Summers Selling Popsicles

Dan Silvestri gave me my first full-time job during the summers of my junior and senior years. Dan was a cousin and offered the job at a family gathering.  I gladly accepted.

The job was driving a Cushman scooter through the streets of East Hill Kent and Covington—hustling to sell as many Popsicles as you could.  To a driving-obsessed 16-year-old, soon to turn 17, life couldn’t get much better than this.

On the bench seat of that three-wheel wagon, I was the master of my own destiny.  Complete with the freedom to succeed—or fail—depending on my efforts. The hours were long and the commissions scaled to how many confectionaries you moved. Popsicles sold for a dime, Fudgsicles and ice cream bars 12¢, while ice cream sandwiches and Creamsicles were 15¢.

In other words, you had to sell a lot of Popsicles!

Each summer, I started two weeks after school ended.  Following my junior year, I attended Boys State in Spokane, and then after graduation, a senior vacation took me to Lincoln City.

I typically worked Tuesday through Saturday.  Each day was generally the same. Drivers showed up at the Silvestri family home on Benson Road around 10 a.m.  There we loaded cartons of frozen treats into an insulated box on the back of our scooters.  To keep them cold, dry ice was placed strategically on top.

We hit the neighborhoods around 10:30 a.m.  Music blared from a loudspeaker atop the scooter giving kids plenty of time to find money or mom.  Each day you’d spend 10 hours listening to the mechanical music box melody of “Do Your Ears Hang Low” or a similar tune at full volume, for maximum effect.

Each driver had their own specific area.  Up and down the streets we drove, turning corners to the next road before stopping for the children chasing from behind.  This was strategic.  You wanted the music bellowing in a new direction to allow fresh customers to get ready.  In the meantime, you served those just catching up.  Surrounded by a herd of kids, I generally pushed Popsicles to the youngest, sold fudge or ice cream bars to tweens and teens, and ice cream sandwiches or Creamsicles to adults.

For those who couldn’t make up their minds, and there were many, I made quick choices for them: orange Popsicles for the youngest; rainbows for 6-year-olds through 9; and for tweens more adventuresome fare, like banana or cherry, though the older kids usually knew what they liked.

Time was money so I collected it quickly, counting sticky coins from outstretched hands.

Around midday, I stopped to eat the paper bag lunch Mom packed each morning.  That’s when you typically filled up with gas, keeping the receipt for reimbursement back at Silvestri HQ. Lunch was supplemented throughout the day by a generous stream of Popsicles, ice cream bars, and Sidewalk Sundaes.

To keep the treats well-frozen, drivers continually rearranged inventory, shifting about the newspaper-wrapped, dry ice, lest there be ‘melties.’ On very hot days you could be forced back to base for more dry ice.  On the biggest-selling days, you might call Dan from a pay phone asking him to bring more ice and product.  But, both involved a precious waste of time.

By late afternoon with parents home, business picked up as entire families enjoyed a frozen treat. After dinner, adults trailed behind children and sometimes bought whole boxes at a 10-cent discount from the single-piece price.  It’s far more time-effective to sell a dozen items to one adult than 12 treats to a dozen kids.

Warm summer evenings were terrific for sales. I kept driving through neighborhoods even as the sun began to set. As twilight skies turned grey, I’d work my way back to base, scouring promising areas, such as trailer parks, where adults usually ordered an ice cream sandwich. It wasn’t until 10 p.m. during the longest days of summer when we arrived back at base to unload.

The unsold boxes were returned to the freezer as Cousin Dan counted how much product was returned—it was a good indicator of daily sales. In the Silvestri basement, a mountain of loose change was stacked in plastic coin separators and assembled into rolls of quarters, dimes, nickels, and pennies.  You rolled your own in this business. Paper bills were added to your coin rolls and the total was tabulated by one of the Silvestri clan.

