By SANFORD ROUSE
In the fall of 1945, I worked for a crook. I was a high-school junior that year (Middlebury High School, Class of ‘47) who was always looking to make some extra money. I delivered milk in the early mornings before school with my father and my brother Charlie, and I cut lawns when the weather was warm. But I had some free time on the weekends, so I applied for part-time work at the store in East Middlebury that stood on the corner of Routes 116 and 125.
A couple by the name of Mr. and Mrs. Salter had recently bought the store. They had been there for three or four months. They lived above the store. The Salters had moved from New Jersey. They had three young children. I asked Mr. Salter if he needed any extra help on Saturdays and Sundays for a few hours a day. He said he thought it could work out all right. He took me inside and showed me around. It was a typical small variety store.
Mr. Salter took me aside and said he’d like to leave me in charge for the hours I’d be there. I said that I had to be eighteen years old to sell wine, beer, and cigarettes (I was seventeen at the time). Mr. Salter waved that aside and said he’d be OK with me doing it. He said he would back me up if anything went wrong. This was a sign of bad things to come.
He also said that a salesman would come Saturday afternoon. I was supposed to shelve the merchandise he delivered to the store and make an order for the next Saturday. Mr. and Mrs. Salter would come later in the afternoon.
As the weeks went by Mr. and Mrs. Salter started taking off for the day on Saturdays. The salesman would come by and I would put the merchandise up on the shelves. But Mr. Salter never gave me any money to pay him. After a few weeks of this, the salesman gave me a note for Mr. Salter. Later, when I passed it on, Mr. Salter looked at it, tore it into pieces, and threw it in the wastebasket. I got a little suspicious.
Unsurprisingly, the arrangement didn’t last long. One Saturday soon after, the salesman said Mr. Salter wouldn’t get any more merchandise because he owed too much money. I got a little worried about whether I should continue to work. I’d been working for weeks and Mr. Salter hadn’t paid me, either.
The following Saturday, Mr. and Mrs. Salter told me it might be late when they came back home. This time, they took their car and hid it at the neighbor’s house behind the neighbor’s car. When the salesman showed up, he asked me if I knew where Mr. and Mrs. Salter were. I told him I didn’t have any idea, which I didn’t. The salesman went to the front door leading upstairs and pounded and knocked on it several times. Nobody came out. The salesman got in his car and drove away. He didn’t deliver anything.
Later that day, the Salters came by. Mr. Salter came over to me and asked me how much he owed me. So, I told him $25. He paid me, but he also told me he didn’t need me any more to work. Within a year, the store was out of business.
I got paid, but I didn’t get to keep my money for long because I soon ran into another crook. This time it was a guy I knew, Pearly Trombley. Pearly had been arrested for reckless driving. The judge told him he either had to pay a $20 fine or go to jail. Pearly begged me to loan him the $20 so he wouldn’t have to go to jail. I lent it to him. He never paid me back! After all my work I had only $5 more to my name than when I started. So, in 1945 I learned the hard way that it is always better to associate with honest people.
I’m almost 96 years old and I still want that money back that Pearly owes me.*
*Note: At 5% compound interest for 78+ years, Pearly now owes Sanford almost $1,000.
