My first financial adventure was at the Grainola District Fair. I watched as the women would bring baked pies and cakes and all kinds of canned vegetables and fruit to enter the fair. The men would bring samples of their crops from wheat to milo to Alfalfa to prairie hay. What intrigued me was that each winner and in fact the top 3 in each category would receive ribbons and money. The great thing about those events is that all the local folks would gather from miles around to have a potluck lunch and play games all day. The old men (not sure what old was since I was there every year as a child) would play horse shoes and the kids would have sack races, bicycle races, just running races and at least one year we had a greased pig contest but my favorite was the turtle races.
Now I would have to admit that being huge for my age was a good thing in some cases and this is one. I don't think I ever lost a bicycle race or the greased pig contest. I think the one reason we had only one greased pig contest is that everyone could see I was going to win it every year. Prejudice!!!!! against big guys. The only person I remember ever coming close on the bicycle race was Billy Snyder and he had a fancy 10 speed and I only had one speed but it was fast and I was competitive.
So back to my favorite sport, turtle racing. Most everyone had a turtle and they would mark it with finger nail polish to tell them apart but some you could identify by their size or markings. Anyway, everyone paid a dime to enter and the old men would bet on their kids with each other. Yep, gambling, but we were Methodist and we were not so critical about those things. Just kidding, kinda? All the turtles would be put inside of a cardboard box or a bucket so they would start in the middle and a big chalk circle was made about 10 feet in diameter. I should mention the box had no bottom and the bucket the same. So they would lift the box or bucket and the turtles would take off but not always. Some would never move and others would high tail it out of there. The first to cross the chalk line would get half the money and the second and third would get some but I don't remember how they split it.
I did not win all the contests but I always made the most money! Dad was not only a farmer and rancher but also a rural route mail carrier for Grainola. He would watch the gravel roads for about a week gathering turtles for me. Then when the fair came I sold turtles!!!! The financial Advisor or Money Manager or you could call me an entrepreneur but really I was just full-a-manure was born.
Those were great memories and I learned a lot.
So, what do you learn in the Osage?
- In the retail business timing is everything
- If you look for an opportunity sooner or later you will find it
- I figure that I may not be the best at anything but I can outwork anyone and be a winner
- And to Quote Jon Tanny Olsen, "if you do something a little faster and cheaper than someone, you can make a lot of money". He may not claim it but I am giving him credit for this bit of wisdom and he is from the Osage.
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