Geography Ain't His Strongpoint.....

Well, this passed Monday, I managed to go to another auction. This one was SUPPOSED to be on February 22nd, but it snowed about 10" at the auction site, so they called it off, and rescheduled it for March 4th.

The way I found out about this auction was through a neighbor across the pasture. He's Amish, and this sale had LOTS of what "English" call "primitives"...Since it was around 25 miles away, Emery asked if he could hitch a ride from me. He also wanted a trailer so he could bring back a horse drawn corn planter he was "going to" buy!

We got hitched up to the trailer, and headed out by 8:30 the morning of the auction and, after a couple of stops, made it there by 9:15.

Did I say there were LOTS of "primitives" at this auction.....? I mean, there were TONS of old items - some that had little or no use, but were 50 years old. Rust had gotten to them, but they were still "new".  I wanted a few things - and managed to spend $21.50 - but most things went fairly high dollar.

That's the problem with some auctions - a metal scrapper shows up, and has the money to buy all the iron so he can scrap it. It turns into a huge waste of things that are disappearing at a rapid rate. A lot of good things are sent to China for the sake of a dollar.

One thing that sold fairly cheap was a 1937 Farmall F-12 on full steel wheels. It was running, and restored. It even had a "decent" coat of paint on it. A few bids brought it up to $100 (it SHOULD have gone a bit higher....), when everyone just stopped bidding. When the auctioneer finally hollered "SOLD" the crowd looked in front of the tractor to see who bought it.

Come to find out, it was an 85 year old lady who had to have it because it was just like the one she learned to operate as a young girl. She always wanted another one, and figured this might be her last chance! The auctioneer asked if she was "Gonna drive it". She told him "If you get it started, I sure will!"

Later in the afternoon, they fiddled with it, got it running, and she drove it to the road.

Anyhow - I ended up buying some tractor tires that are getting harder and harder to find, and a few parts for a Surge milking machine.

Emery bought a few lots of older tools, and some other small things. He got out bid for his planter, and the buyer (another Amish man) told him he was willing to go TWICE what he paid. He said he needed it BADLY.

Well, we got everything loaded, and headed out to go home. On the way we started talking about Germany, England, Scotland, France, Norway, etc, etc...all places I had visited when I was in the USMC. Emery told me was born in Michigan, and moved to Missouri - and that's about all he'd ever been too - and, of course, a few places in between the two.

He said he knew where Germany was, but didn't know much else. One of the questions he asked was "Where IS France....?"

After I told him, he then asked "Is Scotland where the Irish are from?"

After about 30 seconds he said "Well, I guess that made a lot of sense! I bet they're actually from IRELAND....!"

We both had a good snicker over that one!

World geography is probably just not a subject most Amish kids were taught in school.

Sadly, it's one subject most "English" students are failing at.....