Guatemala
May 1979

I had an awful lot of, mostly junk, for sale in the back of my rusted pickup truck. I had no idea how, or even if, anyone was going to want to buy any of it. I needn’t have worried, because at my very first stop in Mexico, I pulled into the town square, lowered the back tailgate, and started putting things out. I was almost instantly mobbed with towns people wanting to know what this strange long-hared gringo was selling.

After several hundred dollars in sales I was beginning to get nervous. The crowd was getting larger by the minute, and now a local policeman was making serious inquiries as to how much a broken can opener cost! He really wanted that can opener! With great difficulty, I closed up shop, and moved on to the next small pueblo.

This time I was more careful. I did not bring everything out at the same time. It worked, and in no time at all I had made another few hundred dollars. Getting more bold, I went to a local machine shop to see if they were interested in any of the broken tools that I had brought. To my surprise the owner wanted to buy the whole lot. Once again, I only sold him a few items, and then moved on. You see, at this point I really had no idea what anything was worth so my idea was to move slowly until I had a better feel.

Soon I had almost everything sold, but, because of laws, I could not sell the pickup in Mexico. For that last sale, I had to go down to Guatemala where the restrictions were much, well, non existent. I met a nice family, whose daughter I briefly dated. Then another family approached me with an offer to buy the pickup. The price was much less than I was hoping for, but they were so sweet that I made the cash deal anyway.

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With over $3500 in cash I took a bus north to Guadalajara, Mexico. With my new found wealth I now had to decide just what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. You guessed it. I now need another PLAN!