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'MR. MUSCADINE': After several careers, Benton man now focuses on his first love: soil |
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Monday, 21 July 2008 |
 Boyd Allinson began growing muscadines about five years ago, when positive health reports about the grape started to surface. Allinson called the fruit “dynamite,” adding that he drinks a little muscadine wine before bed and eats toast with muscadine jelly each morning.
“[It’s] the same thing I did as a child. You might say I am a professional gardener,” Allinson said, sitting at his kitchen table. He sat surrounded by photographs of his crops, especially his muscadines, which Allinson touts as “the healthiest fruit in the world. It’s scientifically proven to contain 30 times more antioxidants than the blueberry.”
Known locally as “Mr. Muscadine,” he indeed fits the nickname, drinking a late evening sip of muscadine wine every night before bedtime and eating muscadine jelly on toast every morning. He also notes that pies and juice can be made with muscadines. “It’s the world’s healthiest fruit, yet a total stranger to most of the world’s population.”
“Why do you think I’m so healthy?” Allinson said, revealing – with a twinkle in his eye – that he is 80.
Allinson started farming when he was 6, helping his grandfather prune grapes, peaches and plums. Back then there were no tractors, and Allinson worked six days a week tending crops.
“Once a month or so, all the farm families would gather and have a party,” he said. “Treats were popcorn, peanuts, molasses, balls with sorghum and cookies.”
The entertainment was provided by his mother, an organ teacher, and his older brother Verdun, who played the guitar.
For other types of fun, they also played in the river.
“We walked two miles to go to Lost Creek and swim and fish,” Allinson said. “Our crops were ready for harvest by the Fourth of July. We loaded into the Model T and went to Jenkins Ferry, where we swam and picnicked all day on the Saline River.”
Now, Allinson not only plants muscadines on his three acres, but also peaches, apples, watermelons, canteloupes, corn and peas, among a multitude of other things. He apologetically tells a caller looking for purple-hull peas that he will have no more until fall.
“More buyers showed up than peas,” he said, his eyes crinkling at the corners.
Now, Allinson is getting ready for the county fair in September, growing a pumpkin from the seed of an Atlantic Giant pumpkin that weighed 1,470 pounds.
“It’s only about this big right now,” he said, holding up his hands to roughly indicate the size of a football. “I have a friend who is beating me [at growing a pumpkin] right now.”
He is also growing a Carolina Cross watermelon seed that came from a 201-pound melon.
Allinson’s achievements go well beyond nurturing the earth, however.
In a family of eight boys and one girl named Lucille, Allinson and four of his brothers volunteered for the Army and served during the World War II as well as the Korean and Vietnam engagements. All five of the Allinson Army boys’ names are on a brick walkway at the Veterans Memorial at the Saline County Courthouse.
Allinson clearly is most proud of his brother Harold, explaining, “He was the most outstanding of all of us. He was a Green Beret and received two distinguished silver stars and two bronze stars.”
After volunteering for the Army, Allinson went to the University of Central Arkansas in Conway in 1950 for a year and a half before being drafted and called to serve in Korea. He then attended Draughns School of Radio Engineering and later built and managed a radio station in Mansfield, La., where he was on air for five hours a day, six days a week. The station closed in 1959, and Allinson was then employed by the National Cash Register Co. as an account manager. While working this job, he learned to program in 11 different computer languages.
“Walmart was our biggest customer ever,” he said.
Allinson has installed accounting systems for Benton Savings and Loan and Union Bank, as well as at the Little Rock Air Force Base, Hendrix College, Harding University and St. Vincent Hospital System in Little Rock. He received a company plaque for the system he installed at Arkansas Tech University.
“I lost it,” he said, looking around his house.
“He has never thrown anything away, so he can’t find anything,” his wife, Neva, said.
Allinson worked for NCRC until 1976, when he started his own business, Allinson Real Estate Inc.
“That was [one of] my dreams,” he said. “I love the land – I wanted to provide houses for people.”
The first subdivision he developed was called Brookwood, and it was behind Huckabee’s Supermarket.
Allinson retired after 15 years to what he calls the love of his life: “Farming. Tilling the soil. Growing something for people to eat,” he said. “I was always looking for something and never found it except in farming – happiness.”
He paused for a minute before adding, “My lifetime dream was to own one acre on the Saline River.”
Today, Allinson owns 147 acres of riverfront land with 1.3 miles of frontage on the Saline River. He has planted trees of all varieties including cow oaks, pine and 11 other types of acorn-producing oaks for wildlife. He hunts and fishes there. In April, he caught a 22-pound turkey on the same day that his son, David, caught a 17-pound turkey.
Besides selling his produce, Allinson also invites people to come and pick their own.
“If you don’t have money, then at least have good health,” he said, adding that customers can pick three units of produce, and keep one for free. The other two-thirds he keeps to sell.
“You cannot hire people to pick on farmer’s wages,” Allinson said dryly.
Allinson is a member of New Friendship Missionary Baptist Church and active at the Benton Senior Activity Center. He is enthusiastic about the center, inviting everyone to come out for the center’s events.
It is also where he met Neva, four years ago.
“Between us, we have over 100 years of marriage experience,” he said proudly. “The good Lord above made me, and two women saved me,” he said, referring to his first wife and his sister, Lucille, who both saved him from near-death accidents years ago. “And I got one that’s helping me,” he said, looking at Neva.
His eyes crinkling again, Allinson added,“You’ll never find another oddball like me.”
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