Page 4 - Travels with Johnny "Butch" MacDonald

ISSUE : Issue 36

Published by Ronald Caplan on 1984/6/1

Hoist them up, lift them up, put them on the scale. (If there was a big snowstorm, would you still go that day?) Well, practically, practically, yes. It would take quite a storm if I wouldn't make it. If I told the fellow I'd be there on a certain day, I was there on a certain day. Especially if you're dealing in lambs. Cattle is not so bad. But when you're dealing with lambs, if you tell a man you're going to be there on a certain day, you want to be there. That man goes through that trouble of catching those lambs. See, if you disappoint that farmer, that news would travel all around that neigh? bourhood. And the next fellow you said, "I'll be up there Wednesday," he would just say, "Well, maybe he will and maybe he won't." It was building a reputation, of course it was. They know you're going to be there. And you have to do that to stay in business. You're dealing with far? mers. You've got to trust them, and they trust you. If they don't, you don't do business with them, (You certainly have to trust them, I see you put animals onto their farms, and you don't take money back.) That's right, yes, I wasn't always like that. When I started out, I had to sell a calf to buy another calf. 1927-28--that's when I started travelling through the country. I was working long be? fore that. That's when I started going through the country. Going alone. I didn't travel with my father too much. He'd send you, "Go here, go there, go this way, do this, do that," I didn't go to school that long. How I got it in the cattle business was through experience, you know. There's only one way to get it. (Would your father take you aside and sit you down and teach you?) He wasn't too good for that. He nev? er did that too much. Sometimes I wonder now, why, you know? But anyway, that wasn't his way--he'd send you out to go and get a calf. And I'd say, "How much am I paying?" "Oh, he'll tell you--he knows, he knows." (The farmer'11 tell you?) That's what he said to me, yes. He used to give me the horse, "Go to so-and-so's place and get a calf," Of course, you made mistakes, I made more than one. J.A.Young&Son; We want to be vour travel agent. For all your travel tieed$?.. American Express Travel Service J. A. Young & Son Insurance & Travel Agent 181 Charlotte Street Sydney, N.S. 539-'800 We're the all-around travel agent • with hundreds of American Express Company, subsidiary and Representative Travel Service offices to help you here and all around the world. And with an all-around package of services no one else can match: • Book plane tickets • Arrange complete vacations • Sell, cash or refund American Express? Travelers Qteques • Offer complete business travel service • Help at destination • Reserve hotel space • Provide rental cars and limousines • Provide American Express pay-later plans (for American Express* Cardmembers) • A unique combination oi travd financial services Don't leave home without ih.*"

Cape Breton's Magazine