The Potato Stand

One of my best buddies in grade school was Jay Easterby. He was a funny, outgoing kid, and the two of us together were trouble. We got into trouble a lot. I'm sure we earned each other more than a handful of stern comments from teachers during our many years as friends. Jay lived alongside West Valley Highway, at the edge of Algona--almost in Pacific. For me to go visit him was not a small undertaking. Not only was it quite a ways away, but it was also a very busy road, and there were no sidewalks. The speed limit was much faster back then, too. I believe it was 50 mph along the whole stretch.  Because his house was set in against a hillside, Jay had a lot of interesting terrain around at his house.  He had trails and little cliffs and dirt walls we could climb on. All of these were things that I didn't have.

One day we were out on the highway on our bikes. I don't know where we were going. When we were riding on that road we had to constantly be aware of traffic and would always switch sides when we heard a car or truck coming. At one point a big, stake bed truck went by, loaded with boxes of vegetables.
  "Wouldn't it be neat if those boxes fell off that truck?" I said to Jay as we pedaled.
  "Yeah!" He replied back excitedly.

Just then, as if on cue, a box fell off the back, hitting the side of the road and scattering potatoes all over the place. We looked at each other dumbfounded. We looked at the truck and watched in disbelief as it kept going. We couldn't believe our luck! Hurriedly, we gathered up all the spilled items and put them back into what was left of the box. We suddenly had a lot of nice red potatoes.

We decided we were going to set up a stand alongside the road. It worked for lemonade stands, right? It should work for potatoes too. After all, everybody loves potatoes! We set up our stash of new found produce riches alongside the road there and made a sign. Obviously, we had no idea what potatoes sold for because not a single car ever stopped. We marked it down over and over again only to be shunned by every car that went by. We didn't make a dime that day but it was fun and kept us out of trouble. I'm sure I ended up taking a bunch of them home with me.  It was too good a deal to just throw away.

I still can't believe how I hoped out loud for something and then watched it happen right before my very eyes like that. I was powerful there for a minute!