Friday 7/28/06

Lamont Dr. – Decatur “Estate Sale”

In attempting to make my life more productive, I have told me self to never wait in line at a sale. On this Friday morning I productively exercised at the YMCA for a good part of the morning then headed towards Decatur to visit this sale then run some errands. When I arrived the sale in this plain looking one story brick home had been going on for an hour and there was still a line of nearly 20 people waiting to get in. The last time I waited in line was also at a sale in Decatur that I emerged from great displeasure. So I told myself I would allow myself no more than 10 minutes of waiting.
After twenty minutes I found my self inside a crowded space filled with buyers. My stay here was reminisant of my visit to the Alhambra in Granada a few years ago. There were so many people on every side of me that it way difficult to fully realize where I was and what was happening there. There seemed to be only five rooms in this tiny crowded house. The entry living room was filled with tables displaying clutter including jewelry, bric a brac and serving pieces. Beyond that was a kitchen, a study filled with clutter and two bedrooms. Between these rooms was a bathroom with an assortment of old wicker furnishings placed in the tub.
I focused my attention on the den where a desk held a large pile of newspapers and ephemera. As a dilettante collector of American ephemera I immersed my self in the pamphlets of motels and tourist attractions from the Middle Atlantic States in the mid 20th century. After spending some time there I wandered through the rest of the home inspecting the remnants of the life of its former occupant. Aside from a kitchen crowded with cookware and appliances there was not a lot outside theses room that gave an indication of what sort of life had gone on here. The bedrooms were devoid of clothes and one lacked a bed. But on the dresser of one was an unopened package of My Nik is Sealed, an ointment for ending bleeding. In one a small hallway leading to the bedroom was a table laden with Xmas décor. On the table was a disagreeable looking Santa holding a Coke bottle. On a book case in the hallway I found a jumbled mass of books that included “The Best Cat Ever”, “Happiness”, “The Age of Reptiles”, “The Four Seasons Cranberry Book”, “The Dynasty of Abu” and “I Cured My Arthritis You Can Too”.