The house, located on a quiet street in York, Pa., stood empty, the man who had lived there having died months short of his 100th birthday. And on a rainy Saturday morning in March, the place was up for auction.
The auctioneer, surrounded by a small group of interested parties, stationed himself beneath a blue canopy in the driveway. He quickly went to work, the words seeming to spill out of him in time with the raindrops striking his makeshift shelter.
Before too long the bidding reached $235,000. Then the pace slowed and the pool of potential buyers dwindled to two, one of them a tall guy with a salt-and-pepper beard.