Chapter 12: Oyster Gambling

At the age of ten, my family and I spent the day in Carver, Massachusetts attending the town’s Home Coming Days celebration. Highlights of the festivities included an old-fashioned New England Clambake and an all-day auction.

As a kid, I found the whole affair to be loud, mysterious, and rather delicious. The air was thick with the scents of cotton candy, hot dogs, fried dough, and other marvelous treats. Carver was a glorious carnival, better even than a visit to the Marshfield Fair but without the crappy rides, phony games of skill, and carnival barkers.

To escape the heat of the mid-day August sun, my family selected one of the old picnic tables in the cool shade of the grove’s towering pine trees. Red, white, and blue bunting, flags, and banners adorned every tree giving the clearing a bright and patriotic appearance. With our home base established, I was free to roam about and explore.

A crowd gathered around an ancient weather-beaten and oily smelling canvas circus tent. I set about to investigate. An elderly white haired man stood at the center of attention like a preacher. Instead of salvation, he offered trinkets and other things for sale. I had never been to an auction and the process fascinated me. When the auctioneer introduced items, folks would shout out a number or raise their hands to signal a bid.

The bidding wars between rival customers often sent the price of an item soaring as each person tried to outbid the other. Sometimes the competition between opposing bidders remained good humored and friendly and at other times, bidding approached the frenzy of an all out blood sport.

After about fifteen minutes, I figured I had learned the basic rules of the game. Racing back to the clearing, I begged my mother for some money so I could attend the auction as a paying customer.

Joyce refused and told me, “The bank is closed.”

More charitable, my grandmother dug through her purse and handed me a 1947 Walking Liberty half-dollar silver coin. “Be smart about how you spend your money.”

Walking like a rich man, I returned to the circus tent and waited my turn. After several minutes, a bright red Radio Flyer wagon went on the auction block; other than a few spots of rust the cart appeared to be almost brand new. I offered a quarter and got outbid by a dime. I went all in for a half dollar and the bidding continued until a man with three kids grabbed the wagon for a buck seventy-five.

I chimed in on several other items and lost out when other players outbid me. After awhile, I realized only by going after something no one else wanted would I win a bid.

Tables filled with goods waiting to be sold occupied the space to the right of the auctioneer. I strolled over and took a quick inventory of upcoming objects. Most of what I found I wouldn’t have wanted if it were being given away free.

I spotted an old cranberry crate filled with random and assorted articles. Buried beneath the miscellaneous items I caught sight of a Hopalong Cassidy Pocket Knife. I went back and waited for my turn.

Eventually, my junk took a turn on the block. The auctioneer asked for an opening bid of fifty cents. Silence.

“Do I hear forty-five cents?” Crickets. “Who will bid a quarter?”

“Twenty-five cents,” I yelped.

“We have a quarter! Who will bid fifty cents?” Again silence.

“Going once for twenty-five cents, going twice, sold to the young man for a quarter dollar,” the auctioneer called out as he banged down his gavel.

I handed a lady cashier my silver coin and got back a quarter and a box of bric-a-brac.

Returning to the shade of the grove, I spread out the contents of my purchase on a vacant picnic table. I was now the proud owner of one jack-knife, a shoe brush, a dozen wooden spoons, two carpenter’s hammers, a chalk line, one unopened package of #2 yellow pencils, a coffee can filled with assorted nuts and bolts, one antique Springline stapler, a few dozen random nails, and a dozen dish towels wrapped up in a green ribbon.

Dumping out the coffee can with the mixed nuts and bolts, I sorted and threaded together one hundred matched sets and divided them between two small paper bags liberated from a candy concession stand. Pouring the loose nails in another paper bag, I assembled my stash of goods back into the box and ventured out to play traveling salesman. Luck was on my side and I sold my inventory of junk in less than twenty minutes.

In college, my father once worked as a door-to-door salesman and he often talked about the “art of selling” and the trade secrets of the craft. According to my dad, perceived value is the key. The instant a customer saw the value of an item exceed the asking price was the moment a sale occurred. It was the job of the salesman to establish a need for his product in the customer’s mind along with a value higher than the asking price.