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Texas Gal
Chapter Twenty-Nine A College Sophomore?
Four hours later we landed at the ranch and Susan and Mother came out to greet me. Neither Judy, Mary, or Auntie were home yet because it was only 7 o'clock local time.
Mary was the first to arrive; just five minutes after I did. Auntie was next, and Judy arrived about an hour after that. Judy and Mary had now finished their jobs for the summer, as I had.
As each of us arrived, Rosa hurried to prepare a plate of food for us. It had been two weeks since the picnic and I had been so busy that I hadn't talked to my family. When I told them that I had bought another company, Susan made a face.
"Not another company? You said that you had too much excess capacity now."
"We got customers with this purchase. The company has a solid history and is profitable from day one."
"But why do you need another plant?" Susan asked.
"Actually we got three plants and a sawmill with this company."
"THREE plants AND a sawmill. How much did this cost?"
"Nineteen million dollars."
"NINETEEN MILLION DOLLARS?" Susan shrieked. "You've flipped. You're completely nuts now."
"Calm down, Suz. It was a good deal. We got almost a quarter of a million acres of forestland with it, also."
"I can't stand it," Susan said, throwing her arms up in a gesture of futility. "My sister is trying to buy the entire country now. The paper plants weren't enough."
Everyone laughed at Susan's antics. Mother only asked, "How are you going to pay for it?"
"From our line of credit at the bank. We only had three million cash on hand so we have to borrow."
"The bank will just give you that much?. No questions asked?"
"We have a 30 million dollar line of credit now, so I still have 11 million that I can draw from." To tease Susan I said, "But I'll only use that if I find a really good deal."
"Aargh!" Susan exclaimed.
Everyone laughed again.
"Your father would have been so proud of you," Mother said. "You've built this new company all on your own. I was so impressed, and proud, when you took us on the tour of your plant and explained the paper making process. And I saw how your employees looked at you at the picnic. With respect and reverence, despite you being younger than even the newest apprentices."
I had one of those awkward moments when you don't know what to say. You grope for something that won't make you sound conceited, insincere, or foolish. "I miss Daddy."
Mother looked sad for a moment. I think that she was sorry to have brought up the reference to Dad. "We all do, honey. We all do."
"Let's not get melancholy, now," Auntie said. "We're celebrating the end of summer tonight. Next week you have to start school. Who's up for a long ride tomorrow?"
Everyone smiled and raised their hand.
"Good. I am also."
We sat around and talked about our summer experiences until it was time for bed.
We began our last weekend at home by taking a communal bath in Auntie's large tub. We talked and joked until our fingers started to prune, then rinsed off the soap bubbles in her shower and went to our rooms to dress in jeans and boots for our ride.
Rosa had prepared a large breakfast of eggs, bacon and sausage, and home-fries. There was also the old Mexican breakfast staple of salsa, guacamole, and tortillas on the table. I often wondered if real Mexicans ate them for breakfast, or if it was an American invention like pizza pie.
We headed down to the stable after breakfast, prepared to work off the food by cleaning the stalls, but we found that Ricardo had completed that task already. Ricardo had come to think of the stable as his territory, and the horses as his charges. He kept the stable spotless and the horses in prime health, calling in the vet whenever he found a problem that he didn't understand, and he had become quite knowledgeable about the warning signs of health problems.
We rounded up the horses in the corral so that we could saddle them. As always, Emily came to me to get her apple as soon as I stepped into the corral. I put the bridle on her as soon as she was done eating and led her to the fence where I had left the blanket and saddle.
Ten minutes later, Judy opened the gate and we left for our ride, taking the long way around to the furthermost parts of the ranch. We crossed the sections of the ranch that Auntie leased out for farming, being careful to avoid the fields being used for crops, and reached the furthest point about two hours later. There wasn't anything interesting at this point so we continued riding, heading back for another hour until we reached our 'watering hole'.
We hobbled the horses and pulled off their saddles and bridles so they could graze, then settled down under the trees to relax in the shade and enjoy the snacks that we had brought.
As always, when we came to this spot, someone asked if anyone wanted to go swimming. This time it was Auntie. Everyone smiled and shook their head. The stream wasn't deep enough for swimming, and the mud stuck to you like glue.
"I'm going to miss you at school this year, Mary," Susan said. "This will be the first time since I started school that you won't be there with me."
"Me too," Mary said. "I'm going to miss all of you. I wish that Austin offered what I wanted to study. I almost switched to something else, but I wouldn't really be happy, even though we'd be together."
"We're only going to be a hundred and twenty miles apart," I said. "When you get to school, find the 'rides' board and put up an announcement that you're looking for a ride to Austin most weekends. Just be careful who you go with. Some of these young cowboys probably try to make the trip in an hour."
"To Austin? Instead of here?"
"Well- I guess that I assumed that we wouldn't be coming home as much this year. Susan will be with us, and you won't be here. The Austin house should probably be our gathering point during the school year, don't you think?"
"I think that Darla Anne is right," Mother said. "Four of us will be there already. You should come there instead of here. The distance is about the same."
"What about me?" Auntie said. "Isn't anyone going to visit me?"
"Now Kathy, you know that it's easier for one to go to the five, than the reverse. Come on down every weekend, if you can."
