I used to spend a great deal of time at the store with Papa Bruce. Because of this, I heard him tell many stories over and over. The following two short stories are some I heard many times.
Too Pretty
Papa Bruce often said that someone, his mother, my mother, others, told him he was too pretty. He
would say they told him he was pretty ugly and pretty apt to stay that way and that was two pretties.
Boss at his house
Papa Bruce would often talk about this story and he would always tell it exactly the same way. He said one day his father said to him, “Son, a man that will tell you he is boss at his house will bear watching.” Papa said he said, “Why is that, Daddy?” To which Grandpa would respond, “Because that rascal is bound to lie about something else.”
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A finance company hired me away from another finance company. One of the main reasons they hired me was because they had purchased many credit accounts from the Western Auto Store in Iva and were having a hard time collecting them.
They had hired a new assistant manager just after they purchased the accounts with the idea that he would collect those accounts.
When I started working at this finance company, it was plain to see that this new assistant manager had a serious dislike for the town of Iva.
The assistant manager would complain whenever he was assigned to chase Iva. Chase is the term we used when we went to collect face-to-face with someone in the field by going to their house or place of employment, or wherever.
Our manager would send me to Iva most of the time. And, most of the time I would come back with money.
The assistant manager could not understand how I did this. Our supervisor assigned the assistant manager to go with me to Iva to meet the sheriff’s deputy to go serve Claim and Delivery papers and pick up some items. We were to meet the deputy in the parking lot at the now closed Western Auto Store.
While we sat and waited, I got thirsty. I decided to go across the street to Snuffy’s Tavern and get a Diet Coke.
I asked the assistant manager if he wanted one. He went berserk. He said that those people would kill me and that he would not have my blood on his hands.
I went anyway. I went in, got my drink, and ran into an old friend from Iva and talked in the doorway of Snuffy’s.
We walked towards the car and the guy asked where I worked now. I told him "X" Finance. He said, "Oh yeah, I owe ya’ll a little money. I would have paid it, too, except they sent a little jerk to collect it."
He asked how much he owed. I had his card in the car because we were supposed to look him up while we were in Iva. I asked the assistant manager to hand me the card. He shook as he handed it to me.
The man I was talking to recognized the assistant manager as being the little jerk who had tried to collect from him. I explained that the assistant manager was a city boy and did not know how to act around people. The man handed me the money to pay off his account. I gave him a receipt.
The deputy came and we served the papers. Then, the assistant manager and I went to see some different people who had past due accounts. I knew all of them and where they lived.
We went to one house and I was invited in to supper. The assistant manager and I sat at the table sipping tea while they ate and the subject came up about where I was working.
I told them "X" Finance and the man said, “Oh yeah, I owe them some money. How much do I owe them?”
I looked at his card and told him and he gave me the money. He then realized who the assistant manager was and said that he was the reason he did not pay. I told the man that the assistant manager just did not understand people from Iva.
We went to two more houses. Each time the story was the same. People paid and then recognized the assistant manager as being the little jerk who told them they had to pay or else.
When we got back to the office, the assistant manager told everyone that he could not believe what he had seen.
People were begging me to take their money. We collected more than we went after and I did not have to raise my voice or threaten anyone. He went on to say he never heard me ask anyone for any money.
People respond when you treat them with respect. When you tell people they have to do something, they will do all they can to fight against you. The secret to handling people is to remember they are people. They are not “debtors” or “past dues” or something else impersonal. They are people just the same as everyone else.
Race doesn’t matter either. Everyone is a person. Years ago, some people would harass my father about selling to people of other races on credit. He said, “In my eyes, everyone is green.”
When I was a collection manager at several finance companies, I found the best way to let people know you were trying to help is to ask, “What can we do to help you get caught up on your bill?”
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When we were teenagers, one of my sister’s favorite games was to walk up to me when I had a glass of tea and gulp it down. She seemed to always enjoy this. I could almost always expect it to happen. One day when she was home from college I decided to fix her.
I fixed my supper and put my plate on the table. Then I made two glasses of iced tea. One for drinking which I placed on the kitchen floor beside the leg of the chair next to where I would be sitting and the other to go on the table.
Before I placed the glass on the table I added a little something extra. I loaded that glass with garlic salt. I used most of an eight ounce bottle of garlic salt. I stirred the mixture up really good and placed in on the table. I then sat down to eat. A little while later my mother came in the kitchen and sat down beside me and started talking to me. We were having a great conversation and I heard my sister coming in the door. She walked up to the table and stood between my mother and me acting like she was really wanting to converse with me. Shortly I saw that evil grin she got as she reached for my glass of tea. I shouted, “Don’t drink my tea.” She guzzled most of the glass down before the taste actually hit her. She ran to the sink and started spitting out the terrible concoction. Meanwhile I am rolling in the floor laughing at what had just taken place. My mother was trying to understand what had happened and why I thought it was so funny. When I was finally able to talk I shared it with her and she too found it very funny. My sister tells the story slightly differently. Her version goes something like this: I had just walked across two deserts with no food or drink. I had saved a caravan of orphans from a tornado and the last hundred miles of the journey I had my faithful camel, Leon, strapped to my back because he just could not make it on his own. As I approached town I stopped to fix the water pump on a car driven by a group of nuns and I thought to myself how good that water must taste. I had to leave the water though so the nuns could make it to their bingo tournament. I managed to drag my dehydrated body up the back steps and onto the back porch. I thought to myself, if I can just make it into the kitchen my dear, sweet brother would share a drop or two of his iced tea with me. This was what kept me going. I dragged myself through the back door and up to the table and then he poured that vile concoction down my throat nearly killing me. It is up to you which version you choose to believe.
