MILLIANS: Buy a stove; get a pony

Published 10:33 pm Sunday, November 17, 2024

Buy a stove, refrigerator or any other major appliance, get a Shetland pony or, sometimes, a used car.

Guess when the huge block of ice on the sidewalk in front of Nelson’s Appliance Store on Hancock Street would melt, win a window air conditioning unit.

Carl “Cutie” Nelson was a born entrepreneur. He would do whatever he could to get customers in his store and make the sale.

“My dad was a salesman at heart,” Marion Nelson, Carl’s younger son was telling me the other day. “He instituted a sales regimen” of having some sort of promotion.

Nelson would have a trailer full of Shetland ponies brought into town and parked near the store.

Can’t you hear the kids now? “Mommy, daddy, can I have one of those ponies?”

Yes, they can, Nelson would say, if mommy and daddy buy a new stove or refrigerator.

When the ponies were gone, Nelson would have the same deal with used cars.

“You’ve got to remember,” Marion said, “this was during an age (mainly the ‘60s and ‘70s) when there were no big box stores (like Lowe’s or Home Depot). There were a couple of stores in downtown Milledgeville that sold appliances, like Sear’s across the street from Nelson’s on Hancock.”

Cutie Nelson’s store was just west of the Campus Theater. He sold Hot Point appliances.

Fred Elliott rented the rear of the building. Elliott sold Zenith electronic products, such as TVs, stereos and radios.

And just how did Carl Nelson get the nickname Cutie? Marion laughed and said he didn’t know but that it probably started when Carl was young and it just stuck.

“To his peers, he was always Cutie,” Marion said.

One thing that was clear is how Cutie always had some sort of strategy to sell appliances, whether it be with giveaways of ponies or cars.

Even when he was very young, Marion had the job of answering the phone while his dad was at Grant’s Restaurant having breakfast — or a “business meeting,” as Cutie called it.

Marion was placed at the desk and given specific instructions: take their name and phone number and tell them Dad would call them back.

“I miss those days,” Marion recalled. “I sure do.”

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Things I learned while working on other stories:

Former Alabama coach Nick Saban on his new job as a commentator for ESPN’s Gameday: “I spent my entire coaching career accosting people who speculate, make predictions, or ask hypothetical questions. Now, I’m in this world and it’s hard.”

I think Saban’s doing a great job on Gameday. Pat McAfee, not so much.

* * *

The last movie to play at the Campus Theater in 1981 was “Rollover,” a political thriller starring Jane Fonda and Kris Kristofferson.

I’m sure it was tame by today’s political standards.

* * *

The Georgia Bulldogs have played in the two-highest rated games on ABC-TV this season: 13.2 million viewers for the win over Texas and 12 million for the loss to Alabama. Tennessee played in the third-most-watched game (10.8 million) in a win over Alabama.

Georgia and Tennessee face off in Athens Saturday night in a game that could set new viewing records.

* * *

Al Hatcher, the man behind Milledgeville’s first mall — Hatcher Square, also developed a subdivision behind the mall called Hatcher Woods. He decided to name every street after a family member.

Thus, Melody Way after his daughter, Melody Hatcher Gold, etc.

* * *

Remember the story about Buford Prosser winning the Burt Reynolds look-alike contest at Hatcher Square back in the early ‘70s? One of the perks for winning was an invitation to appear on the Del Ward Show on Macon’s WMAZ-TV.

Buford, his wife Peggy and son Brad all were on the show. Brad, now involved in the ownership of Pickle Barrel restaurants, was about 9 and wore his new Dallas Cowboys shirt.

He might still have it.

—Rick Millians, a 1970 Baldwin High grad, is retired after working at newspapers in Georgia, Ohio and South Carolina. Reach him at rdmillians@aol.com.