"You know, it might be time for me to consider getting a plane again since I'm going to be spending so much time traveling."
"Great. I'd love to learn to pilot a plane," I said.
"You're too young, honey. You have to be sixteen to get a license."
"That's only a year and a half from now. I can start studying this year so I'll be ready as soon as I turn sixteen."
"Let me get my license first, and then I'll give you the books and help you with the studying?"
"How come you never learned to fly back when you had planes?"
"There wasn't really any need since I had Gabby to do the flying. But I learned how to fly a little. Gabby wanted me to be able to land the plane in the event that something happened to him while we were airborne. He had me practice landings over and over until I could do it unassisted. I would go out on weekends by myself and practice taking off and landing on our runway. A smooth landing is really the most difficult part of flying a plane. The rest is fairly simple. You just have to learn navigation and radio use. An instrument rating is a lot of work though. Again, it mainly concerns landing, but this time in conditions where you have almost no visibility. If you don't have an instrument rating, you have to fly under VFR."
"VFR?"
"Visual Flight Rules. You can't fly unless you can see at least five miles. IFR, or Instrument Flight Rules, allow you fly with minimum visibility, but our little airport doesn't have instrument landing equipment anyway."
"What would you do, land elsewhere?"
"Yes, there's an airport in Hillsboro that has IFR equipment. That's only 15 miles from here. Once I get my license I can pick up Mary and then swing over to Austin. The whole trip will only take about an hour if Mary is at the airport when I arrive. The airport in Austin is only a couple of miles from the college."
"That sounds like a great idea, Kathy," Mother said. "I'm sure that you could use the plane in your business also."
"There've been many times when I wished that I had a plane available. This will be a good incentive for me to finally do it."
"But Auntie," Judy said, "aren't small planes really dangerous?"
"No, not really, as long as they're maintained properly."
"But we hear, all the time, about accidents involving small planes."
"Almost all of those accidents are traced to pilot error."
"Pilot error?"
"It's a catch-all term for everything from forgetting to gas up, to drinking before flying, to falling asleep at the controls."
"But small planes only have one engine."
"Jets need multiple engines because their flight characteristics don't lend themselves to staying aloft without power. As a friend of mine always said, a large plane with a dead engine flies about as well as a rock in a paper bag, and a jet flies as well as two rocks in a paper bag. That's why they almost always have two or more engines. A small plane on the other hand is more like a glider. It can't normally climb, but it can glide a very long way after losing power. That gives you a lot of time to find an open place to land, and you don't need as much runway as large planes."
"I'm sold," I said.
"But you buy everything," Susan said laughing and setting everyone else off.
After a couple of hours of relaxing and talking, we saddled up the horses again and returned to the ranch. The rest of the day was spent in getting our things organized for school. Judy and I had our bedrooms all set up in Austin and we had left a lot of things there. It would be easier for Susan because she was joining us in the house, while Mary would have to move in, and completely out, of the dorm each school year. We discussed the move and decided that Mother would take Mary to school and help her get settled in, while Auntie took Judy, Susan, and me to Austin. Judy, now 18, said that if she could use Mother's car, she could drive us down there and Auntie could go to help Mary move into the dorm also, then Mother and Auntie could come over to Austin together. After a little more discussion Mother and Auntie agreed to the change in plans.
We arose early the next morning and enjoyed our last communal bath for several months. We didn't have anything like Auntie's enormous circular bathtub in Austin, and we didn't expect to be back at the ranch until Thanksgiving.
After dressing and having breakfast, we finished our packing and then started loading up the cars. All of Mary's stuff went into the enormous trunk of Auntie's Cadillac, and the rest of us put our things in Mother's equally large Chevy Impala. We packed Mother's car carefully, and there wasn't enough room for a newspaper in the trunk when we were done. Even so, we had to use the entire back seat for storage also. The express company would arrive sometime this week and bring another large carton of clothes to Austin because we just didn't have room for everything.
We said goodbye to Rosa and Ricardo and pulled out of the driveway about ten a.m. Both cars traveled together on I-35 until Waco, where Auntie, Mother, and Mary left the Interstate to travel south on Route 77. They would stay on 77 until switching onto 485, then 79, and lastly onto 190/6 into College Station. Because we were able to stay on the interstate all the way into Austin, we should reach our school earlier despite it being a little further.
We arrived at the Austin house a little before noon. The house had that peculiar smell that develops when a house is closed up for too long and we immediately opened the windows to replace the stale air. As it freshened, we carried our things into the house and up to our bedrooms. Susan and I were so used to staying together that we just automatically brought her things into my bedroom. The closet was a little small, so we would use part of the closet in the 'spare' bedroom for things that we seldom used.
Once we were settled in, we made a trip to the grocery store to stock the refrigerator, and since it was still only 4 o'clock when we were finished, we took a ride over to the campus to watch the students moving into the dorms.
The campus was alive with students and their families. Those that had already moved in were hanging around outside with new friends or old ones. Judy and I met a bunch of people that we knew and we introduced Susan. A couple of people made comments about having another Drake ruining the test curves, but the comments were all said good-naturedly. By the strangest of coincidences, we ran into Julia and her parents. Julia greeted us like old friends and hugged all of us. Mother had asked us to put our past differences behind us, so we did. We were as friendly to her as she was to us. I had met her father during my inspection of the textile division, as he was a mill manager, and he looked relieved that Julia was now friendly with us. We stood and talked for a while about Hillock Academy, and about the transition to college student.
