My Father's Story
by Bill Sanders - June, 2006

My father spent a good portion of his life looking for ways to make money. Was he looking for "get rich quick" schemes? Well, not really. He knew they weren't any good for anyone but the advertiser. BUT, if he had found anything, he'd have been extremely happy.

After managing a grocery store in his hometown for a few years, and a stint in the Army just after WWII, he worked as a salesman for a grocery warehouse (Grocer's Supply) in Indianapolis for a few years. With contacts he had there, he found out about a store for sale in Lafayette, and bought it. (Hey... EVERYONE needs food and cleaning supplies, right?) The store not only had groceries, but also a small deli (lunch meat, salads, bacon, stuff like that), and a fresh meat case (beef, pork and chicken, mostly.) The meat department became the focal-point as there were other "stores" around for groceries, but few with fresh meats and "freezer beef" (quarters and sides of beef, cut to order, wrapped in freezer paper, and fast-frozen for pickup or delivery).

My father had this grocery for 15+ years (two names - The Highlander and Bud's Meat Specialists - from the time I was about seven (7) until I graduated from Purdue. He had managers for the various departments, and spent quite a bit of time in the "office" (a room in the basement of the store), talking to salesmen, dealing with bills (lots of "creative accounting", there), shoplifters (adults and kids), etc. He was gone all day, 99.9% of that time in one of the three (3) stores he had in Lafayette, even though they should have been able to "run themselves" as he had them set up - 10+ hours a day. When he got the store out of his system, he started selling real-estate (more long strange hours), insurance, and appraising homes (where he had some of his best success). Through all this he became pretty well-known around Lafayette and the surrounding areas. Meanwhile, he and Mom tried various other means to "bring in money", like Avon, Amway, owning and managing apartments (and all the maintenance and collecting that entails), etc. He never ONCE found anything that didn't take time. (I remember him going through the classifieds in the back of entrepreneurial and business magazines, cutting out interesting ones, and putting them into envelopes to get the information from them... NOTHING looked good.)

He took business and stock-market classes at Purdue and made millions there (on paper). One time I remember he came home around tax-time and said something to the effect of, "If the definition of a millionaire is someone who OWES a million dollars, then I guess I'm one." (Kinda scary where you hear that at 10-12 years old!)

The stores and other businesses took time, energy and money to run. They NEVER were able to "run on their own", Part of that had to do with Dad's feeling that he had to (what's now called) "Micro-manage" everything. (You know... "If you want something done right, do it yourself.") And partially because even the managers couldn't handle everything. He was just better at handling everything than everyone else. He even called the general manager and spent 1/2-one hour almost every night when we were on vacation or visiting relatives. And, being a well-known businessman, people were always asking for help and advice.

He managed to retire around 2004 or so, at the age of 70, and, even though the bottom dropped out of the real-estate market, and the amount of money he was counting on getting from selling the apartment houses he'd bought, redesigned and maintained over the years never came to the level on which he planned, he's still managed to do quite a bit with it.

Successful? We (our family) were and are somewhat "comfortable", but we were and are by no means "rich" as many people in Lafayette believed us to be. I'd say with Dad's reputation for business and fairness, the fact that so many people around Lafayette and other areas of Indiana know and admire his business acumen and his personal values (honest people do, anyway), yeah... He was and is successful. Just not "rich!"

In the long run, which is better, really?

by Bill Sanders © June, 2006 - email:

Send email to Bill Sanders ()
with questions or comments about this page or site.

This site, all text and graphics (unless otherwise noted) on it
were designed, developed and published by Bill Sanders of Orange Frog Productions.
It and it's CSS was validated and complies with both the: CSS and HTML 4.01 validators from W3C.
NOTE: All CSS validates except the "New Window Buttons" - Their CSS includes  some invalid code (ie: hacks)
and warnings for using transparent backgrounds when color foregrounds defined.
Copyright © 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006 by Bill Sanders / Full site last modified: July 10, 2006