Harold Bradford
I met the great circus man in 1969. Harold Bradford was by then presiding over a converted East Hampton, Connecticut church he called, Bradford's Antiques and Second Hand.
Harold was long established in the antiques business and was, I discovered later, a world class circus memorabilia collector.
Our pilgrimages to East Hampton were the staple of our leisure time for nearly 30 years. Hundreds of occasions when items were arranged on the hood of our car to be scrutinized and priced by Harold. 
That climatic moment when we would watch the cigar stub twitch to accommodate a smile and the obligatory assessment of the value or origin or functionality of every item. "Which box did this come from?" "This is milk glass!" "They collect these." or identifying a particular metal by passing his magnet over the object.
Harold needed to know exactly where you found each item because once he recovered his investment he practically gave the stuff away. He wasn't above grumbling profanities when he found something taken from one area and dropped somewhere else. The messiness that we perceived belied a highly organized system. Harold kept copious records on scraps of paper and many of those transactions were quarters and dimes. I often though what a remarkable audit Harold could have provided the IRS.
Long before the ubiquitous use of plastic to pay for everything, when cash was still king, Harold was our ATM. You could post-date a check for $20 on a Sunday and Harold would pull a wad of bills out of his pocket and say, "just put the date I can cash it on." In the seventies when paychecks were slim, we availed ourselves of the service often. Harold was a Godsend in many ways.
(L to R) Harold, Max Palmer and
Mr. Bell. - 1952
An American flag protruding from the left front of the shop signaled Harold was home and the game was on. Under the flag stood the rusted bottom half of a loyal knight in his half-suit of armor. Although the greatest prizes were often found arranged on the ground about and around this incomplete fellow, you were obliged to enter the church. The environment inside was critical to the shopping experience as it seemed to be either sweltering or freezing. By some enigmatic happenstance Harold always seemed to be dressed about the same in any season. The cramped front room (vestibule), was host to a low volume, slightly off-station AM radio and a colossal heater that produced little heat. Once inside the main room you had to muscle your way through blocked isles and traverse piles of familiar permanently placed junk. This shopping was not for the meek. It was necessary to move almost everything to navigate much less uncover your objects of desire. The joy of finding a treasure was often just a step away.
What splendid archeology!
Hanging from the rafters were the fabulous, Bengal Tiger and Mule Boy, huge canvass banners from Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus. These were but a token of Harold's amazing circus holdings.
Harold's motto"It's all
junk till ya sell it.", created a gentle flow that made each transaction a pleasant experience. He emitted the same imperturbability to the sale of a plastic lady's foot with chipped red toe nail polish for a quarter as with a $5,000 mechanized circus calliope. No questions asked. No sales final. I don't think his business was so much about money or love of antiquities, sans circus, or pleasing customers, but rather a singular passion to just keep the stuff moving.
We had the pleasure of sharing an evening with Harold in our home on the occasion of a surprise birthday celebration of a mutual dear friend. He was dumbfounded to behold his considerable legacy. It was a treat to have him in our home. Getting to have this brief time with Harold on our turf was precious. His death in 1996 meant the end of a life but not the end of his influence on us, for there isn't a room in our house that doesn't bear a hint of his winsomeness.