I had been away at college for nearly
four years. I was sometimes home on the weekends but most of my weekends were
taken up visiting with friends. I did work at the store on Saturdays but some
people had not seen me in years.
Suzanne and I had just gotten married.
We had a break in at the store soon after Suzanne and I got married and we were
trying to find a way to stop them. We had a new alarm installed at the store. I
had a C. B. Radio in the Galaxy and I also had a C. B. walkie talkie that I
left at the house with Suzanne.
The Western Auto was just outside of the
city limits of Iva. This meant that the Iva Police Department had no
jurisdiction to respond. We had to rely on the Anderson County Sheriff’s
Department which was not much more than useless. There was an old joke that was
more true than joke that a Sheriff’s Department investigation ended when the
deputy taking the report said, “Call us if you hear anything.” So, we knew that
if anyone was going to catch anyone breaking into the store that we would have
to be the ones to do it.
My father and I had decided that when
the alarm company called us that I would go around the back of the store (a
road ran behind the store) and that he would go around front of the store and that
maybe we would catch them in between.
One night the alarm went off and I went to the back of the store and
started looking with the flashlight to see if I saw any obvious points of
entry. I did not so I started to go around front.
There is a bar across the street from
the Western Auto called Snuffy’s. Now this is about as rough a bar as you can
imagine. If you read my story about the pool cue you will get a little glimpse
at what I am talking about. One of the bar patrons yelled to my father “You
aren’t going in there by yourself are you Bruce?” It appears that the good old boy patrol was
going to provide back up for my father.
About that time I rounded the corner of
the store and I heard the unmistakable sound of shotgun slides being racked.
The sound was deafening as what seemed like a hundred or so pump shotguns
racking a shell. I laid down on the ground and threw up my hands. My pistol
laying out beside my flashlight. I yelled, “I am David. I am Junior. I am Bird.
I am supposed to be here.” My father yelled to the crowd, “That is David!” We
had a posse go in the store and walk with me around the back of the store. We
searched the building from top to bottom and found nothing.
The alarm company automatically called
the sheriff’s office so once they were called someone had to be there to fill
out a report. I called Suzanne and Papa and I waited for over an hour before
the deputy arrived to take the report. As he left he said, “Call us if you hear
anything.”
I remember Thanksgiving 1979 very well. My family had the
Western Auto Store in Iva, South Carolina, and we had learned that we either
had to keep the store open on Thanksgiving or leave town for the day. There
simply was no alternative.
Our first Thanksgiving after we opened the store was very
aggravating. People wanted to take the day to work on their cars, so they
needed car parts. They would come to the house and, rather than lose a good
customer, my father would go open the store. From that point forward we were
either open for Thanksgiving or we went out of town.
For Thanksgiving 1979, we had the store open. We had worked
that day and closed the store early. We came home and ate Thanksgiving dinner
at Grandma McClendon’s house. We kept Grandma in a little house in our
backyard.
After we ate there was nothing to do, so I called up my
friend Roger and we went to see the movie Animal House. While we were watching
the movie, Roger started talking to a friend of his and, as the movie was
ending, he went outside. I waited to watch the credits because they had extras
built into the credits.
When I came out of the theater, I found Roger sitting on a
pole drinking something out of a jar. He said, “Where is your car?” I thought he was joking with me because he had
been with me when I parked it. He had a set of keys to the car since I gave a
set to each of my friends when they were with me in case they needed to get in
it without me.
I figured he was joking with me and I went to find an empty
space where I had left my 1975 Monte Carlo. I still figured Roger had somehow
moved the car. He kept saying, “You need to call the police.” Finally, a police
car drove through the parking lot and Roger flagged them down. I knew he wasn’t
playing anymore.
As it turns out, the car had been stolen. Two friends of
mine, Dennis and his brother David, were at the movie and they drove me and
Roger home.
I remember telling my father about the car being stolen. He
told me he was not going to buy me another car.
The car was discovered on a dirt road near the double
bridges in Anderson County. The thieves had taken the wheels and tires, but
left the spare even though the thieves had opened the trunk. The spare was
loose in the trunk. They took my new rescue squad jacket and my first aid kit.
I took delivery of my new 1979 Mercury Capri on December 1,
1979.
In 1980, I graduated from Crescent High School. I applied to several colleges and, lo and behold, I was accepted by the University of South Carolina in Spartanburg. The problem was they did not have any dorms.
My family owned several houses and one trailer that we bought to be rent houses. At the time, most were rented, but before we could rent the trailer it would need to be renovated.
It seems that the woman that owned the trailer had died in the back bedroom. Her son sold the trailer. It was on a rented lot when we bought it, so we towed the trailer to the large lot we had at one of our other rent houses. This house was on Lee Street.
