Tom: Physically I was in good shape, and things were — soldiers were coming out, people were going back to work, times were real good. And one fellow owned 100 acres down on Indian Creek Road, and he came in one day and said he wanted to sell it. I said “well, I don’t have a buyer right now that can buy it.” He said “well, how about you buy it.” I said “well, I don’t have any cash.” He said “well, I’ll sell it to you on credit.” I said “well, I’ll tell you what I’m going to do. I’m going to develop the property…” He said “I’m going to sell it to you, and you can develop it, and pay me as you sell the lots.” I said “well, I can do that.”
So, one of my big buddies was Mr. T. D. Dunn, a banker at Glenwood Bank. He said “Tom, that’s not much of an entrance, Indian Creek Road. Why don’t you go through my subdivision,” which was on the other side, “cross the creek there and have an entrance that’s really good that comes in from Memorial Drive.” I said “would you do that?” He said “I sure would.” And I said “well, in the first place, crossing that creek is going to cost thirty or forty thousand dollars and I don’t have that much.” He said “well, go to the bank and borrow it.” I said “they’re not going to lend me forty thousand dollars.” He said “well, have you asked them?” I said “No, but…” He said “well, go over there, that’s your bank, go over and ask them.”
So I went over to the then manager and I said “I need to borrow $40,000” and he said “well, is your arm broke?” I said “No.” He said “well, sign this note.”
It was that easy. I walked out of there with forty thousand, put the bridge in, developed the street, got the money, and went to pay the note off just exactly on schedule. And I started to file the paid note and I looked at it, found it “Endorsed by T. D. Dunn.” [laughter] I thought I was doing it on my own! He had made a previous arrangement with the fellow over there and didn’t tell me a thing about it. That’s what you call a real banker.