While my dad was a way at work in those days before cell
phones and business would come knocking at the door so to speak my
brother and I learned to take advantage of it. When someone would
drop by and need a part for their washer or dryer we would go out to
the shop and see what we could find them. This was not out of duty it
was for the love, of money. We would get them the part and sell it to
them hopefully for cash but if a check was going to be issued we
would ask that they just wrote Our last name on it and nothing else.
It was payday. We would take the spoils usually 20-30 dollars and go
to the one place in town that catered to hedonistic tastes of a
couple of pre-pubecents. I am talking about the local greasy spoon,
The Santa-Queen. They had it all hamburgers, shakes, soda, and video
games, others came and went but Street Fighter was the one that kept
us coming back. We would order up some food and shakes and stake out
a couple of bar stools that we could slide over to the game. We would
cash in 5 or 10 dollars for quarters and get to work on giving
everyone in the world of street-fighting a beat-down. The people not
playing could just watch or head back to the table to make sure the
shakes didn't get too melted. We would spend hours and hours there
until the windfall fell. Then we would walk or ride our bikes the six
blocks back home feeling good about life. I am not sure if we were
supposed to have learned that sales is the easiest job on earth or
that crime does pay but either way, lesson learned.
