My dad, Elbert Ernest Banks, was a salesman. Selling was the only work he ever did. Yes, as a young man he was a volunteer fireman. And when he was in the Navy, during World War II, he was a firefighter there, too. But the only way he made a living, at least that I'm aware of, was sales. In 1943 he dropped out of high school to work in my Uncle Felton's store in Frankston. He joined the navy soon after that. Growing up, I remember my dad telling us many funny stories about his years in the navy.

After the war, Elbert went back to work for Felton, this time at his store in Rusk. He got sick with TB and spent some time at the veterans hospital in Kerrville, but he was unhappy there and he went home to Rusk to recover. I understand that during that time he also was recovering from an early, unhappy marriage. It was perhaps for this reason that he moved to Dallas to live with his sister, Kate, and her new husband Richard McLarnon. He stayed with Kate and Rich for a couple of years. He met my mother in Dallas while he was a loan underwriter at Interstate Finance. My mother tells of how he was sort of a cheap date. When they built the dam at Grapefine Lake, he asked her if she wanted to go see the submarine races. They married and soon moved to Lubbock, where he became an assistant manager for Interstate. Later, he went to work for the phone company, and that job took us all over the country: North Dakota, Florida, Oklahoma and Maryland in less than a year.

We moved back to Lubbock where my dad worked for Shedd-Bartush Foods, the margarine people. I remember him leaving on Monday mornings and returning Thursday or Friday nights. He was a route man, and his route was north Texas and eastern New Mexico.

Whether it was the climate or the travel, he eventually gave up this job and went to work selling service station equipment for his cousin, Holly Jones. This took us to Longview. He was still a route man, but his sales calls could be made without any overnight travel. This was more to his liking and to ours.

He eventually went to work for Holly's brother Wilmer D., and later went into business for himself. He had always wanted his own business, and he finally got his chance. (Before he took Wilmer's "pump bidness" he had gotten hooked into a number of schemes. I call them schemes, because that's what they were. For example, he sold a detergent called "Blitz" right after we moved to Longview. It turned out that the Blitz business was a "multilevel marketing" arrangement. He could have made something out of that opportunity, but the deal fell through when the manufacturer went belly up. Anyway, there were several "opportunities" like the Blitz deal (Amway, for one), but all of those fell apart for one reason or another. Never because my dad didn't have the heart or the skills to make them work. Those products just never gave him enough to work with. And, in fact, the Amway business came along after his own business had taken off. I remember him remarking once that he could have made a living with Amway if the timing had been right.)

When he took over Wilmer's pump business, I don't know if there was any money changed hands, or if Wilmer was just too busy with dirt hauling and let my Dad take over the part of the business he was running anyway. And it doesn't really matter. What matters is that once my Dad had that business, he had the opportunity he'd been waiting for his whole life. He was now B & J Equipment Sales and Service. He was still selling gasoline pumps, but now he was selling for himself.

I've read that four out of five businesses go under in the first year of operation. Business was tight the first year, but B & J didn't go under.

The second year, it almost did. When the Arab oil embargo brought the U.S. economy to its knees in 1973, it was especially chilling to businesses in the East Texas oil patch. No one was buying gasoline pumps until they could be assured there would be enough gasoline to pump. And during the summer of 1973, it didn't look like there would be.

My dad started his business with little more than his good name. He had problems with cash flow when there were sales. But with no one buying, he barely had enough money to prime the pump, so to speak, with Gilbarco, the manufacturer.

The embargo just about killed B & J. And it hurt my father. He became depressed. He stopped running his routes. There was one week that he walked around the house in his boxer shorts and undershirt. Then, he went to see his doctor. I think all the doctor gave him was a strong talking to. But it got him up and going. He resumed making calls, and little by little, sales picked up.

Not that there weren't some really lean times. That was the year he and Mom considered selling the house. In fact, during the first few years of his business, we were getting by mostly on my Mom's salary. Her salary and the car wash.

