The Vintage Tiller Chronicles

How a 40-year-old, hard-to-start garden tiller predicted the recent Economic Collapse


Reverse hasn't worked since the Carter Administration, and even my top notch small-motor guy couldn't find an air filter that fits.
But man that 5-horse tiller rips up some turf.
Rusty, permanently dirty and louder than a fat-chested Harley, I prefer to paint the old Gamble-Skogmo garden tiller as more of a "construction tool" than a "gardening tool." Think hard hats, stump pulling and the clang of metal on metal - all while drinking coffee from a dented thermos.
The lamest phrase in redneck pop culture actually applies to this beast: "Git 'er done."
Somehow with it's blatty, dirt bike muffler and faded tractor-red paint, calling it a "gardening tool" seems to lessen it.
The beast was originally from northern Minnesota at my late Grandparent's Red River Valley farm. I distinctly recall my Grandpa Oscar fighting with the monster tiller on occasion, ripping our former whiffle ball field into a future home for tomatoes, peas and beans.
When the farm was sold a decade ago, it was one of the first things I grabbed.
Sure, it can be a project to get it started that first time each spring; No amount of fresh gas, oil or filtering will keep your right shoulder in its socket after spending all morning trying to pull it to life. The old Briggs and Stratton needs a little trip behind the quanset, with a shot or three of high-test starting fluid.
After a blast of near-pure ether, the old tiller is ready for the rest of spring, usually starting on the first pull.
Sure, it's a dinosaur, but it works and it works well. It just needs a little TLC to get going; not unlike many of us.
The tiller is usable scrap to most people, but it's also a snapshot of the old ways of doing business, and may be a pre-cursor to the recent financial meltdown in the making. I'll call it the "Gamble-Skogmo Gambit."
For folks over forty, Gambles stores were pretty common in this region. Their hardware stores were commonly thought to be the best in many local towns. Gamble-Skogmo was a giant for decades, owning numerous and diverse companies ranging from the Red Owl grocery chain to Snyder Drugs, with dozens in between.
The Gamble-Skogmo empire started nearly 100 years ago in Fergus Falls when Bertin Gamble and Phillip Skogmo pooled their limited cash and bought a (failing) car dealership.
It didn't take long for them to realize that the real money was in auto parts, not the actual sales. They started a variety store and it caught on like pink eye in daycare. They moved their headquarters to Minneapolis, expanded further and not only survived the Market Crash of '29 (they were still privately held), they also survived the Great Depression with aplomb, actually expanding to the point of going public with their empire in 1947.
They eventually became the poster child company for mergers and diversification - including everything from financing to real estate to retail. By the time Jimmy Carter took office - and my tiller lost the ability go into reverse - Gamble-Skogmo had become the 15th largest retailer in the US, with over 25,000 employees.
Then it fell apart fast. Gambles, that is. Not the tiller.
An over-eager Gamble-Skogmo investment arm smelled blood in the water and attempted to takeover the seemingly vulnerable Garfinckel chain of stores (which included the prestigious Brooks Bothers) only to find the family behind the firm less than ready to roll over.
An ensuing court case went in favor of Garfinckel, and the tattered remnant of over-leveraged Gamble-Skogmo was nearly broken and later merged with the equally struggling and over-leveraged Wickes Corporation in 1980.
It was about 1982 when the choke went on the tiller and ether was required for a start, about the time when the chewed and stewed remnants of Gamble-Skogmo were divvied up among a few foreclosure parties.
All that was left were a few Alden's mail order stores and an occasional Red Owl grocery store. One in Green Bay and another in Rochester.
There's probably a place for an old-styled Gamble-Skogmo - A store that specializes in something, anything, that nobody else does. But that's not the philosophy of today.
I remember the old CEO quote that, "General Motors wasn't in the business of making cars - they were in the business of making money."
Maybe GM needs to get back to making cars and trucks, just like Bertin and Phillip in that Fergus Falls garage - finding out they do something really well, and then doing it even better, and applying it to other businesses, within reason. That worked for over half a century. But the later "Gamble-Skogmo Gambit" failed miserably. After rising so fast and steady on what they did best, the company got greedy and shot themselves in the foot.
You can fall pretty fast and far when you stand on someone else's shoulders.
Like many speculation-based companies, they got so bloated, heavy and dividend-greedy, they used beheading to lose weight.
But Bertin and Phillip, that wasn't their way; They found a niche, and filled it.
That's the "American Way," and it's something we can do again.
We could start with a few well-built garden implements.