Winter Outdoor Popcorn Vendor
How I Evaded the Police and Met Bill Cosby, Joe Nameth, and Ali McGraw
“Have some popcorn, it’s good for you! Makes you grow tall like a cornstalk. Makes you smile. Makes you glow. Warms you up and helps prevent premature hair loss.”
It was February, 1970, and I had a week to kill in New York before a friend and I headed down to Virginia to live on a commune based on the teachings of the behavioral psychologist, B.F. Skinner. What better way to spend that week than standing in the freezing cold beside a red and yellow cart on wagon wheels, trying to sell freshly popped 25-cent-boxes of popcorn to pedestrians at the corner of Fifth Avenue and 59th Street near the Plaza Hotel?
The weather may have been brisk, but popcorn sales were not. It was frigid, gray, and windy and those who dared outside were in too much of a hurry to notice the long-haired 19-year-old college drop-out dressed in an Army surplus jacket and long red scarf. To get them to pay attention I had to loudly hawk my wares.
“Warms you up and puts a smile on your face!” I shouted at anyone who came close. “Makes you glow.” Based on my anemic sales, it appeared that few people on the streets of New York cared about glowing. But that was okay. I’d been promised $100 a week in cash by the Pop-A-Doodle company, regardless of sales.
And there were fringe benefits. Such as all the popcorn I could eat. Plus, I got to meet interesting people. Where else in the world could someone like me meet Joe Namath, Ali McGraw, and Bill Cosby, all in five days?
“Hot popcorn is good for you. Low in cholesterol. High in protein. Working late tonight? Eat popcorn for extra energy.”
A middle-aged woman in a puffy blue parka approached. “Tell them it’s low in sugar,” she whispered conspiratorially. “Cholesterol doesn’t matter. It’s sugar that causes heart attacks. That’s what they’re worried about.”
“I work for the health department,” she said. “I’m a nutrition expert.”
I started shouting: “Get sugar-free hot popcorn and avoid heart attacks! Low in sugar. High in vitamins!”
In the morning after the Pop-A-Doodle truck delivered my cart, I moved into the south east corner of Central Park just past Grand Army Plaza and modified my spiel to suit a younger clientele.
“Electric popcorn gets you off. Makes your hair long and straight, cures acne and gets you high.”
A well-dressed gentleman in a tweed top coat gave me a quarter just for making him laugh, and a group of shivering Japanese tourists took my picture. A fellow long-hair stopped to share a joint. New Yorkers may not have had much of an appetite for popcorn that winter, but they were hungry for a laugh.
In the spirit of Abby “Steal This Book” Hoffman and the yippies, I figured out how to give away popcorn for free. Pop-A-Doodle expected a quarter for each box I sold, but it couldn’t count the popcorn given away in handfuls, hatfuls or whatever else a kid without a quarter or a homeless person might have to fill. And because PAD only expected one quarter for each box, I could refill boxes for free.
“Free popcorn giveaway!” I’d yell whenever someone who looked needy or countercultural happened by. “Buy one box and get it refilled as many times as you like. All the popcorn you can eat for 25 cents.”
“You kidding, mister?” Four black kids came up to the cart. They had holes in their pants and were wearing only sweatshirts despite the cold.
“I’m serious,” I said. “Buy a box and see.”
They huddled. “You think he means it?”
“Can’t you see he’s a hippie, man? They do crazy s**t like that.”
“I’m gonna try it.” A small hand offered me a quarter. I filled a box and gave it to him.
“Free popcorn,” I continued my banter while the kids gobbled down the goods. “All you can eat for a quarter. Come and get it.”
“Okay mister, we want a refill.” Eight eyes watched skeptically as I took back the empty box and refilled it.
“Whah hoo! Gimme some popcorn.”
You never saw a group of kids eat popcorn so fast. The empty box came back again. “Hey, mister popcorn man, I want a refill.”
And again. “Refill time mister popcorn man”
And again. “More popcorn mister man.”
These kids were hungry! “Hey mister, it’s time again.”
Having refilled the box five times, and with the boys not appearing to be leaving anytime soon, I decided to incorporate them into my shtick. “One quarter, two bits. Fresh popcorn, unlimited hits. Just look at these healthy young men growing strong on nutritious popcorn. Increased longevity guaranteed.”
“Thanks a lot, mister popcorn man.” Finally, bellies full, the kids moved off into to park.
“Hey!” I called after them. “Save the box and come back again later.”
They’d eaten nine boxes worth.
When it grew dark I moved across Fifth Avenue in front of the GM building and started popping fresh corn for the nine-to-fivers leaving work.
“Get it while it’s hot. Last popcorn for three blocks.”
Joe Namath, fresh from his 1969 Superbowl triumph, strolled by wearing a white turtleneck sweater under a blazer.
“Get your hot popcorn. Improve your passing accuracy. Makes you less vulnerable to interceptions.”
Namath didn’t blink, but three pretty girls following him did.
“Is that really Joe Namath?” one asked.
“Yes,” I answered. “Would you like some popcorn?”
“No, I want Joe Namath,” she said and continued her pursuit.
Around lunch time the police swoop in. A cruiser stops across the path in the park where I’ve stationed my cart.
“Hey kid, comere.” A cop glares at me from the patrol car as I walk over. “You stoned or something?”
