FLORENCE — OK, when you come upon a “yard sale” sign on a sidewalk it’s safe to say you’ll see an old bike or two. But 40?

Stan Pollack’s long driveway was teeming with bicycles, standing in rows all the way back to the barn. Pollack, known by many as Stan the Fixit-Man, had just finished a game of chess under a tree with his 7-year-old neighbor and was now teaching the boy how to patch a flat tire, when a couple, Josh Finkel and Dianna Bartel, on their way to Fitzgerald Lake, pulled in out front. Larry the dog woofed a greeting.

Finkel has lived in Northampton 20 years. “But Dianna just moved up here, for love,” he smiled, “this guy.”

But she needs a bike, nothing fancy, just something for short scoots around town. “Everything here is in good working order,” said Pollack, who thought the gray Strider might be a good match and offered her a helmet for the test-ride, the one with the flaming red Mohawk and RASKULLZ scrawled on both sides. Thus protected, Bartel pushed off heading west down the sidewalk. The horse-trading began.

“I was planning to start at $250,000,” deadpanned Pollack.

“I was gonna start at negative 20,” grinned Finkel. “What d’ya think — can we meet somewhere in the middle?”

“How ‘bout we meet at $150?” said Pollack.

“A hundred and fifty for that bike?” said Finkel, Bareu’s red Mohawk still visible in the distance.

“You’re right. $250.”

“When I first saw it, it was looking good,” countered Finkel, “but I think it’s got a little bit of rust.”

“So make me an offer I can’t refuse.”

“120,” said Finkel.

“I’ll go for it,” said Pollack, and the two shook the deal.

“I shoulda gone lower, I knew it,” muttered Finkel, a teacher at Northampton High.

Bartel returned but didn’t really like the feel of the bike. She tried another, a Mongoose Pro. “Oh, it’ll be twice the price for that one,” winked Pollack.

“Great, now I gotta haggle you back down again,” said Finkel.

When she came back, the bicycle’s lack of a kickstand was pointed out. “No kickstand?” cried Finkel. “You gotta have a kickstand.” The dickering recommenced.

Pollack suddenly recognized Finkel from a house call he made years ago. “Yes!” said Finkel. “A dishwasher. It’s been rock solid since.”

After trying out three bikes, and not finding the perfect fit, Bartel said “Thanks so much!” and the couple made for the car. But Pollack sweetened the pot. “If you pulled out five bikes that you really liked we can trade for that Mazda. It is a Mazda, right?”

“It’s a Mazda,” Finkel chuckled. “Got it at Pleasant Journey just before they closed.” And both men shook their heads and spoke in reverence for the legendary used car lot and its principled way of doing business.

Pollack waved and answered his phone. A pal was calling to complain that Pollack’s van parked out front and the orange cones at the foot of his driveway were impeding traffic. “Nonsense,” he told him, “I’m calming traffic.”

When Pollack, a child of the 50s, was told by the columnist that he had three years on him, he said, “I thought you were gonna tell me I had three years to live.”

Pollack, a Jersey boy with a master’s degree in agriculture from the University of Florida, brought that expertise to the Peace Corps and a two-year hitch in Brazil, “the alternative,” he said, “to shooting people in Viet Nam.”

But for all those topnotch professors he had in college, the best of all, he said, was his woodshop teacher in elementary school, Henry Hassell. “He really motivated me. My father had a workshop in the basement. You could use any of the tools as long as you put ‘em back. I made a wall mount with a silhouette of each tool and rearranged the workshop for my family. I was making stuff all the time, go-karts you’d take downhill and pray that the wooden brake would stop it before you crashed. I was always fixing things,” said the future Fixit-Man.

Since he was having trouble finding a good fit in his field, Pollack tapped into the other one. “I started knocking on doors — need anything fixed? A neighbor said, ‘Yeah, the screen on our storm door.’ Done.”

Then she leaned over the fence and pssst told the neighbor and Pollack’s phone began ringing. And ringing. In fact it was ringing all through our little encounter. One customer sounded ecstatic to have gotten through to the Fixit-Man and began listing the symptoms she prayed he could heal. “Go to my website and email me and I’ll get right back,” he told her. “And enjoy this beautiful day.” What was wrong? “I don’t know, she was building up to it,” he said.

“This was a temporary fix ‘til I found the perfect job,” he laughed. The aggie side of his makeup has long been represented in the kickass garden he and his wife of 38 years, Joanna Varaldi, grow on the property. The giraffe-like sunflowers they raised one year were deemed to be an overhanging hazard to traffic, causing law enforcement to come with ultimatums. So Pollack invited neighbors to hack off what they wanted for $25 a hack. Negatives into positives, the mantra of the home-repair guy.

Pollack also moonlights as a dog trainer, his “fantasy retirement job.” He’s adopted a section of the nearby rail trail and he and Larry patrol it twice a day. “If I find a beer can I squish it and Larry carries it home,” he said. “It’s always good to give ‘em a job.” Larry woofed and wagged at a visitor checking out a mountain bike.

More than half the bikes on display were kid’s bikes. “I’m surprised that people aren’t buying them,” said Pollack. As if on cue, three young boys from the neighborhood pedaled up the sidewalk and pulled in, eager to kick the tires on some of the offerings. After gently chiding one for riding without a helmet, he let the trio test-drive a few models, and even went for a straight-up one-for-one swap, trusting that he wasn’t getting fleeced. “No, that’s a good brand,” he said. “And he’s a good kid.”

The columnist went on his way, moving down the leaf-fluttered street, oddly calmed.

Bob Flaherty, a longtime author, radio personality and former Gazette writer and columnist, writes a monthly column about our neighbors going about their daily lives.