My dad had invested a few hundred dollars in a coin operated car wash on the east side of town. He replaced the equipment, and that car wash was, for a time, the best in town. During the worst of the business slowdown of 1973, the quarters from that car wash probably kept my parents from selling the house. I would often go over and feed soap to the car wash and rob the quarters, and I have fond memories of that chore. Nothing smells quite like the soap and wax dispensers in a coin-operated car wash.

It was at about this time, that my dad told me his "secret" to selling. He said something like this: "I don't pressure people to buy from me. I'm not that kind of salesman. That's why I didn't stay with the insurance business; people were trying to make me into a kind of salesman I'm not. I show people a quality product. Then I keep coming back to see them. I show them that I'll be there to make it right if the product doesn't live up to their expectations. Even if they don't buy anything from me, I keep going back. I put the idea in their mind that Bert Banks means what he says, that he isn't some fly-by-night, that he'll be back. My customer might be in Athens, and he knows that I live in Longview. But I make sure he knows I'll be back by to see him in a couple of weeks."

My dad had a very patient, a very long-term sales strategy.

What he didn't say, but what I can say about him, is that he also was an honest man. He was a straight shooter. He was a soft-spoken man, not the "brutally honest" type, the way I can be sometimes. But he never lied to his customers. He even played fair with the IRS, even though he never believed the government played fair with him. He was not a man who would tell you a story just to make a sale. He planned to be back around in a couple of weeks, and it wouldn't do to be telling stories.

Anyone who knew him will tell you that Bert Banks had enthusiasm! A soft-spoken man--never loud or overbearing--and yet he could always convey excitement about his ideas. This week his idea might be going fishing, next week he might be trying to sell someone on becoming his partner. Whatever he sold, he always shared his enthusiasm with his audience. My dad could become terribly excited about an idea or a product. And his enthusiasm was contagious. He was able to get others interested in his ideas, too. I believe this ability to share his excitement came naturally to him and that it was always genuine and heartfelt. He was as sincere as anyone I've ever known. But he also studied and applied the techniques of Dale Carnegie and developed his own unique system for remembering people's names. He was a very genuine person but he was also a professional salesman.

And he believed in his products. At least during the time he sold for Gilbarco and for Shedd-Bartush, he was a man who believed he had the best product on the market. It is a true fact, though I never witnessed it, that my dad would take people to tour Shedd's margarine factory in Dallas, and they say my dad would eat margarine straight off the assembly line. No, not with crackers or bread. Just the margarine. My dad was sold on Shedd spread. They didn't call it Shedd spread back then, though.

My dad died young, after a life filled with hard work. He did not get to retire or meet his grandchildren. That makes me sad even now. But he did realize his dream of becoming a successful businessman. Before he died, his business became very successful. The embargo passed. New "self service" marketing of gasoline led to a boom in the pump business throughout the remainder of the 1970s and early 1980s. He took on a partner, and enjoyed most of his remaining years as a successful businessman. For a long time, most of the gasoline pumps in East Texas were sold by my dad.

I am very proud of my dad.

So, when you come to sell me something, remember that I know about sales. No, I haven't sold anything since those flower seeds when I was six years old, but I grew up watching the best sales guy around. When you call on me, I will compare your character and your skills to those of my father. So, among the things you can expect: (1) I will recognize and respond negatively to pressure tactics; (2) if you spend more time selling me a maintenance contract than you do selling your product, I'll wonder what's wrong with your product; (3) if you want me to pay you for an estimate, I'll laugh in your face; (4) if you lie to me, and I catch you at it, I won't deal with you again.

Chances are you won't measure up to my dad. But that's okay, very few people do. I might still buy from you. But before I buy your product, I have to buy you first.

 (Note: I wrote this awhile back, in 1997. It is from my first Web site. It still exists in an Internet archive somewhere. I sent a link to Cherie (Artsfish) earlier this week, after reading her own very touching tribute to her dad, and she suggested I post it on OS. I saw that another dad story made the front page the other day. Pretty cool.  I was thinking about writing a really nasty rant about old people next week, so I wanted to have this out there first.)