My dad...he knows everything...

This is me sitting next to my dad...at "Nellie's" house!

Dick Stiffler...my dad. He's the reason I'm in this business. If you've read my profile you know that he took me one day to an auction. I think I was around 11 or 12 years old. Can't remember where it was or if we bought anything...but I was hooked. I do remember one auction where we sat in bleachers of sorts, and he bought me a horse statue (one of my first collections). Since then he and I have auctioned many times together, and he has purchased an entire Fiesta collection for me, and a perfume bottle collection--both are treasures. He's a great guy...people love to talk to him...I love having him help me fix the furniture before I sell it...he's a tinkerer, knows what every bizzare item is that I come across, grew up in downtown Rockford and knows the city by heart, ran the Gulf gas station for a hundred years at the corner of Central and Auburn in Rockford then the Sinnissippi Sunoco on N. 2nd Street...he knows everyone! He loves coming to my barn sales and wandering the yard seeing what everyone has...he'll be 84 this year and he's never been on any medication and never gets sick. He loves pie, Model A's and women in hats and aprons! He's an old-fashioned guy who grew up during the depression, married my mom and had eight kids. I have a great family--you might have met my sister Patty, the cashier at the barn sale over the weekend. I have two other great sisters and four wonderful brothers...who I love and they love me! My mom rocks...and is the pillar of our family. My son is lucky to have such great grandparents who live just a hop, skip and jump from my house...my dad spends hours with him in the summer while I'm working my part-time job, and teaches him how to use power tools, run a band saw, build birdhouses, fix a lamp, put oil in the car and all those great things that grandpas do.

Happy Father's Day, dad. I love you.

My dad last fall shelling walnuts! Another pastime of his!