Bucking Trends

By Terry Frost

Cannon Hill, Arkansas was a small community nestled in the Ozark Mountains. Two multi-billion dollar corporations, their families, and their corporate headquarters called Cannon Hill home. One of those corporations became the number one retail giant in the world.

Before he became a person beloved by his fellow Americans and considered by millions to be a hero he was just Rudy Trend. Rudy was born in 1954 and raised by his widowed mother. Meager, would be descriptive of how the Trends struggled in a community of billionaires. At the age of sixteen he became best friends with a boy named Evan Wilson. Evan was the only son of the Director of Operations for the retail giant. The friendship that bonded two teenage boys existing in a world of the haves and have nots, set in motion, the most improbable future for Rudy.

Bucking Trends is an epic tale filled with fevered anticipation, emotion, humor, tragedy, political satire, and unwavering patriotism. Follow the events that cause a young boy to evolve into one of the most influential and powerful men of a modern day America.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: May 9, 2012
• ISBN: 9781469127408

Terry Frost

Author’s Bio: The author is a retired C.E.O. of a specialty services corporation. The first chapter of Bucking Trends is a factual account of this author’s life. Only the names of the community and characters are fiction. Bucking Trends is this author’s first novel. Terry lives in Midwest City, OK with his two best friends, his wife Kimberly and Beamer, his miniature Schnauzer.

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CHAPTER 1

The Beginning

Trend v., n (have) a general direction or tendency

At 11:08 p.m. on May 7, 1954, a cry was heard from the birthing area at a hospital in a small town in Arkansas. The child was a boy, and his name was Rudolph Trend, born to Terry R. and Christine Trend. Rudolph was his legal name, but his mother called him Rudy. Rudy was an only child because his father was killed in an automobile accident two months prior to his birth. His mother was only eighteen at the time of his father’s passing and never remarried. She devoted her life to raising him with the understanding of being honest, trustworthy, and to always treat people with respect. She taught him that respect was only given when it was earned.

Christine said she would never remarry but did have a man in her life, and his name was Harley Wid. He was a big man and stood at six feet three inches, 230 pounds, with brown hair, and blue eyes. He had broad shoulders and huge hands that could easily palm a basketball. His skin was a reddish brown as he was one-quarter Indian. Christine used to tease him about not having a hair on his chest, but Harley would tell her, You can’t grow hair on steel, which used to make her laugh. Harley came from a long line of brick masons and was very good at his craft. Where he earned a name for himself was when it came to laying Arkansas native stone. The stone lie naturally in the hills and valleys of Northwestern Arkansas. Unlike other masonry stone found throughout the United States, this stone was native only to Arkansas and a small area of Southern Missouri. When Harley was thirty-five, he bought one hundred acres about two miles east of a small housing community called Memory Heights. Memory Heights ran along the eastern side of Hogback Lake. Hogback was one of the clearest lakes in Arkansas. He built a home with a mix of cedar siding and Arkansas native stone. Inside the home, he had built a fireplace with a tunnel at the top of the fireplace’s face. He installed a suspended train track that ran near the ceiling of his den. The train would run around the track and through the tunnel in the fireplace. His train set had a beautiful custom-built steam engine that pulled ten rail cars along with a caboose. The engine and rail cars were two feet long, eight inches tall, and were explicit in design. Harley installed a timing switch that made the engine bellow smoke and blow its whistle prior to going into the tunnel. Rudy thought the train was the coolest thing he had ever seen. He would beg his mother to bring him over to Harley’s so he could admire the train running through his house. While Harley and Christine visited, he would sit quietly and watch the train for hours at a time.

