My Logistics Career Started by Making Deliveries to La Grange’s Chicken Ranch

Is it possible to believe that in the mid 1960s, the State of Texas would allow 14 year old’s to have a driver’s license? Well they did. All that was necessary was proof of a hardship and living on a family farm was hardship enough. By the summer of 1964 I had my driver’s license, a car, and a need for the extra cash that working on our farm did not supply. “Borrowing” tractor gas and oil from the barn was no problem. What was needed was the money for insurance bills, road trips and the other necessities of life with wheels. I was a man about town in a ‘56 Mercury.

The way to find a small town job back then was simple, you had to know somebody who knew someone who needed a person to work for them. Lucky for me, my mother was the Fayette County Judge’s secretary and she was in touch with almost everyone on the La Grange Courthouse square. She learned that one of the drug stores needed a delivery boy and soon I was gainfully employed all day Saturdays and after school.

This was the dream job of every kid with a driver’s license. Not only did I get to drive around in the drug stores 1961 Ford Falcon, but I also got paid to do it. Never mind that I had to polish cases, put out inventory, work the register and sweep the floors, my real reason for being there was deliveries and they took precedence over everything else. Back then, people did not go to the drug store like we do today. They went to the doctor, he called the drug store, and I delivered the prescriptions to their house. Deliveries were kept in a cardboard box behind the counter and when they accumulated to about 10 stops, I would start my run. The pharmacist would always tell me to take my time and stop for a coke at the local Dairy Mart. I learned very quickly to make a route plan, which would give me some extra time to visit friends long the way. My deliveries would include private homes, the hospital, several old folks centers, and sometimes businesses, but there was one delivery that was different from all the rest.

If you ever lived anywhere in Texas, then you know that the “Chicken Ranch” (The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas) was just outside the La Grange city limits. The drug store I worked for had the contract to provide them with the necessary supplies to safely conduct their business. I can tell you that they did a booming business, because the ranch got a lot of supplies. The difference between this delivery and all the others was that the pharmacist only gave me that one package and he did not tell me to take my time. He would hand me a large box, check his watch, and tell me to come right back. Now I knew that he knew just how long it took to drive out to the establishment, drop off the box, and come right back to the store, I also knew that if I didn’t return quickly enough, he wasn’t calling the cops, he was calling my mother. The madam and I were on a first name basis and I even got a few tips, but they were strictly cash and nothing else.

The world was different then, a kinder gentler place. Knowing it or not, I learned a lot of customer service skills, the methods of routing deliveries (that I would later use as a logistics manager), and how to be dependable and self reliant without a lot of supervision. One final funny note is that a number of years later, I told several fellow Houston Transportation Club members that my first job in distribution was making deliveries to the Chicken Ranch. The year after Marvin Zindler helped close down the establishment; he and I were selected as the judges for the Miss Transportation beauty pageant, during National Transportation Week.

What an exciting and interesting way this was to start my working life.