Guest Features
The Value of Going the Extra Mile
Bill Fowler | Guest Writer
I will never forget an incident from my youth when I was with my Grandpa Bill Laursen (I am named after him), who lived in American Fork. He used to take me with him when he sold welders to farmers or businesses that needed them. Grandpa would make about $30 for each welder sold. In 1955, the going price for a Forney Welder was about $250.
One day, we visited a farmer in Payson who did a lot of metal work with his machinery. Grandpa was a very likable, social man with a pretty heavy Danish accent because his mother and father came to the United States with their family in the 1880s and only spoke Danish at home. Grandpa and his four brothers were all blacksmiths and were also talented farriers (horseshoe men).
Everyone had horses in the latter part of the nineteenth century, and there were no cars. Grandpa once called himself a “mule mechanic,” which I did not understand until I was older. Anyway, on that day, he sold the farmer a welder and showed the man how to use it. I recall the farmer was very hesitant to buy it because he said it was “expensive,” and he worried about justifying the price, given the potential reward or use.
He finally signed the deal, and Grandpa left him the welder and a guarantee that he could return it within 30 days and receive a full refund if it did not meet his expectations. A few days later, Grandpa asked me to go back to the Payson farm with him because the man wanted his money back and now believed he no longer needed the welder. Grandpa was usually very jovial and talkative on these trips, but on this day, he was pretty quiet and introspective. A $30 commission meant a lot to him.
When we arrived at the man’s farm, he came out to greet us, and suddenly, Grandpa Bill became like an old friend to him. He laughed, shook his hand and began a conversation about hunting, fishing and telling a few jokes. After a brief and friendly exchange, Grandpa asked the man if he had any metal work that needed to be done.
“Well, I did buy the welder hoping to fix a gate clasp for my front yard, and my barn door needs two large hinges repaired, and I guess I could put a new hitch on my Farmall tractor,” he said hesitantly.
“I was going to do these chores with the new welder, but I can get by without all of them being done right now and don’t need to spend a lot of money anyway,” he continued.
“Let’s fire up the welder and go to work on them right now,” Grandpa laughed as he hooked up the welder to an extension cord and put on his overalls and welding helmet.
The startled man seemed almost giddy as he got the front gate and dragged it to Grandpa. Twenty minutes later, the clasp was beautifully welded, polished, repaired, and put into place. Grandpa helped the man loosen the broken hinges on his heavy barn door, and within 30 minutes, they were welded, repaired, and replaced, with the door working to perfection. In half an hour, a new hitch was welded to his tractor attachment bar, and the farmer was beaming with gratitude.
Then, Grandpa asked if the farmer had any horses that needed to be shod.
“I got a plow horse, but she’s pretty ornery,” the farmer said.
“Let me take a look at her hooves, while you fire up your bellows and hearth,” Grandpa said with a big grin on his face. “I’ve got some new horseshoes in my pickup.”
The man’s eyes got wide as he just shook his head and said, “Okay!”
Grandpa walked into the barn and immediately began whistling and talking to the big Percheron workhorse while giving it a couple of sugar cubes he retrieved from the glove box of his truck. He entered the stall and began stroking the big horse on the neck and talking to her while giving her the lumps of sugar. The horse immediately responded like an old friend, and Grandpa knelt to inspect her feet.
“Needs shoes bad,” he said. “She’s ornery because her feet hurt!”
Grandpa went to his truck, got some new horseshoes and shaped and pounded them into a perfect fit as the farmer stood back and watched a master farrier get a tough job done on a very hot day. Grandpa put shiny new horseshoes on the big horse and drove nails into her feet without a moment of trouble from the animal, who almost seemed grateful to be outfitted with new shoes.
When Grandpa was done, he turned to the man as sweat dripped down his face and removed his old, stained coveralls. “That welder is like a new right hand if you put it to work, Walt,” said Grandpa.
The man shook Grandpa’s hand, took out his old leather-stained wallet, and handed Grandpa a $20 bill and $5 in ones. “Take this for the horseshoes, Bill. I can’t imagine not having that welder here on the farm.”
“Thank you very much, I sure do appreciate it,” Grandpa replied.
We left, the man waving and smiling broadly to the new friend he had made that day.
Grandpa smiled, laughed, and told me fishing stories all the way back to Lehi.
A few months after this powerful learning experience with my wonderful Grandfather, he was hired to direct the Metallurgy and Welding Program at Utah Technical College in Provo (Now UVU).
President Wilson Sorenson spoke at Grandpa’s funeral many years later and described my Grandpa Bill as the best “teach by example” instructor of young students he had ever known and called his hiring of Bill Laursen, “One of the best decisions I ever made.”
