LURE OF A COUNTRY AUCTION (part 5 )

CHARACTERS

I’ve run across many unforgettable characters that were regular auction attendees.  I’ve also made friends at sales.  Many of them have passed on but I can’t forget them.  There was a man I’ll call Melvin who wanted to buy everything that was for sale at every auction he attended, especially if it was cheap.  He would buy small items like knick knacks and fishing gear to resell at garage sales.  He had a cigarette glowing in one hand and a large plastic coffee mug in the other and a cowboy hat on his head of long thick gray hair tipped to one side.  You’d wonder how he could handle so much merchandise with that big coffee mug in his hand but he never touched a thing he won the bid on.  He had a wife with him who did all the running.  He’d keep bidding and she’d haul the stuff into a big pile at the side of the yard and he’d have her running steady all day.  On days when he was at an auction you didn’t get much.  And if you did he’d be mad at you.  I swear that guy named Melvin was mad at the world.  He’d be yelling at his wife all day long and she’d try to run faster.  She’d be joggling his merchandise away from the hay wagons as fast as she could tote it without dropping it all over.  I felt sorry for her, truly I did.
Another fellow, he was a big heavyset red faced man with a cigar hanging out of the side of his mouth, I’ll call him Fred.  Fred wore glasses and had eyes that kind of bulged out at you from under them.  I figured out later on that he probably had high blood pressure from the looks of flushed cheeks.  He’d buy all the tools at every auction he attended.  So if you were looking for tools that day you’d might as well forget the wrenches and hydraulic jacks.  The funny thing about Fred was that whenever he’d get the high bid on anything, he’d never move to get it.  He’d put out his fingers and make a gesture to the helpers that day, to “bring it over here”.  He’d do a “gimme” kind of thing, and always stressed expediency.
One man we ran into at auctions was always looking for cream separators so my husband and I dubbed him “cream separator man”.  Apparently he collected the separators and books or paper material that had anything to do with them.  He never seemed very happy, kind of honory.  One time cream separator man was looking at a box of old books that I was looking at and wanted to bid on.  I’m a sucker for old hardcover books about history, pioneers, poetry, and the older they are the more I like them.  Well he told me he’d make a deal with me and it went like this.  If I would let him buy that box of books and not bid against him he’d let me have the book in that box that I really wanted for a low price.  I said o.k. and when the time came I watched him bid until he was the winner and kept my hands down.  Immediately I walked up to him with a few dollar bills itching to come out of my pocket so I could get my book and he turned me down flat.  He said he changed his mind and he was going to keep them all.  Oh, I was devastated, to think I was that stupid to fall for cream separator man’s ploy.  I never did that again and lost all trust in cream separator man and the world in general.
I can’t also forget another fellow that showed up at auctions rain or shine, hot or cold weather, sporting an orange hooded sweatshirt we associate with deer hunting around here.  We got to calling that man “blaze orange man”, not to his face of course.  Blaze orange man liked tools as well, anything he could resell at flea markets, and he’d often outbid my husband on something he was after.  He seemed to have more money than we did, like a lot of the folks we encountered at auctions.
A little elderly man named Floyd often showed up at every auction we went to over Black River Falls way.  He had a cane and a “helper”, a young man who carried all his merchandise to his truck for him.  Floyd was the dollar man and had an agreement with the auctioneer beforehand.  If any item, or group of items, would not get a dollar bid, the auctioneer would turn to Floyd and take his bid whether he was looking or bidding or not.  Floyd was the guaranteed dollar man.  You’d always have to sign up for a bid number and hold it up if you won an item.  Floyd was historically number 1 at every sale.  And some days he had a full truckload of pure junk.  But Floyd always seemed happy with his merchandise.
Some people that attend auctions only go for scrap metal.  At some farm sales there are literally piles of scrap iron behind outbuildings that are sold by the pile.  A sure thing up north of here near Greenwood, if there were any scrap iron piles to be had, a huge burly man with a yellow hard hat on would win the bid.  Of course we dubbed him hard hat man.  He liked his cigars too, and he was so tall if you stood behind him or anywhere near him you’d never be able to see what was being sold on the hay wagons.  One time I saw hard hat man buy a huge old cast iron safe, but I didn’t see him load it up in his truck.  Not sure how that went.
I’ve so far only referred to male characters that stood out at the auctions I’ve attended but there were women who I can’t forget either.  One lady I used to see so often at sales bought all the expensive antiques and quilts.  She loved textiles and had a man that must have really loved her because he always faithfully hauled all her purchases to their truck and never looked upset or angry.  He had rather an emotionless expression on his face and like a robot he waited on her hand and foot.  I hope she appreciated all he did for her.  She had an antique shop in a distant town and kept it well stocked.
