As Long As You Don't Ask For Credit

From 1919 to 1934 I traveled a lot from Pennsylvania to the West Coast. I had a lot of jobs working in a coal mine in Scranton, Pennsylvania to machine shops, restaurants, driving a taxi, picking fruit, working in a lumber camp and saw mills, and other jobs. I spent about six years in Oregon and six years in California. I kissed Los Angeles goodbye in the spring of 1934, a year after the earthquake, and came to Colorado.

I went to work for a large organization traveling over the state. In the spring of 1935 I met a young lady named Alice. I was told the name of Alice came years ago from an old German man who had three daughters and when the fourth girl arrived he looked at her and said, "That's Allus," and they called her Alice.

She was living with her mother and worked at Zinke's Shoe Shop. She was a specialist on making shoes larger and fixed small damages on shoe shipments. A couple of shoe departments would send her all their work. I thought she was the most wonderful girl in the country (and after 44 years, I still think so). We had a wonderful time that summer and fall. We were married in December 1935.

The work I did didn't pay a lot as it was in the middle of the depression. I received $20 a week and my expenses. I would give Alice $10 a week and she put it in the bank. I would come to Denver over the weekends. In the early part of 1936 the company wanted me to travel Utah and Montana. They furnished a car and told me it was cheaper for them if I took the wife with me and they would pay the expense. My boss's name was Clarke. One day we were discussing business when he said, "Bob, I want to tell you a joke. There was a traveling salesman who after the first week handed in his expense account. It read traveling, telephone, hotel, and eats so much-overcoat $25. When the boss read the account he said, 'Here, we don't pay for your personal expenses. So take the overcoat off.' The next week his account read traveling, telephone, hotel, meals, etc. The boss said, 'That's better.' The salesman said, 'You know the overcoat. Well, that's in there only you don't see it.'"

In the fall of 1936 I was transferred to the office in Seattle, working the state of Washington, western Montana, and Idaho. We were furnished a Ford Model A. We took our time and traveled a lot and saw a lot of interesting places. On August 19, 1937, the good Lord sent us a little bundle from Heaven. It was a boy and was our pride and joy. We named him Robert Roy White, Jr. When he was eight months old, we came back to Denver and with the $1,100 she had saved up, opened a new and used furniture store.

At one time Santa Fe Drive was known as Jason Street. I think it was part of the old Santa Fe Trail. But by the time I opened my furniture store around the first of April, 1938, in the old Buff Building, 657 Santa Fe Drive, three doors south of the Byers branch of the Public Library, everyone just called it the Drive.

Santa Fe Drive was a nice street at the time. A block away at 8 th and Santa Fe were two drug stores, on one side was Clarke's Drugs and on the opposite side was Walgreen's. There was a J. C. Penney's, Woolworth, Kilpatrick Bakery, Allen's Grocery Mart, a movie house called the Cameron, a diner, an auto showroom, and a Rocky Bilt Hamburgers, where 5 cents bought a hamburger and another nickel bought a cup of coffee with free refills. At 8 th and Kalamath was Millers Grocery and at 8 th and Galapago was a Safeway.

The front of the Buff Building was about 25 feet wide but the building was quite deep. There were rented rooms on the second floor. I rented the building for $50 a month and my wife, young son, and I moved into the rear of the building. By hitting the auction sales, I had enough merchandise in a couple of weeks to open.

Across the street from the store was the office of the West Side Hustler and in the years I was in business on Santa Fe I became very good friends with its owner whose name was Jordon.

When I opened the business I ran my first ad in the Hustler: "Just Opened, Bob's Swap Shop, 657 Santa Fe Drive, Furniture, Odds and Ends. You don't need any money at Bob's. I will swap you things you want and need for things you don't want and don't need. Or will give you cash for your furniture, stoves, or odds and ends. Get my prices before buying and you will make this store your trading place. 'Live and Let Live' our motto."

Jordon helped me out by running the following article: "Robert (Bob) White, husband of the former Alice Lane of the West Side, this week opened a furniture store at 657 Santa Fe Drive, formerly occupied by the American Broom factory. It will be known as Bob's Swap Shop. Bob and his wife recently came back to Denver from the West. For some time he was in the furniture business in California and Oregon, but of late has been traveling through the West looking over prospective locations. He finally decided on West Denver. He appears to be a livewire, and we're sure he's going to be a real asset to the Drive"

The truth was I met my wife in Denver while working on the road, married her in Denver in December of 1935, and have always liked Denver. I believe it was Alice's brother who was on the police force and sometimes walked a beat along Santa Fe who steered me to the empty building.

By the following year, Jordan didn't know if I was such a "livewire" or not. He seemed to have his doubts. He wrote: "We were just going to suggest to Bob over at his Swap Shop that he take down his Christmas decorations before St. Valentine's day when he did that very little thing! Someone else must have mentioned it."

