Issue link: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/418584
76 • DECEMBER 2014 • WORLD FENCE NEWS Who put the detour sign across the on-ramp to life in the fast lane? BY JIM HART, WFN CONTRIBUTING EDITOR EMERITUS In memory of Jim Hart, fencer, storyteller, and world class humorist, we will occasionally reprint one of the many articles that he contributed to World Fence News over the years. Jim passed away a number of years ago in Florida, where he lived. This column first appeared in the May 1992 edition of World Fence News. • • • Every time I think I found the on- ramp to life in the fast lane, someone puts a detour sign across it! My book on basements turned out not to be a "best cellar," and my lat- est endeavor – sandpaper lined jockey shorts – didn't fly. See, the sandpaper lined shorts are for people who are caught out in public and can't scratch where it itch- es, only where it looks best. But the government requires ex- tensive testing before a new prod- uct can be out on the market, and I couldn't find any volunteers to do re- search! I gave a lot of thought to robbing gas stations to make a little mon- ey, now that it's once again "Dodge City Time" in Florida. With the new handgun laws, anybody can carry a concealed weapon. But the gas sta- tion managers beat me out of it! They eliminated the middleman by just keeping the mon- ey out of the safe until Friday closing time, then taking off with the loot themselves! I read in the paper where a guy I went to school with walked out with $2 million in negotiable securities one Friday from the place he worked. The guard at the door jokingly asked him if he was "taking home samples." He ain't been seen since! Now, here's a real kick in the pants: I hire a halfway experienced fence man, and his starting wages are what I hoped I might be mak- ing when I retired, back in my starting days! And did you ever hear the big B.S. about the Yellow Pages? You know, the bigger the ad, the more customers you'll get? I take out a half page, outlined in red, a real at- tention-getter, the biggest thing in the fence listings, and who gets the business? The guy who took out a 2" square deal located at the bottom of the page, right next to my ad. He has a pic- ture of a girl sitting on a gate. Thou- sands of his cus- tomers tell us, "We were going to call you, then our eyes jumped to the ad with the girl." And this guy wasn't even a serious fencer, he was just in it as a sideline. At one time, we even did installations for him! Sheesh! So then I invested in a coupla race horses, and rented some pasture space for 'em outside of town. The guy who rented me the pas- ture used one of the horses for plow- ing, and let the other one starve to death. Course, he skipped town before I could sue him... I put a down payment on a $150,000 registered breeding bull. Guess who escaped out of the pasture and got run over by the last train out of town, at the same time I was on the phone to my insurance agent to write a policy to cover my investment? I tried raising a special breed of duck dogs. They could walk on water. They were great retrievers, but no one bought 'em. They all wanted a mutt that could swim! I developed a "Florida formula" polar bear repellent. It worked so well that there hasn't been a polar bear seen in Florida in years! Well, I could go on and on, but I am presently working on the ultimate toy for my kids – an assemble-it-your- self deal. No matter how you put it together, it won't work. Once assem- bled, it will be absolutely unbreakable, though. They can use it to break their oth- er toys, as a relief for the frustration of not being able to make it work right. It will prepare 'em for adult life. I hope this one gets off to a better start than my set of "mental blocks" for shrinks to give their kids at Christ- mas. When I tried to patent the idea, they said it was crazy. It cost me $50 an hour when I tried the direct ap- proach. I just finished filling in a ques- tionnaire for a research outfit. They are surveying company presidents on how much they make each year, and working out some kind of table that shows your salary as compared to your age. According to their formula, I should be making about $137,000 a year. Well, I'll be damned if I'm going to take an $11,000 a year cut just to agree with their statistics! I'm putting out a "life's highway detour sign" of my own – There's an on-ramp out there somewhere that ain't been blocked yet. Maybe I could disguise myself as a toll booth, complete with gates and traffic lights. Now, here's a real kick in the pants: I hire a halfway experienced fence man, and his starting wages are what I hoped I might be making when I retired, back in my early days! I developed a "Florida formula" polar bear repellent. It worked so well that there hasn't been a polar bear seen in Florida in years!