California Christmas, 2005
Robert Charles Ehrlich with
Grandmother Bobbie and Grandfather Maurice Ehrlich
I
strive for
BREVITY....
It
eludes me.....
I
heard a speech given by a man who taught Public Speaking.....the
heart of his message was about brevity....He said in speaking
to a big audience, something like: Speak clearly, be brief,
and be seated. I have tried to apply that rule to other
episodes in living, but without much success. For example, If
I was advertising products for sale in the paper, I always tried to
get as much product in the ad as possible, hoping to make a
"sale".....and when decorating a retail window, the same mistake
made the scene appear cluttered.....nevertheless...I kept on doing
it, and have never quit.....so beware...I will try to be brief, but
have to admit, don't know how...
Some of you are aware of a business venture we had in
Atlanta....it was the brainchild of a man I met in New York....but I
created the name.....It was: The Great Southeast Music Hall,
Emporium, and Performing Arts Exchange, Incorporated.......It was
three businesses, and I wanted the customer to know it.....Of
course, the Atlanta Constitution changed it to The Music
Hall.....and that stuck. But the logo still included the descriptive
name. 1. We had music and comedy performers; 2. We had an
Emporium with famous name sandwiches such as ''The Jimmie
Buffet"....a tuna, sourdough, cream cheese sandwich; and, 3.
We booked entertainment for special events such as Georgia Tech
fraternity parties, etc...
So, to me, it was necessary to say it in the
title....I still think that way....
Now the reason I went into so much detail, is because
the first part of this six part story has another such title, it
is:
Highly Opinionated Thoughts About Follett
Citizens During the World War II Years Made
While Delivering The Grit.
Williamsport PA was the home of The Grit newspaper, a
weekly paper that sold mostly in rural America, as the daily papers
in those days were sometimes two days old before they were
delivered, so a weekly review newspaper was welcome to a lot of
rural folks needing information.....It was a tabloid that had more
entertainment in it than news, which made it so appealing to distant
reaches of the country.
I
had the Follett franchise of about 40 customers....The cost when I
started delivering it was 5 cents.....3 cents went back to the
company, and my profit was 2 cents...They raised it to 7 cents, and
raised my profit to 3 cents....and eventually to a dime....and four
cents profit. I mention the price because the cost of the
newspaper became the part of the discussion with the customers that
helped feed the impression I developed about them....at least some
of it.
In
reminiscing about the past....I have to begin in the Post
Office.....The Grit came parcel post, and arrived Friday
morning....I then delivered it on Friday or Saturday depending on
the time of the year. The postmaster was A.C. Cotney
Sr.....and he and I did not see eye to eye.....I wanted him to give
me my papers before he "posted" all the mail.....He would not, and I
always had to wait in the lobby until the mail was all posted, then
he would open the window and throw out my papers....I always thought
that was so inconsiderate, because he knew I had work to do....So,
my first opinion...
My
first customer was Amber Frazier.....I loved this
woman....but hated her little yappy dog, which always
barked at me every minute I was in that house.... Amber, a
spinster, big, with a loud voice, a smoker, living in a very hot
heated home. Always paid me quickly, and called me by
name....In later years, after her Mother passed away worked at
various jobs in town, and to everyone's surprise eloped with a
traveling cookware salesman that people called "Pots and
Pans".....So, while it was a bit comical, it turned out to be very
real.....to me, a lesson that explained why, "you never
know"....
Another of my character customers was a man named
Elver Glasgow, but they called him Choppy. I think that phrase
would sell a book...."His Name Is Elver But They Call him
Choppy"....anyhow, this man had character....He had been a car
salesman for my Uncle T.R. Laubhan during the depression...T.R. had
several 'Choppy stories”. It seems Choppy had just sold, or
traded would be a better word, a car to some farmer in the area for
some cash and other items.....He told T.R. it was a heck of a trade,
it involved a list of items including some cash, an old car, canned
pickles, and some chickens.....Choppy said, he would take the
chickens.....
Later, Choppy was running the Phillips 66 station and
selling wholesale products to farmers, and often would be gone when
I came by the station. He admonished me for not getting his
paper one time, and I told him I came by, but he was gone....He
pointed to a shelf as a place to leave it if he was not there....I
wanted to say to him....Why don't you leave the money there too?,
but I didn't....The next week, I went by, he was gone, and when I
went to the shelf....found a note saying, "Thanks, Choppy," and 15
cents.....
That was the profit of three papers....I never forgot
that...
