K5LAD - 50+ Years of Ham Radio Memories
Volume XXIX
The
Pickle Jar
Search keywords: Kenny Rogers, Derrick Electronics, pickle
As strange as this tale may sound, it is absolutely true. Like you sometimes hear others say, “You just
can’t make up stuff like that.”
I’ve often mentioned that I owned a ham radio store
during the 1970s. Quite a few readers were my
customers and will remember the days of their Saturday visits to Derrick Electronics in
Broken Arrow, often referred to as “The Candy Store.” It was a chance to visit with their friends,
drink coffee and eat donuts, brag about special contacts made on the air, and only
occasionally, to buy something. Many buyers
and we sellers have some really good memories of those days, now long gone.
It’s fun and interesting to look back on some of the things that happened during that decade but one of the most interesting was a day, during the week, that an out of town ham came into the store carrying a large gallon glass jar with a lid tightly screwed on. It had a wide label surrounding the jug showing its previous use had been to hold lots of pickles but it was obvious that the jar was now absolutely stuffed full of currency. Bills of various denominations and some coins rattling around in the bottom but mostly there were numerous bills and the jar was filled to the brim.
The man carrying the jar had a familiar face as I had seen
him in the store several times previously. I
also saw on that face a mixture of glee, excitement, and exhaustion. I knew he lived some distance away from us but
didn’t recall exactly where.
He set the pickle jar up on the counter and began to tell
me about his all night poker game and the fact that he had really done well. From the looks of the jar’s contents, that
seemed rather obvious. I asked him if he knew
how much was in the jar and he didn’t have a clue but told me he wanted to spend all
of it on some new ham equipment. Obviously, I
wanted to help him make his dreams come true.
If you wonder why he couldn’t tell me how much he had
in the jar, you only need to imagine a picture of Kenny Rogers singing, “You’ve
got to know when to hold ‘em, know when to fold ‘em, know when to walk away…………
know when to run. You don’t count your
money……………. a sittin’ at the table, there’ll be time
enough for countin’…………… when the dealin’s done.” My customer had taken this advice well and now,
the dealin’ was done and it was time for the countin’.
He began to grab fistfuls of bills from the jar and spread
them out on the counter to see just how much was there but I cautioned him that this was
probably not the best idea as others would be coming into the store and that might not be
the best scene possible for him. I offered
him the back room to use as a more secluded area for the count since it was, at the very
least, out of sight. The back room was plenty
large with a large wooden rack holding yet-to-be-sold Rohn 25 tower sections and accessory
pieces, a big rack of coax and wire, the bench for repairing radios, stacks of boxes of
equipment and radio parts, and the restroom. A
door separated the back room from the show room that was the “gathering spot”
for customers so I’d hoped that he could count his treasure in peace and with at
least some minor degree of security.
Some time later I opened the door and looked in, only to
see him sitting in the middle of the floor with stacks of bills all around him. He looked a bit like the picture of Scrooge McDuck
from my younger, comic book days. He did
look, however, very happy…………. still very tired-looking but very
happy.
When the final total was in, it was something on the order
of more than $1300. The actual amount has
been lost to the ages (and my Alzheimer’s) but that was pretty close. With the stacks of bills still spread out on the
floor in the back room, he came out and started his shopping spree. The only item I remember him getting was a brand
new Kenwood TS-520 transceiver but he got quite a few other goodies to come as close as he
could to the total value of the paper spread on the back room floor. Seems like he also bought a Ten-Tec keyer
too.
Once he had all the desired items piled on the counter, and
I’d written up the paperwork and figured the totals, he went back and harvested the
stacks to pay me. Many, if not most, of the
bills were small denomination bills so it made quite a stack for my cash register. I often wondered, when I made my nightly bank
deposit, what they must have thought with the strange pile of so many small bills from my
store when usually the deposit was either checks or larger denominations.
I tried to remember the name and call of this “Pickle
Jar Procurer” but they just didn’t come to me.
Even if I could remember I wouldn’t want to put that information out to
the world even now, but the story itself has stayed with me for now well over 30
years.
TV viewers who watch the show on the History Channel called “Pawn Stars” have heard Rick say, “………….. and you never know what is gonna’ walk in that front door.” That’s sometimes true of ham radio stores too.
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