Greetings!
 Call me selfish, call me crabby, call me insensitive and unfeeling but I am getting tired of shouldering the burden of sharing the wealth. Don't misunderstand me, I don't mind helping out. My wife and I give to charities and donate time to causes. But how much and where it goes is of our choosing and our business. Hearing the suggestion that what is left of my "wealth" should be further redistributed when there are groups that pay no taxes, 50% of our population, is getting to me. When I was a kid, a very long time ago, Dads worked and Moms stayed home and took care of the household and contents, like me and my twin brothers. When there wasn't money enough for new stuff, Mom visited the Thrift Shop for good enough. We didn't get $300 bats, we were not the first ones on the block to have a television (but we watched the one at the Lehrs house around the corner), we played in the sandbox in the back yard or went to the park. The Vaydas had a big swing set in the back yard and we would spend hours "power pumping" to see how high we could get on muscle, not drugs. Our phone was a party line with the Vaydas, too. You picked up and listened to see if it was being used before dialing. We wore sneakers, Keds, black ones that had white laces and went higher than your ankle bone that did not cost a tenth of $75 Nikes. Mom made some of her clothes from patterns and fabric from JC Penny's and used the same Singer sewing machine to put patches on our dungarees when the knees wore out. She made jelly, too, and baked. Spring was when Dad climbed up the ladder to take down the glass storm windows and put up the screens. The first spring time that Dad let me use a pitchfork to turn over his garden was a rite of passage. Dad grew tomatoes, treated them like they were his own children, lavishing care on each one (I think he named them) and had a cardboard tube pump sprayer that blew some kind of bug killer dust cloud to protect his babies. He had dahlias with roots that he dug up in the fall, dried out, wrapped in newspaper, stored in the basement in bushel baskets to replant the next year. A really great vacation was a week at the shore, staying in Oma's house in Red Bank and going to the beach at Sea Bright. We didn't do Disney (there was no Disney Land) but we did get to Palisades Amusement Park sometimes. On hot summer weekend days all of us piled into the car for a drive to cool off, sticking heads and arms out the windows. Maybe it would turn into a run to Bear Mountain or the Alpine Boat Basin with the really steep switchback road down the Palisades, off 9W. Air conditioning meant fans at home. We sang along with Mitch Miller and walked a lot or rode bikes. I had a Red Huffy that I got new for my birthday. I was lucky. Mike's Bikes in Teaneck on Cedar Lane had a used one that was more affordable but Mom came through by doing without something else herself. If you didn't have the cash you didn't get it. No credit cards, no credit offered, except for a mortgage or car loan and then you had to qualify first. Simpler times, uncomplicated, with pleasures that did not require extraordinary technology or a ton of money. Better? We seemed to manage quite well, thank you. We did it on our own. It was being self-reliant. Back then, accepting Welfare or the Public Dole as it was also called, was considered to be a bit shameful and something to get off ASAP. People had more pride and a family's reputation meant something to you and your peers. I worked after school for pocket money, not that less than $1.00 per hour was a big deal, but it sure felt good to earn a living on my own. There was a stronger sense of self-responsibility in us back then. Hand outs? No thanks. We didn't feel entitled to get something we had not worked for, no one owed us a living. Something has changed. I don't like it. Am I wrong? Sincerely,
Bob Hibler, Newsletter Editor and Czar for "Back in the Day" Gamka Sales Co., Inc.
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Racing Mowers, Massacring Trees with Chain Saws and Stuffing Faces  A large group of landscapers, arborists, tree and snow removal service companies, nurseries, members of the New Jersey Landscape Contractors Association, property managers and contractors involved in grounds keeping converged at Gamka Sales Company's World Headquarters in Edison, NJ on July 14th to eat, meet and compete all evening. The Open House was sponsored by Husqvarna. Their full line of equipment for landscapers, tree surgeons and snow removal services was on display as well as Wacker Neuson's wheel loader, excavator and dumper machinery. It was a night to demo products and most of those who attended were seen kicking tires, revving engines, and trying out the machines on hand. Gamka's showroom was packed with items and their 60,000 sq. ft. warehouse was wide open for the Special 5 Cent Guided Tours conducted by Gamka staff. Many visitors had not been aware that besides Husqvarna, Gamka distributes other products used by landscapers including compaction equipment, filter and stabilization fabrics, diamond saw blades, trench drain and over 40,000 other line items. Gamka has a complete service and repair department with 12,000 parts on hand for the products it sells and Gamka rents 1,700 pieces of construction equipment. The gathering included a business meeting for the New Jersey Landscape Contractors Association but the usual agenda of greeting, eating, meeting and hearing the topic of the day was scrambled when the big barbecued hot dogs and hamburgers came out and people decided that the two contests to test the skills of operators was going to be really fun and first up. The meeting part would wait. For the groundskeepers, there was the Husqvarna Zero-Turn Lawn Mower Timed Obstacle Course Challenge. The participants with the fastest course times were awarded trophies with the champion racer winning a "Green", one person transportation unit, AKA a Trek Model 820 21 speed mountain bicycle. That lucky contestant was NJLCA member Eric Jepsen of Wayne Jepson Landscaping in Raritan, NJ. For the arborists, tree surgeons and anyone else wanting to give it a shot, there was the Husqvarna Chain Saw Tree Massacre Competition. Using a chain saw, contestants had to take two slices off a log as quickly as possible. The one with the fastest time of all was NJLCA member Steve Smorong of Dobra Property Maintenance in Colonia. He won a brand new Husqvarna chain saw. The outdoor event ran late but the race track and chain saw logging areas were lit up like daylight with light towers supplied from Gamka's rental fleet. When all the contestants had completed their tries for the gold, a brief NJLCA meeting was opened for New Jersey Landscaper Contractor Association business, a concise seminar on the "Evils of Ethanol", followed by presentation of the awards and door prizes. By the end of the night everyone admitted to being stuffed with food, all left with some kind of a souvenir or prize and attendees agreed it was a night they would remember. |
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About Gamka Sales Co., Inc.
We are a distributor of a wide variety of construction products. Gamka's business is in equipment sales and rentals, construction chemicals, thermal and moisture protection, diamond cutting, hardware, concrete accessories and safety equipment. We are family run and our World Headquarters is located in Edison, NJ. Gamka's truck fleet delivers all over New Jersey, Metropolitan New York and Philadelphia. To serve our outside customers, we have field account managers who call on contractors on jobs and in their offices. Inside our 60,000 square foot building we have a 2,000 sq. ft. show room where our sales counter handles walk-in customers and telephone calls. Our inventory lists more than 46,000 line items. We rent over 1,700 pieces of machinery. There are 12,000 parts in stock and our service department repairs our customers' equipment and what we sell and rent. Information on all of this and much more can be found on our website, www.gamka.com . We offer our customers application-engineered solutions to their problems. We have established ourselves in the concrete market niche and are known by our customers as the concrete experts. If you have anything to do with concrete, from placing it to restoring it and every stage in between, Gamka can help. We have the answers.This year marks our 25th anniversary!
As the construction industry and our customers evolve, so do we.
Gamka Sales Co., Inc.  983 New Durham Road Edison, New Jersey 08817 888-248-1400
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Chain Saw Safety Tip
Not all of our safety messages have to be long and this proves it. Don't blink or you might miss it. Ready? Here goes: DO NOT TOUCH THE CHAIN!
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Did this newsletter measure up? Your comments and suggestions are welcome. Send them to: bob@gamka.com
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