If I were a graduating kid today I would get rich and never work for anyone. First I would find five or ten acres off a main highway close to town and erect a metal building at the front. Then I’d find me the very finest pair of auto mechanics and a pair of the very best body men, and all five of us would go into a can’t-miss venture.

All over the Ozarks today, behind every run-down barn and in every weedy field near an old farmstead, there are thousands of old boats and motors that don’t need much repair. And too there are hundreds of old cars and trucks. These old clunkers and rust buckets are very often good for nothing but scrap metal, in which there is a small fortune to be made.

But that’s not for me. I envision myself driving from farm to farm, ranch to ranch, and talking to some old cattlemen I see.

“Sir, I see you have an old Outboard Evinrude and a 1949 pickup and a pair of cars from the 30’s, and I believe I can get you $200 for each of them if you will let me tow them to my place and set my specialists to working on them. We will perhaps get each running again and then pay you your share.”

Here’s where I would utilize my dad and both grandfather’s good names. I can see those farmers and ranchers saying, “That’s Bert McNew’s grandson! Who would be more trustworthy than him?”

About that time I would have to hire the prettiest girl from my graduating class to be a secretary-and-finance-taker-care-of-er.

Ought to be pretty easy to get a cheerleader, as a few of them are smart enough to do the job, and few are not going anywhere but to beautician school, or to become a housewife with 3 or 4 little babies. And those kind of young women call in grandma and try to find a job where they can make enough to pay grandma, or a baby-sitter, and break even.

Promise them that in five years they can be making 50 grand a year and you might hook one. You got to find a girl you’d like to marry, ‘cause if things get tough, you may want to. A wife is the only woman you can get to work free.

One word of advice here, “Don’t plan on having any kids for ten years as they will consume the profits when they come along.

If you are smart, as I should have been at the age of 18 due to my Dablemont genetics, then you’ll find an old Chevy that got left beside the barn because the transmission or the engine went bad and fix it up. Or some of those old boats got left beside the barn not because they didn’t run but because Grandpa kicked the bucket.

You find out from Joe & Tom, your two expert auto mechanics, what old auto engines will work in some old Buick and you find one in one of the hundreds of salvage yards, or maybe behind someone else’ barn 30 miles away. Just combine the two.

Maybe it isn’t the transmission or engine. Maybe it is all the wheel bearings went bad or it was run into a cow in the road on a dark night and the farmer meant to get it repaired but never did come up with enough money. You can find what you need to fix it, or have someone make it.

Anyway, if you are smart, as I would have been at your age, you can fix up a couple of these cars, hire a couple of young body men, Jim and Al, who can put on old fenders here and there, and paint and that kind of stuff. Then you will likely have 20 thousand dollars each in a couple of restored vehicles which you can sell to some older guy like me who had one just like it when he was young, which was a long, long time ago. Unlike me, some of those kinds of people from a long time ago have lots of money! They are the ones you gotta find to buy what you fix up. Convertibles from the 1950’s and sixties sell well to old guys whose wife divorced them and they hope to go out and find a younger one. He can use the old classic cars to get one. Now you get the idea!

All over the Midwest there’s also those old boats and outboard motors and if you can fix one that cost almost nothing you can sell it to somebody like me who can’t afford a new one. Next thing you know, you are repairing all sorts of old stuff, making it look new and run good and you are getting rich. When you do, remember who it was who told you how to get there… maybe name one of your kids after me.