December was a busy month for Pop writing to Newton.
Mr. Harold Lufkin. V. P. December 27, 1960
Newton Mfg. Co.,
Newton, Iowa.
Dear Mr. Lufkin:
Well! Old 1960 is pretty well down the drain, isn’t it? I am sorry that I did not do you chaps proud in December, but as I told Beulah my old car is getting her aches and pains and has been in the garage half the time this month. I got it pretty well tuned up today. I have to go back once more and then they CLAIM it will last me another couple of years. When my car is not running right then neither am I.
I don’t worry quite as much as I used to about loss of time as I find that what I don’t make in December, I pick up in January Etc. Old 1960 did not start very well for us with three under the Doctors care and two Hospitals to pay, but on the whole I think when the figures are added up that I will not be too far behind 1959. If so I will be satisfied as I lost about two months the first of the year. Most of my accounts are pretty loyal chaps though and I found that on the whole they waited for me to show up, thank Heaven!
Thank you for the toaster. It is real light and a very nice looking one. It “pooped out” though after the sixth piece of toast. Mama was quite upset as she likes it very much but I told her that I would take it into Landers, Frary and Clark on my next trip through and get it fixed for her, so she brightened up again. I know them very well and they know ME, as if you remember I gave them a first class tongue lashing several years ago. You probably don’t still have the order around but it was in the beginning of my selling and I have a very fine account in Plainville. Abel Transmission. They bought 50 of Landers Picnic kits at about $13 each and that was a nice order for me in those days, believe me. The next time I called on them, Landers had called on them and sold them a hundred more at Factory Price, so I just went over and told them off, and told them I would see them in Hell before I would ever sell a product of theirs again and I never have. They did not gain anything as I job my picnic kits somewhere else and never lose a chance to cut THEIR throats when I get it. Little Indian in me I guess. I fix Stanley’s wagon for them once in awhile also for that Albany Felt Deal they gave me. I sell your Evans and Lufkin tapes and although I don’t imagine it will put them out of business, all the same it’s that much they DON’T get.
I have too many mouths to feed and too many boys to educate to let those “birds” get away with that stuff. I know you probably do some nice business with them, and in your position you have to, but I am mighty glad that I don’t. As my old dad used to say, “It’s a damned fool that gets kicked twice by the same mule”.
Mr. Benjamin of Stanley wrote me a letter last year and wanted to talk to me. I told him anytime that he wanted to send me a check for $676 (the amount lost at that time) in commissions that he and his Albany Friend had stolen from me I would be glad to talk to him, until that time I would remain in the “hills of Norfolk”.
Hey! How did I get started on all of this? Sorry as what I started out to say is where in the World could a chap get such a “kick in the shins” as the Sinclairs did at the beginning of 1960 and pull out of the hole at the end of the year regardless. I don’t mean to say that I don’t have a few problems. Who don’t? I will (when I get my Bonus) though have three Doctors and two Hospitals paid and have managed to feed the family and keep David in college at the same time.
I wish that sometime I could get out to Iowa and see all the “wheels within wheels” that have made it all possible, and perhaps (as you say) “before I shuffle off this old ball of mud” I can do just that. At any rate I hope I never let the year ever end up without letting you know again how much I appreciate my company and most of all the fine personal relations that I and Janet and the boys have had over the years with you and the Mrs. Needless to say I almost feel as if I know a lot of the girls personally also, and all the rest of the “Big Brass” at Newton. MUST be big! I remember (and I got a big bang out of it) of your telling me about holding up a fast train to the Coast last year. Guess Mr. Hal Lufkin and Newton must rate to do that.
Heard one whistle on T.V. last night and it really made me homesick. In both places that I lived as a boy, the Bangor to Calais train went whistling through the woods close enough so that I told the time by when I heard that old Whoo Whoo– –Whooo Whooo Whooo. Train whistles, Fog horns and Bell Buoys are my three favorite musical instruments. Guess I am a little queer or something.
When you were in Bar Harbor, if you stopped at the Thunder Hole and you looked out to Sea about six miles you could see Egg Rock. That is where the Old Fog Horn is that warns vessels in Frenchman’s Bay where they are. I used to go to sleep many a night for years listening to that old horn Boom. Mama hated it, but I just loved it. A friend of mine drowned out there one day. Also had a couple of friends that got too close to the Thunder hole and drowned. In fact I just pulled Janet’s sister back in time one day when we were courting.
I never had any fear of the Sea in my life, but believe you me I RESPECT it and that is the main thing. People that don’t understand its moods or its power should never go near it when it IS in an angry mood. That’s for sure!
At the Thunder Hole, I have seen Lobster pots thrown right up into the main road, many and many a time in a Winter Storm, and in the Pacific I have seen Carriers and Battleships tossed about like chips in a trout brook. It is a mysterious and tremendous thing, the sea is, and has had a most powerful pull on this “little old chap” since I was just a toddler and went about pulling shells off the rocks and crunching the seaweed between my toes.
You know if I lived close enough to it, that when I got into one of my desperate moods, all I would have to do would be to go and sit by the Sea for a few minutes and all my care would just drop away. I wonder why? You have a very lucid explanation for most everything. Is it because we were supposed to have crawled out of it in the first place, or is it because it is so immense and touches so many far away lands that you just feel how small you really are in this old World?
Anyway if “old man Sinclair” ever retires, it will be by the Sea and no place else. Mama loves it also, but not as intensely as I do of course as she has never been on it, just looked at it. No! I am never completely happy on land, and I shall always treasure the little poem that Mrs. Lufkin cut out that she said was Leon Sinclair. How right she is.
If I ever should be left alone (God forbid) I should never stay on dry land for three hours, so you see I AM rather a restless Soul, and I CAN understand my Mountain climbing son a little bit, as he must feel away from the “rat race” there also. Well I guess I better “batten down the hatches”.
Leon.
Tags: Pop's Letters
