The Estate of Happiness is Not For Sale.

Thrifting is a disease. I'm aware of it now. I have a problem. It's infiltrated the house to the degree that people may think I'm a hoarder. I do have neat stuff, if that matters. When I'm gone, the estate sale company will make a nice payday off my good eye. But he who dies with the most toys, still dies. 

This is a Hallmark foam devil?
Why did I buy it? ...

Being an avid thrifter, I spend a lot of time in Goodwills, St. Vincent De Pauls, at the neighboring garage sales, and the peak of bargain hunting: estate sales. I love me a good estate sale. But its also, off-putting. Usually somebody has died, or has moved to assisted living, and we, the vultures of other's misfortune are there to scavenge over their remains. Or their remaining goods. Everything they've accumulated in life. Most of the stuff we all collect over time, is junk. Like the homes of many elderly, most are outdated, semi-functional, and often neglected. Your glasswear from 1982? Nobody cares. Those decorative plates with Norman Rockwell paintings? Maybe good enough for shotgun target practice. Your Beanie Babies? Despite a few people on eBay specializing in money laundering, also worthless. Your 1987 Craftsman 3.75HP lawnmower that somehow still runs? Worth more as scrap metal.  

There's always a gem or two, or (hopefully) a tote-full

at each estate sale. And that hunt...knowing a first edition hardcover of a great writer, vs finding another copy of Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code, is the point.  And like the house, a person's possessions tell their story. 

Not a Tolstoy 1st Edition...But I love me some Crichton

Leo Tolstoy famously began the masterpiece Anna Karenina with, "All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." And while I agree on the unhappy part: I've been in a number of dark, dreary homes that gave me the heebie jeebies; I've also realized that many happy homes do not, nor did not, mirror my own.  

Today I walked up to an estate sale at a house in the "Friendly" nieghborhood of Eugene. If you don't know the area, it's a square mile or so located off Friendly St. (hence the name) past the fairgrounds and before the South Hills.  I wouldn't necessarily characterize it as a "freindly" neighborhood, it has its fair share of elitists and snobs and weirdos galore. But I think everyone in Eugene would agree that it is an eclectic area with original homes and original people. It's upscale, naturalistic, older, and more liberal than the Northern half of Eugene. Some people love the area...I like it. I mean, I like people, but I find certain types of modern day hippies or environmentalists or people who like bongo drums a bit...off-putting. No offense. I just don't like the band Phish, and it has a very Phish-like feel (maybe older Eugenites will relate more to The Grateful Dead) 

I arrived at the sale about 45 minutes after opening. I didn't expect to like the house. 

Oh my goodness was I wrong. As I walked up the little stairway leading to the yard, I was at first overwhelmed by the crowd. I don't like garage-salers. Way worse than Phish people. Early bird garage-salers are the worst kind of person. Pushy, cheap, loud, gawdy, Karen-like, cheap, con-artist-like, and did I say cheap? Oh yeah. So I always arrive after the first wave. Sure, I'll miss the Renoir painting and the gold bars, but I always liked silver better anyway. 

Not a 1st Ed. But a cool
Lewis Carroll

Then I noticed the house. A cottage. Not big, not small, but with an upstairs and a downstairs; maybe bigger than I thought? I made my way through the main floor and was underwhelmed by the items.  Maybe I had missed all the good stuff. People were everywhere and I just wanted away from them...So I turned a corner and there was the non-conforming staircase that an elderly couple had just decended and said, "Well that just about killed me." I nearly bumped my head on the 6' 2" clearing.  The stairs were carpeted with a yellow pattern...the real estate agent in me was hating this house and all its quirks. Upstairs was three different rooms. The first kids bedroom I visited was charming but tiny. Full of 1970s halloween and Christmas decor. I mostly don't care about this stuff. I eyed a large Snoopy Hallmark Christmas card. It was the size of a poster. I still like the Peanuts, even if they don't have nearly the market or fanbase they once did. As much as I liked it. I wouldn't decorate with it, and it would be a pain to ship if I sold it so I moved on.  To the next room. What a room. It was mildly dark, as if a later addition that hacked into an attic space. The bed a single. And old
bookshelf and a dresser. And teddy bears everywhere. And then a wall with bunnies. Ceramic, stuffed, wood decorative bunnies. Not my cup of tea. Yet, it was charming. In a late, 1970s childhood sort of way. 