Harley had been good friends with Rudy’s dad and mother. Secretly, he had a crush on Christine before she met Terry. Harley was a shy young man and couldn’t bring himself to let her know he had feelings for her. By the time he got up his courage to tell her, she had met and fell head-over-heels in love with Terry. As long as Rudy could remember, Harley was always there for him. It was because of Harley that Rudy had quite a collection of toys. Harley taught him how to fish and hunt. There were many good places to fish and hunt while being raised in the Ozark Mountains. Growing up in a fairly small community meant that people seem to know (or thought they knew) other people’s business. It was often rumored that Harley had helped support Christine and her son. Money was always tight for Christine, but Rudy never did have to go without. He was always dressed well and had all the toys, bicycles, etc., that most all of the kids he grew up with had, even though his mother was only a waitress at a well-established restaurant in Cannon Hill. There was something special about Cannon Hill and the northwest Arkansas area in general. Though the communities were quite small, the area was home to several billionaires and their families. The founders of two of the corporations made Cannon Hill their base of operations and are two of the largest corporations in North America. A poor boy named Rudy grew up with some of their children and knew them quite well.

At an early age, Rudy’s mother noticed that her son was somewhat of a problem solver. Christine had three siblings—two brothers and one sister. One of his uncles, Virgil, had four sons. Virgil’s elder sons were eight and ten years older than Rudy, but his two youngest boys, Lonny and Lester, were one year older and one year younger. The youngest boy was Lester. Rudy, Lonny, and Lester loved playing war games in the woods around their homes on the weekends. The boys carved out wooden guns and would use rocks as grenades. When tossing grenades, each would call out, Grenade! It never failed that while playing war, Lester would hardly ever die. He would always say when supposedly shot, You missed me, even when a grenade landed a couple feet from him. Christine could remember days when Rudy would come home from a day in the woods with his cousins and tell her, I’m not playing war with Lester anymore. His mother would ask him why and he would say, Lester cheats, he won’t die when you shoot him. She would just laugh and tell Rudy that it’s just a game anyway and not to worry about it. But he did worry about it and devised a plan to fix Lester once and for all. The next time they went to the woods to play war, Rudy filled up a couple of small balloons with water and stuck them in his coat pocket. The first chance he got, he pulled out a water balloon and threw it at Lester yelling, Grenade! The balloon hit its mark and splashed on top of Lester’s head, soaking him. Lester yelled, What the heck! Rudy stood up laughing with Lonny and said, I guess I didn’t miss you with that grenade, huh? He would come home and tell his mother how he fixed the problem and would have a smile of achievement on his face. There were numerous situations in his childhood similar to the war-games incident. His mother was amazed and proud of her son for his problem-solving ability. Christine figured that maybe he had received that trait from his father but couldn’t be sure because she only had a couple of years to get to know the man. She knew in her heart that Rudy would grow up to be someone important. As a lot of people say commonly in the South, She could feel it in her bones.

CHAPTER 2

Debating

It was a typical morning on November 22, 1963, in Cannon Hill, Arkansas. Rudy was in his third grade class at Jason Elementary. It was getting close to lunch time when he was chastised for making a couple of his classmates laugh out loud. Any child that knew Rudy really liked him because he had a great sense of humor. A little after lunch, he and his classmates were settling back into their desks when his teacher came back into the room. Immediately, the kids noticed something was wrong with Mrs. Haynes. Her eyes were puffy, and she had a tissue in her hand. It was obvious she had been crying. She stood behind her desk and said, Children, I have some terrible news. The president of the United States had been assassinated. Many of his classmates sat at their desks in silence. A few of the young girls started to cry, along with the Mrs. Haynes. The teacher announced that school was dismissed and that everyone was to go home. Rudy hopped on his bike and road the three miles to his home. Children that rode buses had to wait for them to arrive in front of the school. Rudy didn’t know why, but he was very sad inside. At nine years old, he wasn’t expected to know much about the president. At the time, third graders had not started history or any kind of political education yet. But he was sad and didn’t understand why anyone would want to kill his president.

When he finally arrived at home around thirty minutes later, his mother was waiting for him at the front door. She had been crying too.

He went inside and put his books on the kitchen table, sat down, and asked his mother, Why would someone want to harm our president?