Mr. and Mrs. Williams had just stood by listening until there was a lull in the conversation, then Mr. Williams said, "I heard a rumor at work that you just purchased an entire company in Michigan?"
I looked at him and smiled. "That's an impressive rumor mill you have. I only completed the negotiations on Wednesday, and the full transfer won't even take place for several weeks."
"Everything about you is top news, Miss Drake. It spreads like wildfire through a cotton field. In this case, someone heard the rumor from a radio announcer on Thursday. I guess that the news was leaked by someone at one of the companies."
"That's understandable. We actually concluded the negotiations on Wednesday morning, so there was plenty of time for the news to make it to the announcer on Thursday. McGruder may have even issued a press release."
My friends Peggy Sue Wellman and her roomate from last year, Shelly Albright, happened to come by at that moment and we hugged each other and talked excitedly. Mr. and Mrs. Williams looked on for a few moments and then excused themselves. Julia said that she'd see us later and joined her parents. After I had introduced Susan to Peggy Sue and Shelly, the five of us walked around together, talking about our summers. I left out all reference to Piermont and only talked about going to the Riveria and personal events. As dinnertime approached, we decided to eat at the cafeteria rather than going home to cook. The lines were longer than I had ever seen because of all the family members on the campus. I wondered if they would run of food before we reached the serving area, but I guess that they were prepared for the large crowd today.
We stayed on campus until it started to get dark, winding up in Peggy Sue's and Shelly's room for the last hour, and then we went back to the house. There wasn't any studying that we could do, so we sat down to see what the local television was offering. The shows hadn't improved any and we grew bored so we went upstairs to get our things ready for tomorrow.
Mother and Auntie showed up around 9 o'clock. They had gotten Mary settled in and then stayed with her until after dinner. Mother said that she had a real nice room and a pleasant roommate. We helped Mother and Auntie carry their things upstairs to their bedrooms and then finished preparing our things for tomorrow.
We knew that they didn't enforce the parking restrictions for the first couple of days so we used Mother's car to go to the campus early in the morning. Mother planned to go shopping with Auntie to get a bicycle for Susan. Judy and I still had our bikes from last year.
We steered Susan through the process and within a few hours we had our schedules, and Susan had her new ID. Then we headed over to the bookstore to fight our way through the crowds so that we could get our books. Most of Susan's books were the same ones that I had needed last year since I was doing a double major, so she only needed two new ones.
Dumping our purchases into the trunk of the Impala, we spent the rest of the day wandering around the campus. We walked Susan's class route with her so that she'd know how to get to her classes tomorrow, and at lunchtime we ate in one of the snack bars instead of the cafeteria.
When we returned home at 5 o'clock, Mother and Auntie had dinner cooking and told us to clean up and come right back down. After dinner we went out to the back yard to look at Susan's new bike. When we got outside, we discovered that it wasn't new, although it was in pretty good condition.
Susan called to Mother, "Is this it? I thought that you went shopping for a new bike?"
Mother and Auntie came outside. Mother said, "They had used ones for about half the price of new one. The man said that the used were just as good, and that they were a lesser target for bike thieves."
We couldn't argue with that. A number of bikes had been stolen on the campus last year. Anyway, her 'new' bike only looked like Judy's and mine looked after one year of banging them around while putting them into the bike racks.
Afterwards, Judy, Susan, and I went upstairs. I dug out my old books and put together the ones that Susan needed. I took pretty good care of my books so they weren't beat up. Since Susan was pursuing the Bachelor of Science degree in Petroleum Engineering that I was also pursuing as a second major she would probably be able to use almost all my books for the next four years. It seemed a little strange to be giving hand-me-downs to an older sibling.
Classes started the next morning. I was no longer the 13-year-old freshman that I had been last year. Now I was the 14-year-old sophomore. Not much of a step up since there was still the same disparity of five years between most of my classmates and myself, but they had come to respect my grade point average, and most knew of my outside career.
Peggy Sue was in two of my courses so we would have 7 classes during the week. I was taking 24 credit hours this semester, and I would be pretty busy with my schoolwork. At least, my advisor didn't bother trying to get me to drop the extra 2 courses. It's pretty tough to argue with a 4.0 average. He did say that I should make a renewed effort to attend school functions even if I was so much younger than my classmates. I told him not to worry because in two years I would be almost as old as the incoming freshmen and then I would have someone to hang out with. He told me that I wouldn't be happy hanging around with freshman because they would be immature compared to me, and then suggested that I join the chess club this year. He said that most of the chess club members had more mature attitudes and wouldn't discriminate against me because of my age. I told him that I'd look into it, all the time knowing that I wouldn't really because I had no interest in joining a chess club.
After school we started our read ahead work. We had gotten our first assignments, but they weren't due for several days because books weren't required for the first several days.
My favorite reading place was on the carpeted floor of my bedroom. It worked out well because Susan always preferred the bed. We spent most of our time, after classes each day, with our faces stuck in our textbooks.
