Blank Check

Bonnie: You said leaving California wasn’t the end to your hydroponics venture. What was?

Scott: While I was still in California, I’d contacted a company that grew bean sprouts. They were losing money because 70% of their crop was rotting. When I got back to Tacoma, I called the company and suggested they build a hydroponics tank and maintain the PH at a certain level. They did and were able to reduce wastage to about 10%. I was a hero and inspired to keep working on the hydroponics project. At the same time, I crossed paths with someone who had developed a PH monitoring system for printing presses. I knew the system could be adapted to hydroponics. For the next four months, I worked night and day on the project. I wasn’t drinking, but still had visions of grandeur.

I ran into Steve, a friend from my commercial real estate sales days, who knew a lot of people with money. Because of his interest in the venture, he found an investor willing to write a blank check for whatever it would take to get the business off the ground. That investor called me the day after I’d attended my first Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) meeting on May 6, 1982.

At that meeting, an alcoholic with a lot of sober years under his belt, heard my stories, looked me right in the eye and told me, “You are one sick SOB. Knock off the grandiose BS and get real.” When the investor called the next day, I turned him down. I later told Steve, when he asked why, “If I’d done that, I‘d be dead in a year.” I started college and attending AA meetings – lots of them.

The Last Apocalypse  is available at  Createspace https://www.createspace.com/4569527
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