Ronny Blake is having an equipment auction this week. Since last fall I’ve been trying to thin out some of the junk I have in my yard and around the barns and lots. It’s been a chore mowing and weed eating around all of it, so I’ve decided to get rid of the stuff I don’t ever use or hardly ever used at all.
I bought my son an old 1991 dodge pickup a couple of years ago. It had a homemade flatbed on it that was really ugly. We looked around and found a better looking bed to put on it. So the ugly bed has been in my yard for about a year, it went to Ronny Blake’s auction.
Several years ago I bought a set of scales to weigh pigs, goats and so forth. We’ve never used them. They’ve been collecting dust for several years now. They also made the trip to the auction.
We loaded an old spring tooth harrow, a bent 10,000 axle and a metal animal cage. I also had one of those caddy’s that you put a hay mower on. I made two trips hauling junk to the auction.
My son asked if half the money from the auction was his, since most of the stuff we were selling belonged to him. I asked how much he paid for his truck and all the junk we hauled off. He gave me a dirty look, but didn’t say anything.
His remarks got me to thinking about when I was a teenager. I can remember my dad griping that I didn’t put a tool back where it goes or I was spending too much money on this or that. Dad bought an SKS rifle one time for seventy five dollars. I shot it a few times and it was hard to hit a paper target at a hundred yards so I sold it or traded it off. He got really mad about that. Over the years I bought him several guns, but I never replaced the SKS. I always kind of felt guilty about that.
It’s kind of funny in a way, my son is just like I was at his age. He doesn’t think twice about using dad’s stuff.
I bought one of those big boxes of 22 shells just before Thanksgiving. I haven’t seen it since I paid for them at the store. He cleaned out the tool box on his truck and he had all sorts of tools piled in it. We spent half an hour restocking the tool box in the shop with stuff from the toolbox on his truck.
It’s kind of funny, it’s the exact same thing my dad went through with me. My son borrows my socks, tools, horses, saddle, bridles, tack and everything else he might ever need. I kind of feel like I don’t actually own anything around here. If the kids need something they don’t even ask, it’s just dad’s stuff after all. The more I think about it, the more I think it’s kind of cool.
James Lockhart lives near the Kiamichi mountains in southeast Oklahoma. He writes cowboy stories and fools with cows and horses.
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