Name someone else who's been in business in one location for 144 years

by Jack Neely

In 1853, when they donated Market Square to be used as "a curb market for farmers forever," Joe Mabry and William Swan were young, vigorous men. Still, neither would live to see the construction of what we call "the old courthouse," or our old train stations, or our oldest theater, or the oldest of downtown Knoxville's sanctuaries. In 1853, the Old City wasn't even New yet. Mr. Mabry and Mr. Swan wouldn't recognize any of that stuff.

But they'd recognize Market Square today, and at harvest time they'd probably drop by long enough to say howdy to Sherrill Perkins.

He wears clean bluejean overalls and a green Price's Landscaping cap. His grandfather sold here in the 1800s; his father sold here in the '20s. Perkins isn't sure how long he's been coming here three days a week—10 years, maybe 12. Other farmers sell nearby, but none with the selection or regularity that Perkins does.

He unloads early on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. By then he's already done his chores at his farm on the French Broad, loaded up his homegrown stuff, and visited the wholesale produce markets on Forest Avenue, partly to buy bananas, which don't grow well on the French Broad, and partly to check on this week's fair prices. Then he drives up to Mabry and Swan's old Market Square and sets his goods out on the counters underneath the shed at the north end. It takes nearly an hour just to put it out: dozens of varieties of produce, three or four varieties of fresh tomatoes from his own farm, several kinds of fresh greens, beans, corn, peppers, squash, and root vegetables, bananas and peanuts from the produce markets on Forest, going cheaper than you can get them in the stores. Honey, jellies, apple butter. Hot chow-chow, pickled okra, and cucumbers that Perkins' 82-year-old aunt cans in Mason jars, cakes she bakes and wraps in cellophane.

Perkins doesn't even know how many different crops he grows. "I've never counted," he says. "The meat, that's my biggest drawing card." It surprises people from the sanitary suburbs to see unrefrigerated ham, poke sausage, and salt pork sitting on a wooden shelf alongside the squash and bananas and hot peppers. Perkins also grows hogs on his farm, cuts and salts down this meat himself, cures it so well it doesn't even need refrigeration.

Start picking stuff up, and Perkins will sling open a small paper bag from his stack and hand it to you. He's got a fan he hasn't plugged in today, a watering can to keep his greens moist, a 10-pound scale hanging from a rope. He has plastic chairs, but doesn't sit much. Others do. Perkins always appears to have a big support staff, older guys who greet customers as they approach. They sometimes get up to sprinkle some water on the greens. But they're just guys from the Square, happy to have company.

There's a steady stream of customers this Friday morning. Some buy one thing, a tomato or a banana, and eat it on the spot. Others buy a bushel or two.

Perkins is patient with the ignorant. On his top shelf is a large green-striped gourd the size and shape of Popeye's right arm. Perkins calls it a cooshaw; he allows that some folks pronounce it cutshaw, but even that's not in the dictionary. "You make pies with it," he says.

In season, he carries other exotics: kohlrabi, Chinese radishes, Korean radishes, and, today, muscadine. "The other day, a lady bought four boxes of muscadine. I said, 'You gonna make some jelly?' She said, 'No, I'm gonna eat them. I'll eat the best part of them tonight.'"

His prices and his selection draw everybody. An old lady, perhaps 80, struggles painfully toward the counter, taking six-inch steps with the help of her cane.

"You movin' awful fast, this mornin'" Perkins says.

"They call me Whizbang," she says.

He's selling lots of greens today. Just 10 am, and he's sold 10 of the 14 bushel baskets he brought, at $18 a bushel. Most of the growing season's coming to a close, but this is still green season, fresh new crops of turnip and mustard greens in tall skinny baskets that look like congas.

A skinny, emphatic man is rummaging through Perkins' boxes of bananas: "You spose to keep some green ones and some ripe ones, and you got the green ones, but you ain't got no ripe ones, not a one."

Perkins moves with slow confidence to the banana boxes, picks up a few bunches, and finds the man a couple of ripe bananas.

"My grandfather lived to be 100 years and seven months," Perkins says. "He smoked a pipe, dipped snuff, took a drink at night. I asked my doctor about that, and he said people his age, they got more exercise than we do. On a busy day, though, you just all day long waiting on people, you think you get plenty exercise."

About 100 people have been through here in an hour. A young black man picks up a small Romano tomato.

"How much for one?" he asks.

"Eighty cents a pound," Perkins says. He puts the one, small, lonesome tomato in the hopper. He squints. "Here, take two, and make it half a pound."

"You wouldn't have some salt, would you? I like 'em with salt."

Perkins reaches over for a cardboard saltshaker that's marked PEPPER and pours a double tablespoon of salt into the other man's open hand.

"You don't want to kill me, do you?" Perkins grins in the way of people careful not to spill their chew. The customer dips one tomato in his palm and eats it whole.

"The main thing is to be nice to people," Perk- ins says. "A little politeness don't hurt nothin."

You can't stay in business for 144 years without it.