Tag: John F. Stith Jr.

The Trade Secret

John F. Stith Sr.
John F. Stith Sr.

My father was a good trader, no, actually he was an excellent trader, and one day he told me his secret: You didn’t have anything he just had to have and he didn’t have anything he had to sell.

He told me about this fellow who wanted to buy a machine of some sort from him. Dad’s price was $1,500; the man offered $1,200.

Dad said he told him:

“I could sell it to you for $1,200, but I won’t. Because that would make us both unhappy. You’d be unhappy because you’d say to yourself, ‘I should have offered that old man $1,000. He would have taken a $1,000.'”

“I would have been unhappy too, because I know it’s worth $1,500 and I know I can get $1,500.”

Next day, Dad said, the fellow came back and paid his asking price.

*  *  *

My father’s desire to have the upper hand caused him to ask one of my brothers, John, to buy him a new car.  Dad knew the car salesman would have the advantage and he just couldn’t deal with that.

John told me that he bought the car Dad wanted, drove it away, and then discovered some hamburger wrappers under one of the seats. That caused him to examine the car more carefully. He said there was soot in the tail pipe, and other indicators that the car he bought was, in fact, not new.

John took it back to the dealership.

“I never said it was new,” the salesman told him.

“You said you wanted to buy that car and you made me an offer and I accepted. And you bought yourself a car.”

NOTE:  Why didn’t John just look at the odometer?  I don’t know.  Maybe he did, maybe it had been rolled.  Back in the day that was not unusual.

Coming Monday: “All Aboard!”

A Minor Miracle

Brother John told me he witnessed a minor miracle one evening in Charlotte, as he and our father walked back to their boarding house after a long day making syrup.

If you’ve read earlier stories about my father maybe I should explain something before I go on.

Yes, in the late 1940’s, when the minor miracle happened, we lived on a farm outside Gadsden, AL, and, yes, Dad owned a strip mine near Altoona, AL.  He was a coal miner, as his father had been.  But at one time or another Dad also owned a lot of other businesses, some of which actually made money.  He had a lot of ideas, and he was not afraid of work: he built roads for the state; he had a dairy farm and a chicken farm; he raised cotton. He manufactured cloth.  He manufactured clothes hangers. He was cabinet maker. He owned and operated a grocery store.  He wrecked houses. That’s not everything –I’m going to save his best business for a later story — but you get the idea.

He had a syrup “factory” at the farm in Alabama where he manufactured Dixie Dew, an excellent honey-flavored syrup, if I do say so myself, and he had a syrup “plant” in Charlotte.  [Why we called one the “factory” and the other the “plant,” I do not know.]  He would drive to Charlotte every so often, work like a Trojan building up inventory, and then hustle back to Alabama, back to his coal mine and other ventures.

John F. Stith Sr, age 48 or 49
John F. Stith Sr., age 48 or 49

Anyway, John said he and Dad had put in a 12-hour day, eaten supper, and were walking back to their boarding house when they encountered a soldier walking toward them.

Dad didn’t give way; he expected the soldier to give way. But the soldier didn’t move over either. As they passed, their shoulders brushed each other. John knew that meant trouble.  Our father, who liked to fight, took offense easily.

John said he was tired and he hoped Dad would let it go — Just let it go! — but he didn’t.  He took a couple more steps and then he stopped, and he turned around.  John knew exactly what that meant.

[Dad was in his early 50’s. That the soldier was a lot younger made no difference at all. On another occasion Dad taunted a younger man who wouldn’t get off a bus and fight him: “Don’t let this gray hair make a coward out of you.”]

The soldier turned around too, and the two men stood there, staring at each other. And then Dad tipped the felt hat he always wore, said “Good evening,” turned around, and walked away.

That was the first time, John said, that he had ever seen our father pass up a fight.

Coming Friday: My Rules