Over the weekend, my wife and I made the trek downstate to a couple of remarkable estate sales. One was in Ormond Beach and was the home of a former Washington D.C. bureaucrat who worked in the Finance sector. His wife was a model. The place was loaded with old invitations to D.C. events & parties. I picked up a few trinkets and some fun postcards. There was also a "Confidential Committee Print" of the EXAMINATION OF VICE PRESIDENT DESIGNATE NELSON A. ROCKEFELLER'S TAX RETURNS AND OTHER RECORDS. Tucked inside that was a typewritten sheet on the topic of "Men." It starts out "Men are what women marry. They have two feet, two hands, and sometimes two wives, but they never have more than one dollar and one idea at a time." I assume the sheet belonged to the same woman that owned the "Uppity Women Unite" button. Judging from the things in their home, they must have been a fun couple.
The second one was in Gainesville. It was the estate of Jack Clare Nichelson, an accomplished artist and long-time professor at the University of Florida. He passed away a number of years ago. The sale was the first of two. The house was a very cool mid-century modern designed home and was loaded with some of the things he collected over a lifetime. I ended up only purchasing the small wooden Madonna pictured. It is barely an inch-and-a-half tall and, while most likely just a tourist souvenir, the detail is remarkable for such a small piece. There were a number of pieces of tramp art that would have been nice, but I refrained.
Estate Sales are places of a duality of feelings. I love finding unique and strange things just as I love finding a hidden treasure, but there is also a great melancholy that often overcomes me. They are small snapshots of people's lives filled with things that made only them happy as they didn't seem to hold enough of the person to make those that they left behind treasure them as well.
