would pop up. First it was divorce-related legal fees. Then the
home & garden service directory
18 NORTH COAST JOURNAL • THURSDAY, JUNE 6, 2013 • northcoastjournal.com
transmission went out on one of their cars; replacing it cost $3,000. They needed money, quickly. And so a few weeks ago, King put up an ad on Craigslist. “Only $20 to mow your lawn!” it said. And beneath the headline was a marketing masterstroke: a picture of him, his wife and their six kids, ranging in age from 3 to 15, gathered around a stump in a redwood forest. They’re all dressed in blue jeans and blue shirts, and they’re staring straight into
the camera as if hopefully waiting for a response to the ad. “I’m currently ‘between jobs’ and trying to feed my family,” the ad reads. King offers to mow, trim, weed-eat and clean sidewalk weeds. The ad has been working. “I’m getting such a good response that I’m thinking of scrapping the idea of a consignment store