An auction reunion: What am I bid?
I got a great deal at the auction last week. And no GST.
The sale of antiques, art and Canadiana was at the DeWinton Community Hall, a shade south of the Calgary city limits, where the hills snuggle up to the clouds and the downtown towers look almost ready to start fading from view.
Although I was familiar with auctioneer Sheldon Smithens from city sales, I was intrigued by the elderly gent in the brown ranch-cut suit who relieved him. That was the veteran Larry Irvine. When Larry took the mike, he recalled that Sheldon's mother Rae clerked his sales 41 years ago and he was delighted to work with her now.
Larry is your old-style auctioneer. His hypnotic stream of price and prattle pulls in your overbid before you can stop. He remembers what he sold Mikado tea sets for, 30 years ago, so you're all thrilled at the bargain today. He won't pretend to like something he doesn't. Besides, that scratched pine school-desk finds its price and buyer whether the auctioneer likes its memories or not.
The name was familiar from my first life in Calgary, before I left in 1963. But there could have been several Larry Irvines. Since returning six years ago I've delighted in my old contacts and sites. My new wife teases me for living in the past. I say that's the privilege of age: Playback is my payback.
When he stepped down for Sheldon's return I beckoned Mr. Irvine over to the side, behind the richly carved Victorian armoire:
"Did you use to sell real estate in the 1950s?"
"Yes, why?"
"You sold my parents our first house in 1950, then our second three years later."
"Well, let's see now. What's your name?"
"Yacowar, but you wouldn't remember us. You had lots of customers."
"No, I remember."
I assumed he was being professionally polite. Like waitresses who half-smile at my jokes. Or young Wally Buono, when I started to recall old-time Stampeders. But Larry continued:
"It was on 12th Avenue."
"Yeah. 12th Avenue East."
"Then I wanted your father to buy a house further out. Sam said no, it was too far, his asthma, he couldn't get to it. But I told him it was a good deal so he bought it."
"That was our third house, on 33rd St. and 17th Ave. S.W."
I'm astonished that Larry remembers my family at all -- but all those details! How big a memory can a frail body hold? Larry's recall pours out as if I've pulled out a cork.
"Your house on 12th, the lady who was selling, she was Scottish. What was her name?"
I help him reach:
"Gourlay."
"That's it! Mrs. Gourlay. She was asking $15,000. This one man [Larry names him]slapped down an offer, 14 cash, but she said no. She didn't like him. I showed your dad the place and he wanted to get it for 12. I thought she'd take 13. 'See if you can get her down to 12,' he said. I said, 'No, I'm not going to. If you want to offer her that, then you go tell her.' So he did. She finally let him have it for 12-five."
That happened in 1950. One closure among -- how many that year? That's 51 years ago but Larry digs out the details as if he's reading from a diary.
"I'm amazed at your memory!"
"If you ask me what I had for breakfast this morning, maybe I couldn't tell you, but things back then -- clear as a bell."
"You were our family's agent. You were our friend."
"Sam's sister -- Sara, and Morris -- I found them houses. Zeke [their son] comes to see me sometimes. Bobby [Zeke's late wife] she was a wonderful person."
"I have this vivid memory. When my folks decided to move from East Calgary, Dad asked you to come over. I remember you had a blue bruise on your thumb. You'd hit yourself with a hammer or something. I was fascinated by your blue nail."
"I remember that. A woman slammed a door on me."
Larry is well along his 80s. He left real estate for auctioneering. When he retired he did stone, then wood carving. Now he has just bought a leather sewing machine so he's making things in leather. On his DeWinton farm he raises prize-winning horses and chickens. A plaque on the community hall acknowledges his work for local charities. He has had his health problems -- cancer, open-heart surgery -- and he lost his wife, but Larry Irvine is very much alive, in hand, mind and memory.
"Thanks for coming up to me," he said. "So many of my friends are gone, it's good to connect like this."
Suddenly this congested 59-year-old professor was that East Calgary eight-year-old again, fascinated by this warm, generous man, more colourful for his bruises. And he was suddenly back as our family friend, when he shaved his commission to close a deal.
I got a few bargains (with GST), although not as many as the young mother beside me. But meeting Larry Irvine after 51 years was the best deal of the sale. Two human antiques rubbed memories and came out gleaming. Renewed. Maybe that's what memories are: the lemon oil for the handyman-special stage of life.
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