Relief Sale Vignettes
Today I attended the annual Kansas Mennonite Central Committee Relief Sale for the first time in a number of years. In some quarters, that “first time in a number of years” admission probably would be evidence enough for a guilty verdict if I were tried for heresy, such is the prominence of this event in the Mennonite mecca that is Kansas. At least 22,000 people were expected to attend.
I wanted to go, and ended up riding along with my parents and my sisters, Lois and Linda, to get there. I bought a six-pack of ice plant to put in the flower bed next to the road, and two African violets–a white and a pink, according to the masking tape label. I also bought a dozen peanut butter cookies–one of about 1200 dozen baked on-site and sold by members of the Beachy churches in the area.
I watched the quilt auction for a while. When I walked in, they were in the process of selling a quilt that brought $3,700.00. A later one sold for $5400. The total for the entire sale was over $400,000.00
Sadly, the vereneke was all gone by the time I got around to looking for some for my lunch. Joel and Shane had each asked me to bring home a carry out order, so I failed on several counts.
A lot of the people I knew that I saw at the relief sale have grown noticeably older since I last saw them. Some of them have grown fatter too. People who saw me there may at this moment be sharing the same information in their blogs.
***********************************
My brother Lowell was helping in the second auction ring, taking bids, and doing some auctioneering. I like hearing him. It brings back memories of how he used to practice here in this house while we were all growing up. He’d “sell” any object his eyes fell on–silly things like boxes, spoons, pencils, coats, etc., inserting humor and wheedling, and taking bids from anyone within range-- willing or unwilling participants in this “sale.” We’d laugh and try not to laugh, by turns. No use letting on he was any good at this. It might go to his head.
But in the dairy barn, he had a compliant audience. He could sell cows as long as the milking lasted. That’s where he really hit his stride with auctioneering skills.
He’s made a little money with this skill, working for a short time with one of the auction companies in the area, till he left the country for about five years for mission work. If he shows up at an auction, he often gets invited to participate.
Lowell told us that when he was in Costa Rica in February his father-in-law took him to the livestock auction and arranged for him to do an American style auctioneering demonstration. People cooperated gamely and placed fake bids on whatever imaginary animal he was selling. Everyone laughed and had a good time. Lowell speaks Spanish but is pretty sure he’d have a long way to go before he could sing a Spanish auction song. My guess is he’d need another childhood and an adolescence and a dairy herd to practice on.
*********************************
One of the items I was pleased to see sell was a “U” MM tractor, very much like the one I used to drive for my dad. It sounded just right when they started it up. One thing was different about this one though. It was gas powered instead of Liquid Propane (LP) powered. Therein lies the source of many more vivid childhood memories.
LP tractors, especially when filled to capacity with fuel, and run on a hot day, build up pressure inside the fuel tank faster than the engine can use it (at least that’s my amateur explanation). When this excess gas pressure is released through the relief valve installed for that purpose, it makes an ungodly, hideously loud noise. White vapor shoots toward the sky and billows menacingly. It happens without warning. That’s part of its power to terrify. You know when the conditions are right, but you hope and pray that this time it won’t happen. But it usually does. When you’re the nine-year old tractor driver, you hang on to the steering wheel for dear life, and hunker down in the seat till the danger passes. Or, depending on how often you’ve been through this before, you jerk back the hand clutch and run away from the tractor as far and fast as possible. It takes a long time for your heart rate to decelerate.
*********************************
I’m a real sucker for tractors I knew when I was a kid. Even now I dream of owning a 1952 8N Ford someday. I was born in 1952, and that was the last year 8N’s were made. I’ve checked them out on Ebay and bought a book on old Ford tractors. I periodically check the ads in the newspaper, and I notice when there’s an old Ford at the consignment sale in the community. Once on a trip to Oklahoma to attend a teacher’s convention, we came by a place in Tulsa with a whole lot full of old Ford tractors. I think I made a fool of myself that time, with my exclamations of surprise and delight.
I still mourn for the deal that got away when someone in western Kansas advertised three Ford tractors for a total of $1500. Parted out, the rear end of each one would have brought $750, and they were all running when they’d been parked inside a shed some years ago. But, as is often the case, you can’t take advantage of a bargain unless you have some capital to invest, and Hiromi was sure that buying three Ford tractors was not at the top of our priority list for expenditures. Since I am neither independently or dependently wealthy, I never got beyond calling up the guy who advertised it.
My grandfather Miller bought a brand new 8N Ford in 1951, so it figured large in many of my good childhood memories–riding in the tall silage wagon behind the Ford with my parents and siblings and grandparents and aunts and uncles on a summer evening trip to Great Aunt Fannie’s house for homemade ice cream, riding home after Wednesday evening church services, on a low-sided trailer behind the Ford, sitting in a box fastened to the three-point hitch with my aunt Emma taking us to their house for a visit. My uncle Ollie still uses that tractor often. It’s been overhauled several times, but it has always lived again to serve another day.
