My parents.

Years ago my father would drive to New Mexico and buy Indian jewelry and artifacts.  He would then bring it to Texas or New York and auction it off.  Some years later he would go to New York and buy antiques, bring them to Texas and auction them off.  Those smoke filled auctions were probably the only part of my childhood that I didn't try to repress.

My father used humor a lot in his auctions, he would tell the lady that had just bought some item "Ma'am, what's your number?"  She would hold up her card with her bidder number on it and my father would say "No Ma'am, I meant your phone number."  He would do that once a show and yes, I meant to call it a show.  My mother would always be there counting and handling money.  That's one of my earliest memories, I was seven and bothering her so she gave me a stack of cash, a pen, and a sheet of paper and told me to sit under the table and count the money.

Once my parents were out of the auctioning business they still kept their hand in it.  My father could watch the good auctioneers do a sale without a problem.  These guys had names like Machine Gun, he was that fast and articulate.  Or my mother would volunteer him to do a charity cake auction.  He did them for the Boy Scouts, my mother's church, and the Special Olympics among others.  Like clockwork he would sell and my mother would keep track of how much he sold, she might not be handling the money but they still wanted to know.

These charity auctions were great for the group.  Let's say that twenty people donated a cake/pie/cookie each, these were auctioned off by my father for free and they sold for an average of $20 each.  $400 profit for the charity without any real outlay of money or time.  I remember the first charity auction my mother volunteered him for.  It was for the Boy Scouts (my brother's special needs troop), he was as sick as a dog; he looked sick and sounded sick, even had a fever.  He said he would do it so he went to the dinner.  After the dinner it was time for the auction, he got up and said that he was sick "so how about we all put in $20 and pick a cake?"  Nope.  "Okay, and the first cake is..." He went on and sold all 20 for a total of over $400.  Then he went home and collapsed.

When my wife and I were first living together we went to a Special Olympics charity dinner, my wife (girlfriend at the time) made two items (rice krispie block and fancy cookies); the rice krispie block sold for $40 or so, the cookies went for $75 if I remember correctly.  A few dollars of ingredients, a few hours of labor (both donated) and the charity did very well.  Something to remember.

There were some naysayers, at the church someone complained that the cakes were too expensive so the next year they did a cake walk.  Even at the Boy Scouts a mother complained that people were spending too much money so they also did a cake walk the next year.  You ever been to a cake walk?  You don't spend an average of $20 to get a cake.  Who really lost on those decisions?