Last week, when I wrote a little column encouraging people to participate in local holiday activities, I had to cut it short due to space, so I never got around to mentioning the Christmas Tree Auction in any depth.
The annual auction, held last Saturday night, was quite an affair.
I missed the auction the first couple of years after we arrived in Sweet Home because of other engagements, but when I did finally get a chance to attend, I quickly realized I was the loser. It’s a great event and apparently my wife and I aren’t the only ones to figure that out. It’s grown each year we’ve attended, I think, and this year it was simply sizzling.
Before I go any further, it’s important to remember the auction’s purpose: to raise money for scholarships. It’s put on by the Sweet Home Alumni Foundation for the express purpose of raising money to send Sweet Home kids, particularly some who might not otherwise have the incentive or opportunity, to college.
College isn’t for everyone, but it certainly can be an eye- and door-opener for someone who’s grown up in a small town and for whom the forests may not hold much of a future.
This is a worthy cause.
It costs $15 to get in, which covers the really high-quality finger food (and desserts) served up by the ever-capable district food service specialists, led by Millie Horton.
But that’s just the beginning. There is always a really interesting array of silent auction items to browse through and maybe throw out a bid on. I attend a lot of events that include silent auctions and they’re always interesting, but this one includes a lot of hand-made items that, you can tell, were prepared especially for this purpose.
I won’t list the craftsmen and women because I’ll forget someone, but they represent a cross-section of some of the more skilled folks we have in Sweet Home. It’s always fun to see what they’ve brought to sell for the kids.
There are usually also other goodies for sale too – this year there were a winter-blue Christmas tree and a snowman created as foyer decorations by Tom and Sharon Wall, for instance. They got auctioned off for $275 each – the decorations, that is. The auctioneer each year I’ve been there has been Jeremy Powell, who grew up here in Sweet Home. He knows what this whole thing is about and he always does a great job, cajoling the bidders to give a little more. Since he knows many in the crowd, he can apply a little personal pressure if necessary.
The actual trees that are the center of this whole thing are real and they are fancy. Some of the most talented local artists and decorators go full-bore on these babies, which are all decorated according to themes. They’re all works of art and are worth the price of admission just to see them and watch them get auctioned off.
This year the 12 decorated trees went for a combined $6,625, two of them for $1,000 each.
But the biggest item this year was new and different – Larry Johnson’s pants. Yep, that was pants.
Larry, the retired high school athletic director and assistant principal, arrived with a plan to wring some cash out of the crowd.
Midway through the auction, he stood up to deliver a little speech on the importance of college, pretty much what I said above, and how crucial it is for some of the local kids to get the help provided by these scholarships. Then Larry kind of off-handedly mentioned that he’d go so far to raise money for these kids that he’d sell his pants.
“His what?” Things got a little quiet.
Yeah, for $2,000 he’d strip those puppies off right in front of us and hand them over to the lucky buyer.
Ahem.
Now, Larry’s a good man, responsible, not the type to do a strip tease, so this sounded strange. People were kind of averting their eyes as Larry strolled back to his seat in the front row and sat down next to his wife.
Whew. That was a little awkward. We all exhaled slightly. Then, from the corner of the room, from where Mike Melcher was sitting, we heard: “We’ll buy the pants!”
Wow, talk about seeing the whites of people’s eyes.
Larry marched back out in front of everybody and started taking off his belt and shoes, to startled, nervous laughter. A few folks looked a little flushed.
Then he stripped off his Dockers, revealing a set of red and green velvet Christmas, er, elf shorts. He marched over to the Melcher table and handed over the khakis.
As Larry returned to his seat, in red and green velvet glory, Powell, the auctioneer, mentioned that he’d had a premonition that something was up when he and Larry had arrived at the auction and a bell had fallen out of Larry’s pants.
He’d returned the bell, with a cautious remark, and Larry had said, “I’ve got more of those. I’m hoping I get to show you.”
Well, he did.
I have to say that the auction is usually much more sedate – but Larry’s little stunt brought in an extra $2,275 to send kids to college, after someone else bid the extra cash to buy his pants back for him.
Like I said, it’s quite a night. Maybe more so than usual, this time around. All for a good cause.