Note to children: When the last of us dies — my money would be on your mother since her grandmother lived to 103 — hold an estate sale. You’ll have walking-around-money as long as you are walking around.
A few months ago, Tom Thomas, our across-the-street neighbor, died. He was both a gentle man and a gentleman. When he came outside to get his mail or newspaper, he often wore a hat, smiled and called you by name.
He was perfect neighbor material.
His service was held a couple of weeks ago and last weekend his two grown children contracted with In Your Wildest Dreams to have an estate sale.
I didn’t think any of it. Estate sale, yard sale, what’s the difference? I assumed an estate sale would draw the sort of commensurate interest that a yard sale might, meaning that it would probably do reasonably well. Wasn’t an estate sale just a yard sale without the doughnuts?
“Commensurate” and “well” because Bakersfield is a yard sale kind of town. Maybe every place is and I’m drawing a specific picture that has universal application but yard sales here qualify as something to do, Saturday morning entertainment and who knows, you might uncover a gem or two.
Being in an old neighborhood doesn’t hurt a yard sale or, in this case, an estate sale either. People think you may be selling antiques that you’ve dragged from an attic whose trap door you only recently discovered or dug up an armoire in the backyard. People think old houses, old stuff, and if there is junk, it’s older junk and it may have some historical interest (it doesn’t).
People who live in old houses are throwbacks to another time. Instead of hoodies, we wear bonnets and shoes we’ve fashioned from bark and wash our clothes in tin wash tubs we hauled across the prairie.
Whatever the attraction is, and maybe it’s like this in Seven Oaks, we seemed to have been ground zero for the busiest, most well-attended estate sale ever.
You would have thought this was Santa Barbara. Versailles. I like my neighbor and he had a nice house with some decent furniture but I think he might have been amused by the turnout.
There must have been 500 people over two days. Morning, noon and night. They were parking down the street and you know how popular walking is in the town. They were bounding down the street and looked as if they could have walked to and from Arvin with a mattress strapped to their back.
What is it about an estate sale that is so attractive? Is it the dead thing? He or she is dead and they can’t protect themselves or their stuff so let's have it.
Could it be that the deceased owner might not have known what he had or is it the suspicion that the family members left behind can’t wait to sell everything and so stuff may be cheap, cheap, cheap and perhaps there are real steals hidden on the 8-foot-long tables?
“Steals” like the two rolls of aluminum foil a man bought. I don't know what they sold for, but that guy must have gotten a heck of a deal.
I learned a couple of things from the weekend: Faith in America is not dead, it’s merely shifted from faith in the almighty to faith in yard and estate sales. The firm belief that something better lies ahead, and if it does, you can find it on Friday or Saturday in the driveway and front yard of a house. Something like an armoire, four old kitchen chairs and two boxes of aluminum foil.
Matthew Flannigan, a nurse, former resident of Bakersfield and lover of the town still has organized a Halloween parade at 9:15 a.m. Saturday at Parkview Julian (1801 Julian Ave.) in order to entertain seniors. Flannigan expects 50 people.
“We'll march/parade on the street and the residents will be safely distanced in the parking lots!” Flannigan said.
“It should be fun!”
Good idea. Halloween never gets old no matter how old you are.
October 30, 2020 at 12:30AM
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HERB BENHAM: Hidden treasure found here - The Bakersfield Californian
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Herb
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