I remember when the Stingray first came out. I was about 12 years old.
I had an old 26” J.C. Higgins (Sears, Roebuck) bike that was handed down to me from an older cousin. Needless to say, it had seen better days. I could barely ride it as it was so tall and I was just a little fella. Our wealthier neighbor up the road got one of the first StingRays in the area. He let me ride it on day and I was hooked. I just had to have one, but coming from a large, very poor, family, where there were more mealtimes than meals, it was totally out of the question....even as a potential Christmas present.
So what’s a man supposed to do? I couldn’t rob the local bank...although it did cross my mind...LOL. I was too young to get a job so I decided to try a paper route. I ended up selling The Grit, a weekly newspaper at the time. They were 15 cents/each and I made 5 cents off every copy sold. I boosted my subscribers up to about 110 customers and worked my butt off for $5.50/week profit. I delivered em whether it rained or shined. I wasn’t about to lose a single customer. It took me a good 3 months to come up with the money for the StingRay. After I had the money, I thought about how hard it was to make that money and decided to just stick with my old 26” JC Higgins since it had a basket and I used to deliver the papers. I saved my money instead. Yeah, I remember the StingRay real well.
Great story.
I never heard of or knew anyone who actually sold Grit before.
And Now,,,,
You own a chain of Burger Joints!
“After I had the money, I thought about how hard it was to make that money and decided to just stick with my old 26” JC Higgins since it had a basket and I used to deliver the papers. “
___________________________________________
Oh, my gosh. At age 12 you learned what so many adults have yet to learn: Not every thing we work for is what we actually want or need to have in our lives!
Hope, so hope that lesson stayed with you!