Excerpts from Chapters

Part I
Beginnings
In 1947, My dad, Edward Orkney, started his first war surplus store in Salem, Oregon, in partnership with another World War II Army Air Corps pilot. The partners experimented with the pricing of merchandise. To save making change on a transaction, each item was priced an even amount. So, instead of a price of $3.99 for example, the price was $4.00! Dad did not repeat this pricing strategy in later stores.

Part II
Our Home
We lived close to the Columbia River, which was about a half mile away, with the Interstate Bridge a few miles further away.. Our house was located on the Columbia River flood plain. While the store had not been flooded in the 1948 Vanport Flood, our house had been. In 1951, when we moved in, there was still dried mud from the flood waters on the floor of the unfinished room on the second floor!

Part III
The Store and Neighborhood

I believe G.I. Joe's was more than just a fun place. Looking back, the store represented a wave of the future for the Northwest, because so much of the G.I. surplus was a prototype for recreational sporting goods that had not been developed yet. The products sold at the store obviously were not used by customers for their original purpose, which was conducting war. Instead, they were used to get out in nature, or in creative ways, like making a wading pool out of a rubber raft.

Part IV
Store Growth and Family Change
My father, Edward Orkney’s main focus, from the time he left the Army Air Corps in 1945, was to build a business, and he did. Money and possessions did not seem to interest him much. Instead, it was the challenge of creating something solid that was important to him. Also important to him was that, even after his death, G.I. Joe’s could continue to be a resource to the community, and offer security to the employees who had helped in its creation.

Part V
Edward Orkney’s Story

Another quality my father had was modesty. Bragging was not something he did. A simple statement of the facts was OK, but not drawing attention to oneself. I know that for at least the first 10 years and probably more, G.I. Joe’s did not buy advertising in newspapers or on the radio. Rather, Dad depended on word-of-mouth, or simply the great location of the North Portland store, so close to the Washington/Oregon Interstate Bridge. I believe that Dad not advertising in the early years, was a natural outgrowth of his modesty and basic quietness.

Janna Orkney, Copyright, 2008

JannaOrkney2@yahoo.com