Bird Chain Saw Co

I have been a loyal customer for longer than I remember. I went with my dad to get parts here when this business was across from Publix on Thompson Bridge Road and Clayton Bird was the owner. I remember my dad telling me this as a teaching tool. When he first started trading with Mr Claburn, dad said that he was just not to friendly but never rude. My dad did this with several people throughout his life. He said that he was bound and determined to get Mr Bird to smile and like him. As time passed he had to ask Mr Bird how to repair a tool he was not familiar with. This is the moral of the story and a learning experience for me. He said that Mr Bird took him back in the shop and spent a while showing dad how to fix whatever it was. From that day till now, he said that Mr Bird was one of the nicest and most helpful and honest people he ever traded with. Tommy his son-in-law runs it now and he is the nicest person and helpful as anyone could ask another person to be. In fact, I went to buy a heavy duty self propelled push mower from him. I have always took my dad’s advice on this as well, if you are going to use it for your work, number one never borrow another man’s tools and if you had no other option, you return it in better condition than when you borrowed it.
I had many rental properties at the time and was buying the best yard tools I could afford. There was a push mower I had saved to buy. It was the latest thing that every man wanted. I walked in and told Tommy that I came to buy that $1,000 lawnmower. He asked me if I wanted some advice as we discussed it. He told me that it didn’t matter that mower was a $1K, I would regret buying it because every one that he sold, a large percentage of them were brought back to repair. He said that the transmission was not built well and I would regret buying it. I asked him to recommend one, he said that he had a used one he had just finished tuning up and he would sell it to me for $300. I always try to listen to the person that I buy something from because he would be the one to keep it running. That was at least 13-14 years ago and I still have it and other than the beginning of the season tune up, it has never broke down yet. Two of my friends had the $1K mower i was going to buy. I told them what Tommy told me. One of them had to replace the transmission before the end of summer and the other one had to replace his transmission the next year. Point being, some people are not exactly the way you think they are which was the case with Mr Bird and Tommy could have sold me a $1K mower and probably made more money but instead he surely lost a little bit of money by selling me the used but far superior mower. People as a general rule are not that way anymore. They have their best interest at heart and really didn’t care about the customer. That is also a lesson that I learned and finally it reinforced my always trying to buy from the independent businesses because they know you and will always treat you right as a general rule. There are very few independent businesses left and soon all that will be left is the Lowes and Home Depot’s. So always try to buy from local people that you go to church with or your children go to school together. I am long winded and if you are still reading this, I can say in a few words what took me a long while to type. You will get good, honest and fair deals from Bird’s Chainsaw. I am almost certain you will not regret it.