His mother said, Honey, there are many good people in this world, and unfortunately, there are a few bad people too.

He asked her, What would the president have done to make someone so mad they would want to kill him?

I really don’t know, Rudy, she said.

In Rudy’s young life, he hadn’t experienced much about death. Oh, he understood what happens when you catch and clean a fish or shoot a deer while hunting, but in his mind, that was okay because people needed to eat. But to kill another human being was very difficult for him to comprehend. The president’s assassination bothered him for quite some time, but it also made him hungry for knowledge about exactly what it is that a president does for his country. Did every country have a president? How do you become president of a country?

A few months after the president’s death, he became obsessed with going to the library and checking out books about the history and the building of the United States. By the time he was around fifteen years old, the young man was an expert on the history of the United States. All through junior high and high school, he received As on his report cards for history and geography. By the time he was a junior at Cannon Hill High School, he was president and captain of the school’s debate team. His team had competed against thirty or more first-rate debate teams within a four-state area and had taken top honors at many of them. There were a few times that his team took home second and third place but not many. Rudy was an absolute master when it came to debating about the principles of governing people. The local people started a little campaign about Rudy’s debate team and their winning ways and started calling them The Bucking Trends.

Rudy thought the name was cool, but he didn’t think it gave the members of his debate team enough credit since his last name was Trend. Sometime in February 1970, The Bucking Trends were invited to compete on a national stage in Richmond, Virginia. They placed third out of sixty nationwide schools that had sent a debate team. Not too shabby for a very small school system from northwest Arkansas. Finishing third in a national debate was a big thing for such a small community, and Rudy became sort of celebrity. He was shy about the fame but also very prideful. His newfound notoriety brought him new friends in school. Coming from a somewhat poor family, he usually hung out with kids that had been less fortunate, monetarily speaking. Since the national debate, he became very popular. Girls that wouldn’t normally give him the time of day were, all of a sudden, speaking to him. When it came to the guys though, things kind of stayed the same. It wasn’t that he didn’t have guy friends; it was that people with money usually socialized with ones that did. Rudy always figured that was just the way things were. But there was one guy that struck up a friendship with him, and they became best of friends. His name was Evan Wilson.

CHAPTER 3

A Trust

During the summer of 1970, Rudy and Evan did practically everything together. They went to movies, went fishing, quail hunting, pick up baseball games, swimming at Cannon Hill’s only public swimming pool, etc. The swimming pool was where all the hot girls hung out through the day. On weekends, Evan would spend a night with Rudy or Rudy would stay a night with Evan, usually on Saturday night. On one particular night when he was staying over at Evan’s house, they were forced to eat an early supper with Evan’s mom and dad. Prior to them taking off and doing what young men do, Mr. Willard Wilson told Rudy that he was aware of his successes as the captain of their school’s debate team. Willard informed him that while in college at the University of Arkansas, he was also on the university’s collegiate debate team. Wow! Rudy couldn’t believe that Mr. Wilson had actually been on a debate team in college. After that revelation, poor Evan and his mother were ignored for the remainder of the meal while Rudy and Willard discussed the finer points of being a good debater.

After thirty minutes or there about, Evan finally stood up from the table and said, Are you about ready to go, Rudy?

Rudy looked at him and said, Sure, anytime you are.

The boys said their goodbyes to Evan’s parents and scrambled out the door.

After the boys left, Willard said to his wife, Honey, I really like that young man. I hope he and Evan remain friends for a long time. I believe he will be a positive influence on Evan.

I sure hope so for his sake, Willard, because he hasn’t had a very easy life up to this point.

Willard replied, Why do you say that?

Mrs. Wilson explained to him that he had grown up without a father to help guide him along the path of his youthful life and had been raised by his single mother. Willard asked her how she knew this about him.

