Chet Leland Noll

28. Chet Learns a Good Lesson

Sometime in the late 1960s when we had moved to Fairview Avenue up on the hill above California State University at Hayward Bernice and I bought 25 Chickens. They were all White Leghorn pullets. We had ordered them from a commercial hatchery in Fremont, California. Chet decided he wanted to go into the egg business. I financed the initial purchase and when he collected and cleaned the eggs I would sell them for him to friends at the telephone company where Paul worked. I had no trouble selling fresh eggs there. But he had to buy the feed out of the profits. One day when he went to the feed store to get some chicken feed, he bought a 100-pounds at a time, the feed store owner told him he was in luck. When anyone bought a 100 pound sack of feed he would give them 25 chickens for free. Chet thought that would be just fine. Well now with 50 chickens to feed he ran out of food much sooner and back he went to get a 100 pounds more and then he got an additional 25 chickens. Well he began to think how soon the feed would be gone with 75 chickens. In addition he realized that the new chickens were all roosters and he would have no additional eggs. After thinking about this he came to me and told me he thought it was a scam, they just gave him more chickens so he would buy more feed. He also realized that White Leghorn roosters were the worst eating chickens there were. He persuaded me to find a friend to give the 50 roosters. I did and he was happy to learn a lesson, "Always Look a Gift Horse in the Mouth", and there is no such thing as a "Free Lunch."

Chet Relaxes with Bumper Pool