04/23/2019
It was all Dad's fault … and the rest of the story.
By Randy Wells
It was a warm summer day. Alvin Chapman and I were playing in the yard as usual. (we were both about 9 years old at the time.) The subject came up that our lawn needed to be mowed and I /we decided that we would try to mow it ourselves. Maybe I could surprise my parents. I then got the mower out of the garage, past the large chest freezer and the workbench. There was only about ½” inch of clearance so it was difficult to do. When I tried to start the mower, I couldn’t get it started.. I looked into the gas tank and found that it was out of fuel. Oh, darn! The gas can was also empty, too.
Being the know-it-all that he was at the time, Alvin, spoke up and told me that he had heard that you could run a mower on "SOAPY WATER". As stupid as I was at the time and/or as anxious as I was to mow the lawn, I decided to try it.
When mom finally came out of the house to see what I was d**g with the "SWAN" dishwashing detergent, I had already filled the tank with this new "Gasoline substitute!" She was not happy and uttered the dreaded phrase "JUST WAIT TILL YOUR FATHER GETS HOME ! ! ! "
After the BEATING, dad took me outside and we got the white table that usually sitting under the window outside the garage, and moved it to the middle of the backyard. He then proceeded to teach me the principles of how a lawnmower engine "REALLY" worked. We then took the complete lawnmower apart... piece…by...piece...! We disassembled the carburetor and cleaned out of it all the alternative fuel that I had dumped into it. Of course the gas tank and fuel line also had to be removed and cleaned. Just for good measure we took everything else apart too and then reassembled it again.
I had a blast figuring out how things worked and how they went back together again. We even cleaned everything on the entire mower until it was spotless.. We had found a very good use for my gasoline substitute!! !! In that day we didn't dare waste anything. We didn't have “money to burn” After the cleaning we then painted the mower. It looked like brand new. It was so much fun and also very satisfying when we put the new "REAL" gasoline into the mower that we had made a special trip to the station to buy, and it started on the first pull.
The engine never ever sounded the same again after that, though... it sounded better. We had done a great job. And we did it together.
Little did my dad know at the time, but he had kindled an interest and a passion inside me for using and repairing lawnmowers. Not only did he start me on a hobby, but he also started me on my career.
So you see “It was all Dads’ fault”!
At age 9 I mowed my first lawn. My mom watched me from a distance. … YELLING POINTERS across the yard. My mowing business grew quickly and by the time I was 12 I was mowing as many as 8 or 9 lawns every day after school. I was paid $1.50 per regular lawns and $2.00 for large lawns. I mowed twice that many on weekends and all summer long when school was out. I even rigged a couple if flashlights onto my mower so I could mow well into the night.
I had to learn how to repair my own lawnmowers because I did not want to spend all of the money I had made mowing yards getting my old mowers fixed. Soon my neighbors found out that I knew how to repair mowers and started bringing me their mowers to fix. So I would fix mowers in my garage at night when it was too late for me to mow lawns. In the summer when I did not have school, I would stay up until sometimes 1:00 am or 2:00 am in the morning fixing mowers. I was still only 12 or 13 years old. Soon, I found out that I could make a lot more money fixing mowers than pushing them....
and I didn't get nearly as sunburned... LoL.
I then started finding old discarded mowers and fixed them up and sold them as used mowers. I put ads in the newspapers saying, "Wanted! JUNK Lawnmowers”. People from all over brought me their old mowers. Usually they just gave them to me but sometimes I would buy them.
One day I got a knock on the door and a man asked if I was the one that wanted junk mowers. When I told him "yes", he said he had some mowers for me and all he wanted was $25 to pay for his gas. What I did not know at the time was that he had brought me a "Tri-Axle" Dump Truck load of mowers. They were stacked as high as you could see. We had them unload them all onto my back yard. The back yard was only about 50ft x 50ft. When they were done unloading the truck, our whole back yard was completely full. Mowers were stacked 2 and 3 high. The next day I sold one of the engines for $35. That paid for all the mowers and I had $10 left over.
So now I was REALLY in the MOWER business.
I was still only about 13 years old. I still mowed lawns, but not quite as many. I got very good at taking 2 or 3 mowers and combining them to make one good mower that worked. I then put the working mowers out on the front lawn and sold them at a profit.