Mrs. Wilson said, Most people in a small town know things about the people that have lived in their community for their entire life, Willard. Don’t feel bad though, honey. I know you’re a very busy man and don’t have time to keep up with all the gossip that goes on in a relatively small town.

As Mrs. Wilson went about clearing off the dinner table, Willard was pondering on what his wife just said, and it bothered him that the young man didn’t have a father around to influence him. Just before he got up from the dinner table and went to his easy chair in the den, Willard thought, Rudy has done good to study hard and get good grades, which he assumed he had to do in order to be captain of a debate team. Still, it seemed to tug at Mr. Wilson’s heart a little.

Call it good fortune or just good luck that Rudy had came into Evan Wilson’s life because without Evan, Rudy would have never had the opportunity to have conversations with Mr. Wilson, which turned out to be of great importance to Rudy’s future. The boys returned to Evan’s house around 10:45 p.m. because Evan’s curfew was 11:00 p.m. After all, he was just sixteen years old.

That morning at the breakfast table, Willard asked, Rudy, what are your plans for college? I suppose you are planning to go to college.

Rudy replied, I don’t really see myself being able to go to college, Mr. Wilson, unless I can manage to get a scholarship.

Mr. Wilson said, If you continue to study really hard and keep your grades up, it is very possible you may be offered one.

Rudy respected Mr. Wilson’s opinion because everyone in town knew that the Wilsons were fairly wealthy people. Mr. Wilson was the number three man at PriceWorld, a company that in the future became one of the largest companies in the world. In 1960, PriceWorld had built their second store in Cannon Hill. Rudy could remember what a big deal it was for his town to get a PriceWorld store.

At the time, PriceWorld was a new concept in shopping. Everyone in the community had been talking about how the store was a place where you could do most of your shopping in one location. The store had better prices than any of the local shopping centers. Never in the past had shoppers been able to buy clothing, toys, automotive supplies, radios, televisions, greeting cards, books, etc., all under one roof.

Mr. Wilson looked sternly into Rudy’s eyes and said, I would like to give you some very important advice young man.

Rudy replied respectfully, Yes, sir.

Whenever you get old enough to start working, you need to take every spare dollar you have and invest it in PriceWorld stock.

Rudy didn’t know a thing about stocks. Economics wasn’t offered until his junior year. Willard went on to explain stocks because he could tell the subject was foreign to Rudy. He told Mr. Wilson thanks for the advice, and after breakfast, he said his goodbyes to his buddy and Mr. and Mrs. Wilson. While riding his bike home, he was thinking about what Mr. Wilson said to him about buying stock in PriceWorld. He couldn’t imagine how he was going to buy stocks and put the subject in the back of his mind. He thought, For heaven sakes, I’m only sixteen years old.

Throughout the summer of 1970, Rudy hung out with his friend Evan almost every weekend, which in turn, allowed him to get quite close to Mr. Wilson. One Saturday night while Rudy was staying over with Evan, the boys were just hanging out in Evan’s bedroom listening to Grand Funk Railroad. They were a very popular rock-and-roll band in the seventies.

Mr. Wilson knocked on the door.

Evan said, Come in.

He stuck his head into the room and said, Evan, could turn that music down a bit? He reached over and turned down the radio. Willard smiled at his son and asked, How would you boys like to go to a St. Louis Cardinal game with me in two weeks?

The boys looked at each other and simultaneously yelled, St. Louis Cardinals!

Willard said, I take that as a yes, laughing as he said it.

Well, for the next two weeks, Rudy was so excited he could hardly believe it was true. For him to get to go to a professional baseball game was one of the biggest things ever to happen to him in his young life. The drive to St. Louis went without a hitch and was very exciting because the farthest he had ever been away from home was when Harley took him deer hunting in the Boston Mountain area, some seventy-five miles south of Cannon Hill. Rudy had the best time of his life, and the Cardinals won. They beat the Detroit Tigers 6 to 3. On the way home, Rudy couldn’t stop thanking Mr. Wilson enough for taking him to a professional baseball game. The wonderment of the experience was almost overwhelming.

