Sam Walton, Made In America

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LEARNING TO VALUE A DOLLAR
 
I was awake one night and turned on my radio, and I heard them announce that Sam Walton was the richest man in America. And I thought, Sam Walton. Why, he was in my class. And I got so excited.
 
HELEN WILLIAMS,
former history and speech teacher at Hickman High School in Columbia, Missouri
 
Success has always had its price, I guess, and I learned that lesson the hard way in October of 1985 when Forbes magazine named me the so-called richest man in America. Well, it wasn t too hard to imagine all those newspaper and TV folks up in New York saying Who? and He lives where? The next thing we knew, reporters and photographers started flocking down here to Bentonville, I guess to take pictures of me diving into some swimming pool full of money they imagined I had, or to watch me light big fat cigars with $100 bills while the hootchy-kootchy girls danced by the lake.
 
I really don t know what they thought, but I wasn t about to cooperate with them. So they found out all these exciting things about me, like: I drove an old pickup truck with cages in the back for my bird dogs, or I wore a Wal-Mart ball cap, or I got my hair cut at the barbershop just off the town square somebody with a telephoto lens even snuck up and took a picture of me in the barber chair, and it was in newspapers all over the country. Then folks we d never heard of started calling us and writing us from all over the world and coming here to ask us for money. Many of them represented worthy causes, I m sure, but we also heard from just about every harebrained, cockamamy schemer in the world. I remember one letter from a woman who just came right out and said, I ve never been able to afford the $100,000 house I ve always wanted. Will you give me the money? They still do it to this day, write or call asking for a new car, or money to go on a vacation, or to get some dental work whatever comes into their minds.
 
Now,

Sam Walton was an American businessman and entrepreneur, best known for founding the retailers Walmart and Sam's Club.

John Huey served as editor-in-chief of Time Inc until 2012. The former editor of The Wall Street Journal/Europe and founding editor of Southpoint magazine, he has long reported on the business world and has profiled many of its leading personalities.

"[A] wise and inspiring autobiography--Walton tells his quietly fantastic story with conviction and makes no bones about his mistakes."
-- San Francisco Chronicle

"It's a story about entrepreneurship, and risk, and hard work, and knowing where you want to go and being willing to do what it takes to get there.  And it's a story about believing in your idea even when maybe some other folks don't, and about sticking to your guns."
-- Sam Walton

"Here is an extraordinary success story about a man whose empire was built not with smoke and mirrors, but with good old-fashioned elbow grease."
-- Detroit Free Press

"A sure-fire all-American success story."
-- The New York Times Book Review