Soon after we got the house moved to the new location, my father and one of our store employees, who happened to be an excellent carpenter, went to look over the trailer.
The trailer had not been hooked up to electricity or any other utility yet. When my father and Author “Ott” went to look over the trailer, it was just about dark. The sun was setting and it was a little dark inside.
Both my father and Ott were acutely aware that the lady who had owned the trailer had died in the trailer in the back room.
Both Ott and Papa Bruce were extremely averse to anything what-so-ever to do with death.
There was still some light in the trailer, but not much. One of them accidently kicked a wire clothes hanger with their foot and it went sailing into the back bedroom where the woman had been found dead.
Independently from one another, both men decided they had a good idea of what needed to be done at the trailer at that time. Seconds later, both men were looking at one another across the seat of the truck. Both had very wide-open eyeballs.
Ott said to Papa Bruce, “Did you lock the door?” Papa Bruce responded that there was nothing in the trailer to steal so it did not matter if it was locked or not. To the best of my knowledge, neither man set foot in the trailer again until it was moved to Spartanburg.
A couple of days later, my father ordered a couple of loads of gravel and had it delivered to the Lee Street lot. He sent me and my brother Daniel to the lot to make a driveway with this gravel.
I loaded two shovels in the truck and off we went to the lot and I started shoveling gravel as my brother sat on the tailgate of the truck and watched me. After I had most of the gravel moved to make a driveway for the trailer, I sat down on the tail gate of the truck. I was still holding the shovel in my hands when I sat down.
A few minutes into my rest, my brother says to me, “Let me hold your shovel, David.” He got up and scooped up one shovel of gravel and then my father pulled up in the other truck to check on our progress.
As he pulled up, Daniel dropped his one and only shovel full of gravel back on the pile and approached Papa Bruce in the truck.
Papa Bruce said, “You boys really have gotten a lot of work done for just two people." He said, "Finish on up, then I have something else for you to do." Papa Bruce left. Daniel sat back down on the tailgate and I finished the driveway.
The trailer sat vacant. There were still no interior renovations to it. Then, Papa learned I would need a place to live in Spartanburg and he thought the trailer would be a perfect idea.
Me and some friends of mine cleaned the trailer and fixed things in it. One thing was that the mirrors in the bathroom had to be replaced, but that is another story.
The trailer had been built in the 1960s. The back bedroom had very thick, red shag carpet. There were two pendent lights that hung from the ceiling with faux gold on them. Some of that was scratched off.
There was a large mirror on either side of the room. The paneling on the wall was dark and shiny. There was a bit of white wallpaper on one wall and it had light blue flowers on it. There was a slight pink tint to some of the flowers in the wallpaper.
I decided to go with the flow and decorate this room in as tacky a way as I possibly could.
I bought a velvet-like bedspread with red dingo balls on it. I also bought orange sheets and yellow curtains. I was determined to make this room as tacky as possible. My friend Phil Brown dubbed it the Pimp Room.
Somehow, word of my effort to make the tackiest room got around and elderly ladies, who you would think did not know what a pimp was, began to approach me at church and at the store and give me tacky items for the room.
There were green throw pillows and one of those silk hand painted pillows one gets when they go on vacation. I forget what it said.
I was given strobe lights and black lights galore.
I drove to Spartanburg and found Green Acres Trailer Park right across the street from the University. This was a controlled access road, so it was not like I could walk right across the street to school though.
I rented the lot and arranged to have my lights, water, and phone set up. While I was
getting my water arranged for, I met the fire chief at the local volunteer fire department and showed him my EMT credentials and joined the rescue squad right then and there. At that time in Spartanburg, S.C., the fire departments and rescue squads were combined. The chief’s name was Tom Emery.
I still remember my very first electric bill. Back then we called them light bills. It was from Duke Power Company and was on one of those old time computer punch cards. The bill was for $1.01. I have never seen one so low again. This was my first piece of mail in Spartanburg.
Soon I will tell you about my first night in the trailer.
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It
always interests me when I watch a movie with alternate realities. You know the
ones. I think the classic and best example is Frank Capra’s It’s a Wonderful Life starring Jimmy
Stewart as George Bailey. My child bride Suzanne and I love to watch this
movie.
In
this movie, George goes through a typical boring life in a typical boring town
in a typical boring job that is anything but what he had planned for himself.
When he graduated high school, he had plans to see the world and then go to
college and be an engineer. George’s father dies, leaving him to run the family
business. George pretty much lives a same-o same-o life through the years
thinking life is passing him by. One day, Clarence the Angel gives George a
chance to see what the world would be like without him.
The
other day Suzanne and I watched a movie called Family Thanksgiving. In this
movie a woman is a workaholic lawyer who has only success on her mind. The
thought of a husband and family is completely out of the question. One day, a
fairy/angel whatever sends her into an alternate reality where she is a soccer
mom and housewife. She gets to see what could have happened if she had made
some different choices. She liked the new reality and does not want to leave.