“No, sir,” I answer. That is the sorry truth.
“We got a complaint about you harassing people around here. Yelling at them and stuff.”
“I’m just trying to make people happy and sell some popcorn,” I explain with a shrug— making him out to be more of a big blue meany than he probably is.
“Don’t give me that hippie bulls**t,” he sneers, trying to be more of a big blue meany than he probably is. “I’m citing you for vending within 25 foot of the corner, within 300 feet of a public park, for vending from a stationary stand, and for vending in a restricted area.”
He hands me four $2 summonses (Don’t forget, it’s 1970).
“Now get this thing out of my sight,” the cop says. We both know the entire mid-town area, river to river, 14th to 96th streets, is restricted and no vending is allowed. I ask him where I should go.
“Anyplace as long as it’s out of my precinct.”
“What’s out of your precinct?” I ask.
The cop glowers at me, then shrugs, and points across 59th Street at the park. “In there.”
I push the cart across the street into the park and spend the rest of the day vending unperturbed.
Each evening around 6 PM the Pop-A-Doodle truck appeared. While a man in green coveralls pushed my cart up the ramp to join the other carts in the back, a stocky, gruff fellow named Richard would count my daily popcorn earnings and put it in a green Naugahyde zippered sack. On that evening he took my summonses as well, saying that he’d give them to “his solicitor.” Who knew garbage cans had such interesting names?
It was the first sunny day of the week and the temperature got up into the 40s. Back in the park again, I was selling and giving away popcorn as fast as it popped in the cooker. A bent old woman limped toward the cart. Her clothes were a shambles, stockings bunched around her ankles, cheeks rouged into bright red bull’s eyes.
“Would you like some popcorn?” I asked.
She stared blankly as if she hadn’t heard.
“Here, ma’am, have some popcorn.” I filled a box and offered it to her. Instead of taking it she reached down and began picking up and eating dirty kernels of popcorn that had fallen to the ground during the day.
“Here, lady, please have some free popcorn.” I practically shoved a box under her nose, but she continued to pick up those filthy kernels and eat them, impervious to my offers. Finally she wandered away.
No sooner had she gone than a tall man with a broad handlebar moustache strode up swinging his arms smartly back and forth and carrying a large backpack. Wearing a long dark olive coat and green military slacks, he paused in front of the cart, put his gloved hands together and appeared to pray silently. Then he turned and marched away. Hanging from his backpack was a framed picture of Christ with a note which read:
My last day on the job. As soon as I started vending in the park a small familiar-looking black kid came up, pulling a crumpled popcorn box out of his pocket. “Refill time mister popcorn man,” he said with an impish smile as he unfolded the box and held it out.
Later the police came by and kicked me out of the park. I pulled the cart across 59th Street in front of the Plaza Hotel fountain.
“Once in a lifetime offer, straight from the corn fields of Iowa. Hot popcorn.”
An older man and a young woman stopped to watch me spiel and deal. The woman was wearing a fur hat and red ski jacket and looked remarkably like Ali McGraw, who’d gained attention the previous summer for her role in Good-Bye Columbus, but had not yet become the international star of Love Story fame.
I was certain she was Ali McGraw, but found it hard to believe that she’d stopped to watch me. Finally, I offered her a free box of popcorn.
“No thanks,” she said. “But this [she gestured to the cart] is really nice.”
“Well, uh, thanks…” I stammered. “Are you really Ali McGraw?”
“Are you really the popcorn man I’ve heard about?” she replied with a smile. Her words paralyzed me and by the time I murmured “could be” she and the older man were crossing Fifth Avenue.
Darkness fell. To celebrate my final day of employment I began giving away popcorn to anyone who wanted some. “Free popcorn! All you can eat! Power to the people! Tomorrow is the first day of the rest of your life!”
A small, hungry crowd had gathered around when Bill Cosby, wearing a camel-hair coat and gray scarf, stopped on the sidewalk with a scowl on his face. With all my recent experience with celebrities, I cooly offered him some popcorn.
“No, no.” Cosby shook his head and gazed skeptically at the group of popcorn freeloaders munching around my cart. “This is too much, man,” he added, then got into a waiting Mercedes limousine and was driven away.
Later, when the Pop-A-Doodle truck and Richard arrived, I waited for my pay. When it wasn’t forthcoming, I reminded him that he’d promised me $100 cash at the end of the week.
“Oh, yeah.” Richard reached into the Naugahyde sack and started counting quarters.
A few minutes later I stood on the sidewalk in front of the Plaza with 400 quarters stuffed in my pockets. I estimated that I’d probably sold $120 to $150 worth of popcorn that week, which hardly left Pop-A-Doodle with anything after they paid for the popcorn, popping oil, boxes, and my salary. I didn’t see how they could stay in business much longer, and never did understand why they’d decided to start the venture in the dead of winter. But I’d seen a week’s worth of smiles, and that was as rewarding as all those quarters. Long live the spirit of adventure and free enterprise. It was time to catch the bus to that commune in Virginia.
The New York Times called Todd Strasser’s most recent novel, FALLOUT, “Exciting, harrowing … a superb entertainment … It thrums along with finely wrought atmosphere and gripping suspense…” It is about the Cuban Missile Crisis and was published in September.
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