I started my small business entrepreneurial career at the age of five years old, five years three months old to be exact. It was July of 1968, a very turbulent year. My parents had been supplying me with an allowance of first a nickel, then a dime, and finally a quarter, per week since age four. My allowance salary seemed to go up, as long I was good boy, which was not difficult to achieve. With this I learned basic math and money management starting at age four, during the summer of love, 1967. I stacked, organized and carefully counted my coins on the top shelf of my closet storage shelves. I had my priorities straight, I was never going to be without money again. By age five the allowance was too small to purchase all the things I wanted to buy. Something had to be done to increase my income. I decided to start my own small business to earn extra income, but what? What type of business?

The summer before a rock store existed on the grounds in a small rented building. The man who ran the shop cut his own rocks with rock cutting saws and manufactured them into souvenir trinkets, Jewelry and beautiful decorations. I spent hours & hours watching him work and learning his trade at age four. I also spent many hours watching an electrician work at age four with great fascination, as well as plumbers, carpenters, and cement workers, at business properties owned by my parent’s & adjacent properties. We lived in the downtown of a busy small business community, with new businesses starting, & much building work being done to accommodate this. A rural downtown of civilian houses, was being turned into a small business tourist oriented community. We were the bedroom community for Mt Snow and Haystack ski mountains. An interesting piece of history is that Mt Snow was the first major commercial ski mountain and was during this 60s until sometime in the early 70s, the largest ski mountain in the world in terms of numbers of trails and customers. My family to my knowledge built the first retail-shopping village to service the commercial ski industry; we were the first pioneers of this new industry, and it is within this context that this first part of the story is told. With this education it became possible to copy the basic concepts of the rock store, with one major disadvantage, that I did not have access to the same quality rocks.

With the best looking small stones I could find I started a retail store that consisted of nothing more than a small portable table, a chair, and a cardboard box for money. Stones were arranged by size and type. More valuable ones separate from less desirable looking ones. It did not take long to get customers; my store was an immediate success. Somehow, by watching the rock seller the year before I learned the ropes of how to talk about rocks and sell them, even if his rocks were valuable gems and my rocks were just common river stones, although the best of common river stones, carefully selected. It was not long before I realized that customers were purchasing my stones, not so much because they valued the stones, as because they wanted to support this stupid looking, cute little kid, this country bumpkin, that was somehow so cutely thinking that these worthless river stones actually had some value. With this new realization I hammed up the sales pitch even further, emphasizing the cute, and selling all the stones I could, worthless to them or not. After collecting enough coins to have multiple large stacks on the top shelf of my bedroom closet, after purchasing all the toys I could possibly need, the charming of old ladies and goofy tourists with a sales pitch meant for someone else, my first entrepreneurial business was closed down. I was out of the rock selling business. Mission accomplished: I had all the toys and $$$ I needed. Enough money was even made to purchase a professional metal cash box, with a key & lock, for future entrepreneurial activities, still yet to come.

I was the wealthiest five-year old around.
 

By the next summer it was 1969, I was six years old, and I was dead broke out of money. I did not immediately start a new business or seek employment. However, I did for whatever reason, take a wooden wine box, move it over to the cash register of my father’s country store, and began to make sales to customers at the register. I had not started first grade yet, but this made no difference. Instead of having me work at the front register, in a store with three registers, we now opened up a forth register in what became known as the “candy section,” and I became the manager of the candy section. I was now in charge of stocking, arranging, and ultimately creating displays and making decisions about inventory & purchasing for a significant size candy section of the store. I oversaw a collection of common commercial chocolates and candies, as well as many old fashion candies typical of an old fashion style country store, regional candies such as maple candies & fudge, as well as nuts with or without the chocolate candies.
 

For this I made an hourly salary and was clever enough to negotiate “free food,” unlimited free food in my contract. Yes, believe it or not at the ripe young age of six I was already wise enough to negotiate for a free food contract, but also do it at a location where as a child I now had free & unlimited access to all the candy, chocolate, and also nuts, that I wanted. You can’t negotiate a better contract than that as a kid. Local kids and kids in school were always jealous when they heard of that deal. And they could not believe it that I actually did not eat all that much chocolate or candy. It was necessary, of course, to try each of the different candies that we were selling, so that I could understand them and explain or recommend them to customers (what a terrible excuse to eat a lot of chocolate and candy as a kid – ha, ha!). But, surprisingly or not, having unlimited access to all the chocolate and candy I wanted as a child did not cause me to eat the stuff irresponsibly or like a glutton. It had very much the opposite affect whereby I learned self-control at this early age, and did not over eat or irresponsibly eat the sweets. Providing children with greater freedoms does not always lead to irresponsible behavior or lack of self-control, and in my case did exactly the opposite. I have never been anything but a small eater of candy and sweets, despite having free and unlimited access to them as a child.

I was the wealthiest six year old imaginable!
 

At the age of seven, summer of 1970, I wanted to experience more and different work opportunities. The, what and the how, is more than just a small obstacle when you are seven years old. One evening we were having dinner at a local restaurant called the Drummer Boy. A bunch of us were seated at three-square tables attached together. Enough to order the Ice Cream Boat, which consisted of one scoop of every flavor the restaurant served, something like 21. At some point during the conversation after dinner and halfway through a boatload of ice cream the owner of the Restaurant Mr. Winters began to apologize for the slow service. He stated that he could not find a competent dishwasher that would show up on time and actually work, or show up at all. My ears perked up to that like a jackrabbit in search of a carrot. Within less than seconds I was on a beeline to the kitchen, and ultimately the kitchen sink. Dishes, pots, pans, and silverware: all sorts of stuff were pilled up all over the dishwasher sink and around it as well. A problem immediately presented itself: an obstacle of sorts to my new career as a dishwasher.

