Celebrating Apples



I didn’t realize that there was an actual International Eat An Apple Day. It’s the third Saturday of September. The timing fits nicely with apple harvest. So, pick your favorite variety and enjoy.

Apples are kind of a big deal for my family.


Long ago, after our failed farming venture, Tom was searching for work. His father’s friend was a potato and onion salesman and he suggested Tom could sell apples. He had a small office with several desks, telephones, a secretary to manage the paperwork, and perpetual cigarette smoke from the other salesmen. They sold to grocery stores across the country, and having an apple man would be be a good fit for their company.


Tom was a rookie, but he mastered the art of cold calls—dialing up potential customers. Rejection didn’t deter Tom. Within a few months he had several buyers in the Southeast. 


As soon as he could, he moved out of the smoke-filled office, installed extra phone lines in our basement, and became a home-based business pioneer in the mid-eighties.


He embraced all the latest technology. With computers and digital photography he showed his apple buyers the fruit before it shipped. That was revolutionary back then.


Tom didn’t just care about sales, he cared for the people he sold apples to—buyers became friends. So did those he bought apples from.


And his oversea sales grew—the Middle East, China, Europe, Central America—places he’d never visit, but he knew through his customers who lived there.


Selling a perishable commodity, with price fluctuations and heavy competition, and being the one managing all the logistics made it a stressful career. But Tom never quit. 


So, I salute International Eat an Apple Day. Apples supported us and we’re thankful for all the people who love apples.


Sometimes careers are things we plan for, but every so often the best careers are the ones that you’d never expect. 


Popular posts from this blog

Counting the Cost

Image
Something big is missing in this photo. Let me explain. Here in my hometown, the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe prepared a parcel of land for a new hotel. Plenty of planning and architectural designs were evaluated. A gemstone of a hotel would be built across from the waterfront—a beautiful, restful place welcoming travelers. A true four-star facility.   They cleared the aging brick structures that had been fading away between Front Street and Railroad Avenue. Then the pandemic hit, shortages of labor and supplies, add in the costly inflation that followed. Everything stopped.   But this is what I admire about the Elwha Tribe: they have counted the cost. They didn’t want to move forward and take on tremendous debt. They would rather move slowly and be financially ready, rather than begin building and then letting it sit unfinished.   Counting the cost is something I should have done earlier in life when I didn’t know what high interest rates would do to our farming costs and bottom l
Read more

Summertime Music

Image
During the summer months, in an outside seating area, a delightfully painted piano sits with a sign that says, “Play me”.   It was just before 8 pm as I walked past the piano. My bus would be arriving soon, and I still have another ten minutes to walk before reaching my bus stop. But no one is around. It’s a beautiful warm evening. I pulled out the piano bench and sat down. The sun was behind me, and the piano keys reflected its glow. I had no music in front of me, only the songs within me. Notes drifted into the air.  In those brief moments, the magic of music and summer came together. Isn’t that how it is? Summertime music has a way of lingering in our minds and lasting a lifetime. As I stood and grabbed my things, I heard distant clapping—I guess I wasn’t alone, after all.
Read more

Homeless Winslow

Image
A while back I found a left-behind sign at my bus stop. No doubt, it’s a “sign” of our times. Then there’s Winslow*—that’s the name I’ve given her because she’s always in downtown Winslow. As far as I know, she’s been homeless for a few years.  She has grocery carts filled with old toys, shoes, clothes, towels, games, and a wild assortment of cast-off stuff she must have collected from the town’s dumpsters. I’m not sure what she does with it all—if anything. But I’ve never seen her beg. Her nightly “home” is adjacent to the town’s post office—it’s a covered spot, so she parks her carts and pulls blankets over herself. That’s usually where I see her on cold, rainy nights. But this week, she was in the post office—the part that’s left open to the public all night. She had a toaster oven plugged in and was re-heating a foil-wrapped item that looked like something the grocery store might have given her.  I needed to mail a package, so I went to the self-serve machine and began pus
Read more