GUEST COLUMN – THE CHINA PLATE

By Carol J Rhodes
It was a still, muggy morning as a handful of people gathered under the small green tent. Some brought folding chairs, others sat on the damp grass. One couple brought a Styrofoam® ice chest with sandwiches they would eat if they stayed past dinnertime. Most folks were dressed in blue jeans or overalls, and were locals in the small community of Cooks Point, Texas. Looking at my own dress, I wondered if it was obvious to them that I was from the city instead of just down the road. I looked at my watch, impatiently, as it approached ten o’clock. The auctioneer, a tall heavyset man wearing a cowboy hat, picked up a microphone and began the auction with a “Howdy, glad to see y’all here.” The first items sold quickly: a hump back trunk full of
old clothes, a patchwork quilt, a small homemade table, and a worn cast iron skillet. Next he held up the first thing which interested me, a beautiful old china plate. It was gold rimmed and had pink roses in the center. “Okay, ladies and gents, let’s sell this here china plate,” he said. “How much are you gonna bid? Twenty dollars, do I hear twenty dollars?” “Real nice piece, and real old, too,” he tempted, wiping the plate with a rumpled handkerchief. “Well, then, do I hear fifteen? All right, ten, do I hear ten dollars?” I raised my hand and said, “Ten.” “Twelve-fifty,” said a large woman who was standing outside the tent fanning herself with a folded newspaper. “Twelve-fifty, I have twelve-fifty,” acknowledged the auctioneer. “Do I hear fifteen?”
“Fifteen,” I said. “Fifteen, do I hear twenty?” The large woman shook her head, as the auctioneer hastily scanned the crowd for another bidder. “All bids in? Sold for fifteen dollars to the purdy lady in the red dress.” The auctioneer’s assistant, a boy of about seventeen, walked over to my chair and handed me the plate. As I took it from him, my fingers felt a tiny chip
underneath the rim. Turning it over, my eyes focused, not on the chip, but on an old piece of adhesive tape pasted just above the word “Germany”. Written in pencil by an obviously unsteady hand were the words, “Keep for Souvenir—lt was Mama’s.”