I'm going to an auction this weekend. I LOVE going to auctions. Some of my fondest memories growing up were tagging along with my parents early on a Saturday morning. They had seen a notice of a household or farm auction in the paper. They would get the address, and a tri-fold paper map (no Google Maps back then). My dad would be the pilot and my mom the co-pilot. The thermos was filled with hot coffee made just the way my dad liked it.
We would make sure we had layers of warm clothes and hats and gloves because these auctions were always outside and almost always in the crisp cool fall of small town Illinois. As we traveled over mostly gravel roads to find the farm or home that was listed in the auction add, we would be on the lookout for the small signs that would point us in the right direction. Sometimes the signs were hand painted "Auction" or "Sale". Sometimes the auctioneer, who did this as a weekend job to supplement his farmers income, would have a sign with his name and phone number printed in red letters.
Most often than not, we arrived at a small farm house with a barn and maybe an outhouse. There were no animals in the pens or chickens pecking in the front yard. No dogs were lazily sleeping on the porch. The farm was quiet and empty. The owners had probably died, or had moved to a retirement home or in with an adult child. If they were still alive, they were usually there, walking around the tables set up in what was once their side yards or meadows. On the tables were rows and rows of memories. China that had been a wedding present. The large pan that cooked the Sunday roast. Chipped glasses. Tupperware. Curtains. Rugs. Lamps. Members from the Ladies Auxiliary from the local church,(usually the Methodists) had helped to set everything out for inspection.
The kitchen was usually bustling with the same ladies preparing lunch for the crowd. Hot dogs, hamburgers, chips, coffee. The curtains still hung in the farm wife's kitchen. The linoleum floor in the kitchen was old and yellowed with age. The small downstairs bathroom was open for little girls like me to use.The porcelain fixtures were sometimes pink or turquoise but any hint of the woman who kept this bathroom spotless for all those years was gone..
Out in the meadow was where most of the men gravitated. Here were row upon row of rusted farm equipment. Plows, hay balers, disks. Everything you would need to start a small Illinois farm 50 years ago. There would always be a huge barrel with shovels, rakes, hoes and clippers that had been used in the kitchen gardens and flower beds that were now grown over and forgotten.
The auctioneer would be seated on a huge wooden dias that he had made himself in his own barn. This gave him a better view of the crowd so as not to miss a bid. He usually had a mounted microphone with a static filled speaker next to him. Sometimes it worked. sometimes it didn't. If it didnt, then he would have to talk loudly enough to be heard by the crowd that was forming. Pickup trucks lined the gravel road leading up to the house, and if it was a particularly large auction, a field would be used for parking.
Most of the men wore well worn caps with the names John Deere or Caterpillar on them. They had mud splattered boots and overalls on to keep out the cold. The women, with scarves on their heads to keep out the cold but most importantly to keep the curl in their hair, stood in groups of 2 or 3 and talked about how sad it was to see all this. "Such a nice family", "so sorry to hear that he had died" "did you hear the kids put her in a nursing home". Almost everyone there knew the family and wanted to be there.
And then the bidding would begin. Everything would be bid on. It would have been an insult to the family if something was not. And in less that 6 or so hours a lifetime of things that had brought joy or sorrow, riches or hardship,memories and tears was gone. Gone to live with other families that could use or collect them. The tables were packed away. The ladies sold that last hot dog. The auctioneer took down the signs, and it was done. It was almost like it had never happened. The farm would then be sold. Depending on the buyer, the barns may or may not see animals in the stalls again. The pink bathroom would be remodeled and the linoleum in the kitchen would be replaced.
Years after when you would drive by that farm, someone would always say, "Remember so and so who used to live there? Such a nice family. I miss seeing her out in her garden and him in the fields.""I don't know the new owners, do you?"
But the auction I am going to today is nothing like the ones of my childhood. Each week a huge warehouse on the south side of town is filled to the brim. Furniture, dishes, quilts, collectibles, junk. Rows and rows of red padded chairs are set up for the bidders.There is heat in the winter and cool air in the summer. Florescent lights shine overhead so you can clearly see what you are bidding on. The auctioneer still sits on his dias---granted a much nicer one. He still has a mic that works~~ most of the time. But no one has any idea to whom all these things for auction once belong.
There are no memories of the people that ate off the china I just purchased, and no one recognizes any face in the box of photographs that just went for $5.Wooden chairs that rocked sick children in the night can't get a bid and are cast aside. Kerosine lamps that once lit the way to the barn on a cold winter night are bought by a Pintrester. Quilts made of feed sacks to keep a family warm are bought by someone who will cut them up into stuffed teddy bears.
Things change. Ways of doing things change. It is sad to see family memories sold to strangers. But I still love to go to auctions. I think about the people who once owned these possessions.I think about my parents who used to brave the wet and the cold to stand for hours at an auction with me by their side.I still use the china my mom bought at auction when I was a little girl. I remember her face as she was unpacking it and telling me about the family who had once owned the set of lovely plates with the little roses. Good memories.
