Chapter 11

“Mum and I have an idea; we have been talking about this ever since you sent the reward money. We still own the house on North Detroit Street. We would like to fix it up and rent it out. If that works we would like to buy others and do the same thing.”

“How will the finances work?”

“The Detroit Street house is worth eleven thousand dollars. We put twenty percent down and started with an eighty-eight hundred dollar mortgage. At two percent interest, for thirty years, that works out as thirty-two dollars for the monthly house payment.”

“We have checked with two local realtors and they both suggested we ask for seventy-five dollars a month for the house. We would put away twenty dollars a month for repairs, insurance, and it sitting empty.”

“That would give us twenty-three dollars a month for the family budget. Our thinking is to get that house into shape, rent it out, and then buy others.”

“Duplexes seem to be the best bet as the cost wouldn’t be that much more and you could rent each side out for sixty dollars a month. That would be one hundred and twenty dollars a month income with a set aside of forty dollars or eighty dollars to the family for every duplex we own.”

Mum stepped in, “If we owned five units like that we would be making four hundred dollars a month which would more than replace Jacks’s railroad income in a good year. Seven units would allow for units sitting empty. Ten and we would be rich.”

“Let’s go for rich,” I replied.

“Dad I am big enough I now could help with home repairs and keep lawns mowed and things like that. We have enough leftover that we could buy two units right now with twenty percent down.”

“Rick we can do better than that, the North Detroit house has seven thousand dollars in equity,” said Dad.

“What’s equity?”

The difference between what the house is worth and the amount we owe on it. We can take out a new loan up to eighty percent of the amount of equity we have. If we are careful about what we buy and how much money we need for repairs we can start out with five duplexes.”

“What do we have to do to start?”

“We have identified three units we would like to buy if the price and building conditions are right.”

“I am all for it!”

“Okay son, your mother and I feel that ownership should be set up that the houses go to you if anything should happen to us. We are going to talk to a lawyer about how to make that happen.”

And that was the beginning of Jackson Housing.

My parents had one last question, “What is in that shipping box that is marked, Do Not Open?”

I told them about finding the gold and what the gold miners told me about gold being deregulated. Dad remembered everyone having to turn in their gold during the Great Depression. He remembered because it was a bitter joke in his house, they had no gold to turn in.

They agreed that we should look into that possibility because it could end up as a small fortune. In the meantime, Dad would look into a safe deposit box to store it.

They also had some information for me.

Dad said, “George Weaver of the Bellefontaine Examiner will be contacting you. He was called for information on you by James Olsen out in Colorado after the bank robbery. George did not know much other than you weren’t known as a juvenile delinquent and had been a paperboy.”

While not a loner I didn’t have any close friends in my middle school years. Those friends from my grade school days had moved away. I knew most of the kids from my grade school but didn’t get invited to their birthday parties.

That was how you knew your social status in those days. I hadn’t any social status. I wasn’t an outcast. I just wasn’t in any of the groups.

The first thing I did the next day was going to J.C. Penny and buy new school clothes. All that I had that would fit me were my cowboy outfits. Those would do for the rodeo circuit and my singing appearances but would get me teased to death in Bellefontaine.