Today's calendar featured a meeting with clients in academia, after which I was once again overcome with a sense of relief that Providence spared me a career in academia. Can you say, 'Major on the minors!'?
I knew you could!
Feeling both self-pitying and self-indulgent, I headed for my favorite Greek comfort-food haunt in Nashville. Taking a short-cut around the traffic, the Fickle Finger of Fate led me to the auction of a house, underway in an older South Nashville neighborhood.
It was a brick house of crumbling exterior, on a corner lot across from a Missionary Baptist Church. The auctioneer was doing his old-school Southern best to whip the handful of bidders into a lather, standing in the bed of a red pick-up truck, alternately encouraging and browbeating the assembly.
As you can see from the postures of the folks in the picture, he was not having a great day. He was trying to cheer the crowds on to $225,000 for this prize property...
I arrived as he was about to drop the hammer for $170,000. WTF??? I internally exclaimed. Morbid curiosity took over, and I found myself, hands firmly in my pockets, watching the proceedings. One of the old auction assistants came over, and said 'Wanna bid?', to which I politely demurred. In $500 increments, the auctioneer hectored it up toward 175k, and the assistant came around again: 'Wanna bid?
'No', I blurt out, 'cuz it's an $85,000 house!' The old guy's face lit up with that 'I know, and you know, and you know that I know' smile. Wish I had the camera up at that moment, but it took us both by surprise. I walked back to my truck, as the bid approached 177k.
I hope the purchaser paid in cash, 'cuz otherwise, we'll back at the auction block within two years. I also hope the purchaser has the patience of Job, the courage of Daniel, an alarm system to install, and a gun handy at all times. I drove away, and one block later was in the midst of one of the largest and most drug ridden public housing projects in the city, a lot of it dating from FDR's days. I decided against stopping to take a picture of the project, as there were a number of idle young men hanging around in front, who probably would object to a middle-aged white guy in a pick-up stopping to snap photos of them...
It was a true Jim the Realtor moment.
One would think, given the carnage of the past two years, some lessons would have been learned.
Not!