Several weeks after school started, I received a box of mail through Ameri-Moore's Austin office. It had been screened by Nancy according to my instructions and there was little there except trade magazines. I didn't have any classes until 10 o'clock on Tuesdays and Thursdays so I had gotten in the habit of calling Bob Warren every Tuesday. He knew that I'd be calling at that time and kept it open for me.
The acquisition of Owosso was proceeding and the transfer was set to happen on Thursday, just in time to meet the deadline imposed by McGruder. On Monday, a team of ten people would descend on Owosso. Bob had prepared Gerard Deveraux and explained what they were looking to accomplish in information exchange, training in the use of our accounting systems, and identifying personnel needs. Gerard was well aware that there would be some slight shifting of personnel, and even some layoffs in those areas where we had duplication of services in both headquarters.
I wasn't surprised when I found an article about the acquisition in the latest copy of The Paper Press. I read, 'DD is buying again. This time she's raised her sights from the single plants that she's been picking up, and acquired Owosso Paper in Michigan. The deal includes three operating paper-manufacturing plants, a sawmill, and a quarter of a million acres of timberland spread across Michigan and Wisconsin. While the purchase price is so far undisclosed, the seller of the company, McGruder Ship Works, has been offering the wholly owned, subsidiary company for thirty million dollars. Instead of South-Core Paper being the loser this time, it appears that Alliance Paper International has been stung by DD. Alliance had tendered an offer for the company several months ago, but their first offer had been refused. A reliable source, who wishes to remain anonymous, has told us that Alliance had not given up on their plans to buy Owosso, but rather had been waiting for the end of McGruder's fiscal year on September 30th, to re-tender their offer. DD stepped in and purchased the company before they could. The sale for McGruder comes just in time to substantially improve their end of year statements. With this purchase, Piermont now has six paper plants, a sawmill, a cardboard box plant, and a business forms printing operation, and is operating in seven states.'
I found another interesting article in the same trade magazine that said, 'A press release by South-Core Paper announces that they have just successfully concluded the purchase of South Shore School Supplies in Bridgeport, Connecticut. This purchase marks South-Core's entry into the forms printing market. A source within the company stated that the executives are very pleased with the new acquisition. They had moved very quickly after learning that DD of Piermont Paper had been eyeing the available plant. The owners were waiting to hear back from Piermont when South-Core learned of its availability and South-Core executives acted very quickly to close the deal.
Our source said that South-Core's executives were ecstatic that they were able to snatch this plum away from DD because of all the plants that she had successfully purchased from under their noses. The price of the deal was not disclosed but the asking price had been put at 5 million dollars. Our inside source believed that South-Core had been able to secure the plant for 3.8 million, plus taking responsibilities for South Shore's outstanding obligations.'
I chuckled at the article. If South-Core took responsibility for the Accounts Payable, that meant that they paid about 4.8 million. I wasn't about to set the story straight. Let South-Core think that they had gotten something that I wanted. It might make them less angry with me. I wondered what they were going to do when the equipment started to break down. I wasn't worried that they would provide any substantial competition for Danbury. The equipment at South Shore was so old and labor intensive so they couldn't undercut our prices, and the equipment wasn't even capable of producing most of the products that we offered.
By the end of September we were all well ahead in our reading. Judy had gone out on a number of dates with Dex, the boy that she had met last year, but wasn't overdoing it. A normal date for them might be to go to the library to study. Susan was having almost as difficult a time as I did last year. Despite being two years older than I was when I entered the college, she was finding it difficult to be accepted. Where most of the entering students were seventeen or eighteen, she was still fifteen. At least she had me, and I had her. We spent quite a bit of time with Peggy Sue and Shelly also. They didn't seem to mind that we were several years younger.
Mary came to visit on the first weekend, and then every other weekend. She was enjoying her time at the college, even though she was away from the rest us.
In mid-October Susan had her first date, with a boy that she had met in one of her classes. His name was Lance Cartwright and he was seventeen. He invited her to a football game for their first date. Judy was going with Dex so they doubled.
When they returned I could see that Susan was smitten. She flushed when I told her that it was obvious. I hoped that it wouldn't turn out like Judy's first love. Susan knew what had happened to Judy and she had vowed that it wouldn't happen to her.
The weeks marched on. Susan continued to date Lance, and seemed to be handling it. We were all well ahead in our reading and doing well in our classes. As expected, the extra two courses were keeping me the busiest, but I didn't mind because I was enjoying the classes.
Auntie was coming down almost every weekend because she missed us like crazy. She said that she felt more lonely than she had before we came to live with her, even with Rosa and Ricardo at the ranch. She told us that she had bought a plane, and had taken and passed the written exam for her pilot's license. She was now taking an hour lesson almost every day and looked forward to them more and more. Her plane was parked at Hillsboro airport and she had been taking her lessons in that since she had completed her first ten hours. Now that she had soloed, she could do her take-off and landing practices by herself whenever she had time. She had begun her cross-country work with her instructor, and expected to do her first solo trip next week. It wasn't a big trip, just about a hundred miles, but it was an important step.
Auntie could fly by herself, but she had to get her license before she could take any passengers with her.
"What kind of plane did you buy? I asked her.
"It's a Cessna 172," Auntie said. "Later on I'll get a Cessna 206. It's like a big station wagon that carries 6 people. The 172 is a good plane to learn with, and it's more functional than a 150 after the training is over."
"What's the range on a 206?"