I could not reach the sink. I could reach only the front section of the large flat area adjacent to the sink & dishwasher, used for piling up dishes before processing. As at the country store cash register, and candy section a year earlier: I found a large square flat object to stand on. Where at the country store I used a wooden wine crate, at the Drummer Boy Restaurant I used a metal milk crate. It was just the right height to comfortably reach to the back of the sink area and dishwasher, problem solved. I solved this problem and was up and going washing dishes in the sink, prepping them for the dishwasher when Mr. Winters and my father came into the room. Where is the dish soap? I exclaimed. How do I turn this thing on? Mr. Winter did not fully realize it yet, but he had just found his dishwasher. Upon my request to be hired as the dishwasher, Mr. Winters asked my father’s permission; and with it given, I became a professional dishwasher.

This was great fun for me. Most of money I earned seems to have been spent on the jukebox that was just outside the doorway to the kitchen, just in front of the dish washing area. I had a front row seat to the jukebox and all the music I wanted to hear. This was my introduction to rock & roll and other forms of modern music at that time. The kitchen was an exciting place to work, often frantic with everyone running around in circles, with more to do than there was time before the waitresses grabbed the order and went on their way. This opened up an opportunity for career advancement that I did not hesitate to notice. I began by prepping for the chef. First by making toast: I soon became manager over toast making. Things needed to be peeled, cut & chopped, get this or that from the freezer, fridge, or storage room. I was the fastest dishwasher in the east, which created time for other more entertaining activities. It was not long before I convinced the waitresses to allow me to also wait tables. They told me that I was too young and there were laws preventing child labor. I convinced them that in this instance I was not really an employee, but rather a “waiter in-training” and not actually a waiter, so there would be no problem with it. Ha, Ha! I was not easily dissuaded; and a very suborn child. They introduced me the first several times to a table full of customers as “a waiter in training” and before long I was just another waiter, not different from the others, sent out into the field at moments of heavy rushes, to assist the waiters, until the dishes started really piling up. I wanted to also cook as a chef, but this was temporarily thwarted by Joey the head chef, as it would have in his mind been going too far.

That however changed 180 degrees, the day Joe Namath walked in the door!

During the summer of 1970 I was about two months into my career as a seven-year-old restaurant employee. It was the second summer after Joe Namath and the Jets won the 1969 Super Bowel III. They made it to the AFC championship game in 1970. Super Bowl III remains the greatest underdog victory in in the history of the NFL and probably all of professional sports, at least here the USA. Despite the public prediction of udder defeat and humiliation Joe Namath guaranteed victory instead. Newscasters laughed in hysteria at his bravado and youthful naivety: or so they tried to portray. The Jets dominated and easily won the game, with Joe at quarterback outfoxing the openents famous linebacker blitz multiple times.

Joe Namath chose our town for his annual summer football camp for kids at a place called the Sitzmark. Unfortunately, during the years he ran it I was too young to play. However, I became his friend and personal breakfast chef. Joe, a bunch of other Jets’ teammates and staff came to our restaurant every morning for breakfast. When they arrived for the first time the three young adult female waitresses were so aghast and giddy they were almost unable to speak. Not a one of them dared to approach Joe and the other Jets; each bantering to the other that they should be the one to go and take the order. After several minutes of this giddy women’s stuff I got annoyed seeing these customers sitting there at the table with no assistance. I knew of football only from when my uncle Mark came to town when we would watch football together on TV. I had seen about ten football games by this age and knew little about the game. Joe Namath was just another customer to me. That was my attitude anyway. With the waitresses standing in petrified motion like a deer caught in the headlights, I grabbed a waiter checkbook, like the one below and I went to take their order. I went straight to Joe. That seemed appropriate since he was the one everyone was making such a fuss about. And he was the boisterous one with the loud mouth – ha, ha!

Joe was surprised and made some funny wisecrack joke about, “Hey, can’t they get enough help around here, the kids have to do all the work?” (Joe Namath, personal conversation, July 1970). Joe and me hit it off really well because I was probably the only person in his public life at that time that could relate to him as just another person, not someone special, just some other guy, whatever! And, in return he was the only person that could relate to me on the same level, because here I was in my career also doing the impossible: we were both the underdogs. A bond formed despite the fact that we otherwise knew little of each other. This is what made it work. We both had a similar attitude in life; to hell with the world, we are going to do things our way! It really was just like the Frank Sinatra song that was brand new on the jukebox radio of our restaurant then and the New York City nightlife that Broadway Joe was a major part of.

We did it our way!
 

This was actually in fact; the first time ever I cooked a complete meal. When I returned to the kitchen, the chef named Joey was so amazed at my courage and unshaken attitude he let me cook Joe’s meal when I requested to do so. Joey rewarded me by letting me cook for what was at that time one of the world’s greatest celebrities. He rewarded me in this way because I had been doing a spectacular job as a dishwasher and prep for his cooking; and had been nagging him for several weeks to allow me to fill in as an assistant cook on the stove and ovens. Of course, once the first meal was completed successfully, there was no going back. Joe came in most every morning and every morning I cooked his breakfast. This is how I became Joe Namath’s breakfast chef, in the summer of 1970, at the age of seven years old.

My third entrepreneurial career was to start a candle making company that summer of 1970. Joe Namath was my first customer and at that time he also put his signature on a purple pillar candle, now a bit faded by the years. Joe said to me, “you can’t put an autograph on a candle” (Joe Namath, personal conversation, July 1970). “Sure you can," I replied. And being Joe, he found a way to get it done.

