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As long as I’m telling stories, I’ll tell another story about another
little deal I did to make money. After WWII, Case came out
with a wire tie baler. The baler would go down through the
field, pick up the hay, and bale it. Two fellows had to sit
back in the dirt along the side of the baler and poke wires
through blocks that were put between each bale. One end of
the wire had a loop and the other was a plain end; they’d
put it through and wrap it real quick. They’d sit there in
that dirt all day long tying those bales. They made good
wire tied bales. All the farmers (some did custom work) had
these wire tie balers. One year, about 50 or 51, these wire
ties were really short. There was a place in Des Moines that
made them, but you couldn’t even buy any there. Dad was in
the implement business and he could only get few from them.
Nobody could get these wire ties.
One day I decided I was going to go find some wire ties. I took off in
my Kaiser car (or maybe a Fraser) took my wife and Johnny
(John was just a baby) and headed to Missouri. (This is kind
of like another potato story.) So, I went down through
Missouri in the car and I’d stop in every little town;
wherever there was an implement dealer, a lumber yard, or
any place that looked like they might handle wire ties. I’d
stop and if they’d have ten bales, I’d buy them from ‘em,
pay cash and get a receipt. I’d do that all day long. In the
evening, I’d call Ernie Mitchell and have him bring that big
K-6 down with the pup trailer and load these bale ties. I’d
try to have a load for him by evening, I’d call him and he’d
be down there the next morning. He’d stop at each one of
these places and get the number of ties that I’d bought and
paid for.
After two or three days of that, I stopped at a little old lumber yard
that was about falling down, in a town about the size of
Carnforth. I was sure they didn’t do any business there, but
because I stopped everywhere else, I stopped there. I talked
to the guy and I told him what I wanted. He said, “How many
do you want.” I said, “I’d take all you got.” He said he
had, I believe it was six truck loads over in Kansas City.
He said, “I bought ‘em last winter, and I don’t need ‘em.” I
bet him that he couldn’t get them, but if he could, I’d just
take them all. By golly, you know that guy was able to get
them. He’d send two little trucks into Kansas City every day
that we were there. He’d come back out of Kansas City and
I’d have Ernie there with the pup. We’d put one load on the
pup and one load on the truck, and Ernie would head for
Brooklyn. You talk about people waiting for potatoes, you
ought to have seen the farmers waiting for bale ties when
they were hard to get. We’d tell them around Dad’s shop
there on the corner that Ernie would be in at a certain time
with the bale ties. I say we, really Dad did, ‘cause I’m
still looking for bale ties. They’d be lined clear up to the
city park with their pickups early in the morning, waiting
for Ernie to get in with the bale ties. Those farmers would
take probably twice as many of those bale ties as they
needed because they were hard to get. I’m telling you, we
were making more than a truck bill on them. They came from
all over to get them because the couldn’t get them anywhere
else.
I guess the reason I tell you about the potato deal and the bale tie
fiasco; I always felt you had to do something with your
trucks besides what you made just hauling something.
There was a period of time for several years that I bought hogs. I’d
weigh them at what was at that time a little sale barn in
Brooklyn. I had an arrangement with a fellow that I could
weigh them there. I bought the hogs, got a commission on the
hogs and I got to haul them. I was always looking for
something besides just the truck bill, because you’re never
going to get rich if all you got out of anything was the
truck bill. Even today, in 1991, we’re still running a lot of trucks, but
as you know we’re in the construction business and it’s more
or less the same thing. We’re getting more than a truck bill
out of running our trucks and I think that’s been very
important over the years.
I drove the K-6 a lot of the time, if Ernie wasn’t driving it. I drove
it, oh, I don’t know, thousands of miles myself. I sit here
laughing about some of the things I hauled. For instance,
there was some guy from Brooklyn, I mean he was raised in
Brooklyn (I can’t think of his name), but he was a college
professor and he got a job teaching in some college in
Michigan. I took my stock truck, bought some furniture pads
and loaded up his furniture and hauled it to Michigan. Never
thought about having any moving permits or anything, never
did care as long as I was on the road and never got caught.
I hauled furniture quite a few times, in that stock truck
using my furniture pads and always got a good rate for that.
I just hauled anything, any time, any place. I never worried about
permits. Dad used to handle New Idea farm machinery. We
would load that out of Sandwich, Illinois, and I didn’t have
any permits to haul it. We’d go in there with that old K-6
and pup and load up a load of knocked down manure spreaders
or hay rakes or whatever, bring them back to Iowa and take
them to dealers around the State. I had good rates on that.
Never did get caught for permits. You know I wouldn’t do a
thing like that today for anything.
I had double decks in that truck and pup both, for hogs. I even hauled
some hogs to Chicago in that truck and pup. Dad was handling
feed at the time—Arcadia Feed, was the name of it, made in
Chicago—and I’d haul feed back. But, those weren’t very good
paying deals. The rate to haul livestock to Chicago was
probably about 30 to 35 cents a hundred. I probably hauled
20,000 pounds, so that’s about $70.00 to go to Chicago with
a double deck load of hogs on the truck and pup. With those
old Mississippi mud and cotton tires, I’d probably blow out
a tire on the way. I remember one time I blew one out when I
got to Tiffin and I had to wait at Tiffin till somebody
brought me a new wheel and tire out of Brooklyn.
Somewhere about this period of time, Charlie Drake had a tractor and
Ross Ramsey had a 28' trailer that they hauled livestock to
Chicago all the time. Fred Griffith bought Charlie’s tractor
and I bought Ramsey’s trailer. I didn’t have the 28' trailer
very long; I went to the unheard of length of 34' with a
tandem trailer. For several years, Fred and I hauled
livestock to Chicago. Fred pulled my trailer; eventually I
sold out to Fred.
Also, about this period, I think it was 1952, my smart brother, Merlin,
graduated from college, and he wanted to do something. I
don’t know where I got a few bucks, but anyway, we went in
the implement business together. We sold Massey Harris farm
machinery and then we took over the New Idea from dad and
New Holland. There was a good dealer in Grinnell, and we
couldn’t get a franchise at Brooklyn. So, we operated our
franchise out of Victor; Merlie was down there all the time
and I kind of operated a sub-franchise out of an old shop
here in Brooklyn, as well as running my trucks.
When I look back, it seems I was doing so
many things, I can’t even think how I got all these things
done—’course I probably wasn’t doing any of them right. We
stayed in the implement business till about 1958. My brother
Clare and I had trucks together by then and we were getting
into the construction business some. We sold out of the
implement business and Merlie came in with Clare and I to
help us in the construction business, ‘cause we really had
more than we could do by then.
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