2005 - 07-29-05

All the kids I knew and many of the adults
wanted a crystal radio. If you knew how, you could make one
of them yourself. But, of course, most people didn't know
how to make one. So my very first mail order idea was to go
to the public library, read up on how to make a crystal
radio, digest it into an easy-to-read information product,
advertise and sell it through magazines like "Popular
Science" and "Popular Mechanics".

Of course, this did not come to pass. After
all...

I Was Only 9-Years Old

Much later, when I got out of the Army and
moved back to Ohio, someone suggested I go work for the
Cuyahoga Falls Police Department. I had no interest in that.
After three years of risking my life as a military
policeman, I never wanted to experience violence again.

Instead, I went to work for a company on
Main Street in Cuyahoga Falls called Economy Savings and
Loan. It was owned by a parent company called Capital
Finance Corporation. Economy Savings and Loans made loans to
people who couldn't get a "standard" loan from a bank. As
expected, many of the loans Economy Savings made ended up
going south.

A large part of my job was collecting money
from people who were behind in their payments. I was really
good at collecting the money. One time a guy who was a
magician "disappeared" owing us money. I located him on a
cruise ship off the coast of Portugal and sent him a message
about his debt. Picture this: Here's this magician who has
done a "disappearing act" from the United States and is now
aboard a cruise ship off the coast of Portugal when he
receives a call to go to the radio room... where... there is
a telegrammed message for him to
the effect he should pay the debt he owed to the Economy
Savings and Loan.

Another time, I wrote a collection letter
and had it mailed to every one of our dead beat customers.
That letter, if memory serves me correctly, collected more
delinquent money in one day than all of the company's
efforts for the last five years.