#StoryTime
About the time there began to be a little optimism toward the end of the Great Depression, my wife's grandad, Bruce Parr was seeking independence as a young adult. His dad owned a hardware store in Friona, Texas and Bruce had spent his teenage years selling and...

... changing farmer's tractors over from steel wheels to to rubber tires. A lot of farmers couldn't believe that a rubber tires could pull like the lugged steel wheels, so the store made the deal with the farmer that Bruce would install the tires and the farmer could try them...

... out, risk free. If the farmer didn't like the tractor on rubber, they promised to put the steel wheels back on. He never once had to make the change back to steel. Anyway, the tire gig was growing tiresome (haha) and Bruce wanted to buy a farm of his own. He got wind of...

...a place that might be for sale. The only problem, the owner lived in the Midwest. Bruce talked his way into being able to ride a train bound for Chicago loaded with cattle. You see, in those days, if you shipped a few cars loaded with cattle, the railroad would allow a...

... person to ride in the caboose on what they called a "drover's pass" It was just a courtesy so someone could oversee the cattle and help unload and get them where they were going. Anyway, since he didn't have money for a ticket, this was a godsend. Bruce arrived in the...

...midwest and looked up the owner of the place he had his eye on. He was able to negotiate what he believed was an excellent price for the place, but with no terms, a cash deal to close in 45 days. Absentee landowners were pretty sick owning land in the "dust bowl" and were...

... excited to find a buyer. The owner asked for $5000 in earnest money. Bruce quickly wrote a counter check for $5000 for the owner to hold and he headed back to Texas. If you're not familiar with a counter check, they were checks that every bank, supplier, and most stores...

...had on their counter. You'd just pick up a check off the counter and write your bank information in it and it was just as good as the checks you write today. Once back in Texas, Bruce scrambled to a bank to try to get a loan for the place. He had gotten a good enough deal...

... that he was able to secure a loan with no down payment. That was a good thing because Bruce didn't have a down payment. Remember that counter check for $5,000? Yeah, he didn't have $5,000. He didn't even have a bank account!