The Little Old Lady From Las Cruces -- January 10, 2021

From a reader:

Here's a mildly related story.  I had a lady for a client.  She had married a pharmacist in later life. Each of their previous spouses had died.  She had money of her own and was a very energetic lady.  Probably in her mid 60's when I met her.  Anyway she had her [commercial driver's license -- big rig license -- CDL] and a tractor and a trailer.  

She and a long-time friend would head to Phoenix right after Christmas every year.  She rented a warehouse and had a couple guys who were reliable "muscle."  

She would carefully choose from advertised estate sales and descend.  On numerous occasions she would make an offer for the entire estate - other times she might just buy all the wooden pieces, or all the art - whatever.  

She'd try to buy the most volume at the best price.  Her guys would come in and haul the stuff to her warehouse and store it strategically - while she was off to the next sale.  She'd generally be able to fill her trailer.  She had it loaded in a particular manner, because she'd make several stops on the way home - peddling to dealers (repeat customers) on the way back.  She lived in Raton, and would make a penultimate stop there on her way to Colorado.  

She'd swap anything out from her house that she didn't want, and then head to Boulder, Colorado, to finish the trip.

She knew what each of her dealers liked and they generally bought whatever she'd set aside for them.  She'd invited me along for the trip.  I could have flown in and out, just spending the weekend, but even at that, I just never could take the time off work.  What a regret - she's since died.

Anyway, here was her deal.  Many oldsters die in Arizona, or are taken from  home to a care facility.  

The families typically don't deal with it until after Christmas, but then they want everything cleaned up, pronto.  There are a rash of sales right after Christmas.  

There were two varieties of sale that interested her.  Some of the bigger homes were owned by retired business people, or corporate heirs.  They would move down vast amounts of good, old furniture and artwork.  Typically there was fine china and rugs galore.  That was the sort of stuff that the Boulder dealer would take in large quantity.    

There was another variety of sale.  This was someone who'd bought a smaller place (maybe keeping a summer place "back home").  Those folks moved very little to Arizona.  They bought brand new everything - beds, dressers, couches, etc.  The dishes weren't usually anything fine, nor was the artwork, but the furniture was normally in fairly good shape and she unloaded a lot of that in Las Cruces, El Paso - for grad students and other snowbirds......

The families of the first group may come prior to the sale - or they'd call and have several special items reserved from the sale.  The families of the second group typically wanted nothing other than photos of the grandchildren.

Of course, her purchases were strictly cash - and that's where I came in.  We'd have to file a report whenever someone withdrew more than $10,000 in cash.  That wasn't a drop in her bucket.

She was quite petite, feminine, softly spoken.  She'd have been the last person most people imagined to drive a "big rig."

So easy, a cave man could do it.