When I first moved to Edmonton I worked the rural community's during week days then on Saturdays I would take my buddy out with me but kept him confined to the city cruising the alleys.
It didn't take long for him to learn there was money to be made in scrap, his wife worked at MacMillan Bloedel where they made plastic bottles. They decided to close the plant we got all the scrap and I had tears as big as dog turds when we had to sign a destruction agreement we were not permitted to salvage or resell any of the blow molding equipment.
MacBlow left us a big forklift and we rented a tandem flat deck and hauled everything to Stelco in 10 ton loads mostly as oversize. WE split 50/50 the scrap was free.
A short time later Fiberglass Canada did a big expansion, Bob my buddy worked there and managed to get the scrap. his offer to me was a 30 percent cut and I told him to stuff it and that he was still clueless. I wanted 50/50 and told him that we would be getting double the money that Stelco had paid us. Without laying out everything in black and white the thought of making more money got the best of him finally he agreed to the split.
From that Fiberglass Canada job we were getting huge metal trusses, I-Beam, angle iron and channel with some tubing for which I found a private buyer, the buyer instructed us to offload in a particular spot in his yard then he paid up promptly asking if we had more of this he would buy more.
So we go and get another load and dump this at Nick's yard, this time no money. So I tell him hey bud we loaded this the first time so it's not going to be a problem loading it up again. Nick pointed to the bottom drawer of his office desk and told us to help ourselves to a drink and that he would be back on half an hour. True to his word back in half with the cash.
Nick and I have become life long friends he will always be a welcome guest in my home whereas the Bobs in my life have no place.
Years later I had turned over an 800 ton plus scrap job over to Nick, the owner wanted 25 big ones up front, by this time I had matured enough not to ask my father for a loan. Nick pulled through for me with a nice finders fee even though he never made any attempt to process the scrap which eventually got sold to another guy who made a down payment then never lifted a finger to process. This huge amount of scrap sat for years while the two of them sorted it out in the courts.
Eventually Nick got control of this scrap then sold it to Amix who did go in a clean up the majority leaving a few cats and a grader behind that were located at other locations a few miles further up the Harrison Lake.
At that time Ed Jackson owned and ran Amix eventually turning the operation over to his son whom I do not particularly like. Ed was at the helm when this deal came down, after they cleared out Ed gave me the rights to salvage the remaining scrap that they had left behind.
Scrap prices were way down so I did not go after any of the scrap, then when the price came up to an acceptable level made the long trip into the Harrison only to find that I had been robbed. The guys crane was still sitting at one of the logging camps, and yes I did meet him several years later. I'm aware that he got my scrap but wrote it off.
Now your asking yourself in this man daft to just write it off and leave it at that, well I could have pursued the matter legally and won my case in a court of law. To do this I would have had to waste Mr. Jackson's time which would have driven a wedge between our business relationship. Plus it would have shown how inept I was at looking after my own business.
Ed also told me that if I came across another large deal that he would front me the money, I never had to take him up on this offer as I had never run into another shrewed businessman as Henry Larson. He was the owner of that vast amount of
scrap metal up the Harrison Lake.
There was two of the largest Cummins engines I had ever laid eyes on sitting there, I'm almost sure that they burned bunker fuel. To start them you needed compressed air and lots of it, on some other engines I have seen and scrapped one of, a radial engine from WWII you used a shot shell to get it running.
They claim that your noted by the friends you keep. Birds of a feature flock together.
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