Here's an excerpt from my book Street Fairs for profit, fun and madness on page 72 where I tell about an experience I had trying to purchase lemonade at a store in Mt. Shasta City, CA. The book has just been published and sells for $14.95

Chapter 7    Mt. Shasta City and the Fourth of July Celebration

Looking for Lemonade

It wasn’t a real scorcher up there in Mt. Shasta in 2009.  We have encountered temperatures up around 110 in past years.   One day, after closing up at 6:00pm, we stopped by a grocery store in Mount Shasta City to pick up more drinks for that night and the following day.  I have a real thirst for lemonade and I find it quite refreshing, especially in hot weather.  It’s much better than canned soda’s. I went inside the store and headed for the back where they had the drinks. I looked for some lemonade (ready-made from the frig area.  Minute Maid or Paul Newman’s Virgin Lemonade) would be fine, but I couldn't locate any.  I asked one of the employees where the lemonade was located. I saw at least 50 brands of Orange Juice.  Really! 

What do they do with the stuff?  You think I'm kidding about that?  Seriously, there had to be at least 50 different OJ's in there. I have never seen a selection like that before.  Anyhow,  absolutely nooooo lemonade. He said that they had none and he was hoping that the truck would bring some tomorrow. That’s nice.  I looked at him.  "I'm not waiting until tomorrow."  This isn’t one of those places where you wait in line for days to get tickets for a big event or you are trying to pick up a new game machine or an I-Phone. Can you imagine 200 people standing in line at 5:00AM waiting for the place to open so they can get some lemonade?  Only two per customer please.  Oh man. I gotta go to the bathroom; can you hold my spot for me?  Hey dude, back of the line, I've been here since yesterday morning. 

Chapter 3   Our Motor Home Gets Stolen

Our most cherished possession goes missing!

A lot of people who are vendors at shows have motor homes.  You can do shows all over the place without worrying about motels, etc.  Of course, we do have an assortment of other worries.  If you have a motor home, you most certainly are not going to be able to keep it parked in front of your house for long periods of time unless you have a long driveway or some large property. Then you have to worry about city ordinances. Many of us have no choice but to put it into some kind of storage yard and pay their fees.  I had found a place on Jackson Street in Hayward, approximately three miles from our house.  I thought that it was pretty secure because it had one of those automated gates where you use a security code to enter and there was a high fence around the perimeter.  There happened to be approximately 35 motor homes and trailers stored there. 

This is the beginning of chapter 3 in my book, Street Fairs for profit, fun and madness.  Just click on the link for more information.  Great book.

Part 1     Chapter 1      A Day to Remember

Tyson Wells Sell-a-Rama 2010

Standing in the heavy rain with 70 mph winds while watching some 60 canopies go flying in all directions, toppling over all at once was something to behold as I had never seen anything close to this in all of my 17 years selling at festivals, fairs and other events.  My two canopies crumbled and collapsed to the ground right in front of my very eyes as I stood helplessly watching in complete awe. All my merchandise was scattered on the ground beneath the canopies. This would be a day that I would remember for the rest of my life.

This is the beginning of Chapter 1 in my book 'Street Fairs for profit, fun and madness.  If you want to read more or place an order, please click on the link.

Street Fairs for profit, fun and madness

I have written a book about our experiences selling at festivals, A&C Shows, Street Fairs, County Fairs, etc.

Read about what we have gone through in our many years selling at street fairs, A&C Shows, festivals and county fairs. Get a firsthand account of what we have had to endure as I describe many of our adventures, experiences and nightmares. I am not sugar-coating it for you and I am telling you how it is, no holds barred.

Learn what it’s really like to be out there in the streets, week after week having to survive awesome weather extremes, ranging from freezing temperatures to sweltering heat. Many times we encountered strong and highly destructive winds which toppled canopies. We have had to endure torrential downpours of rain and overcome continuous obstacles

For more information, check my website:
http://www.streetfairsbook.com/index.html