In 1968, I met a man called Walkin’ Sam the Junk Man. He traveled two counties in mid-Michigan picking up peoples junk, they paid him $5 per month for his service. He drove an old rusted out blue 1939 International pickup with wooden racks. He wore overalls that really need to be washed and mending, lived in a one-room shack with no electricity, no running water, and no refrigeration.
In May of 1969, I got a job working with him on his routes.
Our day would start at 5:00 am when I arrived at his junkyard, a 120-acre field filled with everything and anything you can imagine. My job until we started the route at 8:00 am was to sort glass bottles. You know clear bottles with clear bottles, brown bottles with brown bottles, etc.
So, one day we were on the route and he needed gas in his truck. We pulled into a gas station in a small town called Turk Lake, MI and the attendant came and asked Sam how much? Sam reached into the upper pocket of his overalls and pulled out the largest money roll, at least 4″ across, I had seen in my young teenage life and replied to the gas station attendant, “I can only afford $5 today, yeah just $5.”
With that, he began peeling though $1,000 bills, $500 bills, $100 bills, $50 bills, $20 bills, $10 bills and finally found a fiver and gave it to the attendant.
After we got back on the road and not knowing any better, I was just 13 years old at the time, I asked him how much cash that was.
He looked over at me and said, “I always carry $22,000 with me because 22 is my lucky number and don’t you tell anyone I told you.
Two years later he gave my father $35,000 cash to build him a house, which he did and Sam moved in two months later and for the first time in his life he had electricity, running water and a refrigerator.
in 1977 he died and when his friends were cleaning out his new house they found several junk suitcases filled with money that totaled more than $2.2 million. Needless to say, everyone that knew him was shocked.
He was 102 when he died and had no relatives to inherit since he never married and was an only child. As far as I know, the State of Michigan ended up with the money. At least that what I heard and I know I didn’t get any of it.
I didn’t know the junk business could be so profitable, but I do now!