Livestock Auctioneer, 63: Forty Years Of Chant, And A Stuffy Nose Turns It Into Mush By The Second Hour
Nose shut by noon? Read this before you buy another bag of cough drops.
My name is Hap Haskew. I've called sales in Shelbyville, Tennessee, for forty years.
Cattle on Wednesdays, estates on Saturdays. If it sells, I've hollered over it.
I started at 23, practicing my chant on fence posts and a patient mule.
Forty years later, a stuffy nose nearly ran me out of the box.
This is how I got my voice back, and how you can too.
- ✓Stuffed up by the second hour
- ✓Breathing through your mouth between lots
- ✓A voice that goes flat and tired
- ✓Folks asking "what'd he say?"
Whatever you holler for a living, you know this list.
Pulpit, ball field or sale barn, it's the same thief every time.
A Chant So Muddy The Back Row Asks The Ringman What I Said
Hour one, I call clean. The numbers ring off the barn rafters.
Hour two, my nose shuts. I'm gulping air through my mouth between lots.
Hour three, Begley turns around in the ring and looks back up at me.
A buyer in the top row had hollered, "What's he asking?"
In twenty-two years, my ringman never once had to turn around.
I stood up there and felt forty years slipping out through my mouth.
Ouida wrote a buyer number down twice because she couldn't make out the bid.
Then Lavonne at the stockyard café slid a book across with my coffee.
Ten minutes over a bowl, and my chant came home.
Forty Years In The Box Taught Me This: The Chant Lives In Your Nose
- Air moves freely through the nose
- The m's, n's and ng's hum and ring
- Air comes in warmed and wetted
- Calls clean for six hours
- The nose swells closed
- The hum goes flat and dull
- The mouth gulps cold, dry air
- Mush by hour two
Folks think a chant comes out of your mouth. Half of it doesn't.
Half the hum is in the nose.
Say "now, now, will ya go nine" with your nose pinched. Go ahead.
Every m, every n, every ng rides out on air through the nose.
When the nose swells shut, those sounds go flat as a busted tire.
That's the "cold voice" everybody knows the second they hear it.
Voice people have a name for it. They call it a denasal voice.
I learned that the hard way, in the box, not out of a book.
Look at the left side of the picture. Air flows. The chant rings.
Now look at the right. The hum is gone and the numbers run together.
Then the mouth takes over the breathing.
You gulp air through your mouth between lots, because you have to.
Air through the nose comes in warmed and wetted. Air through the mouth doesn't.
So the throat dries out, and a dry throat tires fast.
By the second hour, the chant that paid for my house is mush.
Like playing a trumpet with a rag stuffed in the bellMy uncle Royce played trumpet in the Bedford County band for years.
Stuff a rag in the bell, and blow as hard as you want.
It still comes out muffled. That's my chant with a stuffy nose.
And no amount of hollering louder ever fixes a rag in the bell.
So Why Does It Hit Me Every Spring Like Clockwork?
A January cold that never fully let go. Then a winter of barn dust.
Stockyard dust hangs in the lights like smoke. I breathe it five hours.
Inside, my nose stays puffed up like a boot left out in the rain.
Then twelve weeks of spring sales land right on top of it.
Now, here's the problem. A swollen nose doesn't care what's on the sale bill.
It shuts at the worst time. Right when the good cattle come in.
Hour two is when the big lots run. The heavy steers. The bred heifers.
The busiest season of my year, and my nose shuts the gate.
Every Fix I Tried Gave Out Somewhere Around Lot Ninety
I tried what every man in the box tries.
Cough drops. Wrappers piled by my gavel like hulls at a peanut boil.
Sugar for the throat. Nothing at all for the nose.
A water bottle. Three, some days. Good for the throat, not the nose.
The pharmacy spray. The box itself says use it only a few days.
A spring sale season runs twelve weeks. You do that arithmetic.
And you can't stop mid-sale to blow your nose with 300 buyers watching.
So the mush got worse. Shut by noon became shut by the first lot.
Ouida started handing me the mic before I asked for it.
She said I sounded like a radio stuck between stations.
My own grandson asked why Pappaw talks like he's under a quilt.
One night I sat in the truck in the driveway and said it.
Maybe it's time to hang it up, Hap.
Forty years, and I was ready to sell my own gavel.
I figured this was just what sixty-three sounds like.
It wasn't. It was my nose.
