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You never know how a major industry can start. This one started because a father with several grown sons had a problem with the town. Because his sewage was running out into the street from his cesspool he had to do something about it in a hurry. He didn't have enough to buy a septic tank, and the guy from the town was getting noisier and noisier by the day. However he did work for a company that manufactured a dry concrete mix. Everyday when he left work he would fill up his lunch-box with some of the cement mix that had spilled out during the day. When he got home he would dump his lunch-box into a wooden box on his back porch. This he repeated everyday until there was enough of the mixture in the box to make a septic tank.

Now, at last he could make his own septic tank, and tell the town to shut up. He went out into the backyard, and knocked together the form to make a septic tank. When the form was finished he put the cement mixture into a mortar tub and mixed it up with a hoe. When it was the right consistency, he poured it into the form.

While he was filling the form with the concrete a guy came driving down the road, and spotting "Pop" pouring concrete he stopped and asked him what he was doing.

Pop replied, "I'm making a septic tank."

To that the guy said, "How much do you want for it?"

Pop said, "I don't know what'll you give me for it?"

"Forty bucks," the guy said.

"You come back in three or four days when I can strip the form off it!"

Four days later the guy was back with the biggest wrecker in town along with a lowboy trailer to put the septic tank on. He handed Pop the money, loaded the trailer with the wrecker, and drove off.

Now that he had some money in his hand Pop nailed the form back together, and called the company he worked for to bring him over two yards of concrete in one of their cement mixer trucks. While he was pouring this time, another guy came down the street, and yelled up tp Pop, "What are you doing?"

"I'm making a septic tank!" "You want to buy it?"

The guy yelled back, "How much?"

"Forty bucks, and you come back and get it in four days!"

"OK," the guy yelled back.
This time Pop went into his house, and called his sons. The company they created that night over the kitchen table eventually became a leader in its field making all kinds of Precast structures as well as manufacturing a line of custom trucks to move septic tanks. Today it is part of a huge multi-national company with plants all over the world, but it still makes septic tanks.

Learn more about this author, John Carter.
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