Bark!

I had stopped at the intersection of Highways 191 and 262 to talk with local trucking mogul Billy Gaines. Billy and I had been working on a small project together, and I needed an update. It was 6:30 a.m. and I was just starting my morning run. As it happened, we were adjacent to my canine buddy’s house. Grover, who was feeling neglected because my attention was focused on Billy, began barking loudly. Grover had not been happy with me lately anyway. He had started holding back. Instead of coming to the highway to meet me for a scratch behind the ears, he was staying back by the fence, barking until I patted my thigh and called him. He would then grudgingly come to the road, yapping all the way.

That afternoon I was standing by the microwave oven waiting for my lunch to heat and thinking about Grover. It struck me that it took a very long time for those two minutes to elapse, and that I had lost track of entire decades in less time. I have been at the trading post almost fourteen years, and really don’t know where all that time has gone. My initial commitment to the project was three years, and now I have been here thirteen. When I left California to come back to Utah, the trading post was still under construction. I left the comfort of the office for a job pounding nails beside Jim Foy. Jim was very patient and was also careful to give me jobs that didn’t require much talent and didn’t imperil the overall integrity of the project.

In no time at all, the trading post was ready to open. It was, however, September, the end of the tourist season, so business was less than brisk. That first winter there wasn’t much to do. In fact, there wasn’t much to do the entire first year. By October of the next year Dacia had been born. Dacia came to the trading post with me almost every day, so we stayed busy entertaining each other. That didn’t bring in much revenue, but we had a nice time. I often carried Dacia around in a frontal pack, so I’m sure the local Navajo people wondered what it meant to have a male trader walking around with an infant stuck to his chest.

At about that time, the local artists began to realize there was somebody new in the business; somebody who didn’t really know what he was doing and frequently erred on the side of paying a premium for their work. That resulted in a flood of new items. After a time I realized what was happening and developed a new strategy. When an artist came in with his or her work I would ask, “How much?” They, of course, started high, thinking they had nothing to lose. I would offer less and not budge. After a few minutes of haggling, I would have a fix on how serious they were with the initial price. This was determined by whether they were walking to the door or not. If they were, I knew my offer was too low. If they were still in there pitching, I knew I had gotten close. It wasn’t long before the artists understood my system and would start for the door almost immediately. It gradually began to dawn on me who was better at this game.

At about this same time, my father, Duke, and I were engaged in serious discussions involving the future of the business. I wanted it to be strictly Southwest arts and crafts, and Duke was intent on buying anything that would sell. For Duke, cash flow was the thing. On one occasion he went to Phoenix and bought a truck load of futons with Southwest designs for the trading post. I carried those darn futons out to the porch and back inside every day for three years. On warm spring, summer or fall days, Duke would go missing and I would find him sleeping outside on one of the futons. This put me on the horns of a dilemma; I wanted to use him as a marketing tool (“See how comfortable these futons are, people just lie down and fall right to sleep!”) but didn’t want to embarrass him. Additionally, I never quite worked out how to make a good sales pitch with him snoring? Barry and I are now at the age where we have been seriously considering a trip to Phoenix for another load of futons. We frequently need an afternoon nap and don’t have a comfortable place to rest and lose track of time.

Copyright©2002 Twin Rocks Trading Post