So What's The Fix? It Was Growing In Ouida's Kitchen Window
Here's the kitchen answer, and it's older than the stockyard.
Warm steam with fresh thyme and fresh eucalyptus leaves.
The night before a long sale. Then again the morning of.
Steam warms and wets the nose the way a gulp of air can't.
The eucalyptus brings that cool, green smell that opens you right up.
The thyme is the old standby, the one grandmothers swore by.
Ouida grows the thyme in clay pots right over the sink.
Begley's grandmother did it over a soup pot with a flour-sack towel.
But nobody ever told me the amounts.
How much thyme? How many leaves? How long under the towel?
Every place I looked said "a pinch" or "some" or "till it feels right."
I sell by the head and by the lot. I don't sell by "some."
Thankfully, there's a way to do it right, written down plain.
A Calf In A Culvert, A Café Counter, And Page 56
1234- Thyme-Eucalyptus Steam Blend, for sinus relief
- 1 tbsp fresh thyme, a handful of fresh eucalyptus leaves, 2 cups boiling water, a towel
- Herbs in a bowl, boiling water over them, towel over your head, 10 minutes
- 1 to 2 sessions daily, and "Avoid if sensitive to vapors."
Lavonne Pruitt is 74 and runs the café at the stockyard.
Biscuits, sorghum and coffee strong enough to float a horseshoe.
One Wednesday I was clearing my throat over my cup, again and again.
She reached under the register and came up with a book.
She opened it to page 56 and slid it across the counter.
She said, "Hap, you sound like a calf in a culvert."
It read like a good sale bill. Short, plain, nothing hidden.
1 tbsp fresh thyme leaves, about 3 g. A handful of fresh eucalyptus leaves.
2 cups boiling water, about 480 ml. And a towel.
Thyme and eucalyptus in a bowl. Pour the boiling water over the herbs.
Cover your head with the towel. Inhale the steam for 10 minutes.
Discard after use. 1 to 2 sessions daily.
The fine print: "Avoid if sensitive to vapors."
I asked to buy her copy. She laughed at me.
She said, "Honey, that one's not on the sale bill."
So I copied the amounts onto a café napkin, like a sale bill.
That night, Ouida's big stoneware bowl sat square on the kitchen table.
On a dish towel, so it can't slide an inch. Never on my knees.
The kettle rests a minute before it pours.
I lean in, but back far enough that it's warm, not hot.
Eyes shut. Ouida drapes the towel over me like a saddle blanket.
Ten minutes on the stove clock.
Fresh leaves, nothing swallowed. Grown folks only, never the grandkids.
Cool and green, like the woods behind the stockyard after a rain.
By minute six I was breathing slow and deep through my nose.
At the bell, I chanted "now five, will ya go six" to the sink.
Ouida put down her dish rag. "Well. There you are."
The Book Lavonne Keeps Behind The Register: SCAN. HEAL. REPEAT.
It's called SCAN. HEAL. REPEAT., and Jasper Owens wrote it.
A printed kitchen book. Think of a cookbook, but for feeling better.
106 home remedies, one to a page, in 19 sections by body system.
Everyday ingredients. Exact amounts in cups and spoons, plus grams.
Numbered steps and the dose, laid out plain on every page.
Printed in the USA. Ours sits under Ouida's calendar on the kitchen wall.
Most of what it calls for, you can find in a Shelbyville grocery.
I ordered two copies that night. One for me, one for Begley.
Page 56 got me through the spring. Then I kept turning pages.
Here are the six I use, for a man who talks for a living:
- ❧Sage-Honey Throat Paste (p.58): 1 tsp before bed, for snoring
- ❧Ginger-Lavender Compress (p.64): 15 minutes, as needed, up to 2 times daily
- ❧Ginger-Arnica Balm (p.101): 1 tsp 1 to 2 times daily
- ❧Lavender-Tart Cherry Sleep Syrup (p.31): 1 tbsp before bed
The honey-thyme syrup rides in a little jar in my coat pocket.
After five hours in the box, a teaspoon settles my throat.
The sage paste is for Ouida. Forty years of my snoring, she's earned it.
The compress is for the pounding head after a six-hour dispersal.
The balm goes on my calves and lower back after a day standing.
The cherry syrup is for the night before a big sale.
That's when I lie awake running the whole sale bill in my head.
Every page puts its caution right on it, in plain words.
