It was 1938 and I was eight years old. My most cherished dream was to have bicycle. I recall Earl J. Sullivan and Billy Brock Davidson having those Schwinn's with balloon tires and all those "extras" such as mud flaps, a horn operated by a flashlight battery and streamers coming off the handlebar grips. Earl J. and Billy Brock were about five years older than I and were already teenagers.
 
     It was the middle of the depression. Gasoline was .18 cents a gallon, an ice cream cone was .05 cents at the Brasfield and Greenfield Drug Store. Christmas was approaching and I had made this statement to mother and dad that "I guess I would be an old man before I got a bicycle." I knew though that it was impossible for me to have one of those like Earl J. and Billy Brock had because times were really hard and hardly anyone had any money. It was years later that I learned that times were better in the years before I was born. This is the unique makeup of those that are my age that were born in the depression.

     In the big house on Broad Street in Greenfield, Tennessee, I had my own room but during the winter months there was no heat except the large living room with the double doors that led to what mom and dad used as their bedroom. In those times I slept on a small half bed to be where the heat was.

     Christmas eve came and I recall half waking to a noise. I was too old to really still believe in Santa but that was one of those things mom and dad, even then, did not admit to me that he did not exist. In my half dreamlike state there they were painting a used bicycle. At last my dream has come true, I'm getting a bicycle, I thought as I fell back to sleep.




     Mr. Ralph McUmber was known far and wide as one of the most progressive farmers of his time. Mr. Ralph came to Greenfield and took poor land and made it productive. He planted many orchards of various apples and peaches. On other land he planted strawberries and other "truck crops."

     Mom sent me to Mr. Ralph's to pick strawberries in the spring of 1937. Each strawberry patch had it's pack-shed where we turned in our picked quarts of berries. We were given one ticket for each quart and at the end of the week we received two cents for each one we had. Early in the morning with dew on the berries was a chilling job and then later in the day when the sun was high it became a hot job. I thought, "this is something I certainly wont do if I can get out of it."

     During the harvest season of apples and peaches I worked my first job for pay by the hour for a few days off and on. I was not old enough to pick apples or peaches but much of the fruit that was overripe and with rotten spots would be on the ground. Mr. Ralph would hire some of us young boys to pick these up and put in buckets and then dump in a trailer. For this we received ten cents an hour. To me this was a real job. Just think, after a 10 hour day we would have a whole dollar.

     Then came the spring of 1938 and strawberry season was once again approaching. Mom and Dad once again "persuaded" me to pick strawberries. This time though I did not have to ride the truck that picked up the workers. I only had to ride my bicycle about a half mile to Mr. Ralph's strawberry patch. While picking berries one of the other kids offered me a ticket to let him ride my bike down to the highway and back. Suddenly my first business enterprise was begun. With this first offer came several others to wait their turn to ride the bike.

     That thought that I had the year before about picking strawberries, "this is something I certainly wont do if I can get out of it", came to mind once again. This was my opportunity. I set up under a big shade tree and collected tickets from the kids that wanted a turn on my bike. That first day when I arrived home I showed Mom and Dad all the tickets I had and it was more than I had ever picked before. I continued to do this all through that season.

     Several years later after I had married I learned that Mom and Dad had learned of what I was doing after that first day from one of the ladies at the pack-shed. Mom's statement at the time was "well I'll never have to worry about Joe making it in this world."

     It may be possible that experiences like this in our childhood have more effect on us than we realize. In my 78 years my entire income has been derived from my own initiative. I have never received a paycheck from any company.