Archives/Special Collections, University of Illinois at Springfield

They used to come in with the old patent medicine and they'd sell them and some barker
would come up there and he'd come up with some special liniment or something, I don't
know. I ahvays recall the time I had a fellow selling eyeglasses. And I was a kid then,
real young. And he stayed at the hotel and he needed somebody to ride along with him
and show him where people lived. He'd give me a few bucks a day and that was a lot of
money in them days to get a couple dollars a day. A lot of people worked for a dollar
then. I'd make two dollars. That was a .lolot of money. Just to show him where they
lived. Aed I always recaIled be went to one place and he was getting thirty-five dollars
I think or twenty-five for his glasses. And thew people didn't want to pay and he kept
coming down and coming down. He come down to nine dollars and ninty-five cents. And
he come back down and hell, he'd still made five dollars.
Q: (laughter) He did pretty well. What was your first venture into business?
A: In business? Well, buying this truck was the first thing I - things were pretty tough
for us. We didn't have much money. A lat of times we didn't have enough, hardly enough,
to eat. As I said, we was wealthy at one time, and then my dad had to sell all of his farms
out because he had signed so many notes and he had to make them good. He had to sell
this piece of property and that piece of property. In fact we was going to lose this building
one time for - the mortgage was fifteen hundred dollars on it at that time. Everybcdy
thought he was going to lose it. We used to kneel down before the lighted candle and pray
that the Lord would save our home. In fact I told that story one night. Do you care if I
go ahead and tell this?
Q: No, fine.
A: I was out campaigning one time in Adams County and I said I'd never go back in a bar
again on a rainy Saturday morning. It was early, about this time of the day, and I went
in and the place was filled with people. And [when] I got in there, I wished I'd have never
stopped. YOU could just feel the atmosphere. And so 1 always asked the bartender if it
was proper to buy a drink because in same places the people are insulted if you buy them
a drink. You know, they think this kind of over. They argue with something. They think
they're just as good as you are. They want to show that they've got just as much money
as you have. So I always asked the bartender if it was proper. Yea, he said it was okay,
so I then give him a drink. And here come two old fellows, pretty well loaded - ''You
actually make a million dollars in the legislature, aren't you?"
Q: Well.
A: And well T didn't know what to say because if you argue with them, you're going to get
into trouble if you're out there drinking. So I stood there a while and I decided to pass
it up and they kept raising hell about it. And finally I said, "Just where in the hell did
you get that idea?" And they said, "Oh your opponent was is here." That's the reason
they were drunk to begin with see. He'd been in there drunk. I said, "Well he didn't tell
you that quite right." I said, "You know, 1 had that million dolIars before I got into the
legislature." Well that would have been bragging. That wouldn't have been any good you
know, ao I had to recall real quick. And I said, "Boy but T can remember the time when
we used to kneel down before a lighted candle and pray that the Lord would save our
home." %fore I went out of there I had them all for me.
But that was sure a ticklish situation to get into. 1 always recall that. I never want to
get into a psitian like that again because I didn't know what the hell to say because if
I'd have argued with them I'd have gotten into a big argument with them. And this way
I let them gain their point and T went along with their idea and then brought up another
deal and before I went out there, why, they felt sorry for me.
Q: Well, (chuckles) Using a truism that actually . . .
Carl Wittmond Memoir -- Archives/Special Collections, University of Illinois at Springfield