Making the most of an opportunity (04/26/06)

Who would have thought that simply by trying to stay out of my wife's hair I could have set so many other things in motion?

It was a Sunday night last December. Connie — now a graduate student working on her master's degree — was busy with homework. There was nothing on television. I'd just finished a book. So I ended up goofing around on the computer.

Inevitably, I ended up on eBay.

Like a lot of folks, I tend to search for particular items. In my case, it's a pretty eclectic list: Things related to Antrim, N.H., where Connie's family has had a cabin since about 1912, things from various parts of the former Soviet Union where I've worked, Jay County things, Portland things, books by favorite authors.

You get the picture.

On the list is things related to the Haynes Automobile Company.

(If you're among the 200 or so folks who attended Saturday's unveiling ceremonies, you've heard some of this before, but only Barry Hudson's side of the story.)

The Haynes connection comes from my mother, who was adopted at birth by Edward and Carrie (Jay) Haynes. Edward was Elwood's brother and was the youngest of the Haynes boys from the 19th century. He's also my grandfather.

Not surprisingly, we have a small collection: Family photographs, newspaper clippings, a Haynes car hubcap that I bought at an auction, and a bunch of Haynes ads from The Saturday Evening Post from about 1909 to 1920 that Connie's mother found for us.

But this time, noodling around on eBay, something special popped up when I typed Haynes into the search field. A car. And a beauty at that.

I knew from earlier conversations that Barry was interested in finding a vintage Haynes for the Community Resource Center. I also knew they were very hard to find.

Minutes later, I sent an e-mail to Vicki Tague at the chamber: "Is Barry still interested in putting a Haynes in your lobby?"

I passed the word on personally to Barry the next day, intrigued but not expecting much to come of it. That was on Monday.

On Tuesday night, I checked the bidding activity on the 1910 Haynes.

There was a lot of it.

On Wednesday night, I checked again. This time, the car had been sold.

On Thursday of that week, Don Gillespie of our ad department had asked me to help out by taking the group photo of First National Bank employees. It's a big group, and Don thought I might be a little better when it came to crowd control.

I took the picture from the top of a step-ladder. Climbing down, I sought out Barry and delivered what I thought was bad news. Someone has bought the Haynes, I told him.

At this point, our memories differ.

He recalls telling me that the Hudson family had bought it.

All I remember is a very sly smile that was as good as a wink.

We agree on the fact that I zipped across the lobby at record speed the instant it sunk in that he was the winning bidder.

That was December. But last Saturday was the real pay-off when the Haynes Model 19 went on public display.

An enormous amount of credit goes to Jeff Miller of Redkey. He handled — and finessed — the bidding process and was the guiding force behind Saturday's unveiling.

As a result, for the first time in something like 60 years, there's a Haynes automobile back in Jay County, where Elwood Haynes was born in 1857.

Chance? Fate? Good fortune?

That's for somebody else to judge.

All I know is it's a remarkable feeling to see an opportunity on Sunday night and see that opportunity grasped a few days later. And I know this: That is one beautiful automobile.[[In-content Ad]]