Working for Pumpkins
By Jim Bauer
@porwest (95641)
United States
March 15, 2023 7:58am CST
I remember when I was about 13-years old I saw a little yellow truck for sale for about $1,500, and even though I could not yet drive, I wanted it.
I always had a penchant for work and ways to make money. I even sold greeting cards door to door when I was eight. Making money and having money has just been something in my blood from a very early age.
You would not be hard pressed to find me mowing lawns or washing cars too.
We lived in a private subdivision on a lake called Holiday Shores at the time, and just outside the subdivision were some farms. One in particular, right across from the main gate was Homer's farm where he had some pigs, some cows, some chickens and grew a little bit of this and that.
I decided one day to knock on his door and see if he needed any help, with that little yellow truck high on my radar.
"I can always use the help," old Homer told me. "But I cannot afford to pay you except in pumpkins."
Pumpkins? How am I supposed to buy that little yellow truck with pumpkins? And what would I do with them?
I turned down the job of course. But I should have used my entrepreneurial spirit and maybe made pies to sell or something. Maybe that would have been my real start in the business world.
Famous Amos was famous for his cookies. I could have been famous for my pies, delivered in style in a little yellow pickup truck.
Oh well.
16 people like this
14 responses
@moffittjc (122606)
• Gainesville, Florida
15 Mar 23
I grew up living next to an orange grove in south Florida. My brother and I would always sneak into the grove and pick oranges off the trees and eat them. The staff were always catching us and running us off the property, but we’d just keep coming back. Then the owner came up with an idea…he hired my brother and I to pick oranges for him, and in payment we could take home as many oranges as we wanted. As kids, money didn’t matter to us as much as getting all the free oranges we wanted!
5 people like this
@moffittjc (122606)
• Gainesville, Florida
17 Mar 23
@Fleura He sure did! And he skirted those pesky child labor laws too.
3 people like this
@RebeccasFarm (91914)
• Arvada, Colorado
15 Mar 23
And you never got the little yellow truck, like I never got the gold Jag I wanted when I was 12.
Working for pumpkins or peanuts all the same lol
2 people like this
@1creekgirl (42306)
• United States
15 Mar 23
Cute story. Did you ever get that little yellow truck?
2 people like this
@Marilynda1225 (83698)
• United States
15 Mar 23
I'm sorry that you never got your little yellow pickup truck but I did like reading about your attempts to find a way to buy it.
My youngest grandson is 14 yrs old and he's always looking for ways to make money and trying to come up with ideas for something that would make him money. Recently he just started making candles and opened an Etsy shop.
2 people like this
@innertalks (22316)
• Australia
19 Mar 23
A friend of my wife's made a very nice pumpkin slice-like cake, moist and mouthwatering.
She was not that good a friend though, as she would never share her recipe with my wife!
@innertalks (22316)
• Australia
22 Mar 23
@porwest As a matter of fact, she never did visit us, we visited her, hoping that she would come out with a piece of her pumpkin slice, every time that we visited her. It happened about one time in four......
@LindaOHio (183865)
• United States
12 Apr 23
Great story. Good to see you again. I started work at 14 and was always looking for other ways to make money. You could have resold the pumpkins!
1 person likes this