Movies
like this always make me think, “what if”. In the move Final Countdown, the
U.S.S. aircraft carrier Nimitz goes back to the days just before the bombing of
Pearl Harbor. If the Nimitz were to fight a war against World War II era planes
and ships, it would be able to fend off any attack. The people on the ship
discuss the “Classic Paradox of Time.” Basically, if I go back in time and meet
my grandfather before he marries and has children and he and I fight and I kill
him, then how could I be born? If I am never born, then how could I go back in
time and kill my grandfather? Or, like in Back to the Future when Marty McFly
goes back in time and his mother is after him instead of his father. If his
father and his mother never get together then he could never be born. In this
movie, things do change a little bit. Marty’s father punches Biff the bully and
things change for the better.
Life
is full of questions of “What if”. If I had invested $1,000 in MicroSoft when I
first heard of them in 1987, that $1,000 would be worth $122,762 today. This is
a fairly decent chunk of change. The thing is, back then, I had the money. I
could have invested IF I knew then what I know now.
If
I could go back in time to when I was twelve years old and I knew then what I know
now, I would have practically no complications from diabetes, if I had diabetes
at all now. With what I know now, I could have cured me of what I have now. All
I had to do is eat raw vegetables.
The
other day I read in Reader’s Digest about a new drug that would help with this
diabetic nerve pain I have. In bold letters it warns of an increase in the
possibility of suicide or suicidal thoughts. It warns of a ton of side effects.
It also says that if I want to father a child I should tell my doctor. Now, at
age 48 I have no plans to father a child, but this tells me that first, I know
why these people want to commit suicide. Also, if it is going to affect me in
all the ways it says, I am better off with the serious diabetic nerve pain.
But, I could have avoided all of this if I knew then what I know now.
If
I could go back in time, I could have avoided saying all the stupid things I
have said to Suzanne. The problem is I probably would have said other things
that are just as stupid.
But
life doesn’t give us any “Take backs” or “Do Overs”. Like the song The Dance
sung by Garth Brooks said, I could have missed the pain but I’d have had to
miss the dance.
But,
if given a do over, I would have saved more money. I would have studied harder.
I would have taken business instead of media arts the first go round. I would
have spent more quality time with Suzanne. We would have been together in high
school. I would have avoided a big mistake I made on March 14, 1997.
If
I could write a letter to me…
We
can’t go back in time, but we can start living our lives a little bit
differently. We can eat healthier and exercise more. We can treat those we love
better. We can say the “I am sorry” that we missed saying. Ask yourself, if you
could go back to a particular time in your life and have a “Do over’, what time
would that be? If you could go back in time and you knew everything you know
right now, what would you do differently?
A few years back, my family and I were shopping at our local
chain grocery store. To protect the innocent, we’ll call this store Harry’s.
The names used in the story are not the real names of the people involved.
Our town is fairly small, so there is only one name brand
store. I used to shop there all the time because they had more variety than our
local gorilla store. This store is the only place in town to buy Duke’s
Mayonnaise. There is only one place in our town where you can buy real grits
and that is the beaver store. The beaver store is what all convenience stores
dream they will be when they grow up.
We have gone all through the store and made it to the soft
drink aisle. The locals here refer to soft drinks as “Soda Water.” When I was
growing up, a carbonated beverage was referred to as Coke no matter what it
was. “Hey, Tom, please give me a coke.” “What kind of coke do you want?” “Sugar
Free Dr. Pepper, please.”
I go to place the Cokes in the buggy and I notice a coupon
for a free cake with the purchase of four two liters. This is cool because I am
buying five two liters. I can use this coupon and get free cake too. I send the
kids to the bakery to find out what kind of cake we are getting.
The kids come back with a slice of cake and say that
“Bonnie” in the bakery says that they are out of the cake, but she is
substituting this slice of cake. This isn’t a problem for me because I did not
expect a sheet cake from the coupon. I mean, how big could the cake be if they
are giving it away for buying four Cokes? I had taken a couple of extra coupons
because I liked the deal and I buy soft drinks all the time. I am a die-hard
fan of Diet Coke and with five people in the family we go through a few two
liters in a week’s time.
Later in the week, I go back to Harry’s and shop. I get my five two-liter Cokes and proceed to
the bakery. I don’t see the cake listed, so I locate “Jess”. He doesn’t know
which cake goes with the coupon, so he asks Bonnie. Bonnie explains in great
detail that these coupons that I got in this store just a few days ago were not
the right coupons for this store. She goes on to say that when they first put
the coupons out she honored them by substituting a large slice of cake for the
small cake that was supposed to go with the coupon.
I tell her that I have a coupon and ask what she is going to
do to honor the coupon. She said she is not going to honor the coupon since it
was not for this store. The coupon clearly has the store’s store number printed
on it. She says that these cakes have to come out of her budget and she simply
can’t afford to honor the coupon. Let’s see, last year I averaged spending
about $900 per month in this store. I want a piece of cake that is going to
cost the store about 25¢ to make. Do they risk taking 25¢ out of their budget
to save about $11,500 per year in sales? Bonnie chooses to lose the $11.5K to
save the 25¢.
