They’re shouting and selling all year long, but the warm sun of late summer and early fall is the best time to take in a farm auction.
It’s the best show around.
You’ll not only rub shoulders with some mighty fine folks, but you may have the good luck to sit in the cool shade aboard a comfortable easy chair until the auctioneer comes along and sells it right out from under you.
And you’ll probably also have the opportunity to buy a good noon lunch that some church group is offering.
I occasionally take in a farm sale just to enjoy the sunshine and camaraderie, listen to the clipped calls of the auctioneers and check out the wide variety of sale items.
I kick the tires, beat back a panting farm dog, pull out the bottom drawer of an old dresser, lunch on sloppy joes on bakery-fresh buns and maybe buy a cribbage board or a necktie or two, just in case the style comes back in vogue.
Out here on the flatland, a farm sale is not only an economic reality, but good entertainment and a social function. You’ll see friends you haven’t seen for years.
I’ve secretly wanted to be an auctioneer, but I can’t even remember my own telephone number, let alone something like: “I’m 20-25, willyabid 30, 30, 30?” or “two and a quarter, now half, half, half, come on folks, I gotta dentist appointment in an hour.”
To be an auctioneer you have to know what the uses of the object you’re selling are, all of the local, state and federal laws governing the object being sold, and how much something is worth, give or take a dollar or two.
And at times, auctioneers have to be stand-up comedians, too.
Not many of us are orators of this fast-talking type, so the few established auctioneers in these parts get plenty of practice. Along with their “yip” men who spot the bidders, they’re expert at the fine art of crying a good sale.
There’s an ear-hurting, but also beautiful, cadence of the honorary colonels.
I once checked into a school of auctioneering thinking it might be more fun than newspapering. But tongue twisters, I decided, weren’t my cup of tea. To be an auctioneer you have to repeat rapidly such things as “rubber baby buggy bumpers” or that famous “sea shell” chant.
In auctioneer schools, future colonels have to know how to count to 500 quickly. When they learn to do that, they have to know how to count backwards from 500 to one. Then they practice counting by quarters, such as “quarter, half, 75, one, quarter, half, 75, one.”
Auctioneers, despite their occasional brazen and seemingly discourteous comments intended to prod and entertain, are actually very courteous and tactful people. They usually have a pretty good idea who among the gawkers and “lookylous” they can tease and pick on in a friendly way, and the crowd loves it.
Most auctioneers can tell you to go to heck in a hand basket, and you get downright excited about the trip.
So if you get bored this time of year, head for a farm auction.
“Well all right now, what’ll ya give for this fine, seldom-used bucket, and this here valuable assortment of good, strong, straight, hardly used nuts and bolts that we’re gonna throw in for free. The seller here is a sellin’ out and he has a banker in town mad as a plucked hen about that, so let’s all pitch in for the seller’s good health.
“How about throwing in those National Geographics over there, read only once, and some of those rare blue fruit jars there in that tired old basket? So folks, just stand back now and hold your hands high. Two dollars, now half, now half, now half – come on folks – this batch is a bargain and we ain’t got all day?”
If you’d like to comment, email the author at cfcecil@swiftel.net.