When my one year lease was up I decided $50 a month was too much rent and that it was time to move on. So I ran a "Quitting Business" ad. Among the bargains I listed were a 2 piece overstuff for $5.00, kitchen chairs for .25 cents, a coal stove for $3.50, a gas stove for $3.00, bed springs for .50 cents, rockers for .50 cents, and ice box for $1.50, and a Globe combination (a stove that was both coal and gas with two ovens) for $17.50. Jordon wrote "Over at 657 where Bob is selling out, a prankster hung a $10 sign Saturday on his FLIVVER, standing out at the curbing! After a few bargain hunters had climbed into it and stepped on the gas-Bob stepped OUT to see what it was all about! (We're wondering if he couldn't even get $10 for it, was why he took down the sign!)"

When the building's owner, Mrs. Buff, saw the ad, she decided to cut the rent to $35 a month so I took out another ad saying I had renewed my lease for another year.

The summer of 1940 was really hot. In his Peek of the Week column, Jordon wrote, "We think ONE reason it's been SO hot along the Drive lately is because Bob over at Bob's Swap Shop just keeps STEWING around because GRACIE ALLEN withdrew her name for president!" Then after a real hard rain he wrote, "We've been waiting ever since the high water swirled across Santa Fe Drive several weeks ago to hear about a FLOOD sale that Bob over at Bob's Swap Shop was going to LAUNCH. A watered-stock sale of FRUIT JARS and STOVE-PIPE!"

By the end of August, 1940, I had so much stuff packed in that building that I had to run the following: "Big 'Back House' Sale. I have lots of things in my store house in the back of my store that I must dispose of to be able to get my car in for the winter. There are chairs, beds, stoves, ice boxes, and many other things cheap. Come in and see these bargains."

About this time I hired Henry Brock to help me. He was a pleasant, easy-going guy who could refinish furniture and help me move the bigger stuff around the store even though he only had one arm.

I was still renting 657 in 1942 but by September of that year had saved up enough money to make a down payment on a building for sale across the street. On October 23, 1942, I printed an open letter announcing the move: "Dear Friends and Those I Owe Money: I had to move my (Bob's Swap Shop) from 657 Santa Fe to 678 Santa Fe because it was the only way I could find out what I had in the store. The new location is much larger, so I won't have to move half the store out on the sidewalk to show you a chair or bed. Mr. Brock (Henry to you) will still be with me, and we will welcome you with open arms (as long as you don't ask for credit). We have a large stock and low prices, so no matter what you need for the house, we have it, from Soup to Nuts-and we're the Nuts. Henry says "you don't have to be nuts to run a second hand store," but he thinks it helps me out. Hoping to see you soon in our new store. I remain, yours, BOB."

*****

This is the 11 th and final article that Dad wrote. He sold 678 Santa Fe, which had originally been a service station and garage, while I was in High School (around 1951) and auctioned everything off. From Santa Fe he moved to the 3900 block of South Broadway where he ran his store for about 10 years. From there he moved to an out-of-the-way location a couple of blocks off Broadway near Cinderella City where he didn't stay for long. His final move was to what had been a butcher shop on Pearl Street. When he felt that the rent had again gotten too high, he retired.

He always had a pessimistic streak about his health which was one thing that seemed to prompt him to sell the building on Santa Fe. He never thought he'd see me graduate from High School and I remember how happy he was when I threw my mortarboard into the air singling the end of my college years. Though my mother didn't want me to leave home, my Dad was happy when he learned that I was going to get married. So when all was said and done, he lived to meet his two grandchildren who he loved very much.

During his years in business, Dad never had a partner or any other help except for Henry Brock. When he was well, he ran his business by himself, seven days a week. When his was sick, he locked his door after putting up the closed sign.

When I was born in Seattle, my mom was sickly as usual and so she lived with the headman in Seattle whose name was Dye. I'm not sure of his title, but I was told he was kind and generous to my mother during the year she stayed with the Dye's family and saw that my mother was taken care of during the time she gave birth to me while Dad traveling along the west coast collecting donations for the Salivation Army. Dad was their top collector.

Dad wrote a third poem about the writing class which means he wrote four poems in all about Clements.

OUR CLASS

At the age of 80 I decided to go back to school,
This time not to learn my ABC's or Golden Rule.

So off to the Clements Community Center
Where for only two dollars a writing class I could enter.

The room is small but very neat
With a long table and a chair for a seat.

We are the happy ten
And we'll write till the Lord knows when.

There are nine women and I'm the only man you see,
But they are as nice as they can be.

Our teacher we all call Pat,
(But don't let her hear you call her that).

Patricia Quigley is her name;
To teach me she has to be game.

As a teacher she has that look
And boy she knows writing like a book.

Writing became very dear to him as he neared his end which is why I have taken this month to blog the material that made up his two years of writing. One of my Dad's favorite songs was "Mañana is Soon Enough For Me." I am happy to have been a part of the writing that he did get done and don't want to think of the many things he did not get time to write for us to read.