A company I worked for had one owner, when I was in a auto accident 18 years ago. The owner of the company told me not to worry. When I was able I could return to my previous employment with no problems.

When I was better, I inquired about my old job andhis son told me that they had to downsize and that my position was eliminated.

A year later they hired 8 people. The owner of the company told his son that I should have been the first one called back - since he promised mein the hospital - in intensive care,that my position with the company was secure.

You know the son's response. It starts with a f and ends with a kem'.

4 Years later I got a lead on a small piece of property.
68 acres that my dad and my grandfather and my Uncle used for access to the Game Lands for many years.

As a matter of a fact, the owner of the company I worked for was a member of our church and my dad introduced him to the owners of the property and got him permission to use the road to get into our hunting spot and showed him where we hunted and invited him to hunt with us.

Well the owner of the company went to the owner of the property and made a deal to buy his property. I had done some work for the man that owned the property and he knew my intentions -that if he wanted to sell that I was interested.

But money talks and bullchit walks.

They bought the property and thefarm houseand turned it into a nice camp.

8 bedrooms and a nice kitchen and dining room.

They started out with 12 members -who all had a full share into the property.

I approched them to see if we could still use the road to get into our hunting spot.
The man that was the son of the owner of the company I worked for told me that I was welcome to walk up the steep hill - but I was not allowed to drive up the hill.

They paid for it and it was theirs now and they didn't want people that didn't put up any money to have the same access that they did.

Well - he was also the self appointed president of their camp.
Along with the president of the company - that his father had just gave to him to run as he pleased.

One by one the members quit, some because of all the money that he asked for per a year to do improvements to the camp and property. Some just because of all the silly rules that he made.

Then one man said that his wife wanted to come to camp - and Mr. President told him that it was men only. It ended up in a fist fight and the police was involved and a couple of people were arrested.

Good upstanding Catholics and local buisnessmen sitting in the pokey with drunks and dope addicts.

The man that origionally owned the company I worked for quit going to the camp all together - and he was the person that put up all ofthe money to buy the camp.

They put it to a vote and it was decided to sell the camp - after just5 years of ownership.

They advertised it for $120,000 - even though they only paid $68,000 for it 5 years before.

Guess who bought it?

One of the State Policemen that came when they were called to break upthe fist fight.

Other senerio is our hunting camp that was owned by my mom's brother in law and her sister.

My dad lived to go to camp. He spent 100's of hours a year up at camp trimming the trees and fixing the road and repairing the house - camp and buying the coal and the propane out of his own pocket, cutting 7 acres of grass every two weeks with push mowers and brush hogs and my riding tractor. My dad broke my tractor several times and I had to pay the repair bills out of my own pocket. My dad paid for all the fuel.

My dad even filled up a 55 gallon drum with gasoline one time and my Uncle siphoned it out and put it in his truck.

My dad cut firewood for the camp and my Uncle loaded it into his truck and took it home and burned it in his fireplace to suppliment his heating bill.

My Uncle paid the taxes and not much of anything else.

Then the roof started to leak and he refused to fix it.

My dad only ever made $24,000 a year on the best years he ever worked - and he was a expert mechanic - certified aircraft mechanic - Airframes and Power Plants, also a Journeyman Machinist and a Carpenter, Electrician and plumber - millwright.

My dad worked 25 years at a local carbon plant until it closed and then 17 more years at the machine shop. He was no dummy or lazy.

My Uncle worked for ARMCO steel near Ambridge and made $50,000 a year back in the 70's. He just drank and gambled and never seem'd to have any money.

My Uncle toldour familythat if we paid for the materials and also put the roof onourselves that we could keep on using the camp.

Now back at my dad's house, just3 miles away - my moms house is falling down and her own roof leaked and nothing was getting done to her house because my dad was always up at camp fixing things up there.

So we proposed to him that if he paid for the materials, we would provide the labor.
My Uncle got mad and had the camp appraised and was told that they could get $120,000 out of it.

106 acres and a shell of a house. The wood for the house came from a old house that his brothers and his dad tore down back in 1958 and they only had $600 into the building materials and the land.

My Uncle had sold the timber on the property just 5 years before and got $100,000 out of the timber and never put a penny back into the camp.

Never gave my dad a penny for all his hard work.

My Unclesaw dollar signs in his eyes and thought that he was going to make a mint. Only when people came up to look at it, all they saw was a dirtroad 7/10ths of a mile long that had to be maintained and a house that did not even have sheetrock on the walls, just the bare insulation, or anything on the ceilings.You could see the bare boards on the roof and the rafters while laying in bed or sitting on the couch or eating at the dining room table.

Several of the camp members offered him $68,000 for the campand he refused to sell to them or to me and he ended up selling it to a local buisnessman for $68,000.

Now there are hard feelings and none of the previous camp members ever calls my dad's house anymore and none of them comes up to hunt anymore and dad and my Uncle Rich isn't talking no more and he won't even speak to me after the falling out we had when we took our belongings out of the camp when he sold it - the new owners were pee'd off at my dad n me because they thought that they bought it turn key.

Only when we took what we bought out - there was nothing left.

My Uncle went so far as to call us on the phone and tell us to bring our stuff back or he was going to prosecute.

The new owners of the camp confronted me and my brother the second day of deer season thatyearto tell us that we were not welcome on their property - and took our locks off the neighboring property's gate. Even though my Uncle never had a right of way to use that gate.

I just had a call the other day from the owner of the neighboring property asking me why(his - our)lock didnt work anymore.
I told him because the new ownersdid something to it again.
That was the 8th time I had to replace( his -our) lock in 6 years.

My advice is for you to save your money and buy your own camp and invite who ever you want to your camp and make your own rules and stick by them. Charge your buddies to come to your camp - and in the end you will be 1000 times better off than if you became part owner in a camp and had a falling out and lost what ever you invested - both in time and in money.

Watch Bonanza on TV,

Ben Cartwright is the man that owns the Ponderosa.

My buddy that owns a butchershop said it best.

The man that owns the land, makes the rules!