How Jody Became a Land Baron, sort of (part 2)

Irondale WA

Part II- Irondale:
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      It's no surprise Jody is an excellent saleman, because she is an excellent communicator; she can talk to anyone, can understand and acknowledge anyone without judgment. (A very handy ability for a writer.)
     So when Jaffarian meets Jody he recognizes the answer as to how to make money with these thousands of Irondale lots.  She pitches him a set of encyclopedias; he pitches her a proposal they go into business together.
       They soon form Scojaf and craft a direct sales campaign based on Jody's Britannica presentation (phone pitch followed by in-person pitch with sales kit-- in this case many maps, photos, brochures, etc). They place a small classified ad in The Little Nickel Newspaper (a thing made of paper that people used before Craig's list) and soon, with her handy Thompson's Guide (a thing made of paper that people used before GPS) and the street-numbering truism that "east is even," Jody is navigating all over Seattle selling vacation lots for $9 down and $9 per month.  
       She is a howling success.  The checks are pouring in. ​  

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Irondale is 6 miles south of Port Townsend on the Olympic peninsula

An interesting aside, Irondale is just up the road from the setting for 'The Egg and I' by Betty MacDonald, adapted to film in the 'Ma & Pa Kettle' movies

      Jody has her head down, plowing those furrows like the good Capricorn she is, but poor Jaffarian goes a little nuts with the all the money and success. He trades in his wife for a newer, younger model, buys a sprawling estate in Escondido CA that once belonged to Harold Bell Wright, and eventually trades Scojaf for a boatload of Teletrans stock.
       Teletrans, it turns out, is the product of a classic "pump-and-dump" scheme and therefore very soon worthless. (You can still find info about it on the internet with enough searching, because the shell of Teletrans was used again, post-internet, to conduct another "pump-and-dump" before being delisted by the Salt Lake City Exchange.) 
          To his credit Jaffarian feels bad and deeds the remaining lots to Jody in compensation. She continues to sell them directly, and carries the contracts. The monthly payments are by this time up to $29.  And that money coming in steadily every month affords Jody the time to write. She writes Passing For Human which is published in 1977, the year that we meet.
         Over the next several years I assist Jody in this enterprise and learn the business (an education worth many times the price of any college tuition), and as the stock of Irondale lots dwindles we begin to search for a new location where we can repeat what she's done with Irondale.
         We find it in Okanogan County, which I will tell you all about next week.
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The beach where Chimacum Creek feeds into Puget Sound

(Continued next week)

Chimacum Creek that divides north and south Irondale