Beech Tree News Network

On Sunday, I heard Sherry Lansing (film director) say, “If you take risks, you’re going to be wrong as much as you’re right.  That is the pain of life and the joy of life.” (CBS Sunday Morning)

                I’ve said before, one of my favorite quotes is, “Bought wit is the best you get.”  If a mistake costs us money, we rarely forget it, sometimes to our detriment.  A financial mistake often keeps us from taking more risks involving money, even ones that would produce financial gain.

                I have a friend who made a large financial investment in a start-up company that several people believed was the next big thing.  The company failed, and my friend lost several thousand dollars.  If that had happened to me, there is no way I would ever have invested more money in anything that was less than an absolutely sure investment.  I would probably have hidden any money I had left in my mattress and moved it and myself out of the county—maybe even the state—in humiliation.  My friend didn’t hide.  He turned right around and invested in another venture that paid off big time.  Those are the kinds of people who are my heroes.  They keep right on trying regardless of circumstantial evidence.

                When my husband, Garey, and I and our friends, Greg and Renee Hampton, decided to buy and develop the land that is currently the location for the Morgantown Inn, Jumpin Jacks, and Valvoline Express Care, there were a lot of naysayers.  The main criticism was, “It’s a swamp.  You can’t develop a swamp.”  What the naysayers didn’t know was Garey had several pieces of heavy equipment he had acquired during his coal mining venture.  There was also a land owner across the road from the location that needed a whole lot of dirt moved.  The dirt was moved, the acreage was built up to above the ’37 flood stage, and the rest, as they say, is history.

                When we planned to put a convenience store on one of those lots, the naysayers came back out of the wood work to tell us why that wouldn’t work either.  The big criticism was that the area wouldn’t support a convenience store.  Convenience stores had to be supported by population within a two-mile radius, and there weren’t enough people within a two mile-radius of that location.  We even had trouble getting a gas company to commit to the location.  Finally, Hildreth-Hopper took the plunge.  It was an investment they never had to regret.  We sold so many cold drinks that the Coca Cola Company in Bowling Green sat up and took notice.  They sent a crew to our store to set up our cooler for maximum sales of their product.

                We sold the lot next to Natcher Parkway (Now 165) to motel developers.  We sold Greggarey’s Market to Hildreth Oil Company, and developed a third lot into what is currently New Image Car Care and Valvoline Express Care.

                One day, about two years ago, Greg and I were standing in the parking lot of New Image, when he asked, “What are we going to do next?”

                “I don’t know what you’re going to do next, but Garey and I are old people, and we need to go to the house.”

                I don’t know what Greg and Renee will invest in next, but I do know two things.  They will be told their investment is a mistake, and they will be very successful in their venture.