As I Remember, Chapter 23

CHAPTER 23

      We hung on for a couple more years. If we had got that loan, we would of been sitting pretty for life. But that is past history now. We never able to make the grade for glass sand. It still contained just a little bit of iron. Too much to make crystal glass. It would take a few thousand more dollars of equipment and that we didn’t have. Our big debt at the bank plus their high rate of interest was about all we could handle. There seemed to be only one way out. Sell the place. We had taken most of Del Monte’s business away from them. They would be a good prospect. Besides, this company was owned by the same company as the other ones that had the famous golf course. Pebble Beach. The seventeen mile drive. Some of the big stockholders was Bing Crosby, Bob Hope and the list went on and on. I don’t think they ever run short of money.

      During all this time, my back was getting much better. I began to think that I was completely recovered. One day, one of our men didn’t show up. I took his place and handled those hundred pound sacks. That night, in great pain, I was taken to the hospital. I was there for about a month. I would never try anything like that again.

      Then one day, I got another brain storm. What started this, was the many people that would come to the plant and want to buy a few pounds of this nice white clean sand. And what was it to be used for? Kitty Litter. To go into the cat’s sand box.

      I went to work and designed a box. Made it of corrugated cardboard. It was a foot square and four inches deep. The only thing different about this was the fact that it would fold in the middle and close like a book. It was now a package four inches square and a foot long. And inside this neat package, was a sack of sand. Enough to fill the box about a third full. Also another thing. It was easy to dispose of. Just fold it shut and throw it in the trash barrel. I took my box to a firm in Portland. They looked it over and gave me a knocked down price by the thousand. It would take only a staple gun to put them together.

      I had also sketched a label for the thing. On all four sides of the package, was a big cat standing in one of our boxes. He was looking down into the thing and he was saying; WOW! INSIDE PLUMBING! Their artist went to work on the thing. When finished, the big cat looked a lot like Felix. The cat in the Disney cartoons. I showed the thing to Dell. He agreed that it looked like a winner. I had ordered a thousand boxes. We began experimenting. Every person that we knew that had a cat, we gave one. Then waited to hear the results. In every case, the results were; Good… Great… Just what we have been waiting for.