One summer a long, long time ago a traveling carnival came to Maysville, Oklahoma. Since it was late summer, Maysville was probably their last stop for the year. When the carnival left town, the lady (and her son) who sold snow-cones at the carnival stayed behind a couple of weeks and asked permission to set up their snow-cone \u201cstand\u201d on the sidewalk outside my grandad\u2019s store. Since the weather was still warm, they did a pretty good business.
\nI was about 12 years old at the time and I talked to the \u201csnow-cone people\u201d a lot because I spent a fair amount of time hanging around my grandad\u2019s store \u2014 I bagged groceries there on a part time basis.<\/p>\n
So when the snow-cone people\u00a0 announced they would be leaving, I asked if I could buy their snow-cone machine. They said they\u2019d sell me everything \u2014 including the supplies and the \u201cstand\u201d (which was not much more than packing crates nailed together.) for $125. My Dad suggested that I offer them $100 for the whole package. (Remember, $100 was a lot of money back in the 1950s time frame.) Turns out that they accepted my offer, but there was a problem \u2014 I didn\u2019t have $100. I had maybe $20…. and of course my Dad did the right thing by telling me that it was my responsibility to come up with the money. He suggested that I go to the bank and see if I could get a loan. I don\u2019t remember for sure, but I think the bank agreed to the loan if my dad would co-sign. But my grandmother (Williamson) came through for me. She said she\u2019d loan me the money with no interest, but I had to pay it back in a reasonable amount of time.<\/p>\n
Well, I set up my snow-cone business right in front of my granddad\u2019s store and business boomed. I only had a month or six weeks (maybe 2 months maximum) before it would be too cold for snow-cones. It turned out that I was either a very good businessman or very lucky, because I was able to pay my grandmother back in full and bank enough money to get the business started the following summer before the weather got bad.<\/p>\n
Over the winter, I made arrangements to rent a space for my snow-cone stand and my grandad (Archer) built a real \u201cstand\u201d or building that had a door, a floor, a customer counter, shelves and was wired for electricity. There was a shoe repair shop located on Main Street that had a vacant lot right next to it. I rented the space to set my stand and Mr. Beck (the shoe shop owner) agreed that I could tap into his electricity \u2014 for a fee \u2014 that was added to my monthly rent. For the next two or three years, the business did well and I made a fairly good profit. I was written up in the Maysville News <\/em>newspaper a couple of times for being the youngest businessman in town. I know it wasn\u2019t the Washington Post<\/em>, but hey, it was a real newspaper that was published every week.<\/p>\n When school started in the fall and before it was out for the summer, my (great) aunt ran the business for me during school hours. Once again, no particular point to this \u2014 just something I happened to remember a few days ago, when the subject of summer jobs for kids came up…. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" One summer a long, long time ago a traveling carnival came to Maysville, Oklahoma. Since it was late summer, Maysville was probably their last stop for the year. When the carnival left town, the lady (and her son) who sold … Continue reading
\nI operated the business until the last two or three years of high school. By that time a local drug store had noticed the popularity of snow-cones and put a machine in their store. That competition (they were able to operate it year-round) and probably my deteriorating interest led to closing the business and pursuing other interests through high school.<\/p>\n
\n\u2014 30 \u2014<\/p>\n