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Polson 'advise' man charges just 50 cents

The Associated Press | Hagadone News Network | UPDATED 11 years, 11 months AGO
by The Associated Press
| June 16, 2013 6:00 AM

You get your money’s worth when you stop by Brian Loden’s booth at the Polson Farmers Market on Fridays.

OK, it’s not so much a booth as it is a lawn chair.

And while you can see what you’re getting before you make a purchase with any other vendor on the street — be it honey, jewelry, vegetables or bread — with Loden you’ll have to buy sight-unseen.

What he’s selling, as advertised on the cardboard sign he holds in his lap, is “good advise.”

Notice, he’s not selling spelling lessons.

Loden says offering “advise,” rather than “advice,” is a marketing ploy. Sure enough, it doesn’t take long before someone stops by to tell him he spelled “advice” wrong, and after telling them that’s how he hooks in some of his customers, Loden quickly has them engaged in conversation.

Which is all he wants, anyway.

“That’s what made you stop, isn’t it?” Loden asks the man.

The advice isn’t free, except when it is.

Loden, who lives in Ronan, charges 50 cents to hand out his street-side wisdom, but the truth is he’ll talk to anyone, whether they drop a couple of quarters in his tin can or not. He says he has no idea how much money he’s taken in on his best day.

“I don’t know, and I couldn’t care less,” Loden says. “If I have enough to buy a four-pack of Guinness when it’s over, I’m happy.”

He did take on what you might call a paid intern one day, the son of a nearby vendor.

“I made him a sign, ‘Hug a kid — 25 cents,’ and he made $17 for himself in one day,” Loden says. “But his mom and dad decided maybe that wasn’t such a good idea.”

His idea is strictly a play on the “Peanuts” comic strip — with the price adjusted for inflation — wherein Lucy van Pelt offers “psychiatric help” out of a lemonade-like stand for 5 cents.

Loden thinks it would add fun to the farmers market if more people did what he’s doing, interspersing themselves among the more traditional vendors. Maybe musicians singing for tips, he says, or students raising money for a school project by sponsoring a dunk tank.

“I’ll go let them dump me in the water instead of doing this if somebody sets up a dunk tank,” he says.

Loden occupies his lawn chair a couple of booths down from one selling handmade jewelry and resin pendants and buttons.

Melissa Loden, the proprietor there, says she didn’t kick her husband out of her booth so much as suggest he take his conversations elsewhere during the farmers market.

“He inevitably ends up dominating conversations on the three topics not allowed in the booth,” Melissa says with a smile.

And those three topics would be?

“Guns, politics and religion,” she says.

Give Loden 50 cents, and he’ll eventually get around to those areas, and more if you let him.

But he starts with basics, such as, “Live life to the fullest, with no regrets.”

Now there’s some good advice — obvious, perhaps, but maybe worth 50 cents to be reminded.

Guns? Loden is a strong supporter of Second Amendment rights.

Politics? Well, he doesn’t seem to have a lot of use for Democrats or Republicans.

“They’re all in it for money,” he says.

Religion? Worship who you want, where you want, when you want, and let others do the same, Loden says — and if they choose not to worship, that’s their business.

“This country is great because it’s a melting pot,” Loden says. “Allow them their cultures. Me, I’m German, Irish and Cherokee Indian, and I take positives from all three cultures.”

While adults are supposed to pay 50 cents for Loden’s advice - some do, some just start chatting with him — his sign says advice for kids is free.

“I just tell them to brush their teeth after every meal, get up early, do their chores, obey their parents,” he says.

Loden and his wife moved to the Mission Valley from Seattle a year and a half ago. They attended a wedding here 10 years ago, loved the area, and decided to head this direction after their child was grown.

Melissa has had her booth at the farmers market since, and Brian says he had to find something to do for four hours after helping his wife set up shop on Third Avenue West in downtown Polson, home to the market on Fridays.

“I was getting bored last year,” he says. “I couldn’t bring enough gun magazines to keep me entertained.”

After reading Loden’s sign, some people correct him on the spelling, some ask him how much he charges for bad advice, and some tell him to “get a job.”

“You think this is what I’m doing for money at the age of 56?” asks Loden, who says he works as a painter and plumber’s assistant.

While it’s all meant in fun, Loden says he occasionally thinks he might actually help someone.

“I had a woman stop by who said she’d lost her husband two years back,” he says. “I told her, ‘You’ll never replace him, but leave the window open to finding new love. Chapters close, and you can quit reading the book every time one does, but I’d rather you go on to the next chapter and see what happens. Don’t shut that window — right when you don’t think you’ll ever find the answer is when it appears.’ “

And, to paraphrase Lucy van Pelt, that’ll be 50 cents, please.

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