Lots of Fun NEWS photographer Stephen Katz captures Clayton Clark’s Livestock Auction in pictures and words

From the far corner of the auction house, through a haze of sawdust and smoke, Everett Underhill nods his head to the auctioneer with the confidence and poise of a high-stakes Vegas card shark telling the dealer, “Hit me.”

“One thirty-five,” Jay Hanson jabbers. “Do I hear 140? 140, 140, 140 …”

A flicker of white from a card held between two calloused fingers and the price of the Holstein calf continues to rise.

Hanson points his gavel, worn down to bare wood, at Underhill who responds with a blink so heavy it pulls down the rest of his creviced face.

Another flash of white and Underhill knows that at $180 the price of calves is too high today. He remains still.

“Sold …” The white card is held high, revealing a number, “to No. 176.” And with that another calf is swept in. The game continues.

That’s the scene last week at Clayton Clark’s Livestock Auction in Skowhegan. For decades, the auction has nearly doubled the Somerset County town’s population each Tuesday. Some come to bid on boxes of old tools, records, housewares and what others might consider junk, and then there are those like Bernard Thomas of Knox and Ed Mains of Buxton who come to escape the tiring work of the farm for a few hours.

The two men swap stories and jokes. Mains tells of his recent trip to Pennsylvania to deliver several hogs. Thomas responds with a racy joke. In the shade of the barn, the two cackle and squabble, oblivious to the 800-pound bull and herd of skittish sheep being ushered by them.

By late morning, the pens begin to swell with livestock. Heifers laden with milk squeeze by each other pressing against rugged wooden fences that seem to be on the verge of snapping. Jittery goats dart from one side of a pen to another. As if all attached to the same body, their heads flit left, then right, then left again.

Meanwhile, the auction’s other face is in full swing. Twenty or 30 people circle around Randy Rancourt, a small but spunky older man, who is the auction’s former proprietor. A pile of tools, boxes and household items are strewn around his feet. Interrupting the circle is a blue van full of more boxes of stuff and more tools.

A man with a handlebar mustache pulls out a saw and hands it Rancourt.

“Now this here is a beaut!” Rancourt yelps.

“She works good too,” he adds with his most convincing voice.

Hanson who stands behind Rancourt starts the bidding at $10. Then the price drops to $5. And then $1 before he finally works the crowd back up to $7.50.

For hours people bid $1 and $5 on everything from rusted cast-iron pots to tattered umbrellas. Boxes of spoons and old batteries go to the highest bidder. Fifty cents.

A heavyset man wearing a blue button-down shirt and a white fedora excitedly bids on a yellowed microwave “missing only one knob.” At a mere $5 it’s a steal.

Treasure in hand, the man parades his new appliance to his pickup truck. He passes a woman who slaps her hand over her mouth. “I sold that thing last year,” she mumbles as her cheeks glow red, proving that old adage about one man’s trash is another man’s treasure.