Watermelon Man may make some changes but quality stays same
Watermelon Man on U.S. Highway 59 is making changes. He can’t do all that he used to do.
Dennis Joe Duncan is still selling 200 to 300 melons every two to three days, seven days a week, along the road. But that’s been for almost 50 years now. Time for change.
Here are two changes he’s making.
First, he’ll not carry your watermelon to your car. Both his ankles are turned outward. His wife and grandchildren must help load the melon trailer now.
Second, he’s gotten himself a red umbrella to sit under for shade. It looks great along the roadside. Maybe he should have done that long ago.
Duncan is roadside on U. S. Highway 59 almost year around. He’ll have melons until the first of October and then sweet potatoes through Christmas. Around January, he’ll start with rose bushes.
The melons are a bit late this year as a result of a cooler, wetter spring.
Every three days or so, he must drive near Hooks, Texas, and load 300 melons that have been picked, but there’s no one to help with the loading.
It’s because his melons are picked by hand within a day or two of being roadside for sale that they can be so sweet and guaranteed.
“You can’t have a machine pick them because each melon ripens and is ready at just the right time and a machine would pick them all up,” Duncan said.
“Every one of my melons is guaranteed. If it’s bad, throw it away and come get another one.”
Or your money back. Watermelon Man says he has a returning customer base for this reason and one other:, the price. The melons have been around $4 to $5 for many years now.
“People remember,” he said. “That’s why I’m here, pretty much year around.”
Last week, some people were asking for yellow meat melons, but they won’t be ready for about a week now, he tells.
“Those and the wagon busters,” he said, meaning the 60- to 80-pound melons, which can go only four across on the trailer bed and be stacked just two high. Currently, he gets four to five stacks of the smaller red melons.
Ready for the secret to Duncan’s idea of good, guaranteed watermelons?
“When they get ready, you’ve got to stay with them.”
That’s it. It’s all you need to know about the man under the red umbrella along Highway 59. It’s hot to stay out in the sun all day. But here’s the secret to that, something that wasn’t available to yesterday’s farmer who also was deeply sunburned and leathery, too.
“When it gets too hot, I can start up the pickup, get inside and turn on the air conditioning,” Watermelon Man said.
If there were a way to get those melons ice cold at the roadside, Duncan might continue being Watermelon Man for years more to come.
Duncan is retired from employment with International Paper Co.