"About 1100 to 1200 miles at 60 percent power, I think."
"60 percent? You can fly at 60 percent?"
"Of course. Just like a car can drive at 2000 rpm even though it's capable of having the engine run at 4000 rpm."
"Oh, I see. When do you expect to have your license?"
"I'll probably take the test before Thanksgiving. If I pass, I get a temporary license right away."
"Great. Then you'll probably have the plane at the ranch when we come home for Thanksgiving?"
"It should be. Now that I've soloed I could keep it there now. It's just more convenient to leave it at Hillsboro while I'm taking lessons."
By November I had read through all of my textbooks. Judy was nearly finished, and Susan was close behind. Susan had continued to date Lance, but hadn't gone crazy like Judy had with her first love. Susan was able to control it enough to maintain her study practices, but I knew that she spent a lot of time daydreaming about him.
I was kept informed by Bob Warren on the status of things at Piermont. Owosso had been integrated into the company, and things were running well. Because we had gotten it at more than 30 percent lower than McGruder was originally asking, the revenues easily handled the payments on the note.
When Thanksgiving week finally arrived I found that I couldn't wait to get home. It would be our first time back since we had come to Austin, almost three months earlier. We left right after classes on Wednesday. Mary had told us that she had a ride all set with a boy who lived near Dallas, so we didn't have to go pick her up.
We reached the ranch just after six o'clock. Mother had phoned Rosa to tell her when we were leaving so dinner was almost ready. We had a nice reunion with Rosa and Ricardo before going upstairs to get ready for dinner. Auntie arrived just after we did and we sat down together to eat.
We were almost through with our meal when Mary arrived. She had invited her friend to come in and meet us, and Mother persuaded him to stay for dinner.
"I'm sorry to impose on you," Kevin said, "but I've heard so much about all of you from Mary, that I wanted to meet you."
"It's not an imposition," Mother said. "We have plenty of food. Thank you for bringing Mary up with you."
"It's nice to have company for the trip. It makes the time pass much more quickly."
"Are you in the same Animal Sciences curriculum as Mary?"
"Yes, I am. I'm not sure what kind of job path I want to follow yet, but it'll have something to do with beef production. This is Texas, after all."
"Do you live on a ranch?" Judy asked.
"No, I don't, but I've always dreamed about it. We live in a split level house in a development."
"What does your father do?"
"He's a salesman for a pharmaceutical company. He calls on veterinarians and sells them medicines for animals."
"That's a good profession, but he must travel a lot," Auntie said.
"Yeah. I rarely saw him during the week while I was growing up. He'd come home late every Friday night and then be gone again on Monday morning. But we have a nice home, and a good life."
Kevin left after dinner. He told Mary that he'd stop by to pick her up on Sunday for the return trip to school.
We started our Thanksgiving Day with a communal bath in Auntie's tub. We relaxed and enjoyed the warmth of the water and the fragrance of the bath oils. We talked about recent events and even kidded Mary about Kevin. She flushed a little and we knew that she liked him.
After bathing and eating breakfast, we went for an hour ride. I had been waiting for this day for months and I wasn't about to let the holiday stop me from riding Emily every day that I could. After we got back, we dumped half a bushel of apples in the corral, so each horse got their own Thanksgiving treat.
The house smelled of turkey, sweet potatoes, and apples, when we walked in. Rosa had prepared everything on Wednesday for cooking our Thanksgiving meal, and had gotten up early to put in the turkey. As it grew later, she had begun cooking the other foods that didn't require as much time in the oven. She had learned the recipes for the foods that we enjoyed so much, and it was impossible to taste any differences from what we would have prepared.
Grandma came over for dinner, arriving about 11:30. We had already cleaned up and gone back downstairs by the time that she arrived. We all took seats in the sitting room and talked about the previous three months. Grandma had been so busy that she hadn't been able to come down and visit us in Austin. We talked about school and told her about the courses that we were taking at college.
Inevitably, the conversation turned to business and Grandma began telling us what was going on in the various divisions of Ameri-Moore. The Wood Products division was doing very well and the Cattle Ranching division was doing extremely well, but the Textile division was still lagging.
"Our crop yields on the farms were down again with this year's harvests, and productivity seems to still be dropping in the mills."
When she stopped to take a sip of tea and it became obvious that she had finished talking about the divisions, Susan said, "Aren't you going to tell Darla Anne about her division?"
"Tell Darla Anne?" Grandma smiled. "I was hoping to have Darla Anne tell me."
Of the four of us, I was the only one that was in regular contact with anyone in the company, and Grandma added, "I haven't been involved with Piermont at all. That's her division. I know that she'd call me if she needed any help."
"There's not much to tell, really," I said. "Everything seems to be running fine. I speak with Bob Warren every week and I get the copies of the transcripts of the weekly meetings. Sales continue to climb, and productivity is excellent. The new plants have been integrated into the system and they're doing very well. Mr. Deveraux, the Vice-President of the Midwest Region, comes to the Friday meeting once each month. He flies into Albany and then takes a commuter flight to Rutland where someone from the plant picks him up. That's about all. You should have copies of all the transcripts, but I realize that you've been busy and probably haven't read them."
