“If there was one item not to be missed at the Rotary Auction, those in line at the gates of Woodward Middle School Saturday morning knew precisely where it was.But what article, exactly – amidst the panoply of trinkets, power tools, and old Barbara Streisand albums – made the pique of an early rise and the quarter-mile spread of parked cars on Sportsman Club Road bearable, few shoppers would have agreed.And although this was apparent as soon as the gates were opened and bargain-hunters sprinted in myriad directions, it also became frightfully clear that, amidst a crowd of thousands, almost anything of arguable value incited competition most fierce.But cutthroat crowds were already familiar to seasoned Rotary rummager Rye Cook-Biggert. Last year we got ping pong racquets and balls, he said, but the tables were all sold out.An elaborate scheme thus hatched, the young Cook-Biggert attended the auction preview Friday, targeted his table-tennis table on this morning, and staunchly clung to it in the parking lot once the rope dropped.Other auction preview attendees, despite their careful planning, were not so lucky.The bicycle I saw last night was gone by the time I got there, said Glen Flodin, and I was the first one through the gate.Yet Flodin couldn’t complain about the shiny Peugeot he managed to grab amidst the confusion, and as a procession of trampolines, fishing poles and coffee tables trundled by, everyone seemed pretty satisfied.Eighty-six dollars for a computer, that’s pretty good, a man carrying a monitor told his friends.Not any more, a woman laughed.Indeed, poking fun at rummage fare seemed a matter of course Saturday, even if it didn’t preclude actual buying.We need to see how many velvet jumpsuits there are in here, said a teenage girl in the clothing section, adding, I’m serious.With five rows of tables piled over five feet high with clothing, many could not pass up the opportunity to explore new, or old, frontiers of fashion.I’m going to put on those pants and keep on this shirt, one polyester-clad teenager said, and I’m going to walk around and just be like, ‘Yeah, what’s up? I’m a real laid-back guy.’Laid back did not characterize the approach of many rummage shoppers. Poulsbo resident Karen Lunden used a walkie-talkie to carefully coordinate the family purchasing strategy with her son and husband.We use them for skiing and they’re really handy, so we thought we’d take them here for this, she said of the radios. Because, this is nuts.Immobilized by a heavy box filled with shirts, pants and sweaters, Lunden said, I’m stuck here and I can’t really move. They are going to come help me, I think.Other crowd-coping gizmos also showed up in the clothing section, such as a combination mini-fan and spray bottle that one woman toted around her neck. Asked if it was itself a rummage sale item, she said, No, I got it at Wal-Mart.For those lacking serious shopping technology, and who perchance became overwhelmed by the incessant clinking of kitchenware and flinging of used corduroys, Seattle resident Blythe Goodell offered another option.With fellow high school graduate Shara Dunn, the soon-to-be college freshman held a garage sale at her aunt’s house a few blocks down the road.People have told us it’s a bit calmer, Goodell said. So they can walk through and concentrate. Because the crowds, I guess, are really big up there.And although business was brisk at the garage sale – with Dunn wearing some of the clothes for sale to entice passing drivers – some things, fourth grader Jacob Perilman pointed out, could only be had at the Rotary event.Opening a huge box to reveal his stash of plastic toy weapons, he said, I pretty much raided the whole entire thing of all significant guns that worked.Among them, he produced a relatively new super soaker squirt gun. I got this for my friend because he has this big, like, CPS1700 (soaker), and it’s like huge, he said, rattling off the nomenclature of the squirt gun world, but he really likes the XP70s, so I’m thinking about giving it to him.I just got a CPS3200, he said, and I’m like so psyched about getting out there in the middle of the summer and drenching everybody.In the Woodward gym, where others procured everything from glassware to books to crutches, bargains abounded later in the morning when the Rotarians reduced the price per bag from $10 dollars to $5.Many shoppers in the adjacent commons area congregated for the big ticket items, sold via silent bid sheets and in a cacophonous live auction.An antique chopping block, which appeared in a 1976 edition of Sunset Magazine, sold for $1,100. And the priciest auction item, an antique Duncan Fife dining table set, which had been in a local family for generations, went to the highest bidder for $3,100.Revenues from the Rotary event will be announced at a post-auction dinner tonight. Expected to well exceed $100,000, the proceeds will go to the Rotary’s scholarship programs, study-abroad contributions, and funds disbursed for various island-based projects. This year’s sales well exceed the $8,000 raised at the first Rotary Auction in 1960, when items put up for bid included a stuffed seal, two live sheep, 500 gallons of furnace oil, a greenhouse, and a 300-pound side of beef.By contrast, this year’s event included a 1973 Cadillac Coupe Deville, which admittedly needed some tinkering.It’s a piece of work, a piece of history, said Matthew Flieter, as his friend Mitchell Lamoureux tried to get the $120 purchase running.In an effort to prepare hapless shoppers for potential lemons, Rotary emcee Walter Braswell reminded several times over the mike:We want to remind you that at the Rotary Club, if you take it home and it works, it’s a bargain; if you take it home and it doesn’t work, it’s a donation.In that spirit, the sounds of engines firing, often roughly, came from the parking lot throughout the day. One potential lawnmower buyer even began cutting the Woodward grass. But by afternoon, as most purchases were done deals, efforts to get things rolling took on a more proactive tone.One young man, whose newly purchased, $200 Kawasaki motorcycle would not start, said, We think the battery is dead. At least, we hope the battery is dead.Climbing on the seat of the sleek, black machine, he planned to push start it. After his friend rolled him down the sidewalk and out of site, the sound of an engine firing could be heard. Then again, it might have been one of the many pickup trucks in the nearby parking lot, carting loads of auction goods on to renewed life. “