Spudnuts

I would like to share a story with you that I had shared with a dear friend of mine – I am hoping that she won’t mind that I share it here with you. 

Some years ago, being about six-years-old, I had had the opportunity to make a little money by selling doughnuts door-to door.  Every Saturday and Sunday morning, I, along with a few other little boys, was picked up by the owner/baker of a doughnut business.  He would drive us to a section of town and let each one of us off at any given route.  How the routes were “routed” or assigned, I don’t remember, but it isn’t important here.

Anyway, I remember getting out of this vehicle, an oxidized blue, and beat-up, old Chevy van.  And hanging from my neck from a strap was a heavy wire basket filled to capacity with little white lunch bags.  In these bags were about a dozen of the freshest, sweet smelling doughnuts that any little boy could have ever dreamed of. 

Note:  I believe that the owner made his living off us boys.  For any doughnuts we may have happened to sell, we had to pay back for all the doughnuts that we had eaten while out selling.  I think that I usually was able to break about even. 

Anyway, I recall how I had soon gotten to hate knocking on the doors and asking people if they would like to buy “my” Spud nuts (A Spud nut is a potato flour doughnut, a folk recipe that traces back to Germany.).   

The reason for this “hatred” was because I soon realized that most of the people would tell me, “No.” Everyday, every door, it seemed that I was getting nothing but, “Nos.”  Oh, yes, but of course, every-once-in-awhile some kind ‘ole soul would look down on me with compassion and would shed out a few dollars to buy a bag of doughnuts. 

Again, I was a sad little thing, all loaded down with doughnuts - both the basket and my poor, over-stuffed stomach – and all but freezing to death for it had been very cold.  I was really hating life, people and especially the word, “No.”   

All I wanted to do was to be able to earn enough money to buy my mom something nice for an up and coming Mother’s Day – but I could not see how I was going to be able to do it. 

I had been about to give up and just dump the basket and all the remaining doughnuts into a trash bin and walk home when a man who was selling newspapers at the corner that I was just passing called out to me.   He had called me over to his little newsstand.  I had thought, hopefully, that he had wanted to possibly buy some doughnuts from me - maybe had I had known that all he wanted to do was to talk that possibly I wouldn't be telling you this story now for it would never had existed.  

Anyway, as it went, I had gone to him and had asked him what he had wanted.  He then had asked me why I was looking so sad. 

Huh!?  I had thought to myself.  Why does he care?  The man then interrupted my thoughts with, “Why are you so sad?”  For some reason, I had decided to tell him.

I told the man that the reason was  because everyone was telling me no - that they didn’t want to buy my doughnuts and that all I wanted to do was to be able to buy my mom something for Mother’s day.  

The man then told me something so profound that to this day, I try to live by it when dealing with or are confronted with things that I think are negatives or difficulties. 

What he had told me at that moment had changed my entire perspective on how I looked at things as with dealing with negatives, "noes" when I wanted or expected "yesses´" in my life. 

To be continued….