I’ve been dreaming in my mind what the ultimate auction would be like. I would have to say the ultimate auction to me would have to be an estate sale. That would be a sale necessary to settle an estate. But I’d have to add that it would be an estate with no immediate heirs. Family members often pick over the contents of an estate before it ever is made available to the public, and rightly so. I always hope that a family will value and keep personal items like Grandma and Grandpa’s wedding portrait out of a sale.
I’d like my ultimate auction to be a hoarder’s estate where the owner who passed never threw a thing away but had valuable treasurers tucked in along with the usual household items. And I’d like it to have a lot of volume, the more wagon loads the better. I’d like there to be numerous sheds full, and I’d like it to start early and end late. If the auctioneer said, “Bring a chair and plan to spend the whole day,” that would be a bonus. And if the advertisement for the sale said, “Hundreds of boxes yet to be unpacked, too many items to list,” I’d like that too.
I love ephemera. My definition of “ephemera” would be paper items that have been saved but would normally be thrown away. I can conjure up all kinds of warm fuzzy thoughts about ephemera and the kinds that I would like to bid on. I have a passion for handwritten letters, diaries, journals, and old postcards with written messages on the backsides. I don’t care for unused postcards. To me the messages on them are more valuable than the images on the front side, especially if they are from the early 1900’s. I like old catalogues (a perfect example of ephemera) and advertising items and calendars from the past. And I love a good old hard cover book, a novel about the old west, pioneers, or an old nonfiction book filled with American history.
I’d pick one of those felt fedora hatted little elderly men to auction at the sale. He wouldn’t be greedy and he’d start all the bidding at a quarter dollar. And he’d smile real often and have a great sense of humor and maybe even sing a tune now and then. But he wouldn’t waste time and he’d say because of the volume of this sale, “I’m going to be quick, let’s have some good peppy bidding, and if you hesitate too long it’s your loss because I have a lot to go through here and I’m not going to waste time.” Yes, that is just what he would say!
Then I’d like to pick the weather for that ultimate auction. I’d schedule it on a Saturday, with mild temps and steady cloud cover without any precipitation. That way the sun wouldn’t make it hot and miserable and I wouldn’t have to stand in the shade away from the auction and the fun.
And lastly I’d like to pick the crowd. An even number of thirty people would be just right. There’d be plenty of room for all to see what was happening, there’s be no pushing and shoving, no elbows in the ribs, and no tall people standing in front of me. And if body odor was an issue from the guy next to me, I could move to another spot and still view the sale just fine. With a small crowd I’d be able to park close to the auction site and not have to carry my merchandise very far. Yes, thirty or even just twenty people would be perfect.
All these suggestions would definitely add up to an ultimate auction for me. Many bargains, lots of material to read when I got home, that would be my dream. And I’d have no feelings of guilt, that I had outbid a family member on something precious to them, and I’d be leaving with the attitude that I was giving the merchandise I bought a good home.
And when the bidding with through the little old auctioneer sporting the fedora hat would say “Pull the pin and shut the gate … ‘cause the boat done left.”
TODAY’S SALE
It was an estate sale on a cloudy day with rain threatening on the not so distant horizon, an estate of a well know couple in the community who owned a business for many years and loved politics and had many friends. Their sale happened not because they wanted it to, but because their children knew it was time… Auctions like this can be full of nostalgia and mixed emotions for family members and friends as well.
I was surprised at the familiar faces in the crowd attending today, so many people I’ve seen only at auctions through the years. I could name a few and relate to them by what their collecting passions are… Patty who loves jewelry, Leon who loves fishing reels and flashlights, Patz who collects tools and cleaning supplies, the antique dealers who love a bargain they can resell, and the lady without a name who today eyed up a cobalt blue pie pan and said she’d never seen one before in her life and thought she could fill that pan if it were hers with a lovely pie. I don’t know if she won the bid on it but I hope so.
OVER YOUR SHOULDER
You keep looking over your shoulder,
Thinking it’s near, it’ll soon be here.
Your heart beats faster and you keep looking
Over your shoulder.
Wondering when the day will arrive,
When you’ll hear the news, win or lose,
When the darkness will come, so you keep looking
Over your shoulder.
Time keeps ticking as you keep looking,
Wondering then, thinking when,
So much time wasted, as you keep looking
Over your shoulder.
If you’d look ahead and not behind
Quit collecting, stop reflecting,
But fear rules your emotions, so you keep looking
Over your shoulder.
(Likening myself with my fear of cancer returning, to my outside cat, Freddie, as he eats from his dish and keeps looking over his shoulder, thinking something is coming to catch him off guard, steal his food, hurt him, while he is intent on eating. And because he keeps looking over his shoulder, he can’t enjoy his meal, because he is always afraid. Afraid of something that is probably not going to happen. But yet he has good reason to fear, because he was injured in the past, bitten twice. I think my cat and I suffer from PTSD – Ah, I always knew me and Freddie had a lot in common.)
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