Evan said to Rudy, Hey, man, calm down. It was just a ballgame. Obviously, it wasn’t Evan’s first game and probably not his last.

Rudy replied, Maybe to you it was just a game, but to me, it was the most fun I’ve ever had.

Mr. Wilson was looking in the rearview mirror at Rudy and felt good about himself.

Summer was winding down, and Rudy’s junior year had begun the last week in August 1970. The New Year had come and gone, and it was the month of February 1971.

One evening, Rudy’s phone rang at his house. His mother answered the phone by saying, Hello, Trend residence.

Good evening, Mrs. Trend. This is Willard Wilson. Is Rudy home tonight?

Yes, he is. Just a minute, and I will get him.

Willard said, Thank you.

Rudy was in his room studying economics when his mother came in and said, Rudy, the phone is for you, it is Mr. Wilson.

Rudy had a surprised look on his face because he had never received a phone call from Evan’s dad before. He was hoping that nothing was wrong with his best buddy. Rudy picked up the phone and said, Hello.

Rudy, this is Willard Wilson. How are you doing this evening, young man?

Rudy replied, Just fine, sir.

The reason I’m calling is I was wondering if you might want to go with me and help pick out Evan’s birthday present tomorrow afternoon while he is at football practice, Mr. Wilson asked.

That’s right, it was his best friend’s birthday tomorrow, but Rudy couldn’t figure out why he would need to go with Mr. Wilson to help pick out Evan’s present, but said, Sure, I will be happy to go.

Great, hand the phone back to your mother, please. Willard quickly explained the nature of the call to Rudy’s mother. Christine said that would be just fine. Willard thanked her and hung up.

The following afternoon, when Rudy came down the front steps of Cannon Hill High School, there was Mr. Wilson waiting for him in his brand new Lincoln Town Car. Mr. Wilson must be doing pretty well, Rudy thought. He approached the rider’s side door, opened it, and hopped in the front seat.

Willard said, Hi, Rudy, how was school today?

Rudy replied, Good, and then asked, Where are we going, Mr. Wilson?

Willard replied, We are going to go car hunting. You know, Evan is turning seventeen tomorrow, and I think it’s time to get him a car and put up the bicycle, don’t you?

Wow! Evan is getting a car, that will be so cool, Rudy said.

I thought you could help me pick out what he might want since you two boys are thicker than thieves. Rudy’s eyebrow shot up, not knowing what thicker than thieves meant. He never stole a thing in his life. He just figured it was a saying that someone old like Mr. Wilson might say. I’m pretty sure that you boys have been talking about what type of cars you like, haven’t you?

Yes, sir, we have, and I know exactly what he would want, a Pontiac Judge. It is actually a GTO, but people call it the Judge, Rudy said.

That’s a pretty powerful car, son. I’m not so sure his mother would like it if I brought home one of those, Willard said.

Well, sir, I know that is the only car Evan has ever talked about.

Willard bought the car. It was orange in color and a GTO, but it wasn’t a Judge, which has a much bigger engine. He just thought that particular car had too big a motor, and he didn’t want his son racing it out on the old Highway 12 bridge. Highway 12 bridge had a long standing history of young men racing their mean machines across it. Over the years, there had been more than a few wrecks and a multitude of speeding tickets issued by the local police department. After doing all the paper work, Willard had arranged for the Pontiac dealership’s salesman to drop the car off at his house so it would be there when Evan got home from football practice. They left the dealership, and Willard drove Rudy home. Both he and Rudy were excited to see Evan’s face when he got home and saw his brand new car in the driveway. Before Rudy got out of the car, Willard asked him a question.

Rudy, you have a birthday coming up pretty soon, don’t you?

Yes, sir, in May, Rudy answered.

Do you think you will be able to get you a car by then?