All the parts for Ford tractors are still available. I’ve tried to talk Grant into restoring one for me. He has gifted hands when it comes to tinkering with engines, but he’s practical about these things and says the only way you can justify putting the required money and hours into restoration is if you end up using the restored machine yourself. I think having something his mother could use herself might be close enough, but I don’t think he’s convinced.
Maybe I’ll have to tackle this project myself. That way, when the men looking on see that I’ll make a hopeless mess of it if they don’t step in to rescue me, I’ll get the help I needed in the first place.
I really don’t like how manipulative this plan looks, on paper or in practice. I’ll have to decide if a 1952 8N Ford tractor would be worth the risk.
My hunch is that the answer is probably not. Sigh.
****************************************
At the relief sale, my dad met a "gebrechlich" (frail-looking) man he did not recognize at first. It was Rube Schrock from Oregon. What I saw of him was the back of his wheel chair and a brown felt hat, tipped back far enough that he could see the face of anyone who stood in front of his wheelchair to visit with him. My dad remembers that when he was a child, his parents and the Schrocks once worked together on butchering day. My dad, who was about six years old, either wanting to impress, or just engage in friendly conversation, told Rube that he had had a birthday on October 18. Rube couldn’t quite manage this level of specificity, but he informed Dad that he had had a birthday too. He was several years younger than my father. Rube came all the way from Oregon for the relief sale. Beside this feeble-looking man, my father looked hale and hearty.
****************************************
Mahlon Wagler is a retired deacon who served in our church for many years. I remember his ordination in about 1959. He is now confined to a wheel chair also, and is barely conversant, but he was at the relief sale. In the one glimpse I got of him, his nephew Eldon’s daughter, Mary, who is about 10, was bent toward him, with her face very close to his, and holding both of his hands in hers. She was smiling and talking to him, her face full of sweetness and delight.
****************************************
I haven’t always been sure that big showy events like the relief sale are the best way to raise money for relief. Sometimes it feels that excesses abound on such occasions. People eat too much, buy too much stuff they don’t need, and pay too much for what they get. But the good part is that some who can’t give money can give their time and skills to create something that others are willing to pay for. In the end, poor people benefit, and the camaraderie and good will all around on sale day is certainly a good thing.
I wanted to go, and ended up riding along with my parents and my sisters, Lois and Linda, to get there. I bought a six-pack of ice plant to put in the flower bed next to the road, and two African violets–a white and a pink, according to the masking tape label. I also bought a dozen peanut butter cookies–one of about 1200 dozen baked on-site and sold by members of the Beachy churches in the area.
I watched the quilt auction for a while. When I walked in, they were in the process of selling a quilt that brought $3,700.00. A later one sold for $5400. The total for the entire sale was over $400,000.00
Sadly, the vereneke was all gone by the time I got around to looking for some for my lunch. Joel and Shane had each asked me to bring home a carry out order, so I failed on several counts.
A lot of the people I knew that I saw at the relief sale have grown noticeably older since I last saw them. Some of them have grown fatter too. People who saw me there may at this moment be sharing the same information in their blogs.
***********************************
My brother Lowell was helping in the second auction ring, taking bids, and doing some auctioneering. I like hearing him. It brings back memories of how he used to practice here in this house while we were all growing up. He’d “sell” any object his eyes fell on–silly things like boxes, spoons, pencils, coats, etc., inserting humor and wheedling, and taking bids from anyone within range-- willing or unwilling participants in this “sale.” We’d laugh and try not to laugh, by turns. No use letting on he was any good at this. It might go to his head.
But in the dairy barn, he had a compliant audience. He could sell cows as long as the milking lasted. That’s where he really hit his stride with auctioneering skills.
He’s made a little money with this skill, working for a short time with one of the auction companies in the area, till he left the country for about five years for mission work. If he shows up at an auction, he often gets invited to participate.
Lowell told us that when he was in Costa Rica in February his father-in-law took him to the livestock auction and arranged for him to do an American style auctioneering demonstration. People cooperated gamely and placed fake bids on whatever imaginary animal he was selling. Everyone laughed and had a good time. Lowell speaks Spanish but is pretty sure he’d have a long way to go before he could sing a Spanish auction song. My guess is he’d need another childhood and an adolescence and a dairy herd to practice on.
*********************************
One of the items I was pleased to see sell was a “U” MM tractor, very much like the one I used to drive for my dad. It sounded just right when they started it up. One thing was different about this one though. It was gas powered instead of Liquid Propane (LP) powered. Therein lies the source of many more vivid childhood memories.