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                                            The Joe Namath Purple Pillar Candle
                                                    “Good Luck Joe Namath”

Joe Namath was a phenomenal transformational leader in an age when transformational leaders hardly existed. He could have written the book on it and there is no doubt in my mind that it was his unshakable courage, determination and ability to never back down, but rather give everything he had, while motiving all others around him to do the same. This is what led the Jets to overcome all odds and win that fateful football game. He had a deep and profound positive influence on me that further expanded my underdog entrance into the world of the adult business community, unencumbered by any obstacles that stood in my way.

My candle-making career began at age seven years old. That year of 1970 MT Snow hosted what I read in a magazine in recent years was the largest commercial candle show in history. It was during this age that the hippie candle makers came on the scene and the whole candle industry exploded with many new and unique candle creations. It was not long before I began a small candle making business with a double boiler and collection of candle molds. These I sold in public spaces similar to the rocks, at age five, except now with a larger table and more sophisticated inventory. And, this time the value of my inventory was for real. I also sold candles wholesale to my mother’s candle shop; the Norton House was now the largest retail candle shop in the northeast region (or so they said). This did not hurt to have a ready-made wholesale account with nearly un-fillable demand for the product, it being faster than I could produce. Accounts were also established with local restaurants for their dinner tables.

I next applied for a job at a local florist & plant shop. Age seven years four months old. The owner of the shop was somewhat astonished or at least more than surprised when this stupid little kid walked in out of nowhere and like an adult applied for a job to work and earn a salary. He asked who my father was and I told him. Like the owner of the restaurant he also sought permission from my father before hiring me. He soon learned that I was well qualified for the job because my paternal grandmother grew up on a farm and also liked house & garden plants, ornamental & food, and my grandfather & other relatives liked trees & bushes. On my own initiative I started growing houseplants when I was four years old. I wanted to start an outdoor vegetable garden at that time, August of 1967, when I was four years and four months old, but my mother informed me that it was too late in the season and winter would be coming soon. This was my introduction to the concept of seasons and farming in relation to them. My mother put me in charge of the indoor houseplants, to water & fertilize them, etc. From this time onward I took care of a large and diverse collection of houseplants. In the spring of 1968, at age five years and one month old, I started my first outdoor vegetable & flower garden with corn, squash, shelling peas & poppies. My grandmother taught me how to seed, root in water, and transplant. She taught me how to manage the soil for water moisture and the transplants rooting in water for prevention of root fungus disease. It was at this time that I began doing my own research projects on preventing root fungus disease and curing it in water based solutions & soil.

The florist shop, known as the Tepee of Flowers (Notice the Native American theme to the name: this was during the counter culture period when Indian affinity sold well) was a small, average size florist shop with a front room section with houseplants, decorative pots & merchandise directly related to growing plants. The owner whose name I don’t recall all these years later gave me all sorts of different projects, all of which he was amazed I could easily accomplish without significant on-the-job training or education. I could basically run his entire operation. In fact, his business went bankrupt several years later after I was no longer working for him. While my advice might or might not have saved his business, I provided him with merchandising advice on how to revamp and revitalize this store. At the age of seven years old I was already a business development change agent. 1) The Tepee of Flowers was selling merchandise that was only directly related to plants and flowers, 2) the total quantity of merchandise was too low, 3) as well as the diversity. My recommendation to the owner was to take the front section of the store and sell additional merchandise that was still related to the plant theme, but was otherwise gift and tourist orientated, since this is what other stores in the town were having success selling. My advice was to convert his store into a combination florist shop and “tourist store,” with a gift merchandise theme that matched the plant concept: more decorative and luxurious things in flower pots, wall hangings, tools, etc. and even a larger quantity of unique plants in decorative pots, with more value and sales revenue than basic, boring, cheap plastic pots, etc. Somehow as a stupid looking seven years old I was not convincing enough as a change agent.

The owner continued the store as he originally set it up, changing nothing, conducting no significant experiments or changes in merchandise; ultimately willing to conclude that a market large enough for this type of store did not exist at this location. The store was shut down. Too bad: because with my suggested changes, at least it would have had a chance to succeed.This is a very common reason for failure, possibly the most common reason for failure in small business merchandising. Companies too often get locked into, too limited a concept of what there business is, what its theme needs to be, and what it is and is not willing to sell for merchandise: with that being a very limited and myopic possibility of choices. At the age of seven years old I had already witnessed the startup and creation of a collection of small retail stores and restaurants, from buildings downtown that had just several years earlier been houses with families, and children that I played with. I was not a typical child and was very interested to watch, observe, understand, and contemplate all the business activities going on around me. Therefore, by toward the end of 1970, I was already developing my own creative understandings of how to best do retail merchandising. I was ready & willing to assist the Tepee of Flowers to build a more successful business with new merchandise and new displays, but the owner, like too many others, failed to understand the importance of experimentation, diversity and quantity of merchandise. By the age of seven years old I was more qualified to run the majority of retail stores than were the majority of college educated adults. However, age prejudice in our society is even far worse than gender or racial prejudice. The youth are by far the most prejudiced class in society, in both the developing and developed world.
 

I was now the wealthiest seven years old around.
 

And, I was well on my way to building both an entrepreneurial and professional career.