I proceed to the check out where one of the managers asks me
if there is anything else they could help me with today. I told her what had
just happened. She goes to a more senior manager who goes and gets Bonnie to
ask her what they should do. Of course, Bonnie says she has already explained
to me that I ain’t gittin’ no cake.
I am irritated by all of this so, when I get home, I go to
the store’s website at www.youaintgittinnocake.com
. I explain in great detail all that happened and tell that I spoke to Bonnie.
About a week later, I get a phone call from, you guessed it, Bonnie. Bonnie
again explains to me that I ain’t gittin’ no cake.
I have been in retail 37 years and I can’t believe that
Harry’s would risk anyone’s business like this. It really isn’t that I just
want cake. I am too fat anyway. The point is that they are supposed to honor
their coupons.
I write their home office and get a phone call from Harry’s
complaint department. They send me a gift card and coupons for ice cream. I go
to the store and try to redeem my coupon for my ice cream and find out that the
coupon isn’t good in this store. However, this time the cashier simply pulls up
a screen on his computer and overrides the coupon code and I get my free ice
cream. Still no cake.
When I was thirteen years old, I went to Treasure Island in
Atlanta Georgia. Treasure Island was kind of like a K-Mart, but it was owned by
J.C. Penny Company. I went in to buy a barbell set. The set’s total weight was
125 lbs., which was more than the 92 pounds I weighed at the time.
I could not find anyone to help me, so I laid the buggy down
and scooted the 125 pound box into the cart. I got to the front counter and
paid for my weights. I had a key to the car, so I went to the car and rolled
the box into the car by leaning the buggy into the trunk and rolling the box
into the trunk. The car sat considerably lower.
When we got back to McClendon Manor, I opened the box while
it was still in the trunk and took the weights into the house one at a time. My
mother was afraid that I would drop weights through the ceiling if I took them
upstairs, so for the first few weeks the weights lived down stairs.
I started my weight lifting routine and found that I could
not even lift the bar over my head. The bar with collars and sleeve weighed
just over five pounds. Try as I might, I could not lift it. I worked at it and
worked at it until finally I was able to lift this bar over my head.
First, I lifted it one time over my head. Then, I worked up
to twice. Finally, I got to where I could lift it one hundred times over my
head. Wow, I was getting strong now. I could lift the bar.
Finally, I added weights. I started out with five pounds. I
worked up to where I could lift five pounds one hundred times. Then, my mother let me take the weights
upstairs because I was getting on her nerves. The weight set had been right in
front of her dresser in her dressing room. The dresser had a big mirror and she
kept having visions of me breaking the mirror. So, up the stairs I went. It
took about eight thousand trips to get the weights up the stairs, but I got
them there.
For a while the weights sat on the floor in my room. Finally,
I decided to buy me a weight bench. I
worked my way up to bench pressing the entire weight set and bought two fifty
pound weights. I was never able to use them. I went into a diabetic coma and,
from that point forward, it was all I could do to lift me. I sold my weight
set.
Now
I am just getting back to where I can walk again. I had a major setback from my
diabetes. I am slowly working my way back up in lifting weights. I know it
sounds wimpy, but I was able to lift more weight at 14 years old than I can
now. But, I am well on my way to getting there.
Years ago when I worked for Safeway
Finance we had a computer terminal in our office. The whole idea of personal
computers was relatively new. The terminal was part of the Telex system which
was basically a way of connecting hundreds of high quality typewriters
electronically via dedicated phone lines.
Part of this system was that we could
send terminal messages between offices in our company. All we had to know was
that office’s branch number. When a message was sent to an office the receiving
office would receive an *A* printed out on their journal paper following their
next transmission.
One day, while alone in the office, I
decided to see if it would be possible for an office to send a terminal message
to itself. It was. It looked just like all other terminal messages. So, I sent
the message “Help, I am trapped inside the computer. Please call technical
services to get me out.” Since this one very naïve girl in our office was the
one to normally work the terminal I figured that she would be the one to get
the message. She was not.
Our cashier, who was a little older and
supposedly less naïve, sat down at the terminal and began to post payements.
She exclaimed really loudly, “Somebody is trapped in the computer.” I began to roll around in my desk chair
laughing. The manager did not understand what was so funny unitl the cashier
showed the manager the message. Then she knew I had sent it.
One of the things Suzanne and I did
while we were in Kansas City was to buy a Point of Sale computer system for the
Western Auto Store. I had practically no experience with computers so this was
a very time consuming process.
Back then there was an extremely long turnaround
time for a computer system through the Western Auto MIS Department so I had
time to get things ready. The first step was to get the store set to “Model
Stock”. To do this I had to go to each item in the store and make sure it had a
price label with the correct stock number on it. I also had to make sure that
we told the computer exactly how many of each item we wanted to keep on hand.
This was very time consuming. I had to go through the store with a micro fiche,
typewriter (for typing bin tags) and price marker all mounted on a converted
shopping cart.
We also had to have a second phone line
installed at the store. This was so that the computer could communicate with
the Western Auto computer. I also used this line as my private line for Suzanne
to call whenever I was working before the store opened.
That way I would not have to answer the phone
when we weren’t open.
