I love to learn.  I believe that any subject can be interesting — an adventure, really — if you simply have the right teacher.  I’ve undertaken dozens of classes over the years just for the pleasure of learning.  (Auction School was one of those classes.)

Tonight while driving back from a client meeting, I passed a training academy which was so unusual it made me whip my neck around to read the sign again.  Call me crazy, but this could be a unique auction item idea for the live or silent auction.

It’s been months since I’ve driven on Howard Road between I-295 and South Capitol Street.  The last time I took that route, the area had a new elementary school, a sheet metal building, and (what appeared to be) an abandoned junkyard.

Today, the junkyard was gone and the sign on the chain link fence read HEAVY EQUIPMENT TRAINING ACADEMY. Bulldozers, dump trucks and other construction equipment sat behind the fence.

A Google search revealed many of these heavy equipment schools across the country.  Although the individual training courses offered by the academy are several weeks long, I wonder if the academy might be persuaded to donate a 1-hour hands-on lesson (with an instructor) to operate a bulldozer? Or a backhoe?  Or an excavator?

Consider the potential of this idea …

If Tonka dump trucks were your husband’s favorite sandbox toy, you could buy him the real deal experience at your charity auction fundraiser!

He’ll enjoy a one-hour dump truck lesson for his birthday while you support your non profit.  On his big day, send a buddy with him to take (hilarious) photos, and by the time they both return from the adventure, you’ll have his surprise birthday party all set-up.

This sounds like such a riot that it almost makes me wish I had a husband.

Does your young son love to watch the bulldozer operators working along the highway?

Perhaps the academy would donate the opportunity to sit in a real dozer at the academy. Your son would be in 7th heaven.

I’ve heard it said that men are just little boys who never really grow up.  If that’s true, then these big boys toys would be a perfect fit for the man in your life.  I suspect that even adventurous females would bid on this at a fundraising auction. (I know I would.)  I envision this idea as being more of a silent auction item, but it could go into the live auction, too.

BRRRM.  BRRRRM.  BRRRRRRRRRRM.  (My best attempt at writing the sound a bulldozer makes…)

(c) 2009 Red Apple Auctions LLC