At the age of eight years old things took a turn in a new direction. My father had bitten off more than he could chew; and had more retail stores, more rentals, and more overall work than he had time to manage. He had a small, about 1,000 sq. ft. retail store that was failing financially, and was otherwise a total disaster area; resembling more a road construction site than a retail store. It was called the Vermont Barn Board Outlet. Its primary mission was to act as an outlet store for a factory almost directly across the river called the Vermont Barn Board Factory. You could go for a tour, as many tourists did; and then be told that the Vermont Barn Board Outlet was located on the other side of the river, downtown, where you could purchase your Vermont Barn Boards and related merchandise. This created lots of free advertising and greater sales for both companies. The barn boards were imitation barn boards made from recently cut logs, fabricated & etched by an industrial process, invented by the company, to look warn by the weather, and then colored by any one of three different natural, barn-board-like stains. You could choose the most popular gray/blue color, or you could choose between brown and red, two other popular colors. They were dull, aged, warn looking shades, you would expect with an imitation barn board. It was amazing that they did look roughly similar to a real old Vermont barn board (which are being sold commercially today!). The look was real enough that many perspective customers had to be explained that it was not actually old wood. People were concerned about that in those days because they did not want to see old barns in Vermont torn down just to sell junk to the tourist industry. For that possibly unexpected reason, having fake Vermont barn boards to sell was actually much better than having real barn boards, and this wonderful new merchandising reality could be worked into a successful sales pitch. People don’t seem to care today if old Vermont barns are torn down to extinction, and so in this new political reality, the real Vermont barn boards are likely selling better. And many old barns are now being torn down to sell the loot.

We had many different lengths, widths and variations of barn boards. There was all sorts of merchandise manufactured from the barn boards, such as bird houses, shelves of many types, wall hanging & floor standing, furniture made from the stuff, lots of picture frames, and additional assorted merchandise made out of Vermont Barn Boards. When I first took over as manager the place looked like a category 5-hurricane had just gone through. All the merchandise was a jumble and it was hard to make out a birdhouse from an outhouse. My first project was to rearrange all the merchandise starting first with the boards & furniture, to create the major displays, and then fill in with everything else. With the store completely rearranged and made to look attractive, sales took off. This was the type of store that benefited from strong sales support to explain the whole concept of Vermont Barn Board, and the how and why they would want it in their house or apartment. To learn more about how to do these types of sales the issue was discussed with Link Haynes (Old Slinky we called him). The Haynes Brothers were the engineers in town. They were the largest business entrepreneurs and historically the best-educated business professionals in town. Old Slinky had all sorts of things to say about the Vermont Barn Boards he loved so much, taught me all about the technology, all the ways and reasons people should be purchasing the boards and using them, and he gave me the grand tour of the factory, with an education into how every aspect of how it worked and functioned. With that education, I was ready to sell Vermont Barn Boards to anyone! I am grateful to Mr. Haynes for his assistance.

This was my first experience where large amounts of sales work were necessary to the success of the company. I did large amounts of sales interactions with customers, introducing, explaining and teaching them about the products. Picture frames were surprisingly successful. So, I set up an entire wall devoted to them, with every size and type arranged and labeled, to read from a distance away. As a result of this care to picture frames a following of artists was established that returned repeatedly to purchase more frames. It became obvious to me that the store needed more merchandise variety than just barn board products. I petitioned my father to allow me to purchase more new and different merchandise and he allowed me to do this through catalogs, where I purchased directly, and by explaining to him what I wanted him to buy for my store. The diversity of merchandise was expanded based on things that complemented or combined with the wood products. Pictures for the picture frames: things to sell on the shelves that were also for sale: other local products that went well with the Vermont & natural, country, decorative theme. At the age of eight years old I was running all aspects of my first retail store, management of what became an additional one to two employees on weekends, cash management, purchasing, merchandising, business development, and the taking over of a failing retail store, that would otherwise likely have been shutdown, due to that failure, and I made it phenomenally successful, both logistically and financially: I also made an adult level salary.
 

I was an eight-year-old change agent!
 

I was the wealthiest eight-year old around.

Disclaimer: For some reason I felt a need to say something about all this apparent violation of child labor laws going on throughout my childhood. First let me say that it is very important to protect children from unwanted forced labor. We as an adult community have a responsibly to protect them. Second, in Vermont and many other states & countries children are allowed to work in some professions, especially family farms and some other types of small businesses. This commonly happens in retail sales also. I was a very unique and unusual child that wanted very much to be an active part of the adult community in business and otherwise. Sometimes it is necessary to create some space for unique and unusual children to give them certain freedoms, at an earlier age, if they show the respect & responsibility for it. Another thing I had throughout my childhood & teenage years was an ongoing collection of adult mentors, in work & school, that proved both physical & psychological protection for me, and also lots of wonderful education as well, above and beyond the regular schoolbook education. School & education are very important to me, yet I also live by a philosophy that much of life’s best education can and should also happen outside of school. NSA is a life long learning company; dedicated to life long learning, and greater connections between all learners of all ages & types.
 

A the age of nine years old the manager of the Wilmington Hardware Store was so impressed with my work at the Vermont Barn Board Outlet that he offered me the assistant manager position of the hardware store, along with an increase in salary, compared with what my father was paying me. While I would no longer be the overall store manager, I would be in charge of stocking all the shelves, on weekends, and once or twice during the week after school. I could also manage the store on the majority of weekends, as the manager, with any employees working for me, like at the barn board outlet where I managed employees, because the hardware store manager was doing other work next door. He stopped by several times per day when I was managing to check on things; otherwise I was running the shop. This job required learning about, at least in terms of shelf stocking, many different electrical, plumbing, carpentry, etc., parts, tools and equipment. Remember earlier in this essay how I had spend many hours watching electricians, plumbers, carpenters and cement porers when I was four & five years old. Those observations now became useful education, as I now entered this hardware store job with at least basic familiarity with many of these pieces and parts, and at least in basic terms how they are used. Now more details could be filled in and at the age of nine and ten years old I became familiar with the use and application of many tools and associated things used in construction. I also learned how to use a paint-mixing machine, with a sophisticated color injection system, and other cool stuff. These same skills are useful in scientific laboratories, and in innovation, research, invention & engineering. What a great education for a nine-to-ten year old boy to be able to work in this type of environment. It is much more fun than sitting in a school classroom, and yet very much a valuable learning experience: And a salary to boot. They don’t do that in school. In school they make you poor not rich.
 