LP tractors, especially when filled to capacity with fuel, and run on a hot day, build up pressure inside the fuel tank faster than the engine can use it (at least that’s my amateur explanation). When this excess gas pressure is released through the relief valve installed for that purpose, it makes an ungodly, hideously loud noise. White vapor shoots toward the sky and billows menacingly. It happens without warning. That’s part of its power to terrify. You know when the conditions are right, but you hope and pray that this time it won’t happen. But it usually does. When you’re the nine-year old tractor driver, you hang on to the steering wheel for dear life, and hunker down in the seat till the danger passes. Or, depending on how often you’ve been through this before, you jerk back the hand clutch and run away from the tractor as far and fast as possible. It takes a long time for your heart rate to decelerate.
*********************************
I’m a real sucker for tractors I knew when I was a kid. Even now I dream of owning a 1952 8N Ford someday. I was born in 1952, and that was the last year 8N’s were made. I’ve checked them out on Ebay and bought a book on old Ford tractors. I periodically check the ads in the newspaper, and I notice when there’s an old Ford at the consignment sale in the community. Once on a trip to Oklahoma to attend a teacher’s convention, we came by a place in Tulsa with a whole lot full of old Ford tractors. I think I made a fool of myself that time, with my exclamations of surprise and delight.
I still mourn for the deal that got away when someone in western Kansas advertised three Ford tractors for a total of $1500. Parted out, the rear end of each one would have brought $750, and they were all running when they’d been parked inside a shed some years ago. But, as is often the case, you can’t take advantage of a bargain unless you have some capital to invest, and Hiromi was sure that buying three Ford tractors was not at the top of our priority list for expenditures. Since I am neither independently or dependently wealthy, I never got beyond calling up the guy who advertised it.
My grandfather Miller bought a brand new 8N Ford in 1951, so it figured large in many of my good childhood memories–riding in the tall silage wagon behind the Ford with my parents and siblings and grandparents and aunts and uncles on a summer evening trip to Great Aunt Fannie’s house for homemade ice cream, riding home after Wednesday evening church services, on a low-sided trailer behind the Ford, sitting in a box fastened to the three-point hitch with my aunt Emma taking us to their house for a visit. My uncle Ollie still uses that tractor often. It’s been overhauled several times, but it has always lived again to serve another day.
All the parts for Ford tractors are still available. I’ve tried to talk Grant into restoring one for me. He has gifted hands when it comes to tinkering with engines, but he’s practical about these things and says the only way you can justify putting the required money and hours into restoration is if you end up using the restored machine yourself. I think having something his mother could use herself might be close enough, but I don’t think he’s convinced.
Maybe I’ll have to tackle this project myself. That way, when the men looking on see that I’ll make a hopeless mess of it if they don’t step in to rescue me, I’ll get the help I needed in the first place.
I really don’t like how manipulative this plan looks, on paper or in practice. I’ll have to decide if a 1952 8N Ford tractor would be worth the risk.
My hunch is that the answer is probably not. Sigh.
****************************************
At the relief sale, my dad met a "gebrechlich" (frail-looking) man he did not recognize at first. It was Rube Schrock from Oregon. What I saw of him was the back of his wheel chair and a brown felt hat, tipped back far enough that he could see the face of anyone who stood in front of his wheelchair to visit with him. My dad remembers that when he was a child, his parents and the Schrocks once worked together on butchering day. My dad, who was about six years old, either wanting to impress, or just engage in friendly conversation, told Rube that he had had a birthday on October 18. Rube couldn’t quite manage this level of specificity, but he informed Dad that he had had a birthday too. He was several years younger than my father. Rube came all the way from Oregon for the relief sale. Beside this feeble-looking man, my father looked hale and hearty.
****************************************
Mahlon Wagler is a retired deacon who served in our church for many years. I remember his ordination in about 1959. He is now confined to a wheel chair also, and is barely conversant, but he was at the relief sale. In the one glimpse I got of him, his nephew Eldon’s daughter, Mary, who is about 10, was bent toward him, with her face very close to his, and holding both of his hands in hers. She was smiling and talking to him, her face full of sweetness and delight.
****************************************
I haven’t always been sure that big showy events like the relief sale are the best way to raise money for relief. Sometimes it feels that excesses abound on such occasions. People eat too much, buy too much stuff they don’t need, and pay too much for what they get. But the good part is that some who can’t give money can give their time and skills to create something that others are willing to pay for. In the end, poor people benefit, and the camaraderie and good will all around on sale day is certainly a good thing.
posted by Mrs. I at
6:45 PM
1 Comments:
People should read this.
By
Anonymous, at 11/10/2008
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