Page 31 says: "Avoid using with blood thinners." Page 58: "Avoid sage in epilepsy."
Page 55 says: "Avoid use with infants." Page 101: "Avoid open skin."
It works nothing like cough drops, water bottles or the pharmacy spray.
Those paper over the trouble for an hour. This goes right to the nose.
Don't Take An Auctioneer's Word For It
I'll admit an auctioneer has been known to oversell a mule.
So here's what other folks say. More than 18,000 readers own this book.
Preachers, coaches, sale clerks. Folks who use their voice all day.
I preach three services every Sunday at a little country church. By the evening service my voice used to sound like I was talking through a feed sack. A deacon's wife showed me page 56. Now I do the thyme and eucalyptus steam Saturday night and again at dawn Sunday, ten minutes, bowl on the table, eyes shut. The evening crowd finally hears the same sermon the morning crowd got. My wife says I preach longer now that I can.
Twenty-two seasons coaching high school football. Every Friday by the fourth quarter I honked like a goose and the kids couldn't hear the play. I do the steam on page 56 Thursday night and Friday morning. The honey-thyme syrup rides in my windbreaker for the bus ride home, and the arnica balm goes on my knees from pacing the sideline. My linemen hear me from the far hash now. Whether that's good news for them is another question.
I've clerked a Thursday cattle sale for nineteen years, three feet from the block. When our auctioneer got stuffed up, I'd write down the wrong buyer number because I couldn't make out the bid. I bought him the book and one for me. He does the steam the night before a sale. I take the cherry syrup on page 31 so I sleep before sale day. Not one wrong buyer number all month, and he sounds like himself again.
Ouida's Kitchen Calendar, One Spring, Square By Square
Ouida keeps our sale calendar on the kitchen wall. Here are a few squares.
Wed., Feb. 4. Stockyard, 1,140 head. Chant: mush by hour two.
Sat., Feb. 7. River road estate, 312 lots. Chant: clean, four hours.
Wed., Feb. 11. Stockyard, 1,215 head. Chant: clean, five and a half hours.
Wed., Mar. 4. Begley's first sale with his own copy. Holler: clean.
Sat., Apr. 11. Farm dispersal, 412 lots and 160 head. Chant: clean, six hours.
That Wednesday in February, a buyer from Kentucky leaned over the rail.
He's bought cattle off me for fifteen years. He squinted up at me.
"Hap, you sound like you're twenty-five."
Begley quit looking back at me. He turned around and grinned instead.
Picture that for yourself, in your own pulpit or sale ring.
- ✕No more mush by the second hour
- ✕No more gulping air between lots
- ✕No more "what'd he say?" from the back row
What's even better? It takes ten minutes, the night before.
Find page 56. Set the bowl on the table. Breathe ten minutes. Done.
About now, I'd bet you've got two questions for me.
Where Do You Get A Copy, And What Does It Cost?
You won't find it at the feed store or the pharmacy counter.
You order it on the official page. That's the only place I'd send you.
It's printed here in the USA and ships tracked, 2 to 7 days.
Mine came in three days. I watched the tracking like a cattle truck.
Since then, folks keep asking me about it at the sale barn.
Two ringmen. A preacher from Wartrace. The lady who sells the boiled peanuts.
Lavonne says she's tired of folks reaching over her register for hers.
So now I tell them where to order it, and I tell them this:
I've ordered extras four times now. Ouida keeps one wrapped in the hall closet.
Somebody at church always needs it before I can find the tape.
It comes in a plain box. Nothing to plug in, nothing to refill.
Get the bundle. I'll explain why in a minute.
Every Sale You Call Stuffed Up Is A Sale You Called Half As Good
Let me put it in sale-barn arithmetic.
One cattle sale a week. One estate on Saturday. Twelve weeks of spring.
That's twenty-four sales called through a rag in the bell.
Every one of them is money and reputation on the line.
Buyers drift to the sale where they can follow the chant.
Sellers book the auctioneer who sounds like he's still got it.
I've watched good men lose their barns that way. Slow, then sudden.
Waiting doesn't make the nose clearer. It makes the spring shorter.
Picture next Wednesday. Hour two. The good steers come in the ring.
You open your mouth, and out comes that rag in the bell.
Every week you wait, buyers get used to the younger fella down the road.
That's the cost of waiting. Not money. Your name on the sale bill.
Ten minutes over a bowl tonight beats another Wednesday of mush.
