Yard Sale Addict: Contrasting Estates In Avondale Estates 2/3/2007

Avondale Estates is a perplexing community. The aging Tudor community was once touted during the peak urban decline as the safest city in the Atlanta Metropolitan area. Today I had chance to visit the estate sales of two older denizens of this enviable close-in bedroom community. One home contained the detritus of a solid citizen who ventured from business acumen to the ramparts of Republican Christian alarmism. The other a possible Republican well who just faded away.

Dartmouth Ave. – Avondale Estates “Estate Sale”

This sale was in a compact Tudor home, typical of the community. Inside the home I found the professional resellers with their check out desk set up in the living room. As is my fashion I headed first to the basement hoping to find things less disturbed by the pillagers who had come on Friday. The basement was small area outfitted into a office space with shelves, a portioned bathroom and a work area. The shelves were lined with old Amway products, on top of a cluttered desk was a reel to reel tape deck, old Silvertone brand tapes with hand written labels, a camping lantern, old files, notebooks from Clemson containing engineering drawings, and a book entitled “Gullible’s Travels”. The Amway products included aging containers of Magic Foam, Anti-Soil, Neutral Odor and countless others. On a chest style freezer I found a box of slides depicting the same products, and a selection of old office supplies. Behind a stationary bike I found containers of plant food and a VHS tape entitled “Empty Tomb and Full Life”. On the walls was a no smoking sign, a novelty wanted poster and a green board showing a refund schedule. In the alcove bathroom I found a copy of the book “Praying with Confidence” next to the toilet.

Wanted poster on basement wall.

From the basement I headed up two flights of stairs to the second floor. There was not much left on this level. In one nearly empty bedroom I found a large painting of a pastoral scene on the floor next to a large piece of driftwood and a child’s rocking chair. In a closet I found some women’s clothes. On the wall was a framed copy of the first page of an illuminated Latin Bible. In another nearly empty room I found an old wooden ironing board with a pile of bedcovers atop it. A third room contained only an old encyclopedia.

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Downstairs had been well picked through. In the kitchen were some old cooking implements, in a breakfast nook a collection of nondescript glassware glowed in the morning sunlight cascading through a window. In the dining room were some old children’s books, including a bizarre version of sleeping beauty that featured a meddlesome giant stinging insect. Nearby was also a box containing old sheet music.

The living room contained some furniture and a few décor items but it was the den that held the true secrets of this estate. Here I found a vast collection of books that depicted a decline from savvy business person to paranoid Christian. Among the books I found were “How I Raised Myself from Failure to Success in Selling”, “Cliches of Politics”, ”The God of Stones and Spiders”, ”A Time to Love a Time to Die” “My War”, “Global Peace”, “The Mark of the Beast”, “How Democracy Will Elect the Anti-Christ”, “When Y2K Dies”, “What ever Became of Sin?”, “Terror Over America”, “Prophecy at Ground Zero”, “Old Age is Not for Sissies”, “How the Clinton Clergy Corrupted a President”, “The Beginning of the End”, “Guide to Survival”, “How to Survive and Prosper”, “Last Days in America”, “How to Be Rich”, “The Home Invaders” and “Future Youth, How to Reverse the Aging Process”. In addition to the books the room held a collection of commemorative plates with images of songbirds and events in the life of Abraham Lincoln. A box in this room contained a few dozen gosple, patriotic and inspirational Lps. One notable recording was “What Price Freedom” by The Re-generation.
I bought nothing.