A Bad Day In The Auction Business, August 24,2013

Yesterday, August 24, 2013, I got a call from an individual I do not know asking me if I would come to Means, KY, in Menifee County to work a small consignment auction at his auction house. I generally always say yes to such requests for several reasons. First, it is the right thing to do to bail out a fellow member of a licensed profession when circumstances make it necessary for them to ask for help. Secondly, it is a good way to have my work as an auctioneer seen by people who don’t usually come to my own sales. Thirdly, it gives me a chance to see how some of my peers and competitors are operating their own businesses. Therefore, I always keep my name on the contract auctioneer page at Auction Zip. I agreed to do the sale and made arrangements to go there with my wife Candice. We arrived the building which I had seen about a year and a half ago when I was searching for a location in Eastern Kentucky to set up my own auction house. I had not been impressed when I saw it the first time and I was not impressed when I saw what had been done with it by the current operator. It was an old store located directly across US460 from the Means, KY, post office. The building is probably 50 to 75 years old and has little or no upkeep since it was last used as a grocery. The parking lot was nearly bereft of all its original paving. The only bathrooms were in a small concrete addition on the outside of the building. Grass and weeds were growing in every spot which was not heavily trafficked. The auction block was a cobbled wooden structure above the floor with three rickety steps staggering up to the tiny platform behind the auction block. The table for the auctioneer and cashier was built with a steep downward tilt so that a roll of duct tape had been place on it to hold the auctioneer’s water. The sound system was average or above with a hand held wireless microphone which quit once on me during the sale. There were two or three large steel uprights obstructing the view from the block to the back of the room. The merchandise which was waiting to be sold pitifully reminded of my first few solo sales when I was buying out yard sales, accepting box lots of junk, and taking anything of any hopeful value on consignment in order to have enough items to sell to entice a few people to come back the following week. It was heavily used in general with obvious flaws, defects, and shortcomings. The crowd, if it could be called such, dwindled in by ones and twos. Nearly all of them were dressed in clothes which appeared to have been bought in boxes at estate sales of the working class. Most were not very verbal before the sale started and talked only to those they knew. The two or three which the operator identified as sellers looked, at best, only a little better than their potential customers. In general, they seemed to be a low income, sultry, and sullen bunch. The operator started the sale about 15 minutes late which I always detest. It is my firm belief that a scheduled start time should be honored in concrete. As I like to say, “when the big hand hits the twelve I am going to make somebody happy.” The operator and one other man acted as ring men and merchandise movers. Their bid spotting was weak and they both liked to occasionally shout as if the noise might scare a bid out of someone.

Why Do Blogs And Bloggers Become Defunct?

 Recently, I scrolled through the rather long list of blogs on my "Reading List" on this website and found that many of the blogs on that list had not had a new post in quite some time, some of them for even a few years.  When a blog and blogger go that long without any new content it is safe to assume the blog is now defunct.  But why do they become defunct?  I'm not even sure I know all the answers but a lot of possible answers are seemingly obvious.  Some of the bloggers simply die.  Other bloggers might find new interests which they enjoy more and simply quit blogging.  Others could even have found themselves in prison.  Who knows?  I have published this blog since April 15, 2011, and it has grown steadily both in the amount of posts I have created and in the number of people who have become interested in it.  In the nearly 10 years I have written this blog, it has slowly grown from a few dozen followers to more than 150 followers.  But, I have no way of knowing how many of those followers actually actively follow the blog to the degree that they read most of my posts, read some of my posts when they are bored, or simply return at irregular times to see if I have posted anything in which they are interested.  

Over the last couple or three years though, this blog has ballooned from about 50 followers to more than 150.  This blog averages about 3,000 page views a month and has had a little over 362,000 page views in the ten years it has been active.  But, interestingly, the two highest months in page views came in September 2014 and March 2015 when it received 18,917 page views and 20,917 page views respectively.  At that time, I probably had less than 30 followers.  I have no idea why the blog received such high numbers in those two months.  The roughly one year period from February 2014 to March 2015 had consistently higher numbers than the blog average.  January 2015 was the lowest month in that period with 5,262 page views.  I repeat that I have no idea why the numbers ran so high for that period and why now, with at least three times as many followers, I usually get lower page views.  If any of you readers can explain why, I would love to hear it.  