My main contribution to this business was to suggest that the front room of the store be changed from a strictly hardware selection of merchandise, to a tourist orientated selection, that was in some way hardware-like, but really went out its way to sell things that were popular for tourists, and fit an old fashion hardware store theme, just as an old country store could follow that theme, or an old barn board outlet, that theme. I was given the opportunity and respect to provide insights and ideas, and to assist in this new direction for the front room, the largest of the four rooms that made up the store. We created an old fashion hardware theme with decorations, wall hangings, and fun pick-up stuff at the checkout, etc. Eight track stereos were the rage at the time. So, I opened up an account with a company that sold mod looking stereos, and then sold best selling styles of old fashion recordings on the tapes, of most popular musicians and comedians from the big band era, the oldies, Frank Sinatra & similar types (especially for the New York crowd), and especially comedians like the Marx Brothers, Bobe Hope, Jack Benny, Red Skelton, Flip Wilson, and others that represented a popular by gone era that blended well with an old fashion style, small town, hardware store, now partially disguised to actually be a tourist store as well. This strategy worked great, attracting both local contractors & homeowners, but now also tourists & gift shoppers. The sales & profitability soared.
 

I was a successful change agent once again!
 

I was now the wealthiest nine and then ten year old around.
 

And, I now had more money, earned through income, for toys, games, hobbies and pets, and additional entrepreneurial activities, than anyone I have ever known of or heard of!!!
 

This is only where my pre-adult professional career begins.

You have just read only the introduction!
 

Before the age of eleven I was well on my way with multiple small-scale entrepreneurial businesses, in addition to, and worked along side the professional careers already mentioned. This began at age five with the rock store, and age seven with candle making. At age eight I went into the chicken farming business. Concomitant to these I was growing and selling a variety of garden vegetables, including lots of corn, peas, pumpkins & gourds, and also a selection of ten different types of apples from ten different apple trees. That was hard for buyers to resist: a ten-type apple selection, each old fashion, and each unique, not available on the commercial market, except from me. I sold dozens of chicken eggs per week for six years, managing a collection of different varieties of chickens and therefore eggs. I sold a multi-variety egg pack that included traditional eggs from hens like Road Island Reds and unique colored eggs from Bantams and other unique egg laying types. This provided an edge over the competition and justified a higher price, and higher profit for the eggs. I also sold garden seeds door-to-door, and in public, shined shoes like Underdog, sold hot coffee & tea, and canvased each year for UNICEF and other charitable organizations. I created a tree nursery starting at age seven, added trees for several years, and then sold the trees during my teenage years, all planned out in advance, over a multiyear time schedule. I did this sort of long-term entrepreneurial planning starting at age seven. And learned at that age, from my father and grandmother, how to do a successful commercial tree nursery.
 

At age eleven the decision was made to go into candle making full time (aside from school of course). As stated earlier, I had attended the MT Snow Candle Show four years earlier, in 1970. It has been claimed to be the largest candle show in history. What made it most unique was not so much its size as was the amazing assortment of new, different and unique candles, made and created by what I came to think of as the “hippie candle makers.” Traditional candles of pillars, tapers and votives, would not be the same again, as they became modified with enclosed nature elements, such as stones, sea shells, fall foliage leaves, ferns & decorative dried flowers, beach sand, etc. Floating candles of many shapes, styles and mod colors became the rage. Modern shapes of circles, rectangles, pyramids, and other more complex geometric designs got shaped by molds, lined with several to many layers of alternating colors, often bright and cheery, or pastel and natural. These candle types mirrored what was happening in the art world at the time, where modern art was creating new ways at seeing common and basic shapes & objects, such as Picasso & Andy Warhol. Shapes often gained a secondary layer of complexity with circles, or other shapes inserted, as pieces manufactured separately, and then inserted into cutout sections, representing what in one’s imagination might become a moon, a sun, or other interstellar object or otherwise objects of interest & mystery. Several hippie candle makers were experimenting with variations of these new designs. Others were sculpting candles by hand, with warm wax, like molding with clay. The most talented of these was a guy named Rick, whose last name all these years later eludes me. Rick was the greatest of the wax sculpturing hippie candle makers. No one else compared in talent, skill or imagination. I discussed this issue with Peter Curtis of Mole Hollow Candle Company many years later and he agreed. Below is one of Rick’s flower candle creations.


 

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Five candles that I made during my childhood: The red, white & blue flower candle is a style developed by Rick that I am copying here. The frog candle was the first soft rubber mold candle I made at age seven. The ball candle with cubes was made at age 11 at the start of my full-time expansion, as were the turtle from a small square soft rubber mold and the ghost from a hard plastic mold, and then painted. I commonly painted animal and other candle styles that came from molds and represented various things. Seasonal sellers for Christmas, Thanksgiving, Halloween and other holidays were commonly painted, small to large amounts. I also learned from other employees how to paint small images, including flowers, onto wooden, metal & glass candle holders. Other big candle sellers were Volkswagen Beatles & Vans, floating candles, sand candles, multi-color votives, and many more.

