More on Chickens and Eggs

To piggyback off yesterday’s post, the following is an account an internet acquaintance shared on a forum fifteen years ago.  This friend passed away seven years ago, so I’m using it without his permission.  I hope he and you will forgive me.  I share it because I think there are some lessons to be learned that could be of great value to us in the future. 

Grandpa H as I mentioned was a miser, a scrooge if you will. He was known to have given something away only twice in his life, and that was a quarter he give one each to my little brother and me one day when we met him on a bus. I remember how astounded my dad was when we told him grandpa had given us the quarter, sons he said, you should keep that quarter as a keep sake, that’s the only quarter that man has ever given away in his whole life. Of course, we spent it.

Grandpa didn’t only sell and barter eggs, he soon realized he wasn’t going to sell eggs to the poor people around the town, and he certainly wasn’t going to give them away. However, they “were” customers! So as he was biking around he would see something he could use, he would approach the people who owned that something and offer them five good laying hens and a rooster (anything to get rid of them d--- worthless roosters), for the object he was interested in. If he were turned down, he would wait a week and go make his offer again. If the people wanted to haggle grandpa would simply say thank you, peddle away, come back a week later and make the same offer. Eventually, he would usually, but not always, get what he wanted.

There was one series of barters that set the example for his sons and daughters to follow. Grandpa had seen an old motorcycle leaning up against a house. He could tell that the people living in the house were destitute, so he walked up to the door and made his offer, they refused, so grandpa left and showed up a week later with the same offer, they wanted more hens, he left again and was back again with the same offer, this time they accepted because he had brought the hens and the rooster with him. The vision of fried rooster must have looked awful good to those poor people.

Grandpa got the motorcycle home, had my Dad and uncle repair it, cost him 6 chickens and 3 dollars in parts. He then started looking for a something he could trade the cycle for. Grandpa always traded up, never down. He would hold onto something for weeks looking for the right trade. Eventually he come across a fellow who had a job, rare in those days, and a car. But the fellow couldn’t afford to buy the gas for the car, but he needed to get to work, and had been walking. So Grandpa offered to trade his motorcycle for the car. The fellow was desperate and agreed to the trade “if” grandpa would throw in some chickens. --- Grandpa,-- had to think on that--------he had no intention of using the car, he just wanted more trading material. He let the poor fellow walk to work for a few days, went back with the motorcycle, .10 cents worth of gas in it, and the trade was made. Grandpa refused to buy more gas and there wasn’t enough to get the car home so he made a deal with a neighbor who had a horse and had his boys go get the car and pull it home. He paid the neighbor a dozen eggs for the use of the horse. Grandpa never drove that car, what he wanted was a small Ford pickup he had seen in a rich guy’s yard.

Next day he peddled up to the rich guy’s house, delivered his eggs and ask the fellow if he needed a car. The rich fellow did, they made a deal and the rich guy drove the pickup to Grandpa’s house, with a full tank of gas, and with some extra gas in a bottle, and drove the car home. Grandpa went with him to retrieve his trike. Grandpa only used the pickup for emergencies, but his boys kept it in perfect condition, and of course they wanted to drive it, so grandpa made a deal with them, they put the gas in it, they could use half the gas, the rest belonged to grandpa. Those boys worked their tail ends off getting gas for that truck. What a kid won’t do for wheels!!! Not much they wouldn’t do----

The depression lasted for a decade. After a few years people were showing up on grandpa’s doorstep, he was well known for his trading abilities by then, and they started hiring him to make trades for them. But grandpa wouldn’t work for money, he wanted property, cars, trucks, anything of value. Eggs were more valuable than money!

It all started with a few hens, in two years he owned quite a bit, by the time the depression was over he owned the house and some property, by the time the war was over he owned the house a nice car, pickup and over two hundred acres. A lot of poor people were fed by the chickens he traded,---- and a lot more realized too late they had been taken to the woodshed!

Links to related posts:

Chickens and Eggs

References:

https://ldsfreedomforum.com/viewtopic.php?p=43495&hilit=chicken#p43495