The Estate Sale
Though I lived across the street from Ginny and Charley for forty years, I had never been inside their home. In fact, I never knew much about either of them. They had children, closer in age to me than to my children, so they passed the optimal baby sitter age by the time our kids needed periodic supervision. I knew Charley worked for a big company in some supervising capacity, though not one of the international conglomerates that enabled most of our neighbors to purchase two-story homes in our development. And he retired along the way, but I do not know when. His wife passed away about ten years ago. My wife read it in the newspaper and mentioned it to me. Despite little contact as neighbors, Charley’s mailbox flag would be in the pick-up position most days, though I never saw him go to the end of his driveway to deposit new mail, then raise the red flag. I often saw him retrieve his mail.
His next-door neighbors I knew much better. To the left are our friends, one the President of the other synagogue, parents of two boys not that much younger than our two. On the other side lived another family, known for their nemesis type son. They moved away and I’ve not met the family that replaced them.
Natives of New York are notorious for not getting to know neighbors. Charley and I were both raised in Metro NY, so our inclination to keep to ourselves is hardly unusual. The neighbors we interact with more were each raised in other places. Charley kept to himself. After ten years of widowhood, he expired quietly. This time I learned of his passing from my wife who learned from our next-door neighbor. The local newspaper, which I retrieve from the end of our driveway each morning, contained an obituary of moderate length. In a few paragraphs, I learned more about his bio than I ever learned as his neighbor. He lived to be 95. He worked for a major utility, since absorbed by a larger utility, not the regional convenience store chain headquarters I thought he worked for. One child lives nearby, the other a lengthy plane ride away. He had indeed been raised, married, and started his family on Long Island.
Days after the funeral, two jumbo dumpsters parked in the driveway, with a few cars intermittently parked at the curb in front of the house. Within about a week, each dumpster filled to capacity. They took away each dumpster individually and put another of similar capacity in its place, which has remained on the driveway. I did not walk across the street to assess the contents, nor did I pay much attention as I passed his driveway to get to mine. Then a notice of an Estate Sale appeared. A yellow square cardboard sign announcing the date and open hours was stuck in the front lawn by prongs, along with an adjacent much smaller black rectangular sign identifying the supervising company. At the front of the development, another yellow sign appeared. No doubt, the supervising company has other methods to recruit buyers who never have a reason to drive nearby.
The sale would take place over three days: Friday, Saturday, Sunday. On Friday mornings I have a 9AM class. When I left my house, just past 8:30, a car or two had parked in front of the house while a few people sat on the concrete stoop outside the front door. My class ended at 10:15. When I arrived home, parked cars lined both sides of my street, leaving only enough room for cars to go in one direction. I never had a traffic jam on my street. Since everyone headed toward the sale, my direction home, I followed them, only to encounter a Sanitation Truck driving the other direction, followed by another car. One car moved to the side, I drove into the nearest driveway of another neighbor I did not know to let the truck make its scheduled pickups. Then I pulled back onto the street and asserted myself until I reached my driveway, which now had the empty garbage bin blocking my entrance and other cars behind me. I got out, moved the bin, then drove to my own driveway. With dinner guests and Shabbos arriving at sundown, I had things to do at home that had deadlines.
After working on dinner to a suitable branch point, I walked across the street to that house which I had not entered before. It had a small entryway, smaller than mine, leading to the stairs straight ahead, the kitchen ahead and to the left of the stairs, and their living room left of the entry. I faced left, where I found the manager of the event, introduced myself as the neighbor across the street, and got a heads up on how he had organized the sale. Two cashiers sat at folding tables. To my right, I saw a display of jewelry, all costume jewelry. Charley had never discarded his late wife’s beads or cheap slip-on bracelets. On the table I found old campaign buttons, including one to support Gov Dewey. That may have been his first vote, favoring the Governor of his home state. There were other campaign buttons, none of which identified him as severely partisan, though not nearly enough of them to suggest he collected them for their own sake. On shelves behind the table sat a display of his dress jewelry, mostly cuff links sets and tie bars, none with an expensive appearance. The sale already had some three hours of earlier purchasers before my arrival, so perhaps any more elegant cufflinks had already found their new homes. From the items on display in the kitchen and dining room, I could discern my neighbor’s preferences, things that lured him. His favorite holiday was undoubtedly Christmas. Items of Christmas motif abounded, some decorative, some functional. His rolls of gift wrap placed neatly in plastic holders designed for that purpose far exceeded my own wrap collection. He and his wife must have given presents generously, not only for Christmas but for birthdays, as guests, or for new additions to their family. While wrapping paper was plentiful, bows and ribbons seemed absent.
My neighbor seemed to share my fondness for beer, though I have no clue whether he sought premium pleasures or just icy and wet. A row of porcelain steins, virtually all with German-style lids and tasteful design, could be had for about $15 each. He had glass steins, a set of four lovely glass pilsners with a cut pattern, a few pewter steins. None of his collection contained logos, not from breweries, alma maters, favorite teams. He also did not have the styles of beer glassware common to modern pubs, the generic pint glasses nor beer drinkware specially shaped for a particular style of brew. Just Steins and pilsners.
At age 95, he had lived through the predigital age of telephones, cameras, TVs. His collection of electronics included items now called vintage.
Appliances were small basics. No single purpose omelet pans, taco makers, or hot dog grills. And you could buy his late wife’s fur stole for $150. Maybe somebody would acquire this before the sale’s final day.
I made no purchases. While I share my neighbor’s fondness for a refreshing brew served in style, it is not possible to make used porcelain kosher. Moreover, my beer drinkware is very different. Logos appear on most of his items of porcelain, glass, or pewter designed to hold suds. The abundance of cars, likely lured by advertising far beyond the neighborhood posters, implied that middlemen would purchase my late neighbor’s worldly goods as their principal occupation or side hustle, gather items to sell at flea markets. It just did not seem proper for me to scavenge my neighbor, even one I barely knew. I did not return towards the end to determine what items moved and which needed drastic markdowns.
Another large dumpster appeared on the driveway after the estate sale. It filled much more slowly than the other two. Then some cars or light trucks, presumably to perform repairs or cosmetic work on the house to maximize its sales potential. Then the For Sale Sign, marked Sold in five days.
Nine-five years alive, Charley did the important things. He earned a college education, raised a family, contributed to America’s economic expansion, had an enduring marriage, lived peacefully with his neighbors, and nurtured a few lifetime interests. His stuff got disbursed by people responding to an auctioneer’s ad, a few items at a time, by strangers who parked the length of our street. His possessions will be mingled with countless others at flea market sessions. I knew him less than should have as his neighbor of long duration. But as I saw his items on display with price tags, they were hints about the person who I never got to know despite the many worthy things he did in the long life that he lived.