The money count was reconciled against the number of boxes tallied to your scooter with credit for expenses like gasoline. Some drivers regularly came up short, offering Dan a succession of lame excuses that he belittled in his playful but mocking manner.  He was quite aware of how cash proceeds were pilfered straight into their pockets. My dollar count always matched the boxes checked out.

All of us were guys between 17 and 22, though my cousin, Cheryl Silvestri sometimes drove.  As commissioned salesmen, the pay was based on a sliding percentage scale: 21% of the first $100; 22% from $100 to $110; and so on. I kept a record of my daily earnings that first summer: 52 working days, earning a low of $7.20 (it rained all day) to a high of $30.50 (a prime-time Saturday in early August). My summer total was $1,066.79, for a per diem average of $20.52.  That meant I typically sold between $90 and $110 of product, about 800 individual confectioneries per day!

After getting paid in cash, I headed back to Lake Sawyer arriving home around 11 p.m.  Mom usually saved me a warm dinner plate from the oven. I went straight to bed, slept hard, and was up by 9 a.m. for my next day on the Cushman.

Yet, Cousin Dan did far more than just give me a job.  In conversations before work and after, he encouraged me to invest my earnings, not spend them. Most of the drivers plowed their wages into cars, motorcycles, or the cheap apartments they rented.  Living at home with little time for leisure, I saved all my dough.

Dan spoke glowingly of his investments in land and timbered property. He also regaled me with tales of buying and selling securities on the New York Stock Exchange. This tickled my fancy.  During junior high, I followed penny stocks on the Spokane exchange.  That summer before college Dan convinced me that Pan Am Airways, due to its recurring pattern of ups and downs, was a good stock to buy low and sell high.  I started following it.

In late September 1971, I entered the University of Washington as a freshman taking introductory classes, but not quite sure what to study. The idea of making money intrigued me.  I was particularly inspired by a one-semester high school class in economics taught by Mr. Hanson.

So that October, an impetuous 18-year-old caught a bus from the U-District downtown and marched into the local office of Merrill Lynch Pierce Fenner & Smith.  There I opened an account with the money earned from selling Popsicles.  Why Merrill Lynch?  It was the brokerage firm that advertised nightly on the ABC 6 o’clock news.

On Dan’s tip, I bought 100 shares of Pan Am stock at just over $10 per share, plus commission. Each afternoon at my fraternity, I dutifully read the stock tables of the Seattle Times. My heart jumped or sank with each 1/8^th or 1/4^th point movement up or down. Several months later with Pan Am safely in the mid-$14s, I sold and pocketed a $300+ profit after commissions. Making money in the stock market was a lot easier than working 12-hour days selling Popsicles.  I was hooked on investing.

My job with Dan’s cleverly named business, Recreational Distribution Systems, Inc.* lasted two high school summers, though I returned one day in August 1972 when he was short of drivers.  During college breaks, I worked around the coal mines with my brother, dad, uncles, and cousins. Four years later, I graduated with a degree in Economics. I goofed off for 18 months then joined Seattle Trust & Savings Bank for one year as a management trainee, before more loafing, travel, and adventures.

Returning to Palmer Coking Coal Company at age 25, I climbed the thin ranks and became manager––my job for the next 44 years of life. If it hadn’t been for Dan Silvestri and his encouragement, I would have been neither the investor nor the company leader I became.

Dan died suddenly on the last day of June 2018, at age 73.  At the Celebration of Life, his brother and business partner, Lanny brought one of their classic Cushman scooters, perhaps the same one I used to drive.  I hopped into the seat and Jennifer snapped a photo.  My son, Oliver added flavorful colors for the banner photo.

But this story isn’t about Cushman scooters or colorful rainbow confectionaries or long days on the road.  It’s about the debt of gratitude I owe to that cousin and late boss.  So this song of thankfulness is for Dan— in appreciation of the time he invested in me.  My gratitude is just as strong today as it was five decades prior . . . during those summers selling Popsicles.

* later Frosty Wholesale