Now, to discuss the reason which prompted me to write about this in the first place.  Over the years, I have added 32 blogs of fairly varied subject matter to my reading list and have not ever deleted one from that list.  My primary areas of interest have consistently been Appalachian Studies, Auctioneering, Travel, and Disability Issues since my wife, Candice has been in a wheelchair for more than twenty years.  Of the blogs on my list, I clearly know less than half a dozen of the creators and have only ever met one of them in person.  I have probably corresponded with a dozen or so either via e-mail or the comments sections on either my blog or theirs.  The one person I know, have met, correspond with regularly, and expect to see again in the future is Mike Brandly who is an auctioneer, real estate broker, auctioneer trainer, and expert witness in matters of auction law.  His blog is called Mike Brandly, Auctioneer Blog, and has had more then 1.4million page views due to his national prominence as a multi-faceted auctioneer.  I have actually taken my required continuing education for my auctioneer license from Mike and we are Facebook friends.  We have a couple of Facebook groups in common, two of which Mike runs and one run by a friend of mine to which I referred Mike. 

I also know, in a less personal way without any face to face contact, a woman named Heather Johnson who writes a wonderful blog called Paralyzed With Joy and has done so since November 2009.  Heather is a full quadriplegic due to a horrible car accident, not her fault, when she was 17 years old.  If she can maintain a blog for 12 years, anybody can.  And her is one of the most interesting blogs I read.  Heather, one of her sisters, and I are all Facebook friends.  

Another blogger with whom I have had extensive contact beyond his blog is known to the world as either Greenbrier Jim or Wayfarin' Stranger which is also the name of his blog which he operated regularly from February 2011,  to March 2014, and then ceased to produce it which is a damn shame since it is a wonderful blog of both his own high quality photography and Appalachian History.  Jim grew up in Morehead, Kentucky, where I attended Morehead State University years after he left town.  I suspect that Jim may be having health issues which have kept him from continuing.  But his blog is still worth exploring for the quality of his work in both areas. 

Another blog and blogger which I appreciated a great deal was called Dave's Cupboard and focused on unusual foods.  Dave, who I do not know from Adam, ran his blog consistently from January 2, 2006, until June 26, 2015.  I suspect that Dave might have either passed away or suddenly suffered a major health crisis.  His daughter was listed as a co-author on the blog and I sent a message of inquiry but never got an answer.  I love odd, unusual, even strange foods, and I miss Dave's blog a lot.  It is also worth visiting for the past reflections on many things a lot of people claim they never eat.  

Only two or three blogs on my Reading List can be said to still be active with posts having been created in the last few months at the latest.  I miss the work of every one of the authors who created those blogs and wish they were still active.  And I have to repeat, I have no idea why some of them stopped.  

Requiem For A Friend--Dewey Lee Rogers--1942-2019

Dewey Lee Rogers--Photo by the Rogers Family

Sometime in August of 2011, at Banner, Kentucky, I met one of the most unique and interesting people I ever knew.  He was my friend, my auction ring man, and one of the best overall people I ever knew.  I had just opened my weekly consignment auction at Banner which I continued to operate for several years before closing it due to my wife's increasing health problems.  I knew very few people in the area although I had grown up about 25 miles away.  I had not lived or worked in that area in several years.  A slim, neatly dressed man in a white shirt and khaki pants walked into the auction house a few minutes before the sale was scheduled to begin and struck up a conversation.  He never mentioned his name and I never asked for some unknown reason.  But it was obvious that he knew a lot about the auction business. Since most compliance officers with the Kentucky Board Of Auctioneers have always been retired Kentucky State Police detectives and this man was neatly dressed, old enough to be retired, and well versed in the business, I immediately thought he was probably a compliance officer checking out a newly advertised weekly auction.  So I said, "If you work for the board, my license is right over there on the wall.  Go check it out."  Dewey just laughed and said, "No, I don't work for the board."  

