The Travelling Salesman
The Travelling Salesman - June 30, 2023
My last blog was going to be about this until my mind started drifting to another story. My adult attention deficit disorder. I haven’t been diagnosed for it; I just think the way my mind works I could have it. Who knows?
I was thinking the other day how as a child we had the World Book Encyclopedia’s to look up information that we needed to or wanted to know. The school library had Brittanica as well as World Book encyclopedias. I always felt World Book had better knowledge. Having our own set of encyclopedias was a definite advantage when it came to doing school homework. Nowadays we just type what we want to know into our smart phones or computers and the information is at our fingertips.
This got to me thinking about how these encyclopedias ended up in our house. One of the local school teachers from our town travelled around and sold them. Travelling salespeople – what a career. A way of earning a second income. Gas was cheap – all you needed was time and a gift of the gab! Gas was probably about .45 cents a gallon.
I can still remember the various travelling salespeople who stopped in at the farm. Here are just a few:
Amway, Watkins, pots and pans, Avon, Regal, Tupperware - home parties became very popular and started a trend that still happens today. Although online parties seem to be more popular than having people come into your home.
I remember buying my own pots and pans shortly after I was married – a mere 40 years ago. How time does fly when you are having fun. I also included this as bonus story in my cookbook “A Bakers Dozen”. (Soon to be available on Amazon.) This story is an excerpt from my book. It made my daughter laugh so hard when I told her about it – she said, “mom you have to put that story in your book.”
This one cold winter evening, while I was home alone, (my husband worked up north most of the winter) a knock came on the door about 7:30 at night. I was not expecting any company and I wasn’t the bravest person living by myself. I carefully opened the door and there was this larger sized man at the door wondering if I would be interested in buying some pots and pans. Well, of course, I was. There were a few items on my bucket list since being married and one of them was to own nice quality stainless steel pots and pans. Not light weight cheaper pots and pans like I presently owned. I was a bit leery about letting a stranger into the house, but it was the early 1980’s - most people could be trusted, therefore, I let him in. He unloaded his tickle trunk of pots and pans and showed me all the wonderful things that could be done with these pots and pans. And (drum roll) if I purchased that evening, he could throw in the electric frypan! What a deal. How much? They were expensive even for that day and age. But they did have a payment plan, interest-free, so I had to say yes. I think they were around $2000 plus taxes. I do not recall if I got them that night or if they were mailed out to me. I had to put the handles on them, that I remember. I could choose from 2 different types of handles. They also had a lifetime warranty on them. Nowadays people head to Amazon or local department store and purchase their new pots and pans.
I had these pots and pans from 1983 until 2016 (33 years) when we renovated the kitchen, and I chose induction cooktops and needed new pots as my old ones would not work on induction cooktops. Now some people dislike induction for that reason, but not me. My pots and pans had done me well, but I was ready for new ones. And I love my induction cooktops. If you are thinking of replacing your cooktop or stove, check out induction before buying gas. The easy clean-up makes them amazing to own as well as their super-fast heat and the automatic turn off feature when you remove the pot.
Another travelling sales story is one about my mother, as she was an Avon lady for several year and I remember what fabulous samples Avon had to give away to their customers. The little, tiny blue boxes that held about 40 baby mini lipsticks. These were everyone’s favorite. When our girlfriends from school came over we always played with the mini lipsticks. My mom would drive around the countryside with her Avon bag of samples, her order book, and sell the various Avon products that were available. And then when the orders would come in, it was like Christmas unpacking all of these boxes and sorting through the product and putting them with the correct order. Place the products in a bag, staple the order receipt with the name on it and start on the next bag. Our house always had nice creams, lotions, and makeup to use or play with from mom being an Avon lady. And a lot of us would still remember the old jingle: when the doorbell would ring (ding dong) – “Avon Calling!”
Before ending with my blog this evening, if you have time for a drive in the country go and look at the miles and miles of beautiful canola that is growing out there. It is a sea of yellow out there right now.
Next, it is time for a song. What shall it be? This story totally started without a song on my mind. Therefore I have to go into think mode for a few minutes. Alright I am going with “These Boots are Made for Walking by Nancy Sinatra. Released in 1966 and written by Lee Hazelwood. It reached #1 in the USA and in the UK Singles Chart. Those go-go boots Nancy had were the best! And the mini-skirts! If you have YouTube go watch the official video. Lots of fun. And although this song is about leaving a relationship – when you are a salesman your boots do a lot of walking too!
Till next time, enjoy your summer and vacation.
