Lee Note 2 Larry Shelton March 20, 2001

After 5 years in Army (and a free trip to SE ASIA, round trip too) I got out went to work with Shell. It was too routine. After 5 yrs went to work in Mississippi, 2 adopted daughters and a son & daughter, stayed there for 7 years. Lots of travel, research work, started new companies and marketed my new products for them. Divorced and went to Louisiana and then back to Texas. Picked up a second wife and adopted 4 more kids. For the past 15 years my thing has been sales, but always for someone else, and always when there came the time for the commissions, they were large, ... and they never could find the cash to settle. So several tens of thousands later, I said I will NEVER work for another person, I will do what I do for myself.

I called a saleslady who worked with me in Peru for one of my past employees, offered her a better salary, 1/2 of my company, the General Manager position, and in return she would handle the Peru end, and I would handle the USA. She has the contacts and family in all of the major firms in the small town (very SMALL), pueblos, no A/C, no hot water, dirt streets, pretty primitive.

What do we do? I sell ANYTHING they want, from 12" x 30 foot hoses, power plants to run a small town, incinerators, boats, lab equipment, pump and engine parts, mining equipment, down to tennis racquets and plastic models for gifts for manager's kid's birthdays.

Anything they want, I will search out and try to offer a competitive price (not always the lowest) and GOOD delivery, right to their door. I have a staff of 6 and when a fellow offered to buy me out last year, I couldn't because I worried what would happen to them if the new owners didn't want them. These folks who had helped make it all work.

Damn... what have I created? Anyway, I go to the jungle, to the desert, and on a few occasions into Chile to a most beautiful seaport, Antafagasta, where one client gives me about $150,000 per year in business. I do not compete for price; it is just "Can you get it here quick?"

I have had to learn my Spanish by just picking it up as I go. The Spanish I had was in Mr. Webber's class in the 8th grade of Horace Mann, 1st period, for 1 semester. I have not found a use for the Pledge of Allegiance in Spanish ANYWHERE!! But I still remember it, if I ever need it.

Next week I am going to check into North Harris County Ed classes. I really need to learn PROPER Spanish. I can imagine how I sound to them, thinking of how those Latinos or Europeans sound in their broken English over here. Well, I have not really kept in touch with any of our class. I still have mail go to Baytown; ... we still maintain the family home there.

I have reduced my travel to only one country. I used to go to Russia for a month at a time, travel the Far East and Mid East similarly. Have had three of the flights I travel regularly go down, without me. Missed a supper at a Venezuelan restaurant and all of the men present with beards (I have a beard) were summarily shot to be certain they got the right man (and they missed HIM - he was in the restroom). I have seen some sights, Kay, and have met some characters! If I die tomorrow, I have had a good time. I have done a lot of things other people haven't, and been places I never even knew existed. I have eaten things that I didn't want to know what they were, and have been above the Arctic Circle in Russia and below Tierra del Fuego in Southern Argentina.

You remember El Niño? It hit our town really bad. Roads washed out, bridges out, no way to bring in food except by air and an occasional boat. So all of my materials had to be flown in. Of course, it has to be packed in something for protection. So we chose rice, powdered milk or beans. We were going to pay for the minimum weight anyway, and Mabel could give away the food to those mothers who were desperate. We shipped in regular bubbles from the USA and repacked in Lima to go out to Talara. That town, which normally gets 3" of rain a year, was getting 2-3" per day! It was washing the sides off the adobe homes and the roofs were collapsing. At the time we owned an old VW sedan (4-door) and for 6 months we had to ford the rivers across the rocky beds in water that was up to the edges of the doors. I would hire boys to run across in front of me to guide me through the shallowest parts! That was a hoot!

Kay, thanks for these notes. What a flood of memories.. I don't know what you all look like now (I know I have changed a lot, my hair is "pinker") but I like to remember you all as you were. Young, full of life (as when Duane sat inside Ms Barbour's floor fan for roll call in homeroom)! What a class we had. I, for one, want to thank Kay for making this possible. I know it IS NOT EASY and it does take time, which is something I have very little of these days. So, as all of you see this, THANK YOU, KAY. Thank you a lot.

Larry Shelton