SMALL FISH
By David Cabela
“The slothful man catches not his prey, but the wealth of the diligent man is great.” Proverbs 12:27
The eighth short story from David Cabela in our "Family History" series. These short stories are meant to take readers into the Cabela Family history from his perspective...
When Dick and Jim walked into their first AFTMA (American Fishing Tackle Manufacturers Association) convention they had hopes of filling their growing inventory with all the latest and most reliable gear. Instead, they ran into wall after wall of hesitancy, pessimism, and distrust.
"Who did you say you were with?” was a common query.
"Cabela's. We're a mail order business out of Nebraska."
"Cobalos. Never heard of it."
"It's Cabela's. And we were hoping to carry some of your lures."
"How are you going to sell our merchandise in Nebraska? There are no distributers there." One gentleman actually laughed through his nose. "Are there even any fish in Nebraska?"
"We sell all over. We're a mail order business. And yes, there is some great fishing in Nebraska."
"I'm sorry. We cannot risk selling to you on credit. And we don't have any clients in Nebraska. Besides, we don't have the staff to make special sales calls out there. Best of luck to you."
"What if we pay cash?"
"I wish we could, but we did not bring enough inventory to the show."
Booth after booth. Manufacturer after manufacturer turned the brothers away. Most company representatives would not even speak with them. "No way to distribute to Nebraska. We don't sell direct." It was excuse after excuse. Dick and Jim were offering to sell manufacturers gear to customers. They never expected to be met with such resistance. But these two young men from the hard prairie, sons of a Great Depression merchant, and grandsons of an immigrant merchant had little concept of giving up. So they went to the next booth and then the next. Though, they had no thoughts of heading home without talking with each manufacturer, their frustration began to slow them down and soften their approach. Eventually, they made their way to the Garcia fishing equipment booth and shook hands with Gene Engeland.
"We can sell you five thousand dollars’ worth on credit," he had said.
Between the three of them, Dick, Mary, and Jim might be able to scrape together $100. In 1964, $5,000 might as well have been $5,000,000. Could they really afford to risk that much?
Could they afford not to?
With hope and faith and a Great Plains work ethic, they chose to do their best and let God sort out the outcome.
Gene Engeland and Garcia took the brothers on faith. They trusted them. The brothers would not squander that trust. It was a break they had not expected and they were thrilled to have it. With Garcia they had found top-of-the-line fishing gear, but more importantly they found a company willing to stick its neck out for an unknown family business from an unknown small town in a mostly forgotten state in the center of America on little more than a handshake. It showed trust. It displayed courage. It demonstrated the way business was supposed to be conducted in one of the freest countries the world has ever seen—before over-regulation, before the world became convinced that every disappointment, every mistake, every offense meant you deserved some kind of recompense. It was a time when you could offer a true 100% guarantee and know most people would not think about abusing it.
The brother's agreed to the $5,000 in inventory and picked out what they thought they could sell. They figured if they sold it in a year it would be a huge success. They even built a small six-feet-by-six-feet shed in the back yard for extra storage. Then, they sent a three-page mimeographed "catalog" to all their customers and continued to run classified ads in the outdoor magazines. They soon discovered their customers were thrilled to be able to purchase fishing gear through the mail. It almost seemed as if they had been waiting for just such a company. And their customers were loyal and honest and eager to do more business with the Cabela brothers. Within a few months, Dick and Jim had to call Mr. Engeland to place another order.
Before long other vendors started to hear about this little company in Nebraska run by a family who successfully sold fishing gear and, just as important, kept their word. Eventually, many of those same manufacturers who laughed Dick and Jim out of their booths, now drove hundreds, and even thousands of miles, to push their wares to the Cabela brothers.
Dick and Jim learned from a young age that giving up never got them where they wanted to go. They learned it by casting their stick poles over and over again into the local lakes and ponds. They learned it by chasing jackrabbits across the prairie hills with their sling shots and BB guns. They learned it on the basketball court. They learned it as they dug out the basement of their family's new home.
Fishing taught them you could cast into the same water fifty times and fail to hook a fish fifty times, yet still have the hope that one will bite on that fifty-first time because if that rod tip twitched, if it bent over in a tug from a creature that would put up a fight like a living hamstring muscle, they would have a moment of exhilaration that would remind them why hope mattered.
Chasing jackrabbits taught them that the next hill, the hill beyond the horizon, held secrets and the promise of adventure, but to reach those promises they had to push themselves further than they ever had before.
Digging that basement taught them that great things never happen by accident. You cannot build a house without laying the foundation. You cannot have a basement for that house without digging a hole. And you cannot dig a hole without shoveling some dirt. If you never pick up that shovel and never lift that first pile of dirt, you will never build the house. Their family’s house became a home one small step at a time.
It sometimes seems as if the process takes forever. It sometimes does not seem to be worth the effort, but patience is rewarded when perseverance pushes us forward. Businesses and homes and families and relationships do not build themselves. But at the end of the day, the sweat, the tears, and the joy provide lasting satisfaction.
We all have times when we want to throw our hands into the air and give up and we do it every day. And every time we do it, it gets easier, because to persevere is too painful, to succeed is too hard, to see it through to the end just isn’t worth it. We buy into that lie far too often. Dick, Mary, and Jim sure bought into it a few times as well. Sometimes giving up is actually the right answer, but we should fight against the ever-pressing tendency to make it a habit and acquire a defeatist attitude.
Some of the most memorable sporting events in history are when a team comes back from a seemingly insurmountable score. These stories do not happen by accident. Usually, one team gets comfortable, maybe even a little complacent while the other is digging deep into their hearts for that speck of hope that will push them just a little harder—the results are extraordinary for one team and devastating for the other. Why? Because one gave up a little more than the other and one pushed forward with a little more heart. You need that same perseverance when you are at the top that you needed while you were clawing your way there in the first place.
In the end, perseverance, whether at the top of the hill or at the base, requires not only a desire to move forward, but a strong conviction that quitting is not an option. If you start off to climb the next hill and have no desire to keep going, it is important to ask yourself why. Because if the answer is just that it is too hard, that is exactly when you need to buck up and take another step. It is the pain, the sweat, and the hard—the perseverance—that makes it satisfying.
The Cabela’s never really saw a mountain top or an end goal. They did not push Cabela’s forward in order to reach some pinnacle. They went into work each day and asked themselves how they could make this day better than the last. They never convinced themselves there was an end to their journey. They scanned the horizon before them and dreamed of what they might find beyond it. And for them, the dreaming was not quite enough. They were adventurers. So to be true to that spirit, they never allowed themselves to get too comfortable with the familiar. You can never find out what is beyond the next hill if you don’t climb the one in front of you and if you want to find out why the deer spends so much time in the woods, you have to step into the shadows yourself.
Life’s greatest adventures usually lead us to places we never imagined we might go. If we continually test our perceived boundaries it will make a lifetime of difference.