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Trees pop right off his corner photo by Jim Craven Aaron Hudson lugs another Christmas tree he's sold on the west Medford Pecos Pines lot. He has sold more than 2,000 trees this year at his annual winter job. Top salesman hawks to anyone who gawks By Mark Freeman of the Mail Tribune Aaron Hudson's ability to peddle Christmas trees is the stuff of holiday lore among the tree lots of West Medford. Hudson has sold Christmas trees to Jehovah's Witnesses who venture onto the lot he manages at the corner of Columbus Avenue and West Main Street. A competing Christmas tree lot owner once sent his wife down to sniff out the prices at Hudson's lot, and Hudson sold her a tree. "I even once set myself on fire just to sell a tree," Hudson says. "Poured a bunch of butane on my jeans, and WHOOF, lit it up. "I got the sale," he says. Hudson has sold more than 2,000 Christmas trees this year without resorting to pyrotechnics, recording his 12th straight year as top salesman for Peco Pines, a company that operates seven lots from Grants Pass to Medford to Ashland. "Trees are a very brutal business," says Bill Lambert, who owns Peco Pines. "You either make money, or lose your butt. "Aaron's real good," Lambert says. "My best." This year's effort should wind down by midday today, when the last-minute tannenbaum takers will buy the lot's final few festive firs, probably at a discount of around 50 percent. But Hudson will make up the difference somewhere else. "I'll get them to take a tree stand, a Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer, a funnel system and a bag of oranges," Hudson says. Hudson, a 31-year-old Grants Pass man who is a dry-waller by trade, has spent the past four weeks hawking trees to customers 16-18 hours a day, then sleeping it off inside a trailer on the lot. Much of Hudson's success, he says, is having good, green trees available at good prices. But he does rely on many tried-and-true gimmicks to get customers first onto his lot, and then not to let them leave without a sale. For instance, taking signs down scares passers-by into thinking the lot's running out of good trees, so they'll stop and come in. Then taking down the fencing can cause another mini-run on trees. Once they're on the lot, Hudson will use the last of his sales arsenal -- lots of bad jokes and pithy retorts to the customers' questions. "Buy one tree," he says, "and get that one tree for a fee." "What kind of tree is that?" "A Christmas tree, silly." "What do you take for your trees?" "Money." "Why's this tree leaning?" "Because it's not straight." If nothing works, he might revert to his 1987 stunt, when he doused his pant leg for his standard commission -- 10 cents on every dollar. Usually, though, it works. Sometimes, to dizzying levels. He'll chop a 14-foot fir in half, sell the top seven feet to one customer, and turn around and sell the bottom seven feet to someone else. "I've done that three times," Hudson says. "It's a trip." One time three years ago, he met a Medford woman on his tree lot, and Hudson sold her on himself. Now, they're engaged and plan to marry next holiday season at, of all places, Hudson's tree lot. "But before I asked her out that day," he says, "I sold her a tree, a tree stand, and a bag of oranges." Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 1999, Medford, Oregon USA