My Past Life Estate Sale, Part II

Well Readers, on Saturday we had swept the sale, and after a few hours we decided that there were one or two things we'd left behind that we just couldn't live without. Unfortunately  the sale closed at 3:00P.M. on Saturday and we returned at 3:05! So we would just have to wait until the sale reopened at 1:00P.M. on Sunday afternoon.

(Pat, Jenn and Mick! Remember this picture, its important.)

Once again we scavenged through the records, them being eight for a dollar how could we not?

The more we dug through all this stuff, the more similarities we kept finding between the man who owned the house and myself. I write on my record sleeves all the time...

"Given to me by Simon Gonzales

March 1, 1963

His favorite song

Rhythm of the Rain"

A million things race through my mind reading that, this song was top of the charts, President Kennedy was still alive, and this was Simon's favorite song.

Then I found this gem! its a 78 record, that was specially recorded by Thomas Calkins January, 7th 1947.

 (I used one of the pictures from his production 

of "Blithe Spirit" as the back ground of the video)

I wanted this record because now I could finally hear what the man sounded like, (My mother swear we sound alike, I think shes trying to hard.) When I played the record on my record player, we discovered it is a staged reading of an excerpt of  "Across the Plains" by Robert Louis Stephenson.

 A few more records, along with "Damn Yankees" and "Kismet" on VHS by 2:00P.M. the end of the sale was becoming a free for all and I started picking up sound tracks just for the heck of it! I'm telling you people start to pillage like animals turning over drawers, ripping down drapes, stealing cabinet hardware... and that's just the stuff I could get away with! I kid, I kid, but people do get intense about these things! I will say it doesnt hurt to dig through the grungy spaces, I found this green table cloth on the floor in a pile of ratty sheets.

 (Actual retail price? $0.25)

(An old Boden's Orchard fridge juice jar, I plan to keep lemonade in it!)

Our little quartet decided to try the second story floor once more to see what we could find, to the left of the landing on the stairs was a closet and I do not exaggerate when I say it was waist deep with clothing and things people had just throw in there, I was about to walk away when I saw the shimmer of silver painted wood...

I then became and animal springing to the back of the closet and digging through the pile of clothes on the floor, dug and dug but this is all I found. That Readers, its the base of a SIX FOOT ALUMINUM CHRISTMAS TREE!  Anyone still care to convince me that we are NOT in the Twilight zone?! He had wonderful taste. I'm telling you I must have been Thomas Calkins in my past life! When we were checking out the sale lady informed me that they had sold the rest of the tree the day before and had just assumed that all the parts had been in the box. I started beating myself up because if I had dug in that closet the day before I would now have five aluminum christmass trees! But I cant be mad, I am blessed enough to have four and I'm sure there are vintage lovers out there with none. I only wish I knew who bought the tree so I could give them the base.

However immersing myself waist deep in God only knows what for half an aluminum Christmas tree did not come without reward. over turned and hidden under a pile or molting, and I do mean molting cloths was this box-o-treasure.

(These are the stand outs!)

I have not seen blown glass trumpets before, there was many a shiny bright in that box. Perhaps most interesting was this little glass bird with a brush tail.

In one of the upstairs bed rooms I found these things, they are theatrical trophies from a theatre in Riverside California and if I didn't buy them they were going to the trash, so I did it for Thomas Calkins! I have no idea where S.M.U. is but I guess he was class of 48. The picture is signed as follows-

"To Tom,

Best regards

to a very good friend.

Balays Fredric"

The Back of the photograph says- 

Kindly give credit to

J A M E S  A B R E S C H

200 West 57th St., N.Y.C.

7/ 16/ 1951

I have no idea who the people in the picture are, but since they were photographed by a well known photographer in New York I bet they were special. I was told by a lady at the sale that "Tom" helped start the Wichita Falls Symphony Orchestra and that he brought in famous people actors, singers, musicians from all over to help get things going. (Can you imagine the parties?!)

(Looks like Thomas learned from the best!)

Found this book sitting in a forgotten bookcase in the formal living room, dated 1937 with its original dust cover I had to have it, as I too enjoy winning friends and influencing people.

Okay, remember this picture?  Well as we hunted out treasures 3:00P.M. rolled around and things started being sold for wonderfully low prices just to clear the house out. While enjoying the shade on the front porch of this beautiful and doomed house, the guy running the sale came up to our group and said "Ya'll thinking of taking the rest of those records?" Jennifer said "We might be tempted" and the man said "Lets Talk" and headed back to the garage. Not knowing if he was serious or not we followed him around back, he surveyed the lot and said "How about $10.00 for all of them?" I was speechless, and friend Jennifer said FOR TEN DOLLARS HOW CAN WE NOT?! So she and Brandon paid $5.00 and Patricia and I paid $5.00 and just like that we bought

1500 RECORD ALBUMS...

I have NO idea what we four are going to do with 1500 albums, but with such a great deal! It took both of our cars to load all the boxes of records and move them to Patricia's house. 

When our merry band of thrifters checked out all of my items above cost me a whopping $11.00. But the item of the sale that took the cake, I found while in line to check out. I guess must have missed it when I'd looked through the bookcase before, I swear it hadn't been there.

-Mick-