Get It Straight From The Official Page, Where The Gifts Are
There's one place I trust to get it right: the official page.
That's where the free shipping and the two free eBooks come with it.
The 60-day terms come with it there, too. Keep the book either way.
I'm an auctioneer, not a peddler of bottles and drops.
I don't want you buying a fix you'll have to buy again next month.
It's a book. You buy it once, and it stays on your shelf.
Page 56 will still be page 56 forty years from now.
No refills, no subscriptions, no running back to the pharmacy.
Some folks will tell you to go hunt it cheaper somewhere else.
I've seen that play out. You end up with no gifts and no terms.
Every button on this page goes straight to the official page.
$37 For 106 Remedies: Cheaper Than One Bad Wednesday
Here's the sale bill on this one, read plain.
It lists at $44.99. The official page has it at $37.
That's about 35 cents a remedy.
Less than the cough drop I'd unwrap before the first lot.
Ouida figured it on the back of a buyer card. Underlined twice.
Thirty-five cents. I've sold coffee cans of rusty bolts for more than that.
Add up what I spent on cough drops one spring. Bags of them.
Add the water bottles, the pharmacy spray, the throat tea from the gas station.
Then add the sales where my chant went to mush by hour two.
A seller who doesn't book you back costs more than $37 in an afternoon.
I lost a dispersal sale that way once. They booked a younger voice.
That one sale would have bought this book a hundred times over.
A good pair of sale boots costs four times as much, and wears out.
- ✓106 remedies, one plain page each
- ✓Exact amounts, steps and the dose, all written down
- ✓Yours for good, with no refills to buy
And I know $37 isn't pocket change these days.
Fuel is up. Feed is up. The light bill is up.
Ouida clerks our checkbook the way she clerks a sale. Every number counts.
Thirty-seven dollars, once, for the voice you make your living with.
So if you're going to spend it, spend it the smart way.
Here's how to make every one of those dollars work harder.
Why I Bought Two: Free Shipping And Two Free eBooks
FREE
FREEGet 2 or more copies, and the deal gets better on the official page.
2 copies: $33.30 each, with free shipping.
3 or more: $31.45 each.
Plus two free eBooks: "Wild Foods Foraging" and "Folk Country Remedies."
They're $27.99 each on their own. You get both free.
One copy pays $9.99 shipping. Two ship free. You do that arithmetic.
I bought two because of Begley.
A ringman's holler matters as much as the auctioneer's chant.
Begley stands right in front of the block. He hears every note I call.
He'd had a stuffed nose every February for twenty-two years.
I handed him his copy in the truck, like a sale bill.
He read page 56 at a stop sign and said, "My grandmother did this."
By March, his holler carried across the whole barn again.
His wife says he quit clearing his throat at the supper table.
Ouida says the second copy was the best $33.30 I spent all spring.
The eBooks came by email the same day. Ouida read one at breakfast.
Three copies? $31.45 each. One for the ringman, one for the preacher.
Most folks get two or three. One for the kitchen, one for somebody loud.
A preacher. A coach. A sister who sings alto. A ringman of your own.
See Today's Price And Free GiftsRead Like A Sale Bill: Sixty Days, Full Refund, And The Buyer Keeps The Book
Sixty days to use it. If it's not for you, a full refund, and you keep the book.
Before the first lot, I always read the terms of sale out loud.
Auction terms are plain. As is, where is.
No refunds once the hammer falls. Buyers know it before they lift a finger.
So I read this book's terms out loud to Ouida at the kitchen table.
Sixty days. Full refund if it's not for you. Buyer keeps the book.
"Ouida, I've never offered terms that good in forty years."
She didn't look up from the calendar. She said, "Then bid."
So here's how the terms work for you.
Make the steam. Make the syrup. Use the book for 60 days.
Whether it's day one or day fifty-nine, if it isn't for you, say so.
You get every dollar back. And the book stays on your table.
I've sold forty years of farms, cattle and quilts on as-is terms.
Forty years, I've never once let a buyer return a lot.
This book gives you the whole sixty days to decide.
Try page 56 the night before your longest day. Then listen to yourself.
Ouida made me read those terms twice. Then she wrote "BID" on the calendar.
There's no risk in this one at all. None.
What To Do Next, Lot By Lot
- 1Tap the button below
- 2Pick how many copies on the official page
- 3It ships tracked in 2 to 7 days. The night it arrives, find page 56 and set out the bowl
Folks at the sale barn ask me three questions about it.
