Most Saturdays, I grab the paper and search for estate sales. I tend to focus on estate sales because garage and yard sales so often disappoint.
Generally speaking, the more emphatic the ad – ‘MULTI-FAMILY YARD SALE. THINGS FOR EVERYONE! TONS OF STUFF! CLOTHES! BOOKS! TOOLS!’ – the more disappointing the sale.
You get to the house and they have a three-foot piece of rope, a couple of Danielle Steele paperbacks, a 10-foot vinyl garden hose and two car seats that look like they’ve been buried under the house for a year.
By contrast, Estate Sales are fairly straightforward. The family or company just comes in, slaps price tags on everything and then opens the house to all comers. When I see one advertised, I get excited at the opportunity of finding some hidden treasure. Generally, I scope out old books, old LPs, and my wife searches for furniture, glassware and knick-knacks.
This past Saturday followed that estate sale pattern. My wife and I headed over to a house and began wandering about. We poked around the den. We sorted through glassware in the kitchen. We looked through the closets.
It has occurred to me before how odd it is to be tromping around someone’s house – almost like you are trespassing but it took on a new meaning when I came across a particular book.
Ellen Goodman, Pulitzer Prize winning Boston-based columnist, wrote a book in 1979 called Close to Home. I like Goodman and when I saw it on the shelf in the bedroom, I picked it up to purchase it. A standard practice for me when I purchase any book is to look at the inside front cover to see what issue it is and to see if the author signed it (I found a William F. Buckley-signed book like that once).
However, inside the Goodman book I found this inscription: “To my dear friend Mary – as you read these pieces please pretend that I wrote them because I wish so that I had. All my love, Franny. May 1982.”
It was at that moment that I felt like I was invading someone’s personal space. Why did Franny give Mary the Goodman book? Who was Franny? Were they sisters? Were they best friends? Mary kept the book for 27 years so it had special significance and he I was handling it and, eventually, buying it.
Some day some schlub like me will be poking around in the detritus of my life and will come across an item that had special significance for me, but they won’t know why and, well, that would be just sad.
By contrast, Estate Sales are fairly straightforward. The family or company just comes in, slaps price tags on everything and then opens the house to all comers. When I see one advertised, I get excited at the opportunity of finding some hidden treasure. Generally, I scope out old books, old LPs, and my wife searches for furniture, glassware and knick-knacks.
This past Saturday followed that estate sale pattern. My wife and I headed over to a house and began wandering about. We poked around the den. We sorted through glassware in the kitchen. We looked through the closets.
It has occurred to me before how odd it is to be tromping around someone’s house – almost like you are trespassing but it took on a new meaning when I came across a particular book.
Ellen Goodman, Pulitzer Prize winning Boston-based columnist, wrote a book in 1979 called Close to Home. I like Goodman and when I saw it on the shelf in the bedroom, I picked it up to purchase it. A standard practice for me when I purchase any book is to look at the inside front cover to see what issue it is and to see if the author signed it (I found a William F. Buckley-signed book like that once).
However, inside the Goodman book I found this inscription: “To my dear friend Mary – as you read these pieces please pretend that I wrote them because I wish so that I had. All my love, Franny. May 1982.”
It was at that moment that I felt like I was invading someone’s personal space. Why did Franny give Mary the Goodman book? Who was Franny? Were they sisters? Were they best friends? Mary kept the book for 27 years so it had special significance and he I was handling it and, eventually, buying it.
Some day some schlub like me will be poking around in the detritus of my life and will come across an item that had special significance for me, but they won’t know why and, well, that would be just sad.
-- 30 --
No comments:
Post a Comment