Have I got a deal for you!

Wednesday, November 28, 2012

While attending the recent Hiwasse fall festival I was surprised when someone asked me about the “Sweetgum Ball” business I have promoted for several years. I guess it was a surprise because I hadn’t noticed any of those prickly lawnmower missiles under the huge sweetgum tree in my back yard.

Let me back up for the benefit of new readers or those who, like myself, had completely forgotten that enterprise I was planning to finance through stockholder (or rather sweetgum) options.

I have railed in past years about the volume of those pesky seed spheres that litter the ground each autumn. “There must be a good use for them,” I’ve thought, and then, believe it or not, another thought, “With enough investors, perhaps we could form a conglomerate and sell the daggum things.”

No luck in the past, and so the money-making scheme was relegated to the back burner. Or somewhere. And now, with a crop deficit, apparently caused by last summer’s drought, I figured it was time to shuck the idea and concentrate on marketing ornamental corn. But that’s another story that sizzled and fizzled in the summer sun.

To make a long story longer, I’ll have to confessthere is a gumball crop this year. Make that a sweetgum ball. The fruit (I use that term loosely) on my tree is not up to the normal uncountable quantity, but now that the leaves have fallen, you guessed it, there they were, hundreds of the barefoot stickers waiting to fall.

So, I’m reviving the gumball project. Anything to keep from having to rake up the critters as they fall all winter long. And, besides, if I’m having a problem, surely there are many others who would be willing, no, make that anxious, to derive a little supplemental income by harvesting the balls and selling them for profit.

Just think, with taxes ready to go over the edge of the cliff (see political news reports) to get caught in a powerful updraft January first, every little bit could help.

So here’s the deal. (Doesn’t that sound professional?) If I remember right, there is an opening for many stockholders in the enterprise. To make the deal sweeter, we need to expand (already) by including another nuisance in the plan: Kudzu. The two complement each other. One tangles leaf rakes; the other tangles everything. So how about calling the business (no, not monkeygrass business) the Sweetgum/ Kudzu FBN Conglomerate.

Now all that is left to do is settle on how to market our product. Since summer heat fried my brain, it’s up to you to help us to proceed.

If I remember an idea a year or so ago, someone suggested blasting the balls in a hammermill. But how can we incorporate snarling kudzu vines into the finished product? That is our first challenge. Please note that again I have included all of you potential millionaires in the plan. And the potential is millions, since the supply of both kudzu and gumballs seems to be unlimited. And if demand exceeds supply, remember we can import both from Georgia. And perhaps include peach pits in the process.

Send your ideas along with your interest in becoming a part of the FBN firm. Oh yes, the FB stands for “fly” and “by,” but I can’t put my finger on what the “N” represents.

If I haven’t lost you, thank you for your patience in this final sweetgum saga as we have enjoyed Thanksgiving. And we do have much to be thankful for: sweetgum balls, kudzu, et al.

Finally, as an aside, if the sweetgum/kudzu plan falls apart, I’m looking for investors in another grand scheme: I’ve accumulated a huge pile of rocks from my small garden plot. Any ideas?

Dodie Evans is contributing editor of the Westside Eagle Observer. He can be reached at devans@ nwaonline.com.

Opinion, Pages 6 on 11/28/2012