The home of David Willford is open to people who look for the answer. Lots of people in Trail look for a way of making some extra money and there is a lot of ways.
Half of Trail would be rich if they didn’t constantly say, “Not right now, I’d sooner not do that, I should get it for less or where would I get two dollars?”
I can give you a lot of ways to make money, but it’s not free. When you come, bring two loaves of bread (I feed wild turkeys), two loonies (2006 or 2008) or one bottle of Italian wine (I don’t drink, but take a hundred bottles on your next holiday and you’ll be very popular).
My ideas are very simple so anyone can do them and you’d get so rich that you’d get slumped shoulders hauling it to the bank. What I have done recently was send a warm, friendly letter to 40 major cities plus a tear sheet from local realty that showed good prices of land and houses.
My letter was all truisms of Trail, right from our great fishing, 84,000 flowers, wild turkeys, good shopping, fantastic hospital, great weather cycle, low taxes and low-cost housing.
And I mentioned that all Trail needs is 5,000 smiling, happy optimists who look for a great place to sit and whittle and spit, buy a house in the sun and watch a turnip grow.
Lots of people would think all of the good things in Trail and say, “Yeah, so what? There’s no work.”
The answer to that is, if you are 84 years old and have $9 million in the bank, why do you want a job pumping gas?
Comparing Trail to other parts of Canada that has 10 feet of snow, it’s 40 below, lots of mud-slides or 10 feet of water in the living room, or 10,000 mosquitoes to the inch, then Trail looks pretty good.
To do this letter was no bother, two hours of typing, $36 for stamps, $16 for copying and envelopes and two packs of tobacco to do addressing and $6 for a type-out of all newspaper addresses, 1,122 of them.
Then I send the letters to every province and every city — every city except Star City, Sask., which only has eight people.
I didn’t have to do this, the City of Trail could have done it for $30,000 using 50 people and taking 200 hours.
Maybe I should send them a bill, you think?
David Willford
Trail