"I've read them, dear, and I've been very pleased with your handling of the division. I just wish that you could do the same for the Textile division. I'm at my wit's end trying to figure where the problems lie. We have soil experts working on all the farms, trying to determine the validity of your statement that the soil may be over saturated with pesticides. So far they can't even agree on whether there is a problem, much less coming up with a solution. Most say that if we stop using the pesticides, the insects will take over and destroy the crops. My executives say that leaving part of the farm fallow will cause us to have a much lower yield than we have now, even if the other parts increase to the levels of former years. Of course there's nothing that we can do about heat, cold, floods, and droughts."
"Maybe it's just a cycle that you have to wait out?"
"I hope so, but I don't have any idea how long it might last. And we can't just stop and wait for it to end. We have to keep trying to find a solution."
"I wish that I could help, Grandma, but I'm out of my depth there. Maybe Judy has some ideas. That's her field now."
"I don't have any ideas," Judy said. "I've talked it over with people at the college but everyone says that we're doing all the right things already. There's a lot of research going on, all over the country, with new pesticides and chemical fertilizers. There are so many new products coming out that no one really knows how they work together. The government just tries to make sure that they're non-toxic to animal and human life. The problem might be just the combination of products that are being used on the farms. No one knows."
"That's an idea, Grandma," I said. "I learned that you use the same pesticides and chemical fertilizers on all the farms. If you have to use pesticides, why don't you try different combinations on the farms, then compare the records. See if one combination is better than another. Perhaps, to make sure that soil and weather factors don't contaminate the sample, you could do it on different fields at one farm. Maybe make one entire farm a research lab."
"That sounds like the best suggestion yet. We have research people working with the products in labs, but we haven't tried what you're suggesting, a test in the actual fields where we're having the problems. The only problem is that it takes a full year to see the results."
"Then make as many different tests as you can during the one year. Make it a permanent project, using different chemicals in varying strengths."
"That's a good idea. I'm going to set it up on Monday. We'll move some of our research people to the site and build a new lab right on the farm that we select."
Mother had gone out to check on the dinner while we talked and she came back in now to announce that it was ready. We moved our conversation to the dinner table, but Mother objected to our talking about pesticides and fertilizer during dinner so we changed the topic.
"I read that South-Core Paper beat you out of an acquisition a few months ago," Grandma said.
I smiled. "No, they didn't. They purchased the plant that I went to look at just before buying Owosso. You might remember my talking about it at the party. I didn't feel that it was a good deal and I declined to make even a token offer. We valued the ancient equipment at $10,000 and the building and land at about a million. They had almost a million in account payables and some extremely doubtful account receivables. I read that South-Core picked up this 'plum' for 3.8 million, plus assuming responsibility for the A/P. That means that they paid almost five million for a plant worth no more than one million. They can beat me out of such deals any time that they want to."
"It sounds like some heads are going to roll at South-Core when that information surfaces."
"I've thought about that and wondered if the executives involved will be able to cover up their mistake. We estimated that it would take between four and five million to replace the antiquated equipment with new. I don't know if they can cover up that sort of expenditure. Their 'plum' could wind up costing them 10 million."
"How large is South-Core?"
"Well— they have twelve paper manufacturing plants, two cardboard plants, a formed-paper products plant, and now, a forms printing plant."
"So your division is about half their size?"
"A bit larger than half. Several of their plants are very old, with very old equipment, and our plant in Concord can out-produce any two of their best because of the new high-speed paper manufacturing machines that we have. Why do you ask?"
"Just curious. I was wondering if they could mount a sustained attack against us."
"I doubt it. It would be very difficult, given our size now. We are a little vulnerable because of the loan that we took out to acquire Owosso. This is typically the situation that South-Core tries to take advantage of, but I think that they're still smarting from their efforts to take over Brandon, Greenfield, and Concord. They spent quite a bit of money hiring away the sales teams from Brandon and Concord, and they lost a lot of the business that they had managed to take away from Concord after we used our 'warehouse clearance' gambit. We've managed to keep most of the customers that we enticed back for the specials. Now, with their foray into forms printing about to prove a disaster, I don't know if we need to fear them."
"Perhaps not, but you must never turn your back on an enemy. And I'm sure that they look upon you as an enemy. Once the truth about South Shore becomes apparent within the company, they may start looking for a way to shift the attention away from it. That might take the form of an assault on a potential takeover target, or a concentrated attack on a competitor that has been a major thorn in their side. You've been the biggest thorn, and everyone in the industry knows it. I'm sure that South-Core Executives would love to knock you down a peg or two, if they could do it without getting too bloody."
"As Hamlet said in his famous soliloquy, 'Aye, there's the rub'. South-Core would get a very bloody nose if they attempted to square off against us. A price war would hurt them more than us because they move more paper. If anything, they might try something surreptitiously, but we've been wary of that for a while."
"Be extra wary from now on." Turning to Auntie, Grandma said, "Kathy, I hear that you've been taking flying lessons?"
"Better than that," Auntie said. "I just got my pilots license. It's been so much fun that I wish that I had done it back when Gabby was still with us. He tried to get me to do it, but I kept procrastinating."
"Can you take us for a ride, Auntie," Susan asked, beating me to it by a second.
"Tomorrow, if it's nice. We only have a four-seater, so we'll have to do it in two groups."
"Is the plane here?"