Rick manufactured a small collection of different flower candle types. His greatest creations ever were a series of comical men that were doing things like shaving with a razor, with wax shaving cream, & much detail, chef, carpenter, & other concepts, doing funny, comical looking things, all with multiple types, colors & layers of wax, molded by hand with soft warm wax. Another creation was a series of dinosaurs & dragons, each with a comical face, doing some sort of comical antic. One I remember most vividly was a Brontosaurus style animal that was large & buxom, in juxtaposition with its naturally small head, with a smile on its face, while holding a Chinese restaurant umbrella over its head. It was funny & comical. It’s a tragedy that these candles or photographs of them no longer exist. It was during this time period that Yankee Candle and Mole Hollow Candle companies also got their startups, by hippie culture candle makers. Peter Curtis at Mole Hollow invented a new method to manufacture pillar candles while also creating a larger and better selection of colors and scents than had previously existed on the market. Peter was helpful to me as mentor during my startup going from part-time to full time production at age eleven. He taught me things about candle making that only the experts knew, as did other candle makers. I learned through books, observation, experimentation and assistance from a collection of hippie candle makers. I also toured several of the largest & leading candle companies, in addition to other factories manufacturing other forms of merchandise. These were highly valuable educational experiences whereby I asked questions, and learned whatever there was to know. I toured the Williamsburg Candle Company: the largest and most sophisticated candle maker in those days. This was a traditional candle company manufacturing pillars & tapers, in traditional colors & scents, in contrast to the hippie candle makers, such as Mole Hollow & Yankee Candle that experimented with new styles of colors & scents, as well as traditional ones.
 

Williamsburg was larger in size and sophistication and had the established name in the industry. Mole Hollow & Yankee, however, had better technology, new ideas and better marketing & sales. Ultimately, technology, new ideas and better marketing won out over tradition and trade name. Williamsburg went bankrupt and the new hippie candle makers took over the industry.
 

As a result of these experiences, and having a ready market with the largest retail candle shop in the northeast willing and able to sell everything I could produce, plus additional restaurant accounts, and my own preorder to pickup, direct-to-retail, the quantity and diversity of candles I could produce seemed almost unlimited. During the years of eleven to fourteen I figured out how to manufacture every style and type of candle to have ever existed on the commercial market, and sold those candles to the market. Although, my candle making company was small, it contained a huge collection of molds & equipment for candle making. All paid for with my profits. All other candle companies sold only a limited or very limited selection of candles. This is contrasted with a market that now housed a huge variety and selection of possible candle types, with additional creations only limited by the imagination. My company was different from all others in that it manufactured every type of candle and created its own new variations as well.
 

What I most enjoyed was sculpturing with warm wax, similar to clay. I had learned clay sculpture in school, during third grade. I then applied this to candle making learning from and copying the work of Rick. I then did other types of flower, dinosaur and other designs with soft wax. I also copied the traditional European candle makers in all ways. They had a tradition of small size pillar candles that came in different colors, shapes, and often coated (actually dipped) with a second layer of softer wax, on top of the harder layer of white wax from a mold. There is a long history in Europe of then appliqueing on a wax scene, made with a hard mold, laminated from a wood carving (usually), with a detailed sketching or engraving that creates the scene for the applique. This would commonly be an old fashion village scene, animals in nature, things like pine tree branches with cones, and other quaint human scenes indoors around a fireplace or something. These amazing and highly artistic candles were fun to copy. I was actually able to import some molds from Europe to make these appliques and also went in search on my own to find other sources of flat molds that could also create a similar candle, in new, unique, and sometimes-modern ways. I challenged my self to figure out how to make every type of candle I discovered, and made them all, and more!

At the age of 15 my father made me another business offer that was easy to refuse. He offered me management of his Deerfield House retail building. This small building of 1,200 sq. ft. sold tourist oriented merchandise including cedar and other wood merchandise from companies like Blair Cedar, Ausable Souvenirs (a larger company at that time) and others. Baskets, decorative boxes, metal, iron, and assorted gifts of many types were sold. Woven baskets were big in those days and the store sold a lot of them. I refused the offer because the salary was too low and I had better things to do with my time: and better ways to make a living.
 

During the candle making days profits were invested into an aquaculture facility, which pretty much took over my room, as well as another room down the hall, in our large old fashion style farmhouse. While the candle making business had a startup paid for with profits from my chicken, vegetable & apple farming business, plus earnings from the hardware store, my aquaculture company was started with profits from the candle making business. The profits of one business led to the next.
 

My bedroom was sort of like living in a public aquarium, pet store, and was actually nothing like either of these, in a sense, as it was more like an active R&D center for improving methods of breeding, raising, and in general keeping fish, invertebrates, aquatic plants and algae, often in what I would describe as ecologically based systems. My aquaculture career began at age five when a spring flood trapped small fish fry & minnows in abandoned or stored buckets along the river behind our house. During times of small floods the bucket blocks the fast swirling water, except near the top of the bucket. Small fish can swim down to the bottom of the bucket and find a refuge from the fast flowing water until after the flood. The problem is that the fish wait too long to swim out of the bucket, getting trapped as the flood waters recede sooner than they think to react and swim out. I figured out this archeology of fish behavior as to how they got trapped in the buckets, which allowed me to trap more of them again the next spring at age six. Local kids of the neighborhood showed me that the small fish would eat cracker crumbs. Saltine & Ritz brand crackers were the choice of the day. I took this discovery and fed the little fish daily, multiple times. This then required a ready supply of crackers. Fortunately, my mother kept them well stocked for her, as well as us, and now for the baby fish that I told her I was feeding with the crumbs. She had no problem with this. I soon learned how to feed the fish in green water algae cultures with small aquatic invertebrates, possibly daphnia and copepods. I also had my first “fish kill” as it is called in the industry. Not yet recognizing the importance of water changes & water quality in general, some of the first season buckets lost their fish to disease. This became a learning experience and my self-discovery that regular water changes would remedy this condition. As the discovery was made, fall & colder weather had arrived. I had sense enough to release any remaining fish to the wild for the winter. The next spring & summer, at age six, I learned how to do water changes, and keep the fish alive and healthy indefinitely. Later in the summer they were set free, healthy and strong.
 

