[News Film - San Diego - Bob Mills - WILBUR BRADLEY GOURD FARM]

Will Bradley has the reputation of being the gourd man of San Diego County. Everybody knows Will Bradley. His family came here from Colorado. For years Will worked for the Hercules Powder Company. His dad had helped blast holes for the eucalyptus trees when they were planted in Balboa Park for the World's Fair in 1915. Since retirement Will became interested in gourds. Gourds are closely related to squashes and pumpkins. Few gourds are edible. Most are grown as novelties and ornaments. Takes about 6 months for a gourd to grow and a full year after that for one to be dry enough to use. Will has found a ready market for his gourds in Hawaii where the hula dancers use them as percussion instruments. They're known as ipus and Will gets from a dollar to two dollars a piece for them. He used to grow the gourds right here on his two and a half acres in National City, but now they're grown on a farm at De Luz up near Fallbrook by Felix Garnsey. Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, and school kids love the gourd farm. They come here on tours and Will takes them through what he calls the jungle. This is about as close to nature as a lot of city kids get and they love it and Will loves the kids. There's no generation gap here. Young visitors to the gourd farm buy most of Will Bradley's gourds. He has them sorted into 25 and 50 cent piles and most of them walk away with a souvenir. As I mentioned earlier, gourds are grown as novelties and ornaments and Will does a lot of his own ornament making. He shows the kids how he cuts the gourd using a small saw, grapefruit knife, a gimlet, melon ball maker. This will be a feeder for birds or maybe even a bird nest. Will sells quite a few gourds to hippies. He figures they use them for wine flasks. And one child of nature was very creative. A mother mouse crawled into the broken off stem of a gourd, made a nest, and had babies. The kids love it. Then the little playmates are gone and it's back to nature for the gourd farm and back to work for Will Bradley. After as many years as he's been working with gourds, Will can see just what hidden novelty lies in each one. Some might look like whales. So, they got a coat of black and blue paint and an eye and they're whales. Others might look like cookie jars and in season, certain gourds look just like Santa Claus. While at other times of the year, jack-o'-lanterns. Then there are the big Dumbo elephants. The lady who has Puppet Playhouse, Pat Plat, also sees characters in gourds. She uses Will Bradley's gourds to make her puppets and for many years children in the San Diego area have laughed and cheered at some of Pat's puppets. And it truly is a gifted art that turns plain gourds into these humorous characters. She even found a gourd that looks just like Will Bradley, the gourd man of National City.