How did a 1987 children's Alf rain jacket 
end up in this sale? I don’t know, 
But I'm thinking of a "fat man in a little coat," moment 

The master bedroom also had a nice feeling. A quilt was delicately hung on the ceiling, with the rest of the walls sloping away and I realized that none of this was my style. But it was homey.  

Back downstairs was another bizarre hallway and one side of the wall was adorned with exterior ceder planks. This was once the outside of the house.  It reminded me of my dad's non-permitted add-ons. It led to another dark room that radiated happiness. What an oxymoronic thought. A happy dark room. Again, no prized possessions, just neat stuff and fabric, but nothing too valuable.  

Also Not sure why I bought this
weird argyle sweater vest...

I made my way outside, and here is where I saw this family. The yard had many different avenues to get to many different locations. An old hot tub that clearly hadn't been used for two decades sat under an equally quaint gazebo. All of it covered in a green oxidation of moss. Old hot tubs are gross, and yet, I could see the family here. Happy here. And then as way leads on to way, it opened up to a large tree in the center. I didn't even notice the camouflaged tree fort that sat in its waist; again rusting in green overgrowth and moss.  The estate people had put up caution tape on the ladder, as if anyone would attempt to make their way up to a rotting platform demise. "But maybe there's some old tiddly-winks and shooting marbles!" Please, be my guest, I'd say, and cut the tape away. But I'm a bit morbid and secretly revel in natural selection.  

After the treehouse was an old tool shed, with many unfinished projects protruding. My favorite addition was the old swing outside. Not a traditional swing, mind you, it was a ski lift chair, hanging from its metal frame attached to the side of the shed and another tree. Who has a ski lift rocking chair? This family. I made my way past the shed and the old unwanted and outdated sets of golf clubs. Like the wooden tennis rackets inside, it all screamed of a performance level that wouldn't compete with today's gear, but, also, of an active family. They played games together. They built tree houses together. They had a hot tub in the 1980s! But it didn't end there. The whole back half of the yard was 12 or so cedar boxes. It would've been an impressive garden in its day, but now it looked like a jungle of clover, weeds, parsley sprouts, and vines. Nature always wins. I wondered when this garden was last utilized? Three years ago, or a decade? I don't know. I'm not an biological epidemiologist. I don't even know what most scientific words mean. 

Somehow I passed over the old fountain/water feature. It was just next to the hot tub on the fence line. It also wasn't pumping any water, and the stagnant water was probably an oasis to mosquitos and the bubonic plague, and yet, taking it all in, I wondered what this looked like in 1991.  How many Thanksgivings, Summer BBQs, graduations, grandparent's birthdays, and random events took place in this yard. It was obviously a destination. Not like some of the estate sale houses that look visited only by starving cats and disgruntled spirits. This house had kids who came back. Like both my grandparents houses. Like my wife's grandparents on the Davis side. This was more than a house. It was a place of happiness. It exuded from the walls. Time may have made the objects obsolete and the garden unkempt, but the intentions. The memories, were intact.  I had a happy childhood. I have great parents, but for a brief second, I was jealous of this house and its memories. 

What kind of a sick weirdo buys another family's 35mm color film? Me. I also watch your home videos. I'm going to work you into one of my books...or murder you...Mwwhahahahaha. Oh wait, you're most likely already dead. 

I was nostalgic for a life I didn't have. So no, Leo, not all happy families are the same. I think happiness is not in the objects bartered off at the end of life, but in the moments those objects made living enjoyable. The screams of joy that once filled the tree fort. The fresh tomatoes out of the garden. The relaxing evenings in the hot tub.  The romantic moments sitting in the ski lift chair. None of these are my experiences, but they could be. 

And hopefully, someday, my home will not be just a cluttered mess of awesome collectibles, but a place my children will return to and say, "I'm home." And I'll embrace them and we can laugh and joke and eat and drink and be merry.  And when I die, somebody else can be jealous of the life I lived. Maybe all my trinkets will be worthless, but they will see the joy in the effort it took to create a home. But my Alf jacket goes in a museum, where it belongs.