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The salches and the thompkins
All stories have two sides, sometimes more. This is one of those stories that may well have other views, bbu I know not of. What I relate here is what I was told and perceived personally.
Back in the 1960s we lived on grandpa's farm. While farming my dad toyed with electronics, radios specifically. He was always into ham radio and such.
He had a best friend, a family named Thompkins in refugio. I believe the dad's name was Charles. Lets assume for simplicity that Charles is correct. Him and my dad were best friends in personal life as well as church.
Somehow through the early 60s a gadget was invented. I do not know who actually invented it, but out of this a business partnership was formed between the friends. It was a gadget called a tunaverter. This thing would plug into the back of a car am radio and be the equivalent of a one channel tunable police scanner (which didn't exist yet). The user could tune the tunaverter to the proper channel and listen to police / fire / ambulance radio calls through a regular am radio. It was a brilliantly simple device.
http://radiomuseumr/tompkins_tunaverter_1564.html
The partnership was simple... Tompkins would build the device and the salches would market and sell it. They put in a manufacturing "plant" at their house and our home was taken over with printing, mailing, shipping. Growing up I remember learning the states while sorting outgoing mailings in a huge 50 hole box, a necessary step to lower mailing costs.
The plan worked. Over the years sales increased, the device was sold all across America and some foreign countries. The business that began in dad's office soon took over the garage forcing a new garage to be built, and then took that in also. There were several employees on our side that doubled as farm work when needed. Many more products joined the line, expanding into wireless speaker adapter, aircraft receivers, etc.
But, there was a problem.
Apparently early on the decision was made to structure the partnership between families so that the salches would "buy" the product from the Thompkins to fill sales orders. That way manufacturing costs were covered up front, and the Thompkins had a steady income from day one. The salches then paid for all marketing, advertising, shipping, etc, bought the devices at wholesale, and sold them at retail.
The story I got was this... The agreement worked fine in the early years when sales were slow. Thompkins apparently made enough money to satisfy all needs and prosper. The salches struggled under the cost of marketing. But after a while that changed. Sales grew and the salches started making money. Apparently big money, or at least big enough to raise issues. Charles became envious. My dad said that they had many conversations and arguments about their original agreement, and how they profit was going to cover their expense already laid out by then salches in worldwide advertising.
Tensions rose. As the businesses prospered, the friends and partners fell apart. What my dad called greed destroyed it. And in their end, could not be resolved the salchs needed to stick to their original agreement to be able to cover their debts incurred in advertising, while they Thompkins had already covered their debt of manufacturing through their wholesale sales.
Lawsuit. Charlie filed against our family. He sued for what he perceived as his share of the profit the salchs were making by buying wholesale and selling retail. There friendship ended in adversaries. Dad struggled. Lawyers told him he should fight it, that he had the winning legal grounds. Yet after much prayer and contemplation he agreed to pay out there lawsuit without a fight.
Why? They scripture plainly says "do not take a brother to court" do not let them heathen decide between you in matters of the world. Thompkins refused to negotiate so in their end dad said ok without a fight, and the salchs paid out there lawsuit amount over there next 10 years or so.
The business dissolved, tunaverter ceased to exist other than some large boxes full of them and parts in our storage building. The era ended and digital scanners replaced them. The families separated fully, and there was years of bitterness between them.
One good thing that came out of all this was that dad realized his salesmanship and marketing skills. We moved to town, rebuild an old funeral home into a retail store and print shop, and salch company was born. It became a mini mall with a wide variety of things offered until Walmart finally moved in and kill small town business (a different story)
The better thing that happened is dad kept his integrity. He paid the price for following scripture, we were poor for years. Struggling to eat while we paid off their lawsuit. But integrity is worth more than cash. From what I heard the Thompkins family ran into all sorts of personal problems. They seed of greed planted, it grew and prospered, destroying them more than the financial drain hurt us.
I remember as a young boy, maybe 8 or so, walking through the then abandoned manufacturing plant. A room there size of a 2 or 3 car garage, empty and ghostly. It was in the Thompkins back yard. Perhaps the house was empty and for sale, I do not know, but that is my sole memory of a family that hurt ours so deeply.
Mom spent years angry and somewhat bitter. She could not speak of them without bitterness in her voice. She never really trusted people again after that. She had to write and mail them monthly checks before buying food for her own family, every month, for years. It ate at her.
So I grew up in their shadow of a partnership, friendship, fouled by greed. Poor, struggling, but living up to decisions made, and holding integrity higher than profit or even sustenance. It molded and shaped me to see the value of intangible things over there tangible. It showed me that my dad was dedicated to live the scriptures, even at great personal harm, not just read and preach them.
