Ray Bell was a math teacher, turned credit manager of a farm equipment company in my rural southern Georgia hometown. He was also my dad. I knew he kept a very detailed ledger book that had information on every customer he gave a loan. He could tell you how often a farmer came into the tractor company, how often he was late on a payment, the ratio of his loan to cultivatable acreage, et. cetera, ad nauseam!

When my dad passed away, lots of farmers told me at his funeral what a wonderful credit manager he was. “Oh, he was strict, mind you,” they would tell me. “If he gave you a loan on a new tractor or planter, he expected you to repay every cent of it. But he really knew us.”

I later found an old copy of one of his ledger books after the equipment company was sold when the owner died. All his figures were meticulously maintained. In the far right margin were notes like, “oldest boy has had the flu,” or “boll weevils worse this year.” There was even a small newspaper article clipped to one of the pages about one customer’s son’s military achievements. I am confident the figures were all accurate. However, the facts depicted in the books were enlightening.

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