Main Street was my lodestone....I had a dozen or more
customers.....all pleasant and business like....I loved selling to
that street.....There was John and Ernie Reid.....I always had to
wait a few minutes if they were in the middle of welding something
or sharpening a plow lathe. I didn't mind too much,
as it gave me a chance to look at the inner workings of that
blacksmith shop. It was an engineering marvel....One large
motor mounted on the ceiling ran a large drive shaft that ran every
machine in the building...all you had to do was pull a lever down
from the ceiling. Ernie usually paid, but they both would stop
whatever they were doing, and talk. They liked to
talk, and did it slowly, and each of them usually would take off
their hats and wipe their sweaty brows....and then take out the
leather purse and pay me. That purse was a curiosity, because
it was long enough that it had to be folded, and contained both
coins and paper money. I stopped the whole Reid enterprise for
a 5 cent newspaper. One story I heard about them later was
rather interesting. They had contracted for the Hudson Auto
dealership about 1940 just before the War....and in doing so had
displayed two Hudson Terraplanes....One copper colored coupe, and
one gray four door sedan......It seems they sold very few if any new
cars, and ended up driving those two exhibit cars for the next 20 or
so years....Ernie the coupe, and John the sedan. They were
good citizens, John even took his turn as mayor. I
employed them over the years to repair broken equipment, sharpen
plow discs, and they had the best assortment of bolts around....When
Mauri Ann was a toddler it was Ernies wife Elva who took care
of that "little redhead" as she called her....They were old Ivanhoe
folks, and special people..
Naming
Main
Street customers does
nothing to tell who they were; It seems they all provided ammunition
for stories, most of which were pleasant.....almost all of
them....
One such character was an older man Tab Frazier....he
was considered by many to be the local Mark Twain.....to me he was
more of a Don Rickles.....and I usually tried to make that a short
visit.....But he was interesting....there are lots of funny stories
attributed to him, but in my case, he seemed to make me the butt of
his humor, and I gave him short
shrift.....
The exact opposite was a woman who was later to become
one of the most important women in my life....her name: Fannie
Markley......She was always so nice to me.....and so congenial and
jolly....a little lady with a big smile.....Little did I know I
would someday get to eat at her table, and get to share some of her
friendships that she had accumulated through the years....She was
another Ivanhoe transfer....and she had a vast array of pioneer
friends, and I got to know a lot of them because of her.....as she
became the Great Grandmother to my children....She had experiences
to me that are the unusual experiences of the age, and could be the
foundation for an epic novel...maybe another
time.
Main
Street customers included
The Fiskin's Produce, The Skaggs Follett Times newspaper, Clarence
Harrelson City Drug, and another kind-to-little-boys guy, Sid
Brown. Sid was the manager for The Follett Consumers Supply,
the local Co-op filling station....He managed the station while
running a dairy farm over in Catesby,
Oklahoma. He
always invited me into the station to sit by the fire......and I got
to know him during those years, and later at age 11 when Dad bought
a Holstein nurse cow from him
for my 4-H project. That was a fiasco.....I had to feed
that cow and keep her in good milk giving condition in order to get
my club calf started and big enough to wean....This was to be a
years project, and was supposed to teach young boys a lot about the
machinations of cows, calves, feeding, cleaning, grooming etc.
It did all that, and more.....The thing that was bad was that it had
to be done every day, rain or shine, snow or sleet.....I am not sure
it taught what it was supposed to, but it did teach me that the
hoped for ending might not be attainable without determined
effort.......Luck was not in play in that
business.
The Grit sent out sales achievement prizes.....A lot
of the prizes were great if you had a bicycle..my route was not like
you see in the movies....a boy riding and throwing newspapers....a
bicycle would have been an impediment....so I took other prizes....I
cashed in points for a change maker for my belt....that wasn't
what it was cracked up to be either, as it was jammed most of the
time....and I didn't make change
anyway...
I
grew up during the forties....working on the farm, taking care of
the club calf, delivering papers, learning to drive, and graduating
high school in 1949.....an 11 year project....the people in the
class behind me had to go an extra year, as the school added a 12
grade to the curriculum
I
think the war year 40's demanded quite a lot from it's younger boys,
as the draft took the majority of young men, and somebody had to
step up to the line.....And in a rural atmosphere where there
weren't too many paved roads....no stop lights......and not much
traffic....we could be taught....and they called on us...One of my
city associates from New York asked me one time......Why is it that
you can do everything, and how did you learn to do so
much? It became evident to him after I fixed little
things that didn't work anymore.......Well, I thought about
that........I always thought I was a little bit persecuted.....turns
out, I was being apprenticed for
living....
Next Review #2......The 50's.....College, Children,
Chickens, Combines, and Clothes....
Maurice Ehrlich
01/12/07
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