Fall foreclosure day: gathering, gathering, both real and personal

At the beginning of this day, I was scheduled to perform ten cryouts on foreclosure sales in various counties around the state. I had temporarily employed one of my former employees to make sure that I had enough time to cryout all the different sales. She took the three on the south and west side of Atlanta (one of which was cancelled before the day began) and I took the remainder which were all on the north side of Atlanta, from Gainesville to Dahlonega to Ellijay and down to Canton and Cartersville. I got up early, prepared for the day, and hopped in my trusty Toyota and drove north toward Gainesville.

I made a phone call to the law firm in Atlanta which had employed me for the task and left a message on their voice mail (it being around 7:30 in the morning, and probably no one in the office at 7:30). I gassed up the Solara and drove up I-75 and I-675 to 285 and on up I-85 to Gainesville.

I arrived in Gainesville to find that the city and county fathers have really done some rearranging in the downtown business area. Three different courthouses sit around a block in the business area. I parked my car in the downtown court parking lot and walked over to the old courthouse. I asked the bailiff sitting as guard in the front of the building. He directed me to the courtyard between the buildings. I left the old building and sat in the courtyard and waited for 10:00 to arrive.

It was very chilly and breezy that morning and I sat there watching the crowd develop and wishing I had brought a sweater or jacket for this trip. A mortgage officer and several people approached me, asking directions and offering mortgage assistance on anything I might be interested in buying. Finally, the ten o'clock hour arrived and I could stand before the crowd and cry out the loss of houses to the hopeful. The losses of the hopeless to the scavengers and land-pirates in the courtyard.

After completing the sales and selling the houses back to the lenders, I drove on to Dahlonega, which wasn't very far away. I came into the little village of Dahlonega around 10:45 that morning. When I arrived at the courthouse, there was no one waiting for a bargain. I read the announcement and knocked it off back to the lender.
I examined the statues of the Cherokee brave and the gold-miner standing on the courthouse grounds. This was the only courthouse with separate statues commemorating the dispossessed and the speculators. I took notice of the beginning of the turning of the leaves, and headed my Toyota toward Ellijay.

As I sped down the nearly deserted Highway 52, I called Cindy and found that I was driving on the same road where a pumpkin farm was located. She asked me to check their bounty and as I pulled past Amicalola Falls, the pumpkin farm came into view.

I pulled off the road down into the parking lot below and hopped out of the car to examine the pumpkins. There were large pumpkins, small pumpkins and everything in between. There were orange pumpkins, white pumpkins, blue pumpkins and striped pumpkins. There were little, perfectly round pumpkins, and pumpkins so large that when I finally chose one, it weighed so much I could hardly get it into the wheelbarrow to wheel it past the counter. The same problem presented itself when I tried to get it from the wheelbarrow into the trunk of my car. After some negotiating with Cindy and her debit card over my cell phone, I left the pumpkin farm with sixty dollars worth of various pumpkins, including one I sorely wished I had help awaiting me when I got home. That night, I used a dolly to move that pumpkin down the walk to its final resting place in front of the front stairs to our house.

I left Burt's Pumpkin Farm and headed east/northeast up Highway 52 toward Ellijay. As I came closer to Ellijay, apple stands were everywhere. I quickly called Cindy to see if she wanted some fresh apples, to which she replied in the affirmative. I pulled off into the parking lot of the first one I came to to find a large barn full of apples, Japanese tourists and senior citizens from Alpharetta. I grabbed a $9.00 bag and tried to pick a variety of fruit, while I watched the Japanese grab as many Fuji apples as they could load in their plastic bags. I wondered to myself why they would come all the way to Georgia, only to buy apples native to their home country. I guess everyone looks for the familiar in the strange and exotic when they travel.

My purchase of apples completed, I continued on to Ellijay. As I pulled in front of the courthouse, my cell phone rang and I answered. Patti, my secretary, informed me that the Gilmer County foreclosure, for which I was driving around a traffic circle in front of the courthouse, had been cancelled. Having nothing else to do, I decided to have lunch. I drove down a side street to a restaurant, parked the car on the narrow mountain road, and stepped through the front door into the lunch room.

This was a meat and three restaurant, where you chose from three or four different meats and about fifteen different vegetables. I chose kraut and sausage, fresh green beans, a bowl of turnip greens, home fried potatoes and corn bread. I washed it on down with a large glass of sweet tea. This was the greatness which makes the south my favorite place. Nature's bounty served among the businessmen, working men, little old ladies and retirees on a crisp Fall day. Nothing like it. Only a football game afterward would have made it complete.

After my meal, I drove around Ellijay looking for the end of the four lane highway from Kennesaw, to lead me from North Georgia back to the milling millions of Atlanta. I found the entrance and headed down to Canton for my last foreclosure sale.

Canton is a small town, now quickly growing to become attached as a part of the great megalopolis, just north of Marietta. Canton was named for the city in China, when the little village was established with an eye toward the production of silk. This never happened, but the town is very quaint and sweet, and completely surrounded by the bustle of Atlanta's growth northward. After I completed the foreclosure sale, I took notice of the geography of Canton. Canton proper sits on a hill in a broad valley lying between Atlanta and North Georgia. To get to Canton you have to go up, then down into the valley. But when you get there, to get to the center of town, you drive up a foothill into Canton which sits on a hill in a valley between the big hills that surround it. Rather interesting, at least to me.

My foreclosures complete, I headed homeward. A day prominently filled with the return of the houses of the many to the mighty, mighty lenders and moneychangers of America and a day spent in the North Georgia mountains, gathering as much of the bounty of Georgia (pumpkins, apples, vegetables and such) as I could collect and haul in the trunk of my little Toyota.