Would You Like to Buy a Rock? It's Painted.

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Picture this: 1977. I was seven. Silk shorts, tube top, tube socks up to my knees. And roller skates. Pretty picture, huh?

I would do anything when I was a kid to make some money. Every kid in my neighborhood wanted money to spend at the Family Del (it was actually the Family Deli, but apparently adding the i at the end of deli was just too much back then.).

Dressed in my seventies funk get-up, I skated house to house (not easy to climb steps in roller skates, by the way) to collect money for the Eddie Meath Foundation.  I had no idea who Eddie Meath was or what a foundation was, but I knew my uncle had just had a big party at his house and donated some money there.

I was making out pretty good when I went to the wrong house. I climbed his hundred cement steps and asked for a donation. Instead of just forking over his change for my candy money Eddie Meath, he asked, "If you're collecting for Eddie Meath Foundation, where's your tin can with his picture on it?"

I rolled slightly backwards, feeling for the top step. "I, um, left it on my kitchen table," I said, and clomped down the stairs as fast as I could and rolled home to hide.

The next day I gathered some rocks from our yard and painted them beautiful colors. I went house to house and sold each one for five cents. I made a fortune.

We're having a garage sale in two weeks and my son is going to have a lemonade stand. He's also going to paint and sell some rocks (yes, it was my idea).

But I promise not to persuade him to go door-to-door collecting money for something he knows nothing about.

:)

Comments

Pat Tillett said…
That was too funny! We used to go door to door asking people to donate soda bottles for one cause or another. But I never tried it on roller skates!
May 11, 2010 at 1:32 PM
Kelly H-Y said…
Too funny ... you were an entrepreneuer!!! :-)
May 11, 2010 at 2:42 PM
Carolyn V. said…
LOL, How cute! When I was young, my friend and I went around her neighborhood selling homemade bookmarks. We made fifty cents. =)

Good luck with the yard sale. I hope your son sells tons of golden rocks!
May 11, 2010 at 5:25 PM
Anonymous said…
;)

I tried to sell rocks once but it didn't work out.
May 11, 2010 at 6:28 PM
Bossy Betty said…
Great idea! I was totally there in 1977!
May 11, 2010 at 8:54 PM
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