I got the system set up and running. We
weren’t quite ready to go live yet. Shortly the screen on the main terminal
displayed the message “Error 1005 Ignore, Reboot, Retry.” I called Western Auto MIS. They said, “It
isn’t our error message. It must be a hardware issue.” So, they conference
called in Texas Instruments. Texas Instruments said, “This isn’t our error
message.” So they added MicroSoft to the conference call.
Microsoft asked,
“What size is your hard drive?” I answered “40 Megabytes.” The surprised response from Microsoft was
“Forty Megabytes, you will never fill that up!” I was then told that the error
code was not Microsoft’s either. I told them that I had that code and that
someone needed to fix my problem. It was decided I would reformat my very first
hard drive. So, I had to install floppy disk after floppy disk on this massive
40 megabyte hard drive. Today you can burp and fill up forty megabytes.
I had taken several bartending courses
and read several bartending books. One of the books I read was published by the
World Famous Trader Vic’s. According to the book Trader Vic’s demanded the
highest quality in all their drinks and in all meals served. So, when Suzanne and I went to Kansas City
Missouri to a Western Auto convention I was thrilled to learn that nearby the
hotel we were staying at was a Trader Vic’s
.
It was early in 1987. We just had been
hit by the second of two very big snow storms. The likes of which were very
rare in Upstate South Carolina. I remember well the day before the first of the
two storms hit. The town police came to the Western Auto Store and ordered
studded snow tires. We called a small tire manufacturer known as “Tread
Systems” and they told us the tires would be ready the following morning.
When I went to the Waffle King in Iva to
eat breakfast is was looking a lot like snow would soon be falling. Not long
after I started eating the snow came down hard. So, I paid my check and went
and opened the store.
In the back room we had two stacks of
snow sleds. Years before a man had asked my father if he could order a sled for
his grandchildren who lived up North. My father noticed that Western Auto sold
two types of sleds so he ordered one of each. My father, who was no expert in
inventory control, did not notice that there was an order multiple of three for
one of the sleds and of 12 for the other sled. So, if you ordered one you got
three and on the other when you ordered one you got 12. Through the years we
had continued to reduce the prices on these sleds and had finally just put them
in the back room to be forgotten. I went to the store room got the sleds,
dusted them off and changed the price back to the original price and was sold
out of sleds before the official opening time for the store.
Once my father arrived I left the store
to go to Tread Systems in Anderson to pick up the studded snow tires. I was not
fortunate enough to have the luxury of studded snow tires.
A few weeks later we were hit with
another snow. Just after that snow storm we were scheduled to leave to go to
Kansas City. A new storm was predicted so Suzanne and I left Iva and stayed at
a hotel near the airport so that we would be able to drive to the airport and
leave on time.
We stayed at the Holiday Inn Crown Plaza
(in Kansas City). This hotel was owned by the company that owns Hallmark Cards.
Years previously it had made the news just after it opened when a skywalk it
had fell and killed many people.
The Trader Vic’s was within walking
distance of our hotel and so we decided that we would eat a great meal at
Trader Vic’s. We went and we ordered two steaks. Suzanne always orders her
steaks well done. I order mine medium. When they arrived my steak appeared to
be very rare and Suzanne’s appeared to be raw. I sent the steaks back to the
kitchen with the directions to cook them until they thought they were burnt and
then cook them some more. The steaks came back looking more raw than they were
to start with.
The mixed drinks were no better. A mixed
drink is not supposed to taste like you are drinking the alcohol directly out
of the bottle. There should just be a hint of alcohol flavor. These drinks were
terrible. The total bill came to over $60 and we left hungry.
It appears that the more expensive the
restaurant is the worse the food tastes and the less you get to eat. Give me a
good old Dud’s burger every day. I am a simple man.
While at this Western Auto Show we
purchased a Point of Sale computer system for the store.
Soon after Suzanne and I got married I
started to install an intercom system in the Western Auto Store. As I recall it
was an AiPhone system. Suzanne was pregnant at the time and we were also having
a new burglar/fire alarm installed.
I had been working on a junction box in
the parts room. I was using an 8 foot tall step ladder with a tool tray and had
just finished splicing a junction and came down. I put my tools back in my tool
belt but could not find my hammer. I looked everywhere. It was nowhere to be
found. Finally I gave up on finding it and decided to just move to the next
junction point.
I folded up my ladder and almost
immediately I saw a bright flash and felt really weak. My father had been
standing nearby and saw what happened. I was holding on to the folded up ladder
for dear life trying to figure out what was going on. My father asked me if I
was okay and somehow I managed to say, “No!”
I had found my hammer. It had been on the tool tray of the step ladder
all along.
Suzanne drove me to the doctor’s office
and she asked me if I was going to be okay. They took me straight back to the treatment
room. Suzanne asked if I was going to scream when the doctor stitched me up. I
told her I could not guarantee that I would not. She said she would wait out
front. Dr. Baird came in the room and I reminded him that I was much bigger
than he was and that although I would not want to that if he were to hurt me I
might end up hurting him. He said that he would do his best to keep from hurting
either one of us. We both made it out okay.
What is seven feet tall, sixteen feet wide and wears nail
polish? The answer is the Beast that wouldn’t die. Suzanne and I took on a
project at a local retail store to reset the cosmetics wall. We do that sort of
thing all the time.
