Now that the six part series of the adventures of Beetle Bailey’s Protege has concluded, I would like to start an intermittent mini-series of Photographic Memories. This will include a photo and the memories attached to it which are contained in my small memory box, each representing a fun, serious or emotional time in my life.
Each of our three sons graduated from the same high school in Delaware County. The school had an auction every other year to raise funds for the school. The items in the auction were all donated by individuals affiliated with the school, friends of the school or local companies. These items included: plants, sports tickets, used cars, handmade quilts, services, vacation retreats and scores of other items that generated thousands of dollars for the school.
Our oldest son, Greg, graduated in 1993. He was gung-ho about everything he did and accomplished much. He had many interests, one of which was cooking. One year his dad (oh, that’s me) played a strictly supervisory role. You know, I was the idea man but didn’t do any of the work. I suggested to Greg that he should auction off a homemade Italian dinner for up to eight people to be held at the winning bidder’s home. My initial hope was that the winner would purchase the dinner and treat eight teachers or staff members of the school to the delectable dinner. I even agreed to write the wording for the booklet the school produced with all the items
to be auctioned. The blurb’s headline was: “Chef Gregory Withington Hall will prepare a dinner for eight……..” Little did I expect the winning bidder to think that Greg was actually a real chef, which is what happened.
At the time the dinner was auctioned off, Greg was running games for younger kids at the auction. I ran over to him all excited to tell him his dinner went for $20. As the expression on his face dropped, I had to immediately tell him the actual bid was $90. The dinner was scheduled for a Monday evening after school was out for the summer and boy; even at $90 the recipients received their money’s worth. Greg was up early that Monday morning making homemade pasta. He got a decent amount of the noodles run through the pasta machine when he encountered troubles and the noodles did not come out of the hand-cranked pasta machine properly. With no more dough to use, he went to a store a few miles away to buy homemade noodles. He was quite disappointed when the store was closed. He therefore had to supplement the homemade pasta with store bought pasta. Some of the items on the menu included: fettuccini Al.fre.do, salad, homemade bread and chocolate mousse.
You may think that would not be worth $90. Greg started around 10:00 AM and with much help from his mother, worked all day then had to drive nearly an hour to the destination of the dinner, cook the entre there, serve it, do all the clean-up and return back home around 10:00 PM.
In summary, no employees of the school were invited to the dinner. Also, the host house supplied their own wine and an aunt got pretty tipsy! The auction, which lasted a good part of the day, had a favorite saying: “Remember, it’s for the school” to encourage the bidders to increase their bid. Unfortunately, I think Greg was burned, not the bidder. Oh yes, I was never asked for my input for auctions again!
Jeff Hall, Honey Brook, contributes columns to Tri County Record.