At age six my mother purchased a small five-gallon fish aquarium for guppies and catfish, and placed in our living room. It was a family aquarium that soon became primarily my aquarium, similar to the family vegetable garden. The five-gallon enlarged to a ten gallon. The five-gallon and then additional aquariums began to pop up in my bedroom like mushrooms after a late summer rain. By the age of 14, I had accumulated a total of 18 aquariums, plus many buckets, bowls and other containers containing fish, live feeds, such as amphipods, daphnia, protozoans, aquatic worms, etc. My company bred and raised many different types of fish, from most families of tropical freshwater fish. Marine aquariums were kept with not only advanced fish, also invertebrates such as starfish, shrimp, crabs, and octopus. Fish and aquatic plants were sold regularly to seven different local pet stores as a wholesale producer since age 12. Advanced books at the college and graduate level were read on fish biology in general, including fish pathology, water filtration and farming methods. This was made possible by establishing a friendship with Lucian Duby at Duby’s Tropical Fish. Ms. Duby was one semester away from completing a college degree in nursing when her mother developed terminal cancer. She left school to care for her mother. During this time she placed an aquarium store in the basement and garage of their house. She liked the business so much she never went back to college and did the aquariums store as her career instead. She became a nurse to fish, did R&D on fish disease & prevention, using her store as the laboratory setting. She had a large collection of professional level books on aquarium, aquaculture and ecology that she allowed me to bring home and read without reservation. I purchased many books of my own. Together we worked to better understand and improve upon fish health in many ways. This was a tremendously valuable learning experience and I will always be in debt for the wonderful assistance Ms. Duby and her father provided me.
 

Back to the Deerfield House and my father’s offer. Similar to when I was six years old and wanted a better deal, like free food & candy, a better deal was necessary. My fish farm was capable of expanding beyond its current level of production and retail prices are much better in an industry with an average three-time markup on wholesale. I needed a retail site. I needed employees when I was not available, which was the majority of the possible time. This led me to conjure up a business offer that even Old Slinky would have been proud of. I offered to my father that I be able to place a consignment shop into the building that sells aquarium fish, supplies, tanks, stands, entire tank systems, etc. 20% of the floor area was placed into a consignment aquarium store, with aquariums filled with fish & plants, and a full range of supplies on shelves, and tanks on display with full tank systems ready to go. Many of the fish and aquatic plants I raised; increasing profits, and creating a great marketing strategy for home farmed fish. The retail business made profits whether I was onsite or not. It was a cash cow that along with my manager level salary, at age 15 through 18, made me the wealthiest teenager around.

I was a change agent once again.
 

Now the wealthiest teenager around.
 

My work managing the Deerfield house included all the usual: merchandise purchasing & display, employee & cash management. One of my most significant achievements was taking two female employees in their early 20s and rehabilitating them into excellent employees. These were both high school graduates of the local school system. One could do no math, even as basic as addition & subtraction of small numbers; the other could do this, but no more. Both knew numbers and could read & write them, but could not effectively work with them. Within the first two days I had both employees doing fully successful addition & subtraction, on paper with pen, on a calculator and on the cash resister with real money. By the end of the first week both were doing multiplication and division, with full success. By the end of the second week both were doing squares, square roots and percentages with full success. Within two weeks they were highly proficient in use of the cash register and basic money management. In two weeks I successfully taught them more math than the local school system did in 12+ years!!!
 

I also greatly improved their skills with customer service; taking shy and withdrawn young women from a backwoods background, and made them extroverted with customers, excellent saleswomen. I then went on to train or partially train a collection of employees over the next four years; adults & teenagers. When my parent’s business had problem employees, they would send them to me and I would provide the education and assistance required. From the age of 8 onwards I demonstrated skills for employee management; from 15 on-wards I have demonstrated strong skills with employee training & rehabilitation as well.

I not only knew how to work; I knew also how to play!!!
 

Like already stated, I earned through income, more toys, games, hobbies, sports balls & equipment, and pets, and additional entrepreneurial activities, than anyone I have ever known of or heard of!!!

What I loved most however was not any of these material things or monetary achievements. As I write this autobiography I am intending to be humorous when I say that:
 

“I was the wealthiest kid around of any given age.”
 

As unique and amazing as my professional career was, my non-work life was no less diverse and creative.
 

It is true and it is fun to think back about how financially successful I was as a kid. I always had all the money I ever needed for anything and never had to beg my parents for anything.  Yet, what I loved most in life was not money or material things. I also took seriously the canvasing for UNICEF and similar organizations, earning far more money than not only other children, but more than other adults as well. This to me was important and meaningful work; where money had value for something other than money.

