Some people love their front yards and they want their lawn to be pristine so other people can admire it.  Well, I met a couple from Erie who doesn't want to showcase their grass.  They want to showcase something else.

You can't miss their property as you drive along Fairmount Parkway at Harrison Street.  Tom and Mary Lou Desin have decorated their yard with a display of items they have collected over the past 35 years.   It's like an outdoor museum.  It all started with the purchase of a bell during a trip to Buffalo.

"There was a yard sale and I saw that bell and I thought, ‘I want that bell.’  That's what started it,” says Mary Lou.

The collection has grown and grown since the purchase of the bell.  There's a potpourri of items.  A shovel, a leaping rabbit, a red wagon, a plow, a bird cage, a scooter, an old lawn mower, a sewing machine.  Everything is displayed neatly in the yard…hundreds of items purchased by the Desins at flea markets and yard sales across the country.

"We'd see stuff in places and we'd say, 'Well, that would look nice in the yard.'  We would get it and put it in,” says Tom.

Not everything was purchased at a sale. A tricycle was sold to the Desins by a young neighbor who outgrew it.

”He brought it up to us and wanted to know if we wanted to buy it. So we bought it,” remembers Tom.   

The Desins will buy just about anything to display on their property. 

"We were out in Zanesville,” says Tom.  “Amish guy says, 'Do you want to buy an outhouse?' And I said, 'Well yes, if you're not using it."   

The majority of the collection is made up of two of Tom's favorite things....old soda pop bottles and items from the oil and gas industry.  Just about every brand of pop is represented in the yard.  There's a nicely preserved gasoline pump.   There's also a truck door from an old gas station in North East.  

It's a fascinating collection.  People have been walking and driving by for years and stopping to take a look. Teachers take students on field trips here.

"That's my favorite,” says Mary Lou.  “The kids will walk by and comment. It's surprising that a little kid 8 to 10 years old would say, 'Oh look at that! That's so neat!"

Tom retired 14 years ago from GE. He says he is outside on his property bright and early every morning tending to the collection.

“I want people to remember the old days," he says.