Worms…some of the first money I ever made came from selling worms. With two ponds and a creek right beside our house, I grew up fishing. Now everybody knows if you catch fish you have to have bait. As a boy, I caught my own bait and then used it to catch my own fish. I caught minnows in a wire basket and I dug up worms. I discovered early in life that sometimes I might go out and dig half a day and not find more than two or three worms…if I found any at all. I normally headed to the cow pasture to dig. I won’t share my secret of where I always found worms, but I will give you this hint…they were the most fertile spots in the cow pasture.
Before long, I was introduced to a new, and perhaps cleaner, way of finding worms. I was absolutely amazed when one of my cousins showed me a method that seemed like magic to this young boy. He said, “I’ll show you how to get all the worms you want.” With a hand saw in one hand and a bucket in the other, he took me to the woods. He picked out a small sapling, cut it down about a foot from the ground, and then began to run the teeth of that hand saw across the top of the stump. A few minutes later he said, “Alright, start picking them up.” Big earthworms began popping out of the ground all around. I picked up a bucket full. It is called fiddling worms.
Somebody once told ole Billy Bob that he could fiddle up worms. He grabbed up his fiddle, headed to the woods, and started playing a tune. He didn’t find one single worm. As poorly as he played, he probably drove those things deeper in the ground rather than to the surface!
One day, more by accident than anything, I discovered a whole new crop of worms right at my fingertips. The banks around our creek were covered with trees. While we raked up the leaves in our yard, we let the leaves from the creek bank trees fall and stay right where they landed. I raked back some of those leaves one day and discovered worms…night crawlers. I guess those moist decaying leaves created a natural worm bed. Suddenly, I had more fishing worms than I could use.
One day when I was in Casey’s Curb Market, I saw the boxes of worms he sold, and I had an idea. I asked Mr. Casey if he would like to buy some of my worms. To tell you the truth, after all these years I can’t remember if he paid me 2 cents per worm or a penny for two worms, but I clearly remember we shook hands and entered into a business partnership.
Selling night crawlers was my first “professional” business venture and therefore one of my first jobs. I didn’t get rich, but that was some of the first money I every earned from working. I usually always found enough worms to sell a few and make a little spending money, and to keep a few so I could go fishing.
Eventually, I discovered plastic worms that I could use to catch fish, but I had to pay for those. The fish seemed to like the real thing better than the fake ones. Since those days long ago, I have also discovered that I am somewhat like fish in that I like things, and people, too, that are real, rather than fake.
Bill King can be reached at bkpreach@yahoo.com.
