Time travel

Some of you might not identify this if you came across it just south of downtown Hico.  Others will recognize it as an old loading chute for loading or unloading livestock into or out of trucks.  To me it is a time machine back to the  1950s.

Drove past this recently and was immediately 8 years old again.  Every Wednesday in the 50s and into the 60s this chute was where livestock were loaded or unloaded for the auction that day.  There were dozens of adjoining pens and a barn.  

The barn was set up with a pen (auction ring) for herding livestock in one gate and out another.  There was a raised semi enclosed area for an auctioner on one side of the ring and about 3 rows of bleachers on the other side for the buyers and sellers.

On sale day when had stock to be sold, my dad and sometimes my grandfather would load up a few head of calves into a two wheel trailer or the back of a the pick up truck which had cattle frames. At this time many of the small farms and ranches only had a pick up with frames to haul 3 or 4 head of livestock at a time to market.  The big livestock trailers did not become ubiquitous for several years into the future.  They would seat me in the middle of the front seat in the old Ford pick up and we would drive the 20 something miles to the auction.

Upon arrival, the calves were unloaded into one of the many pens.  We would then go inside the barn take a seat on the bleachers and wait for our calves to sell.  The auctioneer was always fascinating (mesmerizing?) to me.  How did he talk so fast and who could understand him, I thought.  Our calves would finally come through the auction ring and sell.  We would then go the "office" in the barn, pick up our check and head home.  And, I immediately looked forward to the next time we would go the livestock auction.