AUCTION FEVER !!!

Polly and I went to Bill Allen's auction last night and I must admit, WE HAD A BLAST !!
Polly spent too much money, but she bought me presents....so we will overlook that fact.

I forgot how much damn fun auctions are. This is one quite small (not like the all day affairs that I remember from my youth) and went very fast. I was the "cashier" but did not know ONE thing about the software I was using. So, I just bullshat my way through it. It was predominately a bunch of old farmers and little old ladies, so my gift of gab came in handy while waiting for their receipt to print. Uncle Bill said that I "wowed them". Believe you me, it's not hard to "wow" an 82 year old man who looks like Herb Bitz. You just start talking about the weather and they are hooked !!

I remember traveling many a mile with Grandma Dorothy and Grace Booth to auctions...in that green Buick station wagon. Grandma would pack a lunch and a big thermos of "cold drink" (also known as KOOL-AID in other markets), pick up Grace in Box Elder and then we would drive to GOD knows where (Chinook, Harlem, Loma, Chester, and Conrad...Conrad was an auction Mecca).

By the time we got there, I was SO cranky and hot....and thirsty. (Remember, there was an entire jug of "cold drink" in the back of the station wagon). I would ask nicely "Grandma, may I please have a glass of cold-drink?" and she would invariably say "No, that is for when we eat lunch and when the heat really gets bad" ! HELLO...GRANDMA...you are a registered nurse. Can you not see I am showing five of the six symptoms of heat stroke????

Then, this was her next move.....never failed. She would say "Here, have a drink of my cola". This is the same CHEAP (Cragmont, I think) cola she would buy...fill her green plastic tumbler up with ice and pour the cola over it. Then she would put it in that little drink and coin caddy she had on the front floor board. That drink would stay there ALL day..melted ice....uuughhh..tasted like total crap !! Either that or she would open that silver candy dish and say..."Here sister, suck on a hard candy. That will make your thirst go away !"

NO GRANDMA...a real pop or kool-aid or water will make my thirst go away. Not a freaking butterscotch hard candy!! Remember those other candies she had....those soft peanut ones with the little dab of peanut butter in them. They were wrapped in wax paper. Do you remember those?? In the 105 degree heat, they would melt and stick together and she would have a big candy blob !

Okay, back to the auction. SO...I would sit there all day in the blazing heat (I hate being hot - even when I was a kid) on a itchy hay bale watching these crazy people holding up little numbers on sticks. NO WONDER I am screwed up !! Grace always got salt and pepper shakers (I sure wish I had a set of her shakers) and Grandma always got something fun.

I remember the day she brought the bell back to the ranch. H.H. was not happy !! I think Denny and Tommy got corralled into setting it up by the big red rock. Grandma knew what she was doing...as after that, it worked for a dinner / emergency bell every day ! I think even the little barn kitties knew the sound of that bell....they would be like "SCORE, GOOD GRUB ON IT'S WAY" !!

What I could never figure out (and still can't) is how Grandma could open that back door fifteen times a day (hanging up laundry, etc) and the barn cats would never come up to the porch. BUT, the minute she walked out there with that frying pan filled with all the grease and trimmings and leftovers from dinner......those cats would come scrambling up that little path.

Holy Moly...I have rambled today.