When I was not yet 16 years old, I got a job at the local mower repair shop... named "Rapid Auto Radiator Repair". They repaired car cooling systems, radiators and heater cores as well as Lawn mowers. I learned how to remove and repair radiators, too, when winter came and not many mowers came in to be fixed.
When I was almost 17 years old, I was still only making $1.60 per hour while the other mechanic was making about $8.50 per hour at the shop and I was doing at least twice as much work and was repairing twice as many mowers as was he... I asked for a raise and told the boss he would have to pay me AT LEAST $3.50 per hour to keep me. He told me no, he couldn’t do that... so I quit.
I then rented the old McCuller’s Meat Market building located on the corner of State Road 9 and McKenzie road in Greenfield and started "Randy's Lawn Mower Repair”.
After a year or so, I made one of my biggest mistakes of my life. I went back to Rapid Radiator and bought the business. I was going to run BOTH businesses. After I had been at Rapid Radiator for 2 weeks.... during the busy season, I found out something very interesting. The only customers that came in the business I had purchased were customers that "Hated my guts"! And there were only 3 or 4 customers that came in during that entire 2 week period! My original shop was extremely busy during that period of time. What I found out was that I had already STOLEN all of Rapid Radiator's customers. So I closed that business down and concentrated on my own business..... But, I still had to pay the payments on the purchase of the other business. It took me 5 years to pay off that debt.
In 1975, I graduated High School. I then took a college summer school coarse and enrolled at Indiana Central College. My mom stayed in my mower shop during the week and I came home on weekends to do the repair work. During the week days while I was at college, I had a job at the College and another job at a TV repair shop. I was paying my way through School.
I met my future wife, Rita at a party while I was there at college. The ONLY party I ever attended while there. (I was set up by her friend). (There is a completely different long story I could tell about that encounter.)
After 1 1/2 years of college, the owners of the building I was renting for my mower shop decided he was going to sell the real estate where my shop was located. It also included the house next door. Rita and I discussed at great length, what we wanted to do. We decided that we would quit school, get Married and live in the house next to the shop...
so we bought the property. Rita got a job, first as a proof-reader at the local newspaper, (Greenfield Daily Reporter) and then later as a Bank Teller and I ran the shop full time. This was in 1977. We were both 20 years old. We were married August 7, 1977.
In 1980 a man in a very expensive car and a very expensive suit, drove into my parking lot. I went outside as he was getting out of his car. I soon found out that he was the owner of Johnson Oil Company. I joked with him by saying," I’ll bet you want to buy my property". He said, “Maybe". He then asked me "{How much would you want for it"? I thought I would scare him away with a big price. But after I gave him that big price....
He immediately said. "OK". I was shocked although I was not too upset at the time, but as I thought about it, I figured I gave him too low of a price. But at 20 years old, I had $50,000.00 in my bank account that I didn't have before. He bought my property so he could expand the Shell station. We had agreed on a price so I sold it to him. I couldn't go back on my word. He let me keep the business there and let us live in the house while I was looking for a place to move the business to. (Rent Free... Good deal for me)
I bought a property on West Main Street at a Sheriff’s auction and built our new business building there. I actually designed the building myself. We lived in the house behind it. We moved out of that house in 1993... the same year my mom died., because our 2 kids were now too old to share a bedroom. We moved into our present house on Winfield Street and we are still there.
My wife, Rita has been the bookkeeper and parts manager for the last 35 years at our business. Many people say that you should not work with your spouse, but we made a good team and it worked out well for us.
While running my business, I have won many awards; have been written about in several magazines and newspapers. I have also written many articles about lawnmowers and mowing. Many of my articles have been published in different newspapers and magazines, both locally and nationally. One of my articles (after a little editing) had even been packed inside the Bolens Mulching Mower retail box.
Because of my health, Rita and I started the LONG process of selling our business. On January 12, 2019, the sale was complete. Rita began looking for a job and I filed for disability.
It really is different for me to not go to work every day. I had been doing the same thing since I was 9 years old. I am 63 years old now, so do the math. It has been 44 years since I "OFFICIALLY" started the business in a business location... but I really started it about 10 years earlier when I was just 9 years old. Rita has now taken a job at Loyal Manufacturing Co. as the office coordinator and bookkeeper and has been working there for just over a year. So now you know most of my life story. (Revised 12-19-2020)
