day for me for two reasons. First, I wasn’t accepted in the army and second, I had to start my adult life. I had no idea what I wanted to do. I thought I might want to be in advertising or be a lawyer. In college, I was the advertising manager of the Brown Daily Herald. I loved it. I learned how to make decisions, manage people and service customers. My whole life I had been exposed to the candy business. I had met many of the local customers and principals (the people who made the candy). When I made calls with my dad, they used to give me special pencils with erasers on them. Our family would go on vacation with people from the candy business and even meet them on Saturday mornings. In those days people worked on Saturdays. I knew one thing though. I knew that I didn’t want to be in my father’s business. I saw how hard he worked and how he traveled all of the time. I didn’t want anything to do with it. Unfortunately, I didn’t have another plan and when Tootsie Roll came calling with a job doing retail work for $55 a week, my dad suggested I take the job. He told me, “No matter what you do in life, the experience is invaluable.” So I took the job. Every morning at 7 a.m. I would pick up the truck at Roxbury Crossing. I made 30 calls each day. I sold 24 count, 5 cent Tootsie Rolls, with two free. I did very well and did it for a year. Based on my performance, my dad hired me to do the same thing for Reese. And he also gave me a slight increase in pay. I was living at home at the time and made a policy of putting $5 a week in the bank. In today’s economy that would be like $250. Within a year, Harold decided to make me a wholesale sales- man. He gave me the northern New England territory without Nashua, N.H., Brattleboro, V.T. and the north shore of Massachusetts. When I joined the business in 1956 we were doing less than a million dollars a year. I remember saying to my dad if we ever get this thing to over a million a year, it would be quite an accomplishment. To give you a sense of how big an accomplishment, I used to eat at Durgin Park and have a hamburger, vegetables and corn bread for 99 cents. A million dollars would be a lot of hamburgers and corn bread. I guess it was then that I decided I wasn’t going to be in advertising or a lawyer. 28 • F O R E V E R YO U N G