WriteRight4Life, LLC: A Sweet Enterprise for a Child

A dollar wasn’t much money in 1979, but for Calhoun Mane, that single bill turned into a profitable enterprise. Every day on his walk to Shawnee Elementary School, he stopped at Brewer’s, a convenience store for people living in downtown Xenia, Ohio. Sure, other townspeople shopped at larger stores like Fulmer’s and Kroger, but for children like Calhoun, raised on the Eastside, the selection of candy at Brewer’s made this small shop special. Calhoun usually bought 101 pieces of gum with his $1.00. He sold each piece for 5 cents on the school playground. After school, he stopped at the arcade to hang out.

One afternoon, when the final bell rang, students hurried to leave the school grounds. He felt the change jiggled in his pocket. When they reached the hillside leading to a patch of dogwood trees, the arcade was just beyond them. Mike Jack jumped into the air and kicked Calhoun in the chest, knocking him down the hill. Change spilled from his pockets, scattering all over the ground. He crawled around, quickly picking up coins. The other boys began helping or shoving coins into their own pockets just as fast. Mike stood at the top of the hill laughing hysterically. Tears started streaming down Calhoun’s face. His blood dripped from his chin.

Calhoun played fewer games that day, but he promised to teach Mike Jack a lesson about bullying someday. He bravely punched Mike in the face in tenth grade, but nothing changed.

By including this story in our narrative nonfiction book, Raising Mother Nature, readers understand the mindset of a child raised in poverty yet clever enough to earn a little extra from the lunch money his great-grandma, Elizabeth Edwards, gave him. I remember “Now & Later” candies were a hot seller, as were candy cigarettes, but the .01¢ bubble gum was always my top seller.

Visit https://books.by/writeright4life to purchase your copy now.