Posted on 12/06/2013 4:47:22 PM PST by lowbridge
When I met him he was 63. He had cerebral palsy and spoke and walked with great difficulty. When he was a young man, the state considered him unemployable and suggested he collect disability payments. He refused.
For more than 40 years he earned a living selling Watkins products on routes that took him through Portland's westside neighborhoods. At night, he would return to his small house. Hunched over an old typewriter and with a twisted hand, he slowly banged out orders for everything he'd sold that day.
For several years he was Watkins' top retail salesman in all of Oregon, Idaho, Washington and California. When I wrote about him, he was the only one of the company's nearly 50,000 salespeople who sold door-to-door.
Until I wrote about him, hardly anyone really knew Bill. If anything, Portlanders recalled him only as the odd man who shuffled along the downtown transit mall, the strange man they spotted trudging through neighborhoods.
But the story about his life and his journey touched something in readers.
(Excerpt) Read more at oregonlive.com ...
A great movie.
GREAT story!
I’ll have to see if we can get that movie.
And today millions of able-bodied twenty and thirty-somethings sit around and collect TANF, food stamps, WIC, UI, worker’s comp, SSDI, government cheese, Section 8 and Lord knows what else.
I remember this man from when I was a child. He would come around our neighborhood from time to time, and my mother would usually buy something from him. Sorry to hear of his passing.
Ping for a great story.
I’ve had to fetch the tissues so you’ve been warned.
Thanks for the post LB
We have nothing to complain about ping.
Hear Hear!
I thank the Lord for providing me with examples of what real hardship is, it keeps me grounded when faced with what is ultimately usually just BS.
I loved that movie.
Great advice. Works every time. If you don’t get the order one day, a bigger order may be just around the corner, the next.
Someday, he or she will call and ask about pricing. You'll know it when it happens.
Very true. I’ve found billing accounts under stones considered long dead ;-)
This is a very inspiring story. It gives me a kick that I really need now. I have no reason to complain.
He has won that battle.
I graduated with a J school degree and was a beat reporter for several years at the statehouse. One day, my step dad asked what kind of money I was making and I told him.
He said, “Hell, Eric, I had more expenses than you had income. Why don’t you quit your job and come to work for me ?”
He had taken early retirement from Amax Coal and wanted to start his own coal mine and coal brokerage. I was the second to be hired.
It didn’t take long to pick up the basics and in a short time I discovered covering a sales territory was little different from covering a news beat.
His little company was acquired by a large Wisconsin coal dock operator and I worked for them until they were acquired by a major oil company. Everything was up and to the right from that point.
I was looking for a quote from Harvey Mackay - from his classic motivational/business book - “Swim With The Sharks.” It goes something like:
“I’ve met successful salesmen who are alcoholics, who are overweight, who are cheaters, who have gone broke, who are stupid, who are crippled, who are bastards, who are big talkers, and those who can’t talk at all - But I have NEVER met one who is lazy.”
Bless him. He’s with the angels in Heaven, now. Rest in peace, dear man.
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