I post this story to show those under duress , where there is a will there is a way.
experienced scrappers are well aware that scrapping as a business is not an easy quick buck if your looking for more then beer money, and that most outsiders, and some newbs are convinced that it is untill they try it.
the obsticals put infront of a successful scrap busisness are actually many more then most and success depends on a lot more things then most. An e scrapper for instance buys 40,000 of e scrap when gold is at $1850 and before he gets it shipped gold drops to $1500. many here reciently went through that very nightmare.
Yesterday was a microcosm of that very senario allbe it on a micro scale.
I went from weeks of coduling, begging, planing, racking my brain, all culminating in the sucessful aquisition of a couple 1000 lbs of tin and 50 to 100 computers servers ect.
after days, i finally convinced my wife that we needed to rent a large u haull to go pick up a load, so she schedules the truck for yesterday morning. on the way to pick up the truck she needed to stop into the DR. office for a minor check up. Bear in mind this load needed to be picked up yesterday or I was going to loose it. after coming out of the DR office she says I need to run over to the clinic and get some blood work done. ok another minor delay no biggie. an hour later she comes out of the clinic whith a shief full of instructions, turns out she is going to have to go in for a heart stint in 10 days, and has a handfull of perscriptions, including nitro pills and one of the instructions is absolutly NO DRIVING, I WAS LITTERLY SICK TO MY STOMACH AT THAT NEWS. I had just lost every thing I had worked for for the last 2 weeks, and no, 0, prospects. Thursday afternoon I got a call from my dr. with the results of a sonogram I had last week, diagnoses was probable liver cancer, again no biggie I have been battling these type things for the last 6 or 7 years. But the thought of loosing my "whale" was devistating.
I was in a real funk, setting in the back seat on the way home with no load and no prospects. I happen to glance up an just ahead in the right lane is a big old long rusty trailer with a couple of refrigerators on it. so I tell my mother in law , pull up beside that black pick up. I yell to the guy, are you a scrapper or an appliance repair guy. The word was undescribably sweet to my ears, "scrapper" floated across the sweet morning air to my old, tired ears.
to make a long story short. it turns out the guy lives about 2 miles from me 30 miles north of Panama city. i offered him $50 to haul a load to my house in order to save my Whale, he had two helpers with him, and it ended up he with his helpers made 2 trips, 2 loads, they loaded one trip with computers and the secound load with heavy refers, freezers and appliances and never asked for another dime. These men, my friends, are what the true family of scrappers are all about, and this true story is what scrapping is all about. self reliance, thinking on your feet, and doing what ever necessary to get the job done.
Today thanks to fellow scrappers im on my way, riding high, tomarrow I May be dead in the water again, that my friends is the life we have chosen, and to those of you out there think is all about a quick buck, think again. best wishes to all. mcw.