One time I witnessed firsthand a fellow trying to steal a vice off a hay wagon, the same wagon that was being auctioned off.  He stood up next to the vice,leaned on it, and gradually his coat semi-covered it up.  Then he lifted it off the wagon and placed it underneath of it at his feet.  When people win the bid on an item they usually end up stashing it under the wagon that way so they don’t miss the next items coming up.  Then they pick up their merchandise and move it when the wagonload is all sold.  Well this man wasn’t sneaky enough, me and others saw him pick up that vice and someone called him out.  They shouted at him, “Hey, you didn’t buy that vice, put it back up there.”  He did put it back up and then he slunk away like a kid caught hocking candy out of a store candy jar.  I don’t know his name, but whenever I saw that man at auctions later on I kind of kept an eye on him.  I think many small items get lifted at sales and anyone who pulls such an act should be shot on the spot.
Another fellow we used to see at every auction I’ll refer to as the rifle man.  His nickname has nothing to do with rifles.  He was friendly enough but every time we would buy a box of stuff at a sale and he was there he’d head our way within in a few minutes and rifle through all of our purchases.  He’d rifle through them before we ever got a chance to see what we had ourselves.  He was more interested in seeing what other people bought then buying anything himself.  Then he got married and disappeared from the face of the earth.
Odd tools, bait casting fishing reels, and flashlights lit up the eyes of a fellow who lived in a nearby village.  He’d seek all the reels and flashlights out well before the auction began and know exactly what box they’d be in.  And if he bought a box and the item he was seeking wasn’t in it, he’d pitch a pretty good fit.  People did sometimes move small things around on those hay wagons and hide items in a different box underneath something else, to throw the next guy off.
There were little old ladies that bought up all the Depression glass years ago when we first went to auctions.  Each lady seemed to have an eye for a different color or pattern.  One in particular bought every piece of glassware with the “Iris and herringbone” pattern.  She’d even ask others to buy it for her if she wasn’t able to make it to a sale.  And the prices went so much higher thirty years ago for the old Depression era glassware than they do now.
In our rural community the Amish attend auctions in large numbers today.  Both men and women attend the sales but the men do most of the bidding.  They arrive with their own horses and buggies or often hire a driver and hop out of a truck or van.  Many of the Amish men are not shy and elbow their way right up to the front of the crowd, sometimes blocking shorter people’s views.  The men think nothing of blocking a woman’s view.  They also have quite a bit of body odor, especially on a summer day, so it can be uncomfortable when standing next to one of them.  I have found that they like books and often they will take items off your hands if you have purchased more than you want to take home with you.
I was at a sale near Chili, Wisconsin, an estate of an elderly farmer who was well known in the area.  He had several children and I only recognized one of them at the sale, a son in his 60’s.  The man who passed must have had a passion for books because there were at least 20 boxes full of older hard cover books auctioned off.  They were not necessarily valuable books or anything I was interested in.  The son bought every box of books and it didn’t seem to matter what the price was.  He just kept bidding until he won the bid on every box.  I often wondered if he knew that his father had hidden money inside those books through the years, and kept it a secret.
You can witness all types of characters at auctions.  I’ve seen rude people, stinky people, nosey and curious folks.  And then there are those who just come to socialize and meet friends that they often see at auctions.  There are also folks who try to monopolize an auction and buy just about every item in a certain category such as all the tools or antiques.  For some it appears to be a game, or a way of saying they have more money or they are the boss of the sale.
An auction can be a place for hoarders to add to their hoards as well.  At times I have witnessed people buying huge piles of what I thought was pure junk that they apparently wanted to add to the junk they already had.  One can never have enough good junk is perhaps their reasoning for adding more to the pile.

WHEN THE WIND STOPS BLOWING IN SPRINGTIME

         As I walked down to the Honorable Mrs. Redman's today

      The wind was still and not a sound did it make in the trees.

I listened to that stillness and felt a bit of loneliness.

But soon the stillness was filled with a familiar sound

One that can't be heard when the wind blows through the trees.

I heard it coming from the loft in the old sentinel barn.

It sounded low and calming and repeated itself again and again.

I walked toward the barn with tattered shingles scattered

On the ground from the winds that blew fiercely in recent days

And the magical sound found its way to my heart.

Pigeons were roosting in the loft, cooing to one another

Singing so softly and calming my heart and soul.

I no longer felt loneliness but warmth from spirits 

Of those who had gone before me, and felt in my mind

That those kind old souls from long ago are still living on.

As I turned to walk away from the barn’s cooing birds,

I glanced around the yard at the old oak trees and the grass

Now beginning to change its tone from brown to green again.

I gazed at the painted, weathered boards on the old outhouse

And out from the hole in the roof peeked a red squirrel staring at me.