“He doesn’t recognize us, Jim; we already know which gear we want.” “We’ll take advantage of it; pull a Larry Dale on

him,” Jim laughed, “act like you want one, then get him to part with the better ones for a good price. Come on, con man, do your stuff. Larry never saw it coming till it was over.”

              The Endless Times series: Volume One, The Path of Kokopelli, page 19

              I never said I was Mr. Clean, enter Larry Dale, last name unspoken, one of the meanest, crookedest, entrepreneurs in my county. And yes, he was a friend of mine, don’t ask me how I’d have to lie. I had a ‘vote for Larry Dale for Sheriff’ sticker on my van and the then-current sheriff got pissed and kept pulling me over so I ripped off my sticker. He was that bad; going to prison type bad, but that’s another story.

              Larry had a pig; I wanted to butcher the pig, but Larry wanted too much money. He came to see me when I was moving some houses on a certain street and on the same street sat an empty building with a nice set of steel stairs in the back. Larry spotted them, and asked how much; my reply was: “I’ll trade you those stairs for that pig you’ve got.”

              Well, the trade happened, I butchered a nice hog, he and his brother cut down those stairs off a busy street and made some heavy trailers. A month or so later, Larry was ribbing me about how much he took me for on my valuable stairs, how I’d finally slipped, and he made a pile of money. I started laughing and answered; “I never said those stairs were mine. You just asked me what I’d take for them, then I told you. I don’t have a clue whose stairs you cut up and stole off a busy street, in broad daylight.”

              He was so shocked I took him, he didn’t get mad, and even had the nerve to call me a crook, look who was calling the kettle black! P.S. the pig was tasty!