Well, we started at 9 PM on Friday night and finally
finished up after 10 AM Saturday. Or at least we thought we were finished.
While we were reworking the wall we had problems with hooks breaking and could
not get the store employees to locate new ones. The wall was actually bowed so
shelves would not set properly and everything looked slightly off-kilter. We
could not get any employees to find us a different shelf so we could try to set
that one instead. The overnight manager instructed her people that “We have a
business to run here. Don’t help those people.” What she seemed to forget is
that we were there to help her. Without us store employees would have to take
the time to reset the wall on the company dime. We weren’t costing the store
anything. The cosmetics vendor was paying us.
We finally got everything straight and the next day we got a
call from the vendor’s agent. It seems the cosmetics department manager wanted
everything to be moved down on the wall by about one inch. Other than that
everything was fine. So, back we went to the store. We started at 10 AM and
finished at 2PM. We got the department
manager to sign off on the project and we went home to crash.
I have a problem with my ankle called Charcot Ankle.
Basically, I have trouble walking if my ankles are put under stress. It took a
few days, but I am finally able to walk again. I think I am just too old for
all of this.
Often times suppliers would give extra special discounts if we would buy a “Truckload” or a “Car Load (railroad car load)”. Well one day the salesman from RCA electronics told my father he could buy televisions and VCRs at half price if he would buy a truckload of these by close of business Monday. This was on a Friday evening. My mother told him that there was no way because we still had a warehouse full of televisions and vcrs that we had not sold and had not paid for. She told him the only way it would be possible for us to have any where to put them and to have any money to pay for them is if he sold every single television and VCR before he ordered the truckload.
The next morning, Saturday, my father came into Waffle King #3 restaurant. He told me to get my riding britches on because I was going to be busy and why. Back in the early 1980’s most people in rural areas did not know how to hook up the 75 ohm antennas on televisions and most still had the old 300 ohm flat lead antenna wires. Very few people knew how to hook up a VCR or how they worked. Also, cable was just getting to the area and these new “Cable Ready” televisions were an oddity in our area. Therefore, a service technician, me, had to go to each customer’s house, hook up the television and/or VCR and program it and then teach them how to use it.
By the end of that day he had managed to sell every television and VCR on the sales floor, every television and VCR in the warehouse, every television and VCR that was in an alternate storage room and one broken television that the customer who bought it knew was broken but wanted it anyway.
I think the point of this story is that you can do anything you set your mind to if you have the drive, desire and motivation to do it.
Shortly after Suzanne and I began to work for my father full-time, he said to me that he really would like to start selling R. C. Cola. He had grown up with R. C. Cola and loved it as a boy.
He had seen it around, but the sales people never came to his store, so he did not have an opportunity to start carrying it. He told me that if I could get in touch with the route salesman to have him stop by the store because he would like to talk to him about carrying the R .C. brand of drinks.
A few weeks later, I ran into the R. C. route salesman at one of the stores
in town. Back then, the salesmen did everything. They drove a truck load of product around, checked the inventory for each store, and then immediately delivered what they thought that store needed for the next week. It works differently now and not as well, I might add.
I told the route salesman that, before he left town for the day, we would like to talk to him at Western Auto about selling his product. He said he would stop by on his way out of town. He never stopped.
Several months later, I encountered a different route salesman in town and told him the same thing. The man said he was new to the route and R. C. and had not set up new accounts yet, but he would stop by the store and see what he could do.
Well, he did actually stop by the store and my father asked him about the price of soft drinks. At that time, we sold Coke products out of a machine that never worked and that was it. The salesman told him his price for a case or two.
My father then asked the salesman what the least price we could sell two liter drinks for would be. The salesman told him that we would have to buy 300 cases of two liters and that each week we would have to buy enough two liters to build back up to 300 cases.
If we did, we could sell them at 69¢ each. My father told him to set him up. Then, my father asked him what was the least we could sell canned drinks for.
The salesman told him we would have to buy 300 cases of those as well and buy back up to 300 cases each week. Then, we could sell a six pack for about $1.39. My father told him to go ahead.
The route salesman brought in those cases of soda and we built a display and put up signs and went to selling the soft drinks.
Meanwhile back at the R. C. warehouse, the route salesman has been chewed out by his district manager because he figured they were going to have to eventually buy back all those soft drinks from us.
The district manager told his salesman that this was the stupidest mistake that he had ever had a new salesman make and that, when they did have to buy them back, the total cost was going to come out of his commission.
My father loved to sell. He could sell ice to an Eskimo if he wanted to. He wanted to sell R. C., so everyone that came in the store was told about the R. C. price. We sold out of the R .C. drinks in less than two days.
That next week, the route salesman with his district manager came to the store at the end of his day. The salesman had been listening all day to how the district manager was going to have to go in and explain to us that a mistake was made and that the company would like to apologize to us for the hassle.
When the salesman came in the store, he looked like he had lost his last friend. He was dragging lower than the ears on a sad dog. The first words out of the district manager’s mouth were, “Where are all my drinks?”
