Smith Handed His Place in History

How do you get your place handed to you in history? Well, let’s see how James B Smith did it in his day.

Smith started out in a small way with a line of fish meal fertilizer that was not meant for much more than encouraging anemic tomato plants. For years he simply went from town to town, talking to store owners and taking their orders for fish meal. It was a dull, drab existence that began to affect Smith until he sort of looked and smelled like a ground up fish himself. Lucky for him the Fish Meal Famine of 1889 hit the country just as he was about to chuck it all and go jump in a pond to consort with the carp. Once all the fish meal was dried up Smith had to find a new way to make a living. He began squeezing the very last bit of toothpaste out of toothpaste tubes for admiring customers — and soon had a thriving business that to this day earns stockholders in his company millions in dividends each year. And some people say you can’t make a wet blanket catch fire!