The estate sale near Stone Mountain kicked off at 9 a.m., and at that moment some 60 cars already lined the streets.
That it was the home of Bob Hope, longtime PR exec, world traveler and Ted Turner's onetime director of ballyhoo was like a clarion call to collectors and the curious.
For nearly a half-century, Hope and his wife, Susan, built a life together, raised a family and collected a trove of possessions that represented their eclectic avocations, affections and enthusiasms.
Hope has long had a front seat to Atlanta’s ascendance. And Susan, an organized hoarder, served as caretaker of the family’s story. She loved Broadway posters and Lladro figurines, and maintained a basement full of autographed balls and other sport relics.
Then, two years ago, as the Hopes readied for their golden years, Susan died of cancer, leaving Bob, 73, to ramble alone in their stately home of 28 years, surrounded by a lifetime of accumulated memories.
So, in the past month, he yanked the rip cord on that chapter of his life. He planted a for-sale sign in the lawn, held an estate sale last weekend that was part sports memorabilia show and part bric-a-brac bazaar, and moved to a two-bedroom apartment near a daughter and the Decatur square.
He had to sever a strong emotional tug as he decided to surrender the familial home.
It's an increasingly common story as baby boomers and their elders move on to smaller digs and are left to cull a lifetime of accumulation.
“I don’t like the term downsizing,” Hope told me. “It sounds like you’re retreating, like you’re giving up.”
Moving forward is how he prefers to see it.
Hope hired veteran estate sale manager Randall Hudson to oversee the affair. They emptied drawers, closets and the attic, tossed out what was trash and then loaded it all onto tables for inventory and display.
The family took what they wanted, which wasn’t much. That is seemingly common, as adult children already possess much, if not most, of what they already want.
Hudson said millennials have little need for heavy or brown furniture, for china, for crystal or silver-plated cutlery. “If it can’t go in the dishwasher, they don’t want it,” he said.
Hudson has a dispassionate eye for other people’s treasures. He must price items realistically, not sentimentally, at what they will sell for, not what the owner thinks they’re worth. He charges 35 percent of the take.
The process set off a video loop of Hope’s life playing in his head.
“A situation like this makes you remember all sorts of things you’ve forgotten,” Hope said. “A life is a strange journey. It’s a collection of stories.”
As Ted Turner’s and the Atlanta Braves’ flack during the crazy days of the 1970s, and as a player in the business world since, Hope has had access to all sorts of sports legends, as well as corporate and political heavies.
But it was the family memories that loomed largest.
A giant tapestry hangs in the living room above a once-fashionable couch. It pictures an old galleon docked and a bunch of 17th-century dandies preening on the shore. Hope recalls his oldest daughter, Betsy, coming home from college, absorbing the new art and loudly groaning, “Oh my God.”
Over the decades, his wife collected dozens of Lladro figurines, as women of a certain age and a certain era did. The estate sale people set up the Nativity images on the piano, as the Hopes did each Christmas. Hope took with him a small Lladro cat, the first one he gave his wife. The rest now occupy other people’s homes.
In all, Hope brought just a handful of items to his new downsized life. “I didn’t want to take so much that I felt I was hanging on to the past,” he said. Besides, he added, “There are certain things that’ll bring joy to other people.”
Crowds coming to such sales are bargain hunters, collectors, flea marketeers, nosy neighbors, antiquers, and even folks doing basic shopping.
“People will even buy a half-bottle of Windex,” said Hudson.
On sale day, early birds raced in to grab things such as a signed Mickey Mantle baseball, an autographed painting of Hank Aaron, a signed Leroy Nieman print, footballs signed by Herschel Walker and Joe Namath (that person also picked up some chafing dishes), and a didgeridoo, an aboriginal wind instrument.
The instrument went to Willis and Joy Polk, who came looking for household items, such as a scrub brush, but who are also on the prowl for the peculiar and unique.
“You can tell he travels the world,” said Willis Polk.
Yep, strangers get to glean some personal info while padding through your home.
Nicholas Wolaver carried out a couple of framed shadow boxes with Olympic pins and other memorabilia. While browsing, he clipped at his WorthPoint app to determine what the items he was sizing up were worth.
Retired detective Wayne Smith walked by with a colorful Honduran painting he picked up for $15. He also picked up a disposable camera and spoke about the ephemeral nature of it all.
“We’re all here for a short time,” he said. “We all have to go.”
“Yes,” Wolaver chimed in. “One man’s trash is another man’s treasure.”
And vice versa, I suppose.
Bruce Beckworth, who picked up a framed poster of an Evander Holyfield fight, said, “It’s kind of sad. You spend your whole life collecting things, and then they set it out at the end and you sell it for pennies on the dollar.”
When Hope returned after the auction, he found a home missing many adornments of his existence.
“When they return to their home, their stuff is gone; their old life is gone,” said Hudson. “It can be traumatic. It’s like a mourning experience.”
Hope agreed.
“It was a much more traumatic experience than I would have expected,” he said. “But it was almost a spiritual experience. It was a symbolic moving on.
"Actually it was moving on."
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