My father owned a farm market in Flint, Michigan. Both my mother and myself were his employees. the open aired farm market was open from the Easter, when we started selling Lillie’s until the last of October when we sold pumpkins. We also open up for two weeks in December to sell Christmas trees. The summer months we sold fresh local produce. My dad would get up around 3 in the morning and drive to Bay City where the local farmers sold wholesale to small farm markets like my dad’s. I remember riding in that old Dodge truck where you could actually see the pavement below the floorboard as we drove along country roads to purchase our produce for the week. Fresh tomatoes were 39 cents a pound or 3 pounds for a dollar. Mom loved selling the flowers in the spring time. She would have a very dark tan by the 1st of June. I worked the summer months. Seven days a week from 9 am to 9 pm. On the days we went to the farmers market we would return to our market around 11 am where I would unload the truck and my dad would get a few hours of sleep before he went to his regular job as a conductor for the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad.

I was at the local farmers market last week and that experience brought back a lot of memories. We provided “Customer Service” before they invented the word. I find it amazing that some store clerks can’t make change without looking at the cash register to see how much they owe their customer. Heaven forbid if they said “Thank You”.