tlle Uooda" zdlr '\i;f" Guarantee for Quality and K. WOOD TUMBER Service a-, rifr,

Hardwood Lumber Yard Distributor3 Meet

All arrangements for the 1lth Annual Reveille of Northern and Central California lumbermen are being worked out by the various committees. The annual golf tournament, which has been held from year to year on the Saturday morning following the Reveille, will not be held this year, in view of transportation conditions.

The Reveille will be held in the Leamington Bowl, Hotel Leamington, Oakland, on Friday evening, May 7. The dinner as usual will be followed by entertainment.

The committee chairmen are the following: General chairman, Lewis A. Godard; Finance-Wm. Chatham, Jr.; Entertainment-D. Normen Cords; Banquet-Tom T. Branson; Program-Tom Hogan III; Attendance and Ticket Sales-Frank H. White; Reception-John Helm; Publicity-Miland Grant. G. W. Sechrist is general secretarytreasurer.

Duke Euphrat Makes Good Recovery

M. L. "Duke" Euphrat of Wendling-Nathan Co., San Francisco, is convalescing at his home following a serious illness which kept him in a hospital for eight weeks. He expects to be back on the job soon.

In Army Air Corps

Philip Garland, Jr., son of Philip Garland, vice-president and general manager of the Oregon-Washington Plyw'ood Co., Tacoma, is in training at Santa Ana, Calif., as a cadet in the Army Air Corps.

Peter A. Stone, Price Executive, Lumber Branch, Office of Price Administration, announced that a meeting of hardwood lumber distribution yard operators, both wholesales and retail, would be held at the Morrison Hotel, Chicago, Ill., at 10:00 a. m., Friday, March 26, L943. He extended an invitation to all such operators to send a representative to the meeting where the matter of prices for hardwood lumber sold from all types of_distribution yards would be discussed.

Returns To Lumber Business

Fred A. Amburgey was recently released from the Army in accordance with the executive order which provides for the release of men over 38, and has again become connected with Pope & Talbot, fnc.,"Lumber Division, San Francisco. He has been associated with this firm f.or 2I years. Fred completed six months' service in the Army, at the end of which he graduated from the radio school of the Army Air Forces Technical Training Command at Scott Field, Ill.

Farrier Penberthy Graduated

Farrier Penberthy, son of Paul Penberthy of the Penberthy Lumber Company, Los Angeles, was graduated March 6 as Lieutenant in the U. S. Army Air Forces from Mather Field, Sacramento. He is now stationed in Texas. He was a student at Stanford University up to the time he became an Air Force cadet.

A fellow named L. J. Bates wrote a little four liner one time, that has a top place in my sales scrapbook. It reads: "While the loitering idler waits Good luck, beside his fire, The bold heart storms at fortune's gates, And conquers its desire."

This is to report with distinct satisfaction that reports from the country generally indicate that there are plenty of "bold hearts" among the retail lumber merchants who have gotten their dander up and are storming "fortune's gates" like the guy in the above poem. They have made up their minds that if it can be done they are going to stay in business for the duration, and take whatever steps and do whatever work is necessary to accomplish that purpose in a comparatively lumberless time.

I get lots of reports. Some of them tell of still more dealers who have "stomped on the fire and called the dog." But there are numerous others-a great majority in fact-who are making a gallant fight for their business lives, and getting sufficient results to keep them trying.

It would be a strange thing if it took the war to force a lot of lumber dealers to become hustling building MERCHANTS, but it might happen.

Double-time working, hustling, thinking, substituting, displaying are some of the ingredients in the spring tonic that is keeping many a lumber dealer going right now. Boy, the things they are learning to sell ! The country or rural yard has a better chance to go into the substituting business than the big city yard, but there is a chance for all. f saw a lumber yard the other day with 60 feet of blank wall on an excellent buiness street. Today that wall is being torn out and will be immeditely replaced by display windows, and there will be things in those windows to attract the public attention.

The best way to tell what a dealer may do, is to tell what dealers are doing. I called on one the other day that I want to tell you about. His yard is a modest one on a corner, on the outskirts of a city of 60,000 people. The office is on the corner. ft is not a large office, nor was it built for a fancy display place. But they have made it into both a stock and display place that impressed me as few retail lumber plants ever have. In their sheds and yard they have some lumber, roofing, flooring, cement, sash and doors, and the other customary things you see in such places.

There was one difference. In one part of the yard there were two men building a chicken house; one that a truck can drive up and haul off. They build and sell them as fast as the men can work. In another part of the yard some more men were building a smaU, two-room dwelling, which they sell as fast as they can be completed. Needless to say neither the chicken house nor the human dwelling are anything fancy. They are simply emergency units that people are crying for, are willing and able to pay for, and which the dealer can make a satisfactory profit on.

Then I went into that office, or store, or whatever you want to call it. And when I looked around there came to my mind a remark that a very bright lumberman made just the other day in discussing these very matters. He said: "We have had to readjust our thinking and our acting. fn times like these we've all got to be able to think on our feet and step out of the way of the body blows." And that's sure as Hades what they're doing in this lumber place I'm trying to tell you about.

They have improvised every foot of space in the place, the walls are piled to the ceiling with goods, stocks are displayed on and under desks and tables all over the place leaving just room for folks to get about. Yet everything is in plain sight, everything is plainly marked, and ever;rthing is reachable. Talk about a lumber dealer substituting for the things a lumber yard ordinarily seJls, here is what I saw in that small omce-store. in the windows, on the sidewalks in front and on the side, all around, everywhere, with price placards in profusion:

Paint; wall paper; rope of all.sizes; gas stoves, various sizes and kinds; wood stoves of sheet metal and solid iron; wood stovepipe and other supplies; washboards with both wood and glass corrugated surfaces; axes of many sizes; hatchets: hammers of many kinds ; saws, all the way from a cross-cut to a keyhole saw; handles for every tool imaginable; garden tools of all kinds, big and little, for the small gardener to the big farmer; screen doors; screen door grilles; built-ins for homes; lanterns; lantern supplies, such as wicks and oil cans; electrical supplies, a nice supply, well assorted; a general stock of hardware; a general stock of carpenter's tools and supplies; working gloves of many kinds and prices; working socks; working handkerchiefs; steel wool; light globes; cleaning fuids; clothes pins; automotive supplies and tools; coffee pots and percolators; fishing tackle; fish lines of every kind; bamboo and fancy fish poles; cord and twine of all sizes; brooms, big and litttle, cheap and expensive; mops, various kinds; a folding rack for drying clothes, all made of wood; wheelbarrows; many mirrors; wall ornaments and decorations; yard man supplies such as lawn mowers, clippers, etc.; brushes, a large and varied assortment, including paint; rulers of all sorts for carpenters and others; door mats; folding cots; folding chairs; wooden pails and buckets; rnetal pails and buckets; wooden tubs; metal tubs ; metal cans of all sizes for various sorts of containers; garbage cans in variety; water purnps; bed slats, various sizes; fence building equipment; metal mail boxes; toilet seats; household oils and lubricants; household c€rr€Dt, solder, glue; gardenhose and nozzles; auto tire and tube re, pair supplies; wooden mallets; electric flashlight lamps and supplies; mouse and rat traps; sand and emery paper; ice cream freezers; cement blocks; glass of all sorts; naptha and kerosene; wall boards; ladders; harness; wood preservers; plows; lime; cement; screen wire; screens; pipe; pipe fittings; asphalt roofing and siding;