Dewey and Lorene Rogers--Photo by the Rogers Family

At the time, I did not have an established auction crew other than my wife Candice who was cashiering, a clerk whose full time job was as  a librarian at the local community college, and a general flunky who had walked in just a day or two after I rented the building and claimed he was a ring man.  I knew fairly soon after I hired him that he was not a ring man and shortly after that I figured out that he was also a thief.  After I started the auction, things were going about as well as could be expected with a green crew and a bad ring man.  Just as it was  becoming apparent that my so-called ring man was incompetent, Dewey just stood up and started working.  Since I had no idea who he was, my first reaction was to tell him to sit down and we would run the sale.  But after about the second item he helped me sell, I realized this old man knows what he is doing.  So I let him work the entire sale and it went much better than it would have otherwise.  After the sale ended, I walked over to him and asked how much I owed him.  He just grinned and said, "You don't owe me nothing."  Then I asked "Are you  coming back next week?"  He just grinned again and said, "I don't know if I am or not," and walked out of the building to his vehicle. About fifteen minutes before the sale was scheduled to start the next week, Dewey came walking in the door.  I walked up to him and said, "Are you going to work tonight?"   He gave me that same grin and asked, "Do you think you need me?"  "I said, "I do but I don't like for people I don't know to work for me.  Who are you?"  He said, "I'm Dewey Lee Rogers."  We shook hands.  He worked that sale and nearly every other sale I ever had in Floyd County Kentucky and we quickly became fast friends until the day he died on May 23, 2019.

Dewey & Lorene Rogers--Photo by the Rogers Family

Our relationship quickly bloomed into a wonderful professional relationship between an auctioneer and a ring man and an even better friendship between two Appalachian men with a lot of common interests.  He had worked as a coal miner and an auction ring man most of his life and lived his entire life on Mud Creek in Floyd County.  He loved auctions and the auction business and he would have been a wonderful auctioneer if he had ever chosen to get a license.  I still don't understand why he never did.  I offered several times to let him serve his apprenticeship under me and he always just said he wasn't interested in having his license.  When we worked auctions, he was absolutely in tune to me and my style of working.  We were a great team and he made me look better and funnier.  He was a very funny man himself and when we were both on top of our game we could have given Laurel and Hardy a run for their money and still run a smooth, fast paced, professional auction at the same time.  It was a tremendous pleasure to work with him.  He made an auction tick like a clock, kept the crowd honest, and did a hundred different things which made him irreplaceable. He knew the great majority of the locals who became our regular customers and passed on valuable personal information about every one of them.  He knew who was honest, who was not, who wrote bad checks, who stole, and who you could trust. In a short time, I realized that if I ever had a million dollars in a cardboard suitcase and needed a place to park it, I could hand it to Dewey and say "I'll pick this up in a week or two."  It would have been there untouched when I went back to get it. I always make a practice of introducing my crew at the start of each auction for two reasons.  The customers need to know who is working the auction and what their job is and the staff need to be recognized instead of ignored and treated like burger flippers or temps in what should be a full time job.  I quickly developed a stock introduction for Dewey.  At the start of every sale, I would introduce him to the crowd by saying, "This is Dewey Rogers.  He has worked for every auctioneer since Adam had to sell Abel's personal property."  It might have been an exaggeration but it was simultaneously close to the truth.  Dewey had been attending auctions since he was old enough to travel anywhere alone and he had worked as a ring man for somewhere in the neighborhood of fifty years. He knew a lot about people and a lot about most kinds of merchandise and how to get an honest dollar out of anything.  He understood, just like me, that at every auction someone is in control.  It is either the auctioneer or the crowd and it should always be the auctioneer.  We worked together to the point that we were both proud to tell anybody who asked what each of us thought about the other.  To me, Dewey was the best ring man alive.  To Dewey, as he often said, I ran the best country auction anywhere around. 

Dewey Rogers--Photo by the Rogers Family

Dewey also had a lot of similar interests to my own.  Despite having a minimal amount of formal education, he was very intelligent, loved books and history.  He also loved to meet people and was literally the definition of gregarious.  He never saw a stranger and if he met one he knew them before they parted ways.  He absolutely loved his wife of fifty years, Lorene Hamilton Rogers, and he made it clear to anyone who asked. The last photo above is my favorite photo of Dewey and Lorene.  I don't believe it is possible to see that photo of a man and a woman, both well past their prime, staring into each other's faces without knowing that they were in love even if you do not know another thing about them.  Lorene passed away on September 11, 2018, a few months before Dewey and he was lost in many ways after that.  His health deteriorated and his daughter, Nonie Justice, and her husband moved into his home and took care of him until his death.  With medication and effort, Dewey managed to return to doing some of the things he loved until the day of his death.  He was able to visit some family and friends, to drive on his own, and to enjoy some aspects of his life until his final day.

I have lost a wonderful friend and professional associate.  Dewey's family has lost a father and a hero in many ways.  The community has lost someone to admire.    

