Going ONCE.... TWICE..... SOLD!

One of my favorite memories of things to do with Dad was to attend auctions. We hit some random events now and then, like a store going out of business or something, but the majority of the time it was either ham radio auctions or the State GSA auctions, which were held twice a year, spring and fall, to liquidate surplus state stuff. There was all variety of things at the GSA auctions, like office equipment, surplus materials, randomness, but the thing he was usually there for was the vehicle auctions. They sold surplus heavy construction equipment, work trucks, trailers, fleet motor pool cars, and my personal favorite: police cars.

Now Dad's motivation to go to these was that he would typically buy two or three vehicles at an auction, get them home, clean them up, fix minor things he had identified that he recognized at the auction that made the price drop but weren't difficult to fix, and then resell them for a nice little profit.  It wasn't huge money, and he didn't need the money, either, but for him it was fun.

The way this worked on site for the vehicles, the auctioneer would stand on the loading dock of an enormously long warehouse, the people would stand below a ways back, and the vehicles would be driven in one at a time between the crowd and the auctioneer to be sold. But prior to the auction, everyone was free to wander up and down the rows of parked vehicles, open them up, check under the hood.

So we would get there way early, wander the vehicles in the gravel lot, and he would take notes on the ones he thought might be good candidates. Those were early mornings, and sometimes it was cold. The earliest auctions I attended I wasn't a coffee drinker, but there was always a little canteen truck that showed up to sell sandwiches and snacks and coffee... and hot chocolate. I knew to not bug him for anything, and eventually we would go over and he would buy me some nice stuff. Small pleasures like that were heaven to me back then.

Around the time I was 13 or 14, I'd been going to these often enough that I knew most of the state workers getting the vehicles running by name. One day I was cold, and a little bored of standing around, so when the crew guys went out to start the vehicles up, I went out to help, because why not? Most of these cars and trucks had been sitting for months, and more than a few were being sold off precisely because they had issues, so oftentimes they didn't want to start. The intent was to get them up and running so they could idle and warm up a bit before their turn, so the guys were usually about 20 cars ahead of where the auction was at any given time.

The crew guys had a variety of things with them besides the huge board of numbered keyrings on hooks, so they could start engines that might not want to cooperate. Jumper cables, carb cleaner and spray starter, gas cans, and other random things. The guys basically accepted my help without my asking, I just stepped in and started doing stuff. It's how I've gotten into a lot of stuff and accomplished a lot of things in my life - sometimes you just stride in like you belong and no one asks questions, you know? And because of this I also got to know the people who tended to be the regular drivers. A different crew of maybe six people, they'd drive a vehicle up to the line, about three trucks deep, take their turn getting auctioned, then drive it back and park it and turn in the keys before grabbing the next vehicle.

And so one day a few years later, the driving crew was a little short of normal strength, and there we were getting cars and trucks started, and someone came over and said the auctioneer was unhappy because there kept being pauses between auctions because of not enough drivers, and one of the driving guys asked me to take the next truck and go.  I was like..... what?? I mean, I had my license by then but just barely, and I definitely wasn't an employee. He looked at me again and nodded, and I was like.... OK. Sure thing.

And the look on Dad's face when I drove the first work truck through there. He just had this big satisfied grin. If he was surprised, it didn't last long, and quickly gave way to "of course, that's my kid." I gave him a little wave but tried to keep a straight face and act professional like I was supposed to be there. Waiting for someone to stop the show and yank me out for being the imposter, but nothing happened, so I kept doing it.

After that auction I kept helping with starting cars, but then joined the driver rotation after everything was running. So fun.

Dad bought so many vehicles from these auctions. A few stayed and became semi-permanent, but most came and went. Vans, work trucks, the occasional police car, or basic motor pool cars. It was a retired Dodge St. Regis police car, like the one pictured, that was Dad's daily driver when I went with him to work one day and then he just set me loose for the day to do what I wanted. That car was a boat, but it was also FAST! I'm not sure letting me have the run of Tacoma with that car was the wisest decision he ever made, but it demonstrated trust. So actually it was probably an act of calculated risk, rooted in wise parenting?

We had a baby-blue15-passenger van that, as far as I know, is still in Maple Valley. For a while we had a sea green forestry four-door cab pickup with an extended length service body (compartments), I don't know what the plan for that rig was, but it got kept a long time, and I ended up driving it to school for months. I liked to pick up my friends in it, and we stowed our school bags in the compartments. Sound familiar? Truly a preposterous vehicle for a high schooler to drive. Several police cars that I took any chance I could get to drive for an errand. And of course, Farley himself came from a state auction, he was the second of three Dodge Diplomats that came from there.

The one time I think I annoyed Dad a little bit at an auction was one of the last ones I went to. As we were strolling the vehicles before auction time, I became enamored with a wonderfully clean and very low miles 1976 Dodge Coronet, that looked almost exactly like this one, color and all. By now it was around 1990, and most vehicles coming through were 1980 or newer, so this one stood out for both being older relative to most, and also in great shape. I told him about it, thinking he would be interested, he didn't seem to share my full enthusiasm, but I pressed him to know how high he'd be willing to go.

It was near the end of the auction, so after we got everything started, I deferred being a driver and went to find him to be with him when it went through. Dad was meticulous about recording the price of every vehicle that sold, on a clipboard to which he always affixed his carefully-handwritten bidder number in big beautiful digits, whether he bid or bought something or not, but when I found him he really needed to visit the bathroom and handed me his clipboard, asked me to write prices down, said there wasn't anything he planned to bid on anyway. I told him the Coronet was still coming up, and he said his top end was $350, and disappeared into the crowd. There came that beautiful car at last, and I was the first bid. It bounced up to $300 right away and my hopes faded, but I took it to $350, someone bid $375, I was like, what's $50, and raised my hand again. Someone else had actually bid the $400 and I ended up holding the $425 bid. Oops. But hey, it's just $75, right? Once, twice, sold!

I was excited, but I also had violated his directions, and sheepishly explained how I ended up buying the Coronet for $75 over his limit, upon his return. To his credit, he made it his daily driver, and drove it for five or six years, he ended up loving that car after all. In the end I don't know what happened to it, it disappeared at some point after we moved away from Washington, when he decided he preferred comfortable midsize station wagons going forward, and that's basically the kind of car he drove for the rest of his life after the Coronet.

I have never lost my love for all kinds of in person auctions that I acquired from him, and still attend them as often as I can even though my motivations are different, but the rise of the internet has pushed in person auctions nearly out of the picture, resulting in higher prices and no fun. But they're not gone completely and can be found if you look hard enough.

Last time I was in Maple Valley was just after his memorial, there were still multiple old auction vehicles there, even though he'd stopped attending them years before.

If you've never been to an auction, I hope you can find your way to one. They're kind of an acquired taste, but worth giving a shot, and if things go well you can get some amazing interesting deals while also having fun.