My Mom’s Stuff.
We had to do it.   There was just too much to keep.  It had to be sold.  Now it’s a done deal.

Saturday night, promptly at 5:30, the auctioneer sold the first item.  The Auction barn was packed, standing room only.  He knew it would be a good night for an auction.

First up for sale was an Old Hickory butcher knife, it came out of my Mom’s kitchen.  The blade was rusty but sharp, the handle scarred and nicked.  It was fifty years old, if it was a day.  Someone bid two dollars, another bid four and the bidding stalled at five dollars.  Going once, going twice, sold!

And then the auctioneer sold another piece, and another and he didn’t stop until 11:30 that night.

Warning:  I love a good auction. I hated this one.

I knew I was going to be sad. This was my Mom’s stuff.   She didn’t get to take it with her.

This is the only auction I’ve been to, where I promised myself I wouldn’t buy a single thing.   I bought a blue glass bottle.  I gave it to someone who cares.

I told the auctioneer I may get up and walk out a time or two. It was bitter sweet at best.  But, I held my ground, I sat there and watched it all get sold, then packed up and hauled away.

We children begged my Mom to hold her own auction, to sell her collections of butter molds, antique mason jars, old bottles, whiskey jugs, butter churns, stone crocks, milk glass, dishes, vases, cast iron skillets and the list goes on and on.   We wanted her to enjoy the money, the fruit of her collections.

She held on to this stuff until the end.

Everything she had was made in the USA, from back when America’s stuff that was meant to last.

She had some good stuff.  I knew that.

As they say in the auction business, some of it brought good money.  And, some of it went dirt cheap.  I looked around at the crowd.  To be kind, it was a group of mature people.

Young people don’t buy this sort of stuff, you know what I’m saying.  Antiques and such.  Today, the kids want a telephone that’s connected to Google, Ebay, Amazon, Facebook and the rest of the world.  They spend their money on subscriptions and toys in the digital world and cyberspace. They think it has to be electric or rechargeable to be worth having.

The lady sitting next to me had her tablet, checking prices on Ebay.

The buyers were shop owners and older collectors, the ones who say “you can’t find this stuff anymore.”

They sold her stool, her favorite sitting place.  The bidding was quick.  Bidders started waving at ten dollars, then up  to fifty dollars and stopped around eighty dollars. That was a good price.  Someone else, I hope, will enjoy the spool.  Quite frankly, it hurt my rear to sit on it.

They sold the hammer I had when I was a kid.  Haven’t seen the thing in sixty years.  I have a half dozen hammers of my own.  My kids are already asking me why I have so many hammers.

I tell them so they can auction them off when I’m gone.

Dad’s stuff!

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