It’s the Pitts: Living the Dream

By: Lee Pitts

What was I thinking? For as long as I can remember I wanted to be a rancher, yet I had no money, no land and no cattle. I’m the only one in my extended family for at least five generations that I know of who has been even remotely connected to the cattle business. 

Yet despite everyone telling me it was impossible to think I’d ever become a rancher, my dream came true.

Here’s the true story of another young man who, because of the kindness of our local community of cattlemen and women, got to live out his dream too.

I’ll never forget my first visit to the Templeton Livestock Auction about 30 minutes away from where I live. It was 51 years ago, and I’d just been hired by Western Livestock Journal (WLJ) to be a field editor. Part of the job entailed working ring at sales in exchange for advertising. 

As far as I know, I was the first WLJ field editor to ever work the Templeton Bull Sale, and I’m happy to report after my first sale, I worked every single one of them, along with yearly heifer sales and horse sales, until they tore the place down.

For this particular bull sale, I got to the market at least an hour early and went inside the barn to watch the feeder cattle sell before the bull sale. The slaughter cattle would sell after.  

As I sat there, I noticed a young man trying to bid, but Duane, the auctioneer, wouldn’t take it. The first time I saw it happen, I almost yipped and pointed out the bid Duane had obviously missed. Boy am I glad I didn’t, fore I’d have made a fool of myself.

I don’t know the politically correct or “woke” way to say this, but the young man trying to bid was mentally challenged. What I didn’t know at the time – but the regular crowd at the sale obviously did – was the young man wanted to be an order buyer in the worst way and very much enjoyed playing the role on sale days. I think he was the yard man’s son or had some other connection to the market. 

The young man had done his homework and certainly looked the part of an order buyer, from the top of his Stetson to the bottom of his ostrich boots.

Despite the fact Duane never took his bid, after every lot was sold the young man acted as though he’d bought it and he’d shuffle through his stack of market cards. If Harris bought the animal, he’d take out the card in his hands that said “Harris” at the top, and he’d pretend to write down the head count, the price and the weight.

I marveled at how Duane could conduct a sale every week while ignoring the young man’s bids, and whenever other field men from competing papers were going to work at Templeton for the first time, I had to warn them not to take his bid, which is kind of hard because that’s why we’re hired in the first place.

The young man lived for sale day, and in his pretend world, he had orders for every kind and weight of cattle. He knew all of the tricks too. When he was out, he’d wink an eye to bid, abruptly flash a buyer’s card or barely nod his head. He’d try to cut the bid by holding up 10 fingers when the auctioneer was asking for a quarter.

When it was time for supper after a sale, one would find the young man sitting at the counter in the restaurant side by side with the order buyers who treated him as one of their own.

Someone would walk in and ask him, “Well, how’d you do today?”

He’d proudly take out his deck of buyer cards from his front pocket, get a big smile on his face, fan out his cards and nod his head in the affirmative.

They tore Templeton down a few years ago, and I miss it terribly. I often think of how kindhearted our cattle community was to the young man in allowing him to live out his dream. In this respect one can say the same thing about how generous they’ve been to me in allowing me to do the same thing.