A Flawed Legacy - 14

We were broke, no question about that and I was not handling it well.   I had a tendency to get angry - very angry, and I almost blew it.

Fortunately, Janice had called my sister and she came to our rescue.  A place to stay until I got on my feet and no apologies necessary.  The next morning, I was on the street looking for a job - any job, and was told there was a bookkeeping job open at "Danny's" restaurant and although they would hire me, I was not interested in keeping books - at a restaurant.  Funny - in a sense, they would go on to become Denny's, the same as the ones in your area.

Somehow, I found that they were looking for concession managers at a local entertainment center - Melody Land theater, if you are familiar with the Anaheim area.  I was hired right away as an attendant, but it was a job - in the evenings, so I could look for a better job during the days.  Turned out well as we had an absentee Manager and he let us alone, if we were doing what needed to be done - no complaints from the main venue.  We started hiring Marines from a nearby base and met their expectations.  Then, my sister wanted to work as well, so that helped.

I had called a friend - an employment agency owner I had met at an association meeting and he had an interesting proposition.  He had sold a franchise to a young woman looking for a business opportunity and she had grown tired on the work involved.  It so happened that she owned a house in an up-scale neighborhood where we could live as long as we paid the utility bills and was satisfied with a negotiated amount of any fees I collected.  It looked good, but I was about to learn a valuable lesson.  You don't open an employment agency if you cannot afford the costs of advertisement to attract people looking for jobs and even though I was pretty good of locating people, interested in changing jobs. it was slow going and I was not earning any real money.

Imagine my surprise when a former manager called me to see if I was interested in being his assistant in a plastic manufacturing company, nearby.  It was too good not to accept so we moved from our very spacious house to a two bedroom apartment.  It was good to get back on a regular salary and I loved the job.  There were three principal owners of the business and they were interested in my job, how it was going at in turn, I was keeping them informed of the customers we were serving.  It was obvious, it was a "family owned" business and the employees - in key positions at least, were treated as family.

And we were pregnant again.  We had also discovered a house we could own on a contract basis; that is, we made a down payment and as long as we kept up monthly payments on a regular basis, we could eventually purchase the house.  To tell the whole truth, I was proud of "our" accomplishments.

Then, there was an argument and Janice ran off to our bedroom and apparently,threw herself down on the bed.  I tried to comfort her and suggested we go out for some ice cream. On the way, suddenly, her water broke and we headed for the nearest hospital.  There was no time to call for our doctor as she was rushed off to a delivery room.  Within an hour or so, they brought our second daughter to me and - to be perfectly honest, I was shocked.  Mary Kathryn had been beautiful child and here was this scrawny little girl, delivered two months two months earlier than her due date.  Melinda Suzanne was about to take over my prayer life as I was told, her chances of survival were slim at best.

A Flawed Legacy - 12

With no specific goal in mind, I headed for Nashville and the Grand Ole Opry.  Enjoyed it, but not the motel I chose.  Onward, heading for St. Louis.  Had an idea I might see old friends from the days at Scott AFB, but had to wait for a week.  Meanwhile, needing to make some money, I stopped by the Kirby (vacuum cleaners) office and was hired immediately.  No training, just "get out there and hustle."

It was easy.  People were not buying the vacuum cleaner, they were buying the thought they could earn money by referring others to view a demonstration.  Never did see the results of this, but then I sold a vacuum to a couple with no floors in their house.  That wasn't difficult.  They had linoleum covering the ground of which the house stood and every time it cracked - and there were several, the dust went all over the sofa and stuffed chairs, but worse, the beds.  They had a teen aged daughter and her job would be to vacuum - everything, every day.  Oh yes, they paid cash, no discounts, full price.  Imagine that.

The boss heard about this and made me the "trainer" for his territory covering most of Missouri.  The pay wasn't bad, gas certificates, free motels and an over ride on the trainee sales.  Problem was, they would hire anybody and trying to train people who had no idea of how to manipulate people into buying was next to impossible.  At the end of the month, I headed West.

Surprised my Sister in California and it was good to be with her - at long last.  We had never, ever, lived together and getting to know her husband and children was really a good move for me.  Of course, there was the "bad" news I had to share with my soon-to-be former wife and Mother that was not easy and I am not proud of the explanations I had to offer.  But the die was cast.  I had made a bad mistake and it didn't seem to bother me that there was no turning back.  Of courses, over the years, I would pay a terrible price for disappointing my Mother.

I had to find a job and there wasn't much to offer in the area where my Sister lived so I moved on to Los Angeles proper, where I met a guy with a great offer.  He had a warehouse loaded with "hand knit" ladies sweaters and offered me a deal to sell them to department stores, out of State.  I was rather naive thinking that was a good deal and I had no problem making lots of sales, mainly because of the price and the obvious quality of the sweaters.  I paid my own way - on credit cards, and within thirty days, I had sold all that we had to offer.  I returned to Los Angeles to get paid for my efforts, but there were problems.  To make a much longer and sadder story shorter, the sweaters were not ours to sell. My new boss had a long record of selling knitting machines to gullible women who would also buy the yarn, but only a few would ever get paid.  The LA Police department would fill in the details,  It was a classic "Ponzi" scheme and they were still trying to locate my employer.  Welcome to California, Sherwood. Turns out the "office" he used was his girl friend's home and the last I would ever hear of them, they could not be found.

There was a brighter aspect to that experience.  I had met them at a Charles Simmons' sales seminar and he appeared to be very good at it.  I actually learned a lot about selling and during some of the meetings - aka sales rallies, I would meet people looking for sales people.  My favorite one was selling fine china to young employed girls and I had a lot of fun demonstrating the inherent value of buying expensive items that would last a lifetime.  It really did not matter if they did not buy on the first call, the names of other potential buyers were enough to earn really good money for me.  I only worked in the evenings and on weekends, so I had lots of "free" time.  Too much.  I really got lazy and worse, would head for a bar after every successful sale, knowing I could sleep it off the next day.  I began to develop really bad habits.

On one of my better days, I stopped into an employment agency looking for sales people I could add to the "team" I could create on my way to becoming a millionaire.  At least, that was my dream