Original Owner of Jim-Denny's Estate Sale Jim Van Nort was best-known back then for being the heart of the famous Jim-Denny’s diner at 816 12th Street, Sacramento CA, with chrome stools, politicians, malt milkshakes, and delicious burgers.
her grown boys sitting aside it on the cement bench.
The child inside this woman remembers sitting atop the waterfall trunk in the garage watching her Dad work with the old antique tools, watching time pass on the vintage clocks, gazing over at the boxes of ammunition wondering how fast it passed through his riffles and guns (we will not be selling guns) the wrought iron doors that locked her in now for sale. She thinks back to the George Mathis drawing, the old pictures, the paper and smell of it, the feeling of this place when her parents were alive, the feeling she now gets with them gone, the sorrow of it all.
She seems shorter than her near six foot frame, shying away from standing tall, shrinking with the sadness and sorrow that comes with leaving her family home for good, never to return to this safe haven that she has fed her children inside of, nursed her babies from beds in, she herself grew up with every wall holding her safe and warm. This house that had been her savior, her connection to the past, this house with its old wooden stairway to bedrooms and soft sleeps, childhood dreams and visions of marriage and family.
Now with all her dreams realized, she stands here remembering this same room when her boys were young and running through it. Tonka trucks and baseball bats, bruised knees and tattered shirts, she can hear them each laughing and screaming with the joys of every Christmas gift torn open, the excited looks on their face when they watched their first Wizard of Oz on the family TV. Her dogs now running through the rooms chasing after one another remind her of childhood puppies and kittens, little forts and Sunday drives. She sobs quietly on her loving husband’s giant shoulder, the only man she knew that was so tall he made her feel tiny and delicate, shy and cared for.
This man is her strength now, when she needs him. He and his faith in God above are what hold her up, on her feet and keep her strong. This man who will tear her from her childhood home she is sure he will keep her safe and sane, bringing her gifts of horses and flowers, white pickets fences and a happy ever after. He’ll make sure she sees and knows her grandchildren, stays in touch with her strong stellar young sons, that she always has food on the table, and that she is held closely till they both turn back to the soil from which they came. The love they share is rare and forgiving, one we search for and many never find.
He is the one to help her say goodbye to these family treasures, the Royal Daltons and Capodimonte clusters, the jade figures, the paintings, etchings, lithographs and rubbings. He’ll help her give up the family china and the green nude lady martini glasses and salad plates, the perfumes and