"Yes, it's in the hanger. I had the fuel company deliver 1,000 gallons of aviation gas so we're all set for a while."
"Are you going to be picking up Mary at school and bringing her over to Austin now?" Susan asked.
"I could, if she can tear herself away from Kevin on the weekends."
Mary turned a light shade of crimson. "I think that I can manage to tear myself away every once in a while."
We all giggled at the remark and Mary got redder.
Dinner was delicious and the desserts even better. After the table was cleared we continued to talk about anything and everything for hours. Grandma left about 4 p.m. Rosa had made extra pies for Charles to take when they left.
On Friday morning we bathed, ate breakfast, rode the horses, and then prepared for our first plane ride with Auntie. We helped her push the plane out onto the ramp, and walked around the plane with her while she did her pre-flight inspection. At each step she explained what she was doing and why. When everything checked to her satisfaction we got inside.
Auntie took out a small list of things to do and ran down the list. Just before starting the engine, she opened her window and yelled, "Clear", even though there wasn't anyone out there, then waited for several seconds and started the engine. After checking to make sure that everyone was wearing their seatbelt, she taxied the plane out onto the runway. I was in the front passenger seat, with Susan and Mary in the rear seats. Before taking off, Auntie put on the parking brake, revved up the engines, and turned the ignition key to two different positions and watched a gauge. She said it was a check to make sure that the engine was firing properly. Satisfied, she throttled back the engine, set the directional gyro and the altimeter, set the flaps to full down, and released the brake. As we started to move, she pushed the throttle forward until it was at the maximum position.
The light plane sped down the runway, gaining speed at an incredible rate and then shot in to the air as Auntie pulled back on the wheel. We circled the house a couple of times before heading towards the furthest parts of the ranch property.
It was a different experience from flying in the company jet. We flew fairly low and got a good look at everything. In the jet, we were only going from point A to point B as quickly as possible. We flew around the ranch and the surrounding area for about a half-hour before returning. The next group to go for a ride came down to the ramp as we exited the plane. Mother, Judy, and Ricardo were going up after us. Auntie stopped the plane but didn't turn off the engine, and as soon as everyone was belted in, she took off again. We watched as she circled the house before heading away, no doubt following a similar route with her new passengers as she had with us.
After Auntie returned, we ate lunch and talked about flying. It would be a year and a half before I was old enough to get a pilot's license but I knew that I would. I had really enjoyed the quick flight and I had known immediately that it was something that I wanted to do.
We may have been on holiday from school but schoolwork still beckoned so we spent the rest of the day working on homework, doing the same on Saturday.
Kevin returned to pickup Mary on Sunday. We already had Mother's car loaded for the trip back to Austin and we followed them as far south as Waco. I wondered if Kevin would have driven a bit faster if he hadn't known that Mother was right behind him.
The next few weeks were busy. In addition to our schoolwork we had our Christmas shopping to do, and we started our review of the semester material for final exams.
The stores in Austin were packed with holiday shoppers every time we went out, but we managed to do our gift shopping, plus trying on a lot of clothes for ourselves.
Judy and Susan continued to date, but neither ignored their schoolwork. Dex and Lance were frequent callers and Mother invited them over to dinner a few times.
Auntie only made one trip down in the plane, picking up Mary on the way, before it was time to go home for the Christmas break. I exchanged gifts with Peggy Sue again, giving her a sweater and receiving a blouse. We hugged each other tightly following our last class together before the holiday break.
Both Judy and Susan exchanged gifts with Dex and Lance before we left for home. Judy proudly wore her new charm bracelet and Susan wore her new gloves on the ride home.
We arrived home two days before Christmas to find the downstairs fully decorated. Like last year, Rosa and Ricardo had gone all out in decorating for Christmas. A beautifully decorated tree occupied a prominent place in the sitting room again.
We carried our things up to our rooms and carried some of the presents that we had bought, directly into the sitting room. The other presents had been sent with a delivery service just before we left, and they would arrive tomorrow. It just wasn't possible to fit them all in the car with us. We had filled two enormous shipping cartons the size of refrigerator boxes, and brought the ones that we couldn't fit into the cartons, filling half the rear seat of the car. We barely had room for the four of inside the car. Fortunately the trip isn't too long.
Kevin brought Mary home a few hours after we arrived. He declined an invitation for dinner, saying that he was expected home.
Over the next couple of days we relaxed and did the things that we enjoyed such as riding, playing board games, and baking. We didn't think of baking as work because doing it together in the kitchen was too much fun for that. Other than riding, and bathing, it was one of the few things that we still all did together, and the kitchen was filled with pies, cookies, and cakes by Christmas day. We had made a promise among ourselves that no one would open a single schoolbook until Christmas day had passed.
After breakfast on Christmas, we all went into the sitting room to open our gifts. Rosa and Ricardo were invited to come also, as they had last year. They were almost like members of the family anyway.
Ricardo tore into his pile of gifts, ripping the wrapping paper into pieces before glancing briefly at the gift and then continuing on to the next. I guess that Piermont was never very far from my mind and I thought about all of the paper that was consumed every Christmas.
Ricardo finally reached the bottom of his pile and then went back and began playing with his new toys, the new clothes being completely forgotten for the moment.
