Nine years post-SCI, battling joblessness, I started my own delivery business in 1974. It all hinged on “The Big T” sandwich: pastrami, cheddar cheese and Tabasco sauce on a heavily buttered sourdough French roll, toasted hot. I wrapped several in tinfoil and drove them in Bodacious, our yellow Ford van, to the service station where Sam, my wife-to-be, pumped gas with other shapely girls in tight Levis. The girls quickly scarfed up my free samples. The “business” lasted only two months, but I learned all about heartburn and the girls’ Levis got even tighter.

1983: My wife and I started a U-pick veggie business, but no one came. With help from friends and neighbor kids, we picked a ton of snow peas. This time, driving our Saab turbo to a Chinese restaurant in a small farm town, I met the chef at the back door, a box balanced on my lap.

“Too big,” said the round Chinese chef, holding a swollen pod. “Too small,” he said, pointing to a baby pod. “Just right,” he said, plucking one from the box and eating it. So began our farm-fresh delivery business.

I drove to the Portland metro area with all manner of veggies. In my Ford F250 Super Cab, I navigated the winding, hilly roads to Strohecker’s, one of the first upscale groceries, to deliver a few dozen boxes of big juicy tomatoes. From my wheelchair I’d grab the boxes from the end of the pickup bed and toss them up on the loading dock.

Once, by invitation, Sam and I pulled up in an apartment parking lot and sold oversized snow peas out of the truck to Laotian families, then ate dinner as guests of the Keovongsys, our Lao hosts, who worked on our farm.

In 2002, the summer following 9/11, I got a call from chef Philippe Boulot of The Heathman Hotel Restaurant. “Allo, Tim,” Philippe said, “you have some tasty veggies for me, yes? I take eight box romaine, five box tomato, all the beans you have, 10 pounds basil, and four box squash. What else you have? Bush is in town and we are going to feed the whole entourage.”

My wife and I made the delivery in our Grand Caravan, but the street was blocked. Security measures. We had to park three blocks away. I balanced boxes on my lap while Sam used the hand truck. Four trips down a steep sidewalk and back up again.

Last week I delivered 100 pounds of Blue Lake green beans to a McCormick & Schmick’s-owned restaurant in downtown Portland. Two sous-chefs met me at the curb. A 1920s elevator rose up out of the sidewalk, the chefs unloaded the beans and off I drove.

I’ve delivered pea pods to Thai, Vietnamese, Chinese and Laotian people; radicchio to Italians; chili peppers to migrant Mexicans; lettuce to inner-city African Americans; squash to the great-grandchildren of Anglo settlers; tomatoes to Russians, and beans to Democrats and Republicans alike. As far as I can tell, they are all happy to see a bearded paraplegic delivery boy bearing boxes of fresh veggies.

It’s almost like Christmas.