If there is one thing every Texan should experience at least once, it's a cattle auction. Back when I was going to them regularly, there was something quintessentially Texan about these affairs. They usually took place in rickety wooden structures, with a pen in front where the cattle were presented, a stand for the auctioneer behind, and U-shaped set of bleachers where the cattlemen sat and bid on cattle.

In towns like Winnie and Nome and Lufkin I watched grizzled ranchers in mud-caked boots and dusty straw cowboy hats alternate between taking long draws on cigarettes and raising two fingers to bid on a steer.

Dangling fluorescent lights struggled to break through the cloud of cigarette smoke and dust kicked up by nervous cattle as an auctioneer barked endless streams of gibberish and numbers through a crackly microphone.

So it was with great interest that I recently accepted an invitation to a cattle auction at a Central Texas ranch called 44 Farms. The experience definitely proved the maxim that some things about the cattle business never change, while others have changed radically.

The pen, auction stand, and bleachers are still there. The ranchers are too, of course, though much better dressed. Cigarette smokers are relegated to standing outside. There are now many "gentlemen ranchers" here who gave up the rat race in banking or law to tend and sell cattle. Unlike the scrawny cattle of the past, these bulls are big and muscular and imminently marketable.

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