I told him, “We sold them!” He said," Well, what about the drinks in the back room; why aren’t they out here?” I told him that we did not put anything in the back room. I went on to tell him that Bruce was upset with R. C. because we ran out of drinks in less than two days and we did not know how to get in touch with them to get more drinks.
My father had a special way of dealing with “know-it-all district managers.” He hated them. He made it plain with this district manager that we would continue to sell the product as long as this salesman was on the route and that the district manager left the salesman alone.
By the time Bruce was finished, the district manager had a change of heart and apologized to the route salesman. He then arranged for us to get a brand new R. C. drink machine. They would pay to install an outdoor outlet for the machine so that it could be outside the store on the sidewalk. They would also pay for the electricity to run it.
Learn from this story what you will. I think the important points were:
1. The original route salesman, the one that did not come to the store, let a lot of business pass by that would have been easy to get.
2. The new salesman approached the new business in an honest, straightforward way and got what became the best stop on all the routes in the district manager’s district.
3. District Mangers and other supervisors need to observe and actually see what the facts are before they try to correct the actions of their people.
4. Just because a mom and pop place is a mom and pop place does not mean that it can’t be very profitable for all concerned.
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One thing I learned from my father
about how to deal with people in business is that they won’t necessarily go out
of their way to help you but they will go trip all over themselves to prove
they are right.
I had submitted a credit memo to Western
Auto for credit months before and never saw where it appeared on our statement
for credit. I called and asked about the credit and was told by the accounting
people, “Don’t worry, if you submitted it you got credit.” I told my father this and he said, “Wait a
few days then call back. Tell them you did not get credit”. I did as he
instructed and within a few minutes they called back and told me what day we
received the credit and that it did not appear on the statement because of a
glitch in the system but they would be sending a follow up statement. My father
was right. As long as they thought they had to prove they were in the right
they would move heaven and earth to do so. If it were simply a matter of
helping us they did not care.
It is easy to guess what the best job I ever had was. That
would be working at my family’s Western Auto Store. The customers were great,
the job was easy, and the whole thing was like playing a game.
It would be easy to guess what the worst job I ever had was,
too. I once worked for a family-owned collection agency. I will have to
describe that in detail down the road. No one would believe it anyway, even
though I have tapes and documentation of the experience.
But this is about the second best job I ever had. That would
be the time I spent as a guard in the Carolina Gamecock locker room during the
fall of 1983. The job was amazing even though I actually lost money doing the
job. I would bring home about $20 for the day but I would spend more than $20
on food and drink and going out to Shoney’s after the game. I didn’t take the
job for the money. I took it for the fun.
I took a job working for the Pinkerton Detective Agency. If I
had known then what I know now about the Pinkertons, I never would have taken
the job. But that is another story.
Because I was a stupid, er, student at the University I
could not work the gate. They placed me working inside the Gamecock locker room
and my friend Tommy Branton guarding the visitors’ locker room.
The locker room area for the Gamecocks was amazing. There
was a little movie theater there, a banquet room, the locker room itself, a
dressing room for Cocky, and what was then the largest college weight room in
the world.
Since I am working my tail off trying to get back to being
healthy and making darn good progress, I am pumping iron like a madman. While
lifting weights the other day I was reminded of when one of the assistant
weight training coaches from UCLA was being shown the weight room he said, “That’s
huge.” Then, after a second or two, he caught himself and said, “Of course, we’re
building one twice that size next year.”
While working for the Gamecocks I met Joe Morrison, the head
coach, as well as all his staff. I got to meet the team; they all called me
Barney since I was so skinny. I also got to meet James Brown, the Godfather of
Soul, Rick James and several other celebrities.
I also got to be a temporary guard for Governor Dick Riley
some weekends. The State Troopers would escort Governor Riley into the locker
room area. There he would take an elevator up to his private box. While some of
the Troopers parked the cars, I and other troopers would stand with the
Governor. He was a very nice man and always shook my hand.
Later, when I took a swimming class with some of the
football team they had this great game called “Throw Barney in the Pool”. Since
I am a good swimmer I did not mind. One of the guys remarked, “You are a good
guy and you don’t get mad at us”. I told him I knew it was all in fun and did
not mind. The game continued, but there was more of a camaraderie after that. I
had been having problems getting the right size swim suit from the equipment
people. One day, one of the players asked me why my suit always hung off my
a**. I told him they keep giving me large suits when I ask for medium. He went
up to the counter and told the equipment guy I needed a medium and not to be
ignoring me no more. From that point on I got what I needed.
The team was a great group of guys. Not one of them was a
jerk to me. And, not one of them knows me by anything other than Barney. That’s
okay, too.
Interestingly enough is that when you are a fan in the stands
you don’t see the amazing police presence that is there. We had SLED, State
Troopers, ABC, Sheriff, City, and Campus Police, as well as private security.
It is against the law to possess or consume alcohol in the
stadium. No excuses. There were always those who tried to beat the system and
bring some in anyway. Many got away with it but many did not. There was a
magistrate right there in the stadium where a person would appear before the
judge and it would be decided if they would be detained or not and given a
court date.
Someday,
in another post, I will have to tell you about the drunken Clemson fan who
showed up at the Clemson/Carolina game without a ticket.