A Cross Cultural Experience

I recently spent two days completing continuing education for my Indiana Auctioneer License.  Any time you spend two days in a room with more than 20 auctioneers, it is a cultural experience in itself.  You have a room full of story tellers who actually have stories to tell.  But the real cross cultural experience has to do with the fact that I was able to spend a day in the company of my two closest friends among the Amish, Jesse and Steven Yoder, who are also auctioneers.  We went through our auctioneer pre-licensing course together and became good friends during that time.  We spent 80 hours over several weeks in a classroom together and for most of that time I drove them to and from class.  We have spent many hours lined up across the seat of a pickup together which tends to be a male bonding experience in itself.  They are roughly half my age.  But we never had any problems becoming friends either because of the age difference or the cultural and religious differences.  During those hours together, we have talked about most subjects which adult males talk about in any small group.  We know each other well.

Jesse and Steven are members of a more liberal sect of Amish which still practice all the old religious traditions with some mild shifts toward the mainstream.  They now have telephones in their homes but do not own cell phones.  When we spend time together, their wives call my cell phone if they need to pass on information.  But there are no time wasting calls.  When I first met Amish people in Southern Ohio in 1989, they were members of the same sect to which Jesse and Steven belong.  But at that time, these people did not have phones in their homes.  If they had a legitimate need for a phone, they had a pay phone installed in their yard, garden, or pasture in a small black building which looked much like a one hole outdoor toilet.  They would have an answering service in Cincinnati and would go to the phone twice a day to pick up messages and make necessary calls.  If they felt it was necessary, they returned a call.  If it was unnecessary, they never returned it. 

Today, they have telephones and use them for what they consider legitimate business or family calls.  They might call distant relatives once a week but not usually any more than that.  Jesse and Steven also have a web page on Auctionzip.com which is maintained by an "English" friend. The Amish refer to all non-Amish as "the English".  When it is spoken with a Pennsylvania Dutch accent it sounds more like "the Englitch".  When I am with my Amish friends, I tend to pronounce it the same way.  Steven and Jesse do not listen to radio or watch television.  When we travel together, the radio in my truck is never on.  They have two or three regular "English" people in each Amish neighborhood who drive for the Amish.  They will not operate a car but they will ride in one if it is necessary.  They have no electricity in their homes but they will use propane or natural gas.  They avoid as much technology as possible. But if Jesse and Steven were hired to sell a large "English" farmers assets, they would be willing to sell a $100,000 combine or tractor.  I know some Amish in Southern Ohio who own and drive propane powered fork lifts in a cedar processing business.  But they will not operate a gasoline or diesel powered machine. 

They go to church on Sunday and do not perform any kind of unnecessary labor on Sunday. This is rooted in the Old Testament quotation about "getting an ox out of a ditch".  If work does not involve a necessity or emergency, it is never done on Sunday.  Since the continuing education class was set for Saturday and Sunday, the instructor made arrangements to meet them at another time and place to do the class which everyone else did on Sunday.  They still speak Pennsylvania Dutch and use High German in church.  Their children only learn to speak Pennsylvania Dutch at home and do not start to learn English until they enter school which they leave at age 16.  Even today, English is a third language for them.  We have talked once or twice about whether they could perform as auctioneers in Pennsylvania Dutch.  They say they could but all auctions, even for the Amish are performed in English.  We have the shared experience of having grown up wanting to become auctioneers.  They say they practiced their auction chants while driving horses in the field or bringing the cows in to milk.  I learned, like most auctioneers, by "selling fence posts and road signs" while driving.  This means that you practice by starting a chant on a road sign and selling it when you get to the next and starting over. Their "English" auctioneer friends often kid them about how high the prices were for the road signs they sold since they were practicing while driving a buggy not a car. 
We generally do not maintain telephone contact on a regular basis and only spend time together when we are in the same place.  If it is not a necessity, we do not get together or call each other despite the fact that all three of us enjoy spending time together.  When I am with them, I try to adhere to as many of their lifestyle norms as I reasonably can.  When it necessary for them to tolerate a few of mine they do so.  We are genuinely friends because of the many common elements we find in our lives and because we all work to overcome the differences and do not allow them to interfere with our friendship. We accept each other at face value and understand that we are not likely to ever live our lives in a manner which would be akin to the other.  Knowing the Amish has been very instructive to me in terms of being able to deal with people from many other cultures.