Instead of an army of men, perhaps it could be done by a single, absolute, working machine.....Along with his family of little working machines!. I called Henry Emison.
He was not really busy now, and
they could use some Christmas money. We agreed upon 25 cents each, we
haul and pick up. Finished by March.
Corey and I went shopping. 22,500
screws, just the right length. A handful of Dremmel tools. Drill bits
and screw drivers. The next problem was to get that mass of boxes to
Gurdon. My friend, Bud Reeder, loaned his truck and large trailer.
Hooking that very heavy trailer up
one morning, I strained a little too hard. On the way to Little Rock,
My vision in one eye started going crazy. I was seeing little sperm
shaped black things, swimming all around in my vision in that Eye. It
continued. Unloading the trophies later that day, I called my friend
Frank Teed, the famous eye doctor. His team was out of town that
day, but he said they would meet me at his office when he returned. And, don't
lift another box. My friend Tyrone was helping me unload. I was glad,
but he was sad, when I told him he had to do the rest of the
unloading alone.
Frank's team were all there
waiting for me when I arrived, after hours. Good to have good friends
in important places. The verdict was, my retina was tearing loose.
After a specialist welded it back with a laser the next morning, we
continued hauling trophies.Good thing Henry lived in a very large house.Six bedrooms. Each load about filled the first floor.
A warehouse in Arkadelphia was
rented. We shuttled the boxes to Henry, and we all shuttled them back
to the warehouse when repaired.
This is not a part of this story,
but a neat thing, so bear with me. Hauling the empty trailer back
from Gurdon one day, a large deer almost hit my trailer, which was at
least four feet tall. When I looked into the rear view mirror, all I
could see was the bottom of it's feet. It jumped clean over my
trailer!
As it Turned out, Henry had young
and grown children who were also hard workers. Lori has the same work
ethic as Henry. Well before March rolled around, they were all repaired
and in our warehouse.
Next came the big show. The
Chinese had made good on their delivery of the larger trophies. They
were perfect. Corey, Ky, and wives Christi and Teresa headed to Las
Vegas, to the International Trophy Show, loaded for bear.
We got the call late one night
from Las Vegas. Our trophy had just been named "Best new trophy
of the year!" We celebrated the rest of the night! We were about to all be rich!
Now the ball was in Corey's court.
Two of the Trophy Industry's largest suppliers wanted to buy us out.
We knew we had to sell, now, while it was hot. We did not have the
money to market it ourselves, on this large scale. Offers flew back
and fourth.
Finally, a large company in South
Dakota offered what we decided was our best deal. A nice royalty on
future sales, and they would buy all our existing stock, our repaired
trophies. They sent a big truck to Arkadelphia to pick them up. They
wanted their own suppliers from China to build 100,000 more, but
their suppliers could not figure out how to build it. They made a
deal with our company in China.100,000 more were soon distributed to wholesale sales outlets throughout the United States.
When the trophy appeared in the
catalog that fall, they used the entire back cover promoting it. The
company reported the dealers just loved it, and orders were flying
off the shelves. After the dealers got stocked up, we held our breath
to see how the public would react.
It was not good. The trophy seemed
to fall into a void between very cheap participation trophies and
more expensive, larger trophies. The public was just not as excited
as we, and the dealers, were. The royalty checks reached a trickle,
and has held there so far. It seems we are not going to be rich after
all. But, thank the dear Lord, our investment money is safe. It could
have been a whole lot worse.
Ky is still busy turning out new
inventions regularly. But Barbara and I quietly bowed out of the
futures portion of the company. We've had all of that form of drama
we want, for a lifetime. And, I still remember the last time a Gillum
signed someone else's note, in 1930. It extended The Great Depression
for my family in the mountains of Wing, Arkansas, sixteen years. During that time, my Dad's car sat up on blocks. He could not afford to buy gas. And, we ate what we could grow. And what we could hunt or fish for.
It's
all there, detailed in my book, SPREADING WING, Coming out this year. I pitched my book to my first traditional publisher last week. He was encouraging, said it sounded like the kind of book they needed to publish. But he also said he currently had hundreds of submissions on his desk. He asked for my Publisher's Previews. They are now in his hands. Now, I just sit and wait! And wait. Keep your fingers crossed for me!
I have one more story left to tell
in this series of posts. And, it's the one you don't want to miss.............
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