"Where do you get eucalyptus?"
The florist on the square keeps it in buckets for wedding flowers.
She asked if I was getting married. At 63. Ouida laughed all week.
Grocery flower buckets carry it too. Fresh leaves only, never the oil.
"Isn't that just a bowl of hot water?"
No. It's 1 tbsp of thyme, a handful of eucalyptus, 2 cups, 10 minutes.
The thyme and eucalyptus bring the smell that opens you up. Plain water doesn't.
Bowl on the table, eyes shut, then the leaves go to the compost.
"What else is in it for a man who talks for a living?"
Throat syrup. Snoring paste. A headache compress. Leg balm. A sleep syrup.
And a hundred more pages after those six.
Lavonne's copy has coffee rings on half the pages. That's how you know.
It's a book you'll reach for, not one that sits pretty on a shelf.
Here's why most people order more than one:
One, the gifts and free shipping only start at two copies.
Two, somebody you know hollers for a living, too.
Three, the kitchen copy gets splattered. Mine has a honey ring on page 55.
Tap the button, pick your copies, and the rest takes care of itself.
See Today's Price And Free GiftsHold On, Neighbor: The Only Thing You Can Lose Is Another Spring
Here's the only risk I can see: regret.
Say you pass. Next spring comes around like it always does.
The calendar fills up. The sales don't wait on your nose.
Your clerk leans over to ask what that last bid was.
More cough drop wrappers by the gavel. More water bottles under the box.
More squinting at the pharmacy spray box, counting days.
The hum goes flat by the second hour. The back row stops bidding.
And one night you sit in the truck and say, "Maybe it's time."
I'm not saying this to scare you. I'm saying it because I nearly did.
Option 1 is the box I was standing in last winter.
Option 2 is our kitchen table, any night before a sale.
One ends up in the trash by summer. The other stays on your table.
One costs you every spring. The other costs $37, once.
Think about who hears your voice.
Your sale-day crowd, three hundred strong, hanging on every number.
Your grandkids at the ball field, waiting for you to holler their name.
Your wife, who'd like one night without the snoring.
The choir that needs your low part on the old hymns.
The crowd that drove two hours to hear you sell their granddaddy's farm.
Families selling a farm deserve the best chant you've got, start to finish.
They deserve the voice you had at twenty-five.
And you deserve to finish a long day still sounding like yourself.
- ✓You can call six hours and still sound clean at the end
- ✓You can breathe through your nose between lots again
- ✓You can stop counting cough drops and start counting bids
Ten minutes a night before a sale. That's the whole price in time.
Next spring could sound just like this one did for me.
Begley did it. Lavonne did it years before us. You can too.
See Today's Price And Free GiftsGIFTSwith 2+
Comments
Tell him bowl on the table, eyes shut, ten minutes. Good luck to him this spring.
Ringman thirty years. Begley's right, the holler needs a clear nose as much as the chant.
Two Sunday services and Wednesday night. Got two copies, one for our choir director.
Can anybody vouch for this before I order?
Had mine since summer. The honey thyme syrup alone was worth the price.
Football coach, twenty seasons. Fourth quarter I used to sound like a goose. Not this year.
How long is shipping?
Mine came in 5 days, tracked the whole way. Got two, one for my sister.
Isn't this just recipes off the internet?
I thought so too. The internet never gave me the amounts or the cautions. This does.
My granddaddy called tobacco sales in Kentucky. He'd have kept this book in his truck.
Married to a loud man 38 years. The sage paste on page 58 bought me some sleep.
I sing bass in a gospel quartet. Steam the night before every singing now.
I'm on blood thinners. Can I use the cherry sleep syrup?
Page 31 says it plain: "Avoid using with blood thinners." Plenty of other pages for you.
Ordering tonight. Two copies, one for my brother who calls the sale in Columbia.
Made the ginger arnica balm. Smells wonderful, and my husband's calves are grateful.
Got 2, one for my mama, who still sings alto at 81.
First night with the steam, I could smell supper cooking. Hadn't in weeks.
Made the cherry syrup on page 31 before revival week. Slept like a rock.
Lavonne makes the best biscuits in Bedford County. If she says read it, read it.
Lavonne says thank you, and the biscuits are still three dollars.
My husband calls tobacco and cattle in Kentucky. He's on page 56 right now, towel and all.