We were enjoying the show so much that the rest of us had each barely opened only one gift during Ricardo's frenzy, but we returned our attention to our gifts after he was done. There were so many gifts that we spent over an hour opening them and then another couple of hours trying on and modeling the new clothes. Rosa had put the turkey in to cook while we were eating breakfast, and she left now to begin working on the rest of the meal while we cleaned up the wrapping paper mess and organized the gifts under the tree.
Grandma arrived for Christmas dinner around noon. We hugged and kissed and ushered her into the sitting room where we all talked until dinner was ready. Charles, as always, would eat in the kitchen. I think that he would have quit his job before agreeing to have dinner in the dining room with the family.
Grandma was curious about what we had been learning at school, so one by one we told her about each of the courses that we were taking. When we were done, we continued around the table by having Auntie tell us about everything that was happening with the oil company. She also told us about some new developments in drilling techniques. I appreciated it because I didn't have time to read half the trade magazines that I was getting now. My mail always contained the newest issues of publications involved with logging, paper production, office supplies, cattle breeding, farming, and textile manufacturing. How my name had wound up on all those mailing lists, I'll never know.
After Grandma had filled us in on what had been going on with her since Thanksgiving, I said, "Grandma, How do you manage to keep so busy? When I'm not buying something, I'm bored out of my mind. I don't seem to have any other function in the company."
"You have to remember that I'm presiding over three divisions, so that gives me a lot more to worry about and concentrate on. What you have to do is find the things that you can do, that no one else can, or should be doing. Concentrate on doing those. For instance, you told me that your division had already accomplished all of the goals that Susan and you set down in your five-year master plan. Then it's time to make a new plan. And since you've demonstrated such a knack for building the company, you can also pursue that."
"I can't do that for a while."
"Why not?"
"I've borrowed about as much as I dare to. We owe almost thirty seven million dollars on loans for the various properties that I've bought already."
"But you control plants with a combined value of about 150 million dollars, so 37 million isn't a problem."
"It is for me. I don't want to incur any further debt."
"If you were putting all your eggs into one basket, I could understand. But you're diversified well, and your plants are spread out, making them less subject to any local economy problems or weather related disasters."
"But, Grandma, it's 37 million dollars."
"Darla Anne, your plants are all operating in the black. Not only that, they're showing a excellent profit and slowly paying off the debt. Eventually, the division will be debt free."
"Not if I keep borrowing."
"Even if you keep borrowing, because the more you buy, the more profit that you make."
"I don't think that the bank would lend us much more, anyway. It took them a week to decide to increase our line to 30 million when I requested it before buying Owosso."
"Banks are funny at times. You'd be surprised what they'll do when they believe in you. Your only mistake was in not asking that it be increased to 100 million. Banks are in the business of lending money. Naturally they want to make sure that their loans are as secure as possible, but you've got a solid track record so far, paved with golden profits for the bank. Let's enhance that a little more. Ameri-Moore will buy the 244,000 acres of timberland that you just acquired. Along with the sawmill, we'll pay your division- 16 million dollars. That'll enable you to pay off the latest note if you can raise 3.2 million from revenues. Then, after the note is paid, request that your line of credit be increased from 30 to 100 million. I think that they won't even hesitate."
"We have about 4.4 million available right now, so we can retire the note, but it'll only leave us with a little over a million in operating capital."
"Don't worry, if you have any problems, Ameri-Moore will cover it. Besides your cash flow is excellent. I'll take care of the transfer so that the money will be available when you go to Vermont in January."
"Okay, Grandma."
Grandma stayed with us during the afternoon. We spent the hours talking, and trying on the clothes that Grandma had brought for us for Christmas. At dinnertime Rosa put out a nice meal consisting mainly of leftovers from our main dinner and we enjoyed our favorite foods all over again.
After dinner Grandma tapped on her water-glass with a spoon. We all stopped talking as she stood up.
"I have something that I want to say and I feel that this special holiday is an appropriate occasion." Grandma paused for a couple of seconds as we waited for her announcement. "You know that I lost my only child to illness while she was still an infant, and my husband passed away more than fifteen years ago. I had grown used to my mostly solitary existence and become accustomed to spending my holidays alone, except for my small staff. Although I've known Cathy for a number of years, we were only acquaintances until Darla Anne moved here and became like a granddaughter to me. Later, the rest of the family moved here from New Jersey, and like Darla Anne, you welcomed me into your hearts, and I took all of you into mine. Several years ago I had begun to feel that my life was mostly over, but your love infused new vitality into me. Our time together has been the happiest that I've known for many years and I love you all more than I can say."
Looking at my sisters and me, Grandma said, "You girls have been calling me Grandma for sometime now, and I've been telling people that you were my granddaughters, but a writer has discovered that we weren't really related and I expect her unauthorized biography to make a big issue of that when it's published. After discussing the matter with your mother and aunt, I decided on a course of action that I've been thinking about for the past two years. I hope that you'll be as happy about it as I am." Grandma paused and we anxiously waited to hear what she had to say. I noticed that her hand was trembling. I had never seen Grandma nervous before. Angry yes, but never nervous.
"Two days ago a court approved my application of adoption." Grandma paused again, this time to take a drink of water.
'Adoption' I thought. 'We can't be adopted, we already have a mother. Mother wouldn't give up her parental rights, would she? Not even for Grandma.'
(continued in part 30)
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