Rudy replied, I don’t think so, sir. I’m starting a job with my mom’s friend Harley this summer, but a lot of the money I make is going to be for purchasing some of the stock you advised me to buy. I don’t think I will make enough to buy a car and stock, sir. Willard just sat there staring at Rudy. Rudy said, Did I say something wrong, Mr. Wilson?

No, you didn’t. Just that I’m surprised is all. I just assumed you had probably forgotten our discussion.

Well, sir, I have to go and do my homework so I can have time to ride my bike over to your house and see Evan’s face when he sees his new car. Rudy shut the car door and went into his house.

Evan got his car, and everywhere he went for the next three months, his constant riding companion was none other than Rudy Trend. Rudy hadn’t had to ride his bike much at all. It was now May 6, 1971, and the next day, Rudy would become seventeen years old. His mother asked him what he would like for his birthday.

What he wanted was a car, but he knew his mother didn’t have the money, so he just said, Anything you get me, Mom, will be great.

She said, Well, I was talking to Harley about your upcoming birthday, and he said he was planning on a big surprise for you.

A big surprise? How big?

She laughed and said, I don’t know, son, but he said that you would be really happy.

Thanks, Mom. I won’t get a bit of sleep tonight thinking about the surprise.

By the way, son, you have received a piece of mail today.

A piece of mail? I never get mail, he said.

I believe it is from Mr. Wilson, his mother said.

Mr. Wilson hadn’t said anything about sending him any type of mail. Rudy wondered what in the world could it be. It was a big manila envelope with his name on it and was marked personal and confidential. He sat down at the kitchen table and began to open the envelope as his mother watched. When he pulled out the papers and started to read what was on the cover letter, his mother let out a loud squeal. The squeal made Rudy jump because it scared him a little.

He turned to his mom and said, Mother! What did you do that for?

His mother replied, I can’t believe it, son. Do you know what the letter says?

No, I haven’t read it yet. Now, please be quiet.

The heading on the letter was from a law firm: Smith & Beckerson, Attorneys at Law. They were a big law firm whose office was located in Kansas City, Missouri. The letter read as follows:

This letter is to inform you that we represent Willard J. Wilson (our client) in the matter of a trust fund set up by us and Mr. Wilson. The trust fund is in the name of Rudy Trend.

Be it known that one Rudy Trend is the sole owner of the above mentioned Trust. In the event of an untimely demise (death) of one Rudy Trend, his mother, Mrs. Christine Trend, will be the beneficiary of the trust.

This is a dated trust and can only be drawn upon or cashed in no earlier than May 7, 1984. At which time, Mr. Rudy Trend will be at age thirty. This trust holds a total of one hundred shares of common stock in the PriceWorld Corporation, headquartered in Cannon Hill, Arkansas. At time of deposit by Mr. Willard Wilson, the shares traded at 31.00 per share, at a total cash value of 3,100.00. Please contact our office so we can get signatures and go over a more detailed explanation of this trust. Should you have any questions, please call our office at 479-0001.

Best regards,

Edward Smith, Jerry Beckerson

Attorneys at law

Rudy was flabbergasted as well as his mother. In 1971, $3,100 was a small fortune. Christine could buy a week’s worth of groceries for $20.

Once they settled down and both sat at the kitchen table looking at each other, Christine said, Rudy, I don’t understand why Mr. Wilson would do such a generous thing, but I don’t think we can accept this from him.

But why not, Mother?

Christine replied, Rudy, this type of gift would usually come from a member of someone’s family. I would feel beholding to Mr. Wilson, and I don’t want to be beholding to anyone, and I don’t want you to either.

I guess you’re right, Mom, Rudy said with his head held low.

Well then, I will put this in a safe place, and tomorrow, I will call Mr. Wilson and set up a time and place to meet with him. I will politely tell him we cannot accept it, okay? she asked.

Rudy replied, Okay, Mom.

Now, you go to your room and do your homework. I need to finish up supper, she said.

The next morning Christine called and set up