Keith Curley of Cotter grows 40 heads of cabbage every spring, and he doesn't even like cabbage.
"I give every one away," he said.
Cabbage isn't the only thing Curley, 75, gives away. He is famous in Cotter for his immaculate and beautiful garden and for sharing his produce and canned goods with friends. Hundreds of jars of canned tomatoes, salsa, pickles, beets, eggplant, carrots, beans and potatoes are lined up neatly on shelves in his home. He even cans pork.
"I'll end up giving half of it away," Curley said of his shelves of produce. "I like giving to people because it puts a smile on their face. It makes them happy, and that makes me happy. When people say you can't get that at the store, that's it right there. It's simple."
Sharon Peters is one Cotter resident who benefits from Curley's generosity. She met him eight years ago when she hired him as a painter. From that moment on, Peters says, they clicked.
"Two things amazed me," she said of Curley's garden. "One was to see how Brussels sprouts grow, and the other was the taste of some kind of lettuce he grows, like butter lettuce or something. It was so tender. Wonderful."
Three freezers in Curley's home are filled with packages of food he buys at its prime and vacuum-seals. He knows when the best corn is due in from Colorado or Illinois, and exactly where it will be. Corn is one crop Curley doesn't grow himself. The wind blows it over, he says.
"The candy corn from Colorado is simply superb," Curley said.
He shaves 30 ears of corn, mixes the kernels with one pound of butter and two cans of condensed milk, cooks it for a long time in a slow cooker and freezes it.
"You won't eat nothin' better in the whole wide world," he said.
It isn't just his gardening and canning prowess that make Curley memorable. His home is a museum of Coca-Cola memorabilia, antique pencil sharpeners, teapots, knives, hunting and trapping trophies, photos and NASCAR stuff. The corny side of Curley is exhibited in humorous posters pinned up around his home and a talking, remote-controlled deer trophy.
"I like to see all of it," Curley said of his many collections. "I don't box it up. There are stories behind all of it."
He even has a small strawberry-themed collection, including a wooden strawberry carrier his father made him when Curley was 6. It holds four wooden, quart-sized strawberry baskets, and the handle is worn smooth.
"I got 2 cents a quart," Curley said, "and I picked 48 quarts a day. That was a lot of money for a 6-year-old in 1940."
The second of 16 children, Curley helped his father on the family's 40-acre farm in Oxford Junction, Iowa, and helped his mother in the kitchen. The family kept cows, pigs and chickens, trapped and hunted, and grew vegetables.
"My mother used to can more than 1,000 quarts to feed 16 kids," Curley said. "It lasted all year."
Curley's job was to help prepare the vegetables. He shelled peas and snapped beans among many other duties. He helped bake bread.
In 1950, the Curley family's home burned to the ground in a fire. The residents of Oxford Junction and nearby Clarence, Iowa, collected clothes for the family and built a new home for them.
"It was a big deal because we never asked nobody for nothin,"' Curley said.
His family was more accustomed to being on the giving side.
"My parents were always giving. Every year my dad would give 100 pounds of navy beans to a family with 10 kids. They were dirt poor. Do you know how many beans are in 100 pounds?"
Curley says his eight brothers and seven sisters, all of whom served in Korea or Vietnam, grew up sharing clothes, toys, everything.
"My mother constantly talked to us about sharing, about doing the right thing," Curley said. "She was like a hen with her chicks, always gathering us around her, clucking softly. In all the years, never, ever did I once hear her raise her voice."
He remembers his mother instilling in every one of her children the importance of respecting their elders.
Curley has five children of his own from his first marriage. A daughter from his second marriage was killed when a tree fell on her eight years ago. She was only 19. The tragedy ended his 32-year marriage, and true to his generous spirit, Curley gave almost everything away and started over.
Today, when he isn't on a painting job, canning, gardening, enjoying his "little Coke room" or watching NASCAR, Curley might be found in his outdoor kitchen, where he cooks and grills, smokes and fries fish, and gets his hair cut in his very own barber's chair. He might even admit to having his voluminous blond hair colored "a little bit."
A sign above the outdoor kitchen says, "Curley Loves Here."
"I love being here," Curley said, "and love happens here."
Indeed, his home is evidence of his passion for living. His friends, evidence of his passion for giving.
"More important to me than his first-rate produce," Peters said, "is witnessing the genuine pleasure he gets from sharing. He gets such joy out of sharing what he grows. He's a happy giver."
For more information see Sunday's Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.