My father was one of the bank directors for most of the time I can remember. He usually went straight from working on the farm to the board meeting and his standard farm dress was a plain white T shirt (or at least it was white when he put it on in the morning. He would accessorize with a ball point pen clipped to the neck hem just for the meeting. This became his standard meeting uniform. On the day of one meeting, he was well dressed for some other function. He actually went home and changed into clean farm clothes for the bank meeting. It is important to keep up appearances! John Dixon remembers the day that my father arrived for a directors meeting in a suit. John took one look at him coming thru the door and said "The bank has been sold!" It had been sold to Huntington Bank, and they are still in business today.
Unlike Earl, who wrote the checks at home, my father carried the farm check book in his pickup truck. The keys never left the ignition of any of my parent's cars. Since there was a real possibility that someone could take a check, he only noted check amounts. There was never a balance in the checkbook. The balance was kept in his head. This accounting method created quite a scene at one board meeting where it was announced that his checking accout was overdrawn by ten thousand dollars. My father had forgotten to cover one of his big checks! And he made it right immediately.
My father always said that banks were always willing to lend money to people who didn't need it. They are much less enthusiastic about lending money to people who do nned it!