Auction in Galesburg

Last Saturday morning Dad picked me up early and made the trek along I-74 to Galesburg.  We reached our destination at he airport about a half hour before things got rolling.  While dad registered, I took the opportunity to survey the inventory to be auctioned.

One of two functioning airplanes.

The two not-so-functioning planes.

Golf cart for Grandpa?

Possible trailer to haul Ed?

A hangar full of airplane parts and some nice tools.

It turns out that Dad was really only interested in a trailer for Ed (his 1953 pick-up), a golf cart for Grandpa, a sandblaster, and few other odds and ends.  The big items were all to be auctioned off at 1 o'clock sharp and the rest were listed on a numbered inventory sheet.  During the first 45 minutes they made it through 40 items, which meant most of Dad's items (tagged with numbers in the 4 and 5 hundreds) would be on the auction block around 3 in the afternoon or so.  Yikes!  That's a bunch of sittin' around!  Dad would have been fine, as he seemed to bump into quite a few people from the airplane industry, but I would have needed a nice easy chair to get through the day.  A couple of dilapidated bucket seats soon to be auctioned off weren't going to cut it.

Dad drove me back home and then he headed back for the big items at one o'clock.  He returned empty handed as the trailer went for more than twice what he was willing to pay and the golf cart need more work to get it running that it was worth.  He didn't stick around for the smaller items on his wishlist.

The auction had everything, even the kitchen sink!

It was a fun experience as it was only the second auction that I've been witness to.  The whole situation kind of took me back about twenty years...  Dad would drive Jane and I around to local baseball card shows; we'd roam the aisles for hours and buy maybe ten dollars worth of cards.  Dad still did the driving, but it was his turn to roam the aisles.  Seeing Dad in his element was worth the trip alone.  There is so much to know about airplanes and while I could only name maybe a couple of dozen items in the hanger and their purpose Dad knew the name of everything and each item's use. I figure I only owe him about 30 or so more airplane auctions to repay him for all of the card shows that he chauffeured me to during my childhood.  Yeah, my dad's the best.