A Yellow Bus Full of Onions - Yea, Right!
Most folks are skeptical but it's a fact.
Anyone who’s been around Hilton Head Island for a while will remember the Onion Man parked in a yellow school bus in Sea Pines Circle. Every year, he would roll onto the island with his worn yellow bus filled to the ceiling with bags of Vidalia onions.
A man named Jack W. Tapley, of Vidalia, Georgia, made this trip to the island for about 20 years. From the mid-1970s to the mid-1990s, he was a colorful piece of life on our island. The old yellow bus was a sure sign of spring anticipated as much as watching Rory Mcllroy play a round of golf at the Heritage Golf Tournament.
He came here thanks to my friend Barry Ginn. Barry had a limousine service at the Savannah airport at that time, and one day, a yellow school bus was parked in his parking zone next to the Holiday Inn at Coligny Circle. It was Tapley selling Vidalias. Barry told. him, “ You can’t park here, but I’ll show you another place that will be even better.”
It was a spot owned by his brother, Bobby Ginn, right on the main traffic circle between Hardee’s and a bank - smack dab in the middle of paradise. Tapley was taken by surprise. “I can’t afford anything like this,” he said. Barry looked at him for a minute and said, “ Your rent will be a bag of onions for me and one for my brother.”
After that, Tapley slept on a cot in the bus; his shower was a garden hose hooked to a nearby building. His restrooms were at the Hardee’s, which is now a real estate office, and sometimes at the McDonald’s across the street. Life on the bus was pretty darn good.
When he first started, he’d see only one or two cars between the bridge and himself.
But eventually he sold $33,000 worth of onions in one three-day period. With that kind of success, he eventually stretched out his season selling Walla Walla Sweet Onions. After that, he started selling Christmas trees.
Later, Vidalia onions took the rest of the country by storm, and they started being sold in supermarkets everywhere. Tapley had no choice but to crank up the bus and head back to Vidalia, where he still has the bus. It’s parked in his backyard, full of all kinds of stuff. The end of an era - kudzu took over.
Barry Ginn has fond memories of the Onion Man. “We used to sit on the back of that bus and have some of the best conversations about nothing,” Ginn said. “ All we wanted was friendship.”
And as for the Onion Man. Tapley says, “I had a good time. I sold a lot of onions. People there respected me better than anyone ever has. It was great being on Hilton Head Island.”
I want to thank David Lauderdale for the original story about the Onion Man that was updated in the Island Packet on May 18, 2017. My memory of the story was similar, but some of the details had become vague. It’s a legend on the island, and anyone who lived there during those 20 years will remember that tattered yellow school bus smack dab in the middle of paradise- and we should.