What I enjoyed most was spending time in nature, along rivers & streams, and in the forests & fields. I loved fishing and had a large collection of fishing poles, lures & equipment since age 8 and 9. I came to know all of nature in great detail and sophistication. Also most enjoyed were playing games with friends, team & pickup sports, adventures and also travel. I had a large collection of board games, strategy games, and other games of all sorts. The game of monopoly was monopolized. A collection of great travel vacations in my childhood & teenage years were highly valuable experiences. Going through Check Point Charley into East Berlin, I had no fear of the Stazi Police and illegally, very illegally took photos of the guards, cannons, tanks, fences, walls, and other activities they had signs all over strongly warning not to photograph. Ha, Ha! What were they going to do to a stupid 15 year old kid. Take my camera? I had a bunch more! Take my film? So what! I was not the type of person to be intimidated by the Stazi Police.

I started my own black & white darkroom at age ten. No kid or teenager, and only occasionally adults, usually a professional or artist, would have their own complete darkroom setup, with a good quality projector, lenses, tools, a regular Ansell Adams style studio, at ten years old. I had by age ten, not one, but two fancy single lens reflex cameras and at least eight cameras in total. In an age where kids usually never even had a single camera. I’d say about 8, because I had several cameras, acquired in less than functional condition that were taken apart and repaired, or at least tried to repair in one case. This was possible by establishing a mentor-ship with Jacques Sturgis, a local graduate college student at Marlboro College at the time, professional photographer, and local schoolteacher. He assisted to set me up and teach me all this technology, and also art photography, at the graduate level, more-or-less, while I was still an elementary school student. All this was paid for by my salaried work at the Hardware Store and my entrepreneurial activities. I was now the equivalent of a professional photographer, with all the necessary equipment from age ten years old onward. Sturgis went on to become a famous photographer, working for major fashion magazines like Vogue and others. He is a photographer of people primarily, where I prefer nature photography, and will also do people and whatever necessary in professional settings.
 

Another unique childhood experience was the keeping of horses, raising & training, showing Western & English style, and gymkhana. Together with other family members we raised a small collection of horses: Appaloosa, Quarter Horse, Mustang & others. I started showing & gymkhana at age six. Eight years later, at age 14, I won five blue ribbons and championship at the largest Class “A” horse show in Vermont that summer. At that I point I considered myself the best horse rider in the state of Vermont and retired from horse showing & gymkhana.
 

Also during this time period I took up electric car racing with AMF style hobby race cars. At a local hobby shop I went undefeated so long in the weekly races, that owner of the hobby shop asked me to stop racing so that others would have a chance. Instead, I showed my proprietary technology to Kyle, my best friend at the time, and he beat me in a race (ha, ha!). With that ended my undefeated winning streak. Believe it or not: I invented a total of four different ways to make AMF electric racecars, of those days go faster. I invented superior technology at the age of 12 years old and that is how I won all those races. In addition to strong driving skills. I say “of those days” because the technology has changed a lot, and the cars go much faster, and hold on to the corners much better today, than they did during the decade of the 70s. The cars went much slower in those days, and held onto corners, much less tightly. There was a lot of room for improvement in those days, which appears not to exist today. Today, the cars go too fast and hold onto the corners too strongly, decreasing the application of driver skill, and making the electric car races less fun in my opinion. They should go back to the older technology, because it makes for a more skill based, and therefore more pleasant, racing experience. This is a case where too much technology went too far! Sometimes it is still nice to take an old fashion buggy ride through Central Park or Time Square, or a country dirt road. Speed is not always everything.
 

At school I was the uncontested first board play on the chess team, losing only two games in my 3-year inter-school career. I played against the best high school chess players in Massachusetts and only lost two games in three years, going undefeated in my Junior & Senior years. Both losses were very close games, against the two other best players in the state. Sturgis gets credit for part of this as he taught me the game in fourth grade and we played many times between fourth and sixth grades. In fourth grade I took on the entire fifth & sixth grades glasses, all at once, all of them against me.
 

I cleaned them off he board!! Ha, ha!
 

My high school chess coach Dr. David Harrison also gets credit. I also collected huge quantities of stamps of all kinds; many valuable ones, gold coins, and other valuable things were collected as well, since I was eight years old: mostly between the ages of eight and thirteen. Earnings from my work & entrepreneurial activities sometimes got invested into stamps & gold coins, the two favorite long or short-term investments of my childhood. I also had a regular bank account since age six. It was at age six that I won the grand championship at the town bingo contest. Children did not normally play, especially children that young. But, as you might have already noticed I was not a normal child. Yes, like no other child or even teenager, I played the adult bingo scene at age six and even won the grand championship of the whopping $25 cash. Not a huge amount of money, except for a six year of 1969. That was more money than I knew what to do with at age six. So, a bank account was setup. Once established, there was no going back. So at age six and throughout my childhood & teenage years I actively maintained a bank account with an actively growing balance, at times withdrawn from for significant professional or personal investments, throughout my pre-adult years. I actively operated a professional bank account and managed financial investments since age six, and throughout my childhood years.
 

I did not succeed at everything. I also acquired a piano at age 12. I was not very talented at music and drawing successfully took a lot of hard work to learn. Sculpture with clay and wax, by contrast, I took to like a pro from age eight, with no need for assistance. While I am better at some sports games than others, most I play well, and I am able to play every type of sports game at every type of position for team sports. That is the way it was with most things. Easy to learn, but a few things gave me challenges and there are some things that I am not very good at doing. Don’t ask me to sing more than two words at a time on tune, ha, ha! I could maybe do Bob Dylan, but that’s about it when it comes to singing. You don’t want to hear me sing, unless you intend a new form of torture for military intelligence. Yet, people say I have a pleasant sounding voice. Which I think is true, when talking; just don’t ask me to sing. I was incredibly successful in my pre-adult years, but not successful at everything, and sometimes like anyone and everyone; I experienced failures as well.