Last week, one of the comments I received was that in today’s economy Wally would be considered foolish to not maximize his royalty earnings. I agreed with that comment. Thanks Jim for the segue.

In Wally’s day, the major concern was in contribution to the betterment of the Company at hand. Integrity was the name of the game. Wally always considered the reputation of the fruit industry before personal gain. An example of that was when I was 10 or 12 years of age, I spent some time at a roadside fruit stand not far from our family farm. The proprietor was a man I knew and I enjoyed his company, but he was not a farmer so did not have a vested interest in the fruit farming industry reputation. He sold green, flat sided peaches by the basket. When customers asked him about the fruit he would tell them to put them in the back window so the sun could shine on them, and the peaches would ripen up nicely. He knew full well that was a lie, although I did not know.

I spent the afternoon listening to his spiel believing because he was so sincere!

When I went home for supper, I told Wally and Auntie Kay about the green peaches. Wally became angry and said, “the back window is the worst place to put fruit for all that will happen is that it will burn! Also, green flat sided peaches will shrivel up. The only thing these customers will remember is that they got ripped off in the Okanagan Valley buying Okanagan fruit.” The whole industry from Osoyoos to Vernon is marred because of the proprietor’s greed!”