On Becoming a Businessman
Every kid tries selling lemonade, and I did too; probably with the same disappointing results as other kids. I tried raising chickens in a backyard coop for my 4-H Club project. Little did I realize that I was required to monitor what they ate and drank and keep detailed records! As it turned out my “project” began shrinking as one-by-one they were fried up in Mom’s trusty skillet.
We got our first television set at my age ten. It was Westinghouse. The viewing choices were travelogues that were fuzzy and distorted. They were followed by screen-static and then the test pattern that proclaimed that WSM was owned by the National Life and Accident Insurance Company of Nashville, Tennessee. We sat patiently watching the WSM Shield while the next travelogue was cued up. Thank goodness travel films were soon replaced with Howdy Dooty, Ruffin’ Ready Westerns, local news and John Cameron Swayze on NBC.
The Nashville stations offered brief news and weather programs followed by reports on the war on the Korean Peninsula. There were local advertisements during the shows. Some of these ads were presented by retailers who were utterly inept at on-camera performances. One professional announcer, “Smiling Eddie Hill,” proclaimed how one could make big money selling black walnuts. The film running behind him showed the machine chipping off the green walnut hulls flinging them into the air while the black walnuts dropped into a big bin. It was a sight to see and excited me since I knew where there was a big walnut tree just waiting for harvesting.
I mentally rehearsed the satisfaction of standing there watching the walnuts I had gathered being loaded into the huller and seeing the chipped-off hulls flying through the air. Then I could almost feel the dollars, glorious “greenbacks” being counted into my hand until they made a big pile. The smiling proprietor of the produce house was broad and warm-hearted in my imagination!
I had a plan: I borrowed Buddy Stilz’s wagon, the one we used to descend Fisher Hill. However on one trip Buddy had let the tongue wobble, and as the front wheels skewed to the side we were hurled into the air and then to the asphalt street scraping knees and elbows in the process. No teeth were lost on this excursion.
I found big burlap sacks in Mrs. Apple’s barn and located bailing twine to tie the tops of the sacks. I had all I needed to seek my fortune in black walnuts.
Carthage in the ‘50’s was a small village. A teenager on a bike could go all the way across town from the fairgrounds to the end of the old river bridge in about ten minutes, and probably less if he really burns some pavement. One could walk from any part of town to the fairgrounds in thirty minutes. My designated walnut tree was on the hillside above the fairgrounds: That made my journey about half a mile up to the tree and about a mile back to the produce house down on the river.
I sallied forth right after school on a cold November afternoon . My spirits were high in anticipation of gathering the bounty given freely by Mother Nature to pad my pockets with uncounted riches. The wagon was a steel Radio Flyer with low sides, and I wondered if I would have trouble keeping two huge bags of walnuts from falling out. I dismissed the problem forthwith.
There was a gate just beyond the fairgrounds that allowed access to the track leading up through the gap between Battery Knob and Mike Hill. The track was not an actual “road.” but rather a rocky affair where walking was difficult. On closer inspection I soon realized that the rocks just filled in between limestone ledges jutting out every few feet. It was a difficult climb, but I finally made it high enough to be even with my bounteous walnut tree.
It was a splendid specimen, tall and straight, with all the leaves dropped and loaded with big green-hulled, black walnuts! The walnuts proved to be a proud product of Mother Nature, almost the size of baseballs.
Standing on the track I encountered a rickety wire fence separating me from my quarry. The wagon had to remain in the track since I could not get it over the fence and into the deep gully just beyond. The tree was loaded with walnuts, but it was about thirty yards up on the steep side of Mike Hill. The town-side of Mike Hill is not particularly steep, but the northwest side facing Battery Knob was very steep.
I got myself and my sacks over the fence and down in the gully after much hard scrabbling. There, straight above me was the tree. I found a few walnuts in the gully: That was where I had hoped to find the mother lode. The bulk of the crop remained on the tree. I would have to find a big limb to throw to knock the nuts down.
My first throw taught me a few lessons: (1) That I should get higher on the hillside before throwing the limb: as it was, I could not hit even the lowest limb from the bottom of the gully. (2) That I should not stand under a large flying limb that was bound to come down in my immediate vicinity: standing in the gully I had no place to run! (3) This operation was not going to be as easy as I had hoped.
I scrambled up the side of Mike Hill until I was able to fling the limb with the desired effect. My first throw from my new position taught me a few more lessons: (1) That these walnuts were not going to be easily dislodged: my first throw brought down only three or four walnuts. (2) That every time the limb was thrown it wound up in the bottom of the gully and had to be retrieved requiring considerable effort. (3) That this operation was not going to be as easy as I had hoped.
I would not give up while those visions of walnut hulls flew through the air and the pile of dollars grew ever higher. The day was growing old and cold and I finally dislodged every walnut I could given my decreasing strength. I figured that I could still get the booty home by supper time.
I descended into the infamous gully for the final time to fill my sacks. I had almost a full sack and began my climb to the fence when I realized that I could not lift the sack! It must have weighed more than a hundred pounds: I only weighed sixty pounds! I decided that I would put half the sack into the other sack, make several trips, and go through some transferring when I got to the wagon.
Dumping from one sack to the other did not work so the strategy was a labor intensive task. Using one walnut per hand, then opening the top of the sack with my little fingers was not getting me anywhere fast, but what else was there to do? And all the while the cold November day was making my fingers numb and stiff!
Getting back up to the fence sapped my remaining strength so that I was having great difficulty getting the half-sack of walnuts over the fence. I struggled with it until I got it up to over my head, just about ready to push it over the barbed wire, when the walnuts shifted and the sack tilting directly backward over my head. All but four lousy walnuts cascaded down my back and rolled into the gully twenty feet below!
I realized that this project was going to be much more difficult than I could manage! In fact, it was impossible for a ten year old skinny town kid to get it done. So then and there I admitted that fact to myself. I was too tired to cry, and I did not know enough swear-words to make an effective display. And besides, there was no one to witness my tirade! I struggled back over the fence and dejectedly pulled Buddy’s wagon back to his house. It was a long cold walk for a kid who realized that his judgment was suspect.
I did not tell my parents about my adventure in the world of black walnut gathering. A good night’s sleep made my disappointment fade. I just wondered how much money I had missed.
A few days later some country-raised, school-friends of mine were discussing their walnut selling experiences. All their trees were on their own property and on level ground where they could drive a wagon or pickup under the trees and get every family member out there tossing walnuts into the box. These hearty families had seen the TV ads or had heard the gossip and had descended on the produce house with truckload after truckload of black walnuts.
They got to witness the hulling process and received their remittance. I am sure that they had envisioned the piles of dollars growing in their hands just as I had. As it turned out, there was a glut in the black walnut market, and the prices paid for the commodity were minuscule! So minuscule in fact that the following year only desperate walnut gatherers were willing to exert the effort. I was not one of them!
Smiling Eddie Hill was seen only briefly on TV the following year. Evidently the black walnut business had experienced a permanent down-turn.
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