- Jan 2, 2008
- 37
- 10
When I was a teenager a guy from Lockport was killed in a car ( I think he was Valâ€[emoji]8482[/emoji]s age – 4 or five years older than myself) – Dean Latch wrecked his 54â€[emoji]8482[/emoji] Corvette one rainy night and his parents had the wrecked car restored and the story goes that it sat in their garage for many years to remind them of their late son, both parents unwilling to sell it for love or money. I know there are always tales of legendary autos sitting under piles of junk in peopleâ€[emoji]8482[/emoji]s garages everywhere and I usually attribute these stories to “Urban Legend†but this is no urban legend – itâ€[emoji]8482[/emoji]s a true story.
When I moved from Lockport to Greensboro, NC I was sort of like a rudderless ship – really didnâ€[emoji]8482[/emoji]t know what I wanted to do – Fact is I didnâ€[emoji]8482[/emoji]t know what I could do. I lived with Aunt Jaye and Uncle Jack for a while, but that got old when I started feeling a little constricted, so when one of Aunt Jayeâ€[emoji]8482[/emoji]s friends offered me a job doing floor coverings and tile work ( No experience needed – On the job training) I jumped at the chance to get a piece of a car and an apartment where a man and a maid could talk about what a man and a maid talked about when they were alone.
Al Terzino owned Builderâ€[emoji]8482[/emoji]s Supply & Tile Co. and his company did contract work – that is he didnâ€[emoji]8482[/emoji]t replace stuff in peopleâ€[emoji]8482[/emoji]s houses, strictly new construction work on a volume basis. He was a great guy and we got along tremendously well because he was really fond of Aunt Jaye and he knew that we were of Italian descent, as he was. When the bottom fell out of the construction industry in the 80â€[emoji]8482[/emoji]s Al never laid a single man off – we knew that he wasnâ€[emoji]8482[/emoji]t making money but he kept us busy doing repair work at all his friendsâ€[emoji]8482[/emoji] homes, his place, his girlfriendâ€[emoji]8482[/emoji]s place, shoveling snow (When it snowed – once a winter) and when the industry hit rock bottom and he was forced to cut our hours back to 28 hours a week (So we could get the remainder from Unemployment) Al literally broke down and cried when he told us – Even so, a week before Christmas that year he called us all into the back of the warehouse and passed out envelopes and apologies he couldnâ€[emoji]8482[/emoji]t do more, and when business returned he promised heâ€[emoji]8482[/emoji]d increase the hours and the bonuses. All of us thanked Al profusely but put our envelopes in our coat pockets unopened, so in case the bonus was small Al wouldnâ€[emoji]8482[/emoji]t feel any worse than he did. So you can imagine how WE felt when we convened at Hooray Harryâ€[emoji]8482[/emoji]s for a little happy hour and looked in the envelopes - every man in the crew got 15 crisp, new $100 bills. It wasnâ€[emoji]8482[/emoji]t until many years later when Al had a massive stroke and died that his right hand man Ray Sands told us that Al had lost about a quarter of a million dollars with the business that year and that those hundred dollar bills in our bonus envelopes came from his personal savings…. Thatâ€[emoji]8482[/emoji]s some boss..
The business eventually recovered and work started coming in and life was good, Al would sell us materials at cost + 10% and weâ€[emoji]8482[/emoji]d do a little side work to pad out our ribs and the world was spinning in greased grooves (Thatâ€[emoji]8482[/emoji]s from John Steinbeck – he really could turn a phrase.)
One morning he told the two ceramic crew chiefs to load up an insane amount of 12†square ceramic floor tiles – frost proof, half black, half white, and ride out to this address in Oak Ridge, which was about ten miles from Greensboro. There we were to install a checkerboard floor in the ownerâ€[emoji]8482[/emoji]s new garage. We found the place and it was this neat, well kept three story farmhouse on a hill with a path leading down to a barn that needed some repair , complete with a coral and a couple horses standing about, gazing serenly at us from their vantage point. And at the side of the barn, next to the paved driveway sat a brand new, 10 bay brick and steel garage complete with 5 double bay roll-up doors.
Steve Brewer who was a great ceramic installer but not really the brightest bulb on the Christmas tree took a look and declared:
“This must be the placeâ€
So we unloaded the tile, mixed the thinset mortar and began scraping and sweeping the already scraped and swept concrete garage floor. We got rolling pretty good and were about a third done with the actual installation by the time the Sun reached his zenith – About this time a brand new Porsche 911 Cabriolet rolls down the driveway and stops behind our van and a sort of smallish, well dressed man got out and takes a look at the work in progress – The owner, beyond doubt.
He complimented us and said that it looked great, and we were relieved, as we always were when an owner showed up unexpectedly and said that they liked what they saw.
So old Steve Brewer (Who, as far as I know hadnâ€[emoji]8482[/emoji]t gained much more intelligence in the interim) strolls over to the gentleman and asked:
“This sure is a nice Ga-rage – Got some cores to keep in heyayer?†(Notice that authentic NC Country drawl?)
And the man told him that, Yeah, he had a few old clunkers he had been fixing up for a while and that they were down in the barn, and, if we liked we should feel free to take a look. He added that they werenâ€[emoji]8482[/emoji]t anything special but we might find them interesting.
So, being about lunchtime and time for a break, the four of us walked down the driveway to the barn whose door was held shut by a piece of nylon rope and pulled the door open – At first we were sort of Cave-Blind, coming from the dazzling summer sunshine into the dim, unlt interior of the barn. When our vision returned we looked around.
There were cans of house paint on shelves,, an old roto-tiller, his childrensâ€[emoji]8482[/emoji] bicycles scattered about the outer edges of the huge room – Hay for the horses was crammed in the loft, and light filtered feebly through the cracks in the siding. And there, in two neat rows, were ten vintage Ferraris……..
When I moved from Lockport to Greensboro, NC I was sort of like a rudderless ship – really didnâ€[emoji]8482[/emoji]t know what I wanted to do – Fact is I didnâ€[emoji]8482[/emoji]t know what I could do. I lived with Aunt Jaye and Uncle Jack for a while, but that got old when I started feeling a little constricted, so when one of Aunt Jayeâ€[emoji]8482[/emoji]s friends offered me a job doing floor coverings and tile work ( No experience needed – On the job training) I jumped at the chance to get a piece of a car and an apartment where a man and a maid could talk about what a man and a maid talked about when they were alone.
Al Terzino owned Builderâ€[emoji]8482[/emoji]s Supply & Tile Co. and his company did contract work – that is he didnâ€[emoji]8482[/emoji]t replace stuff in peopleâ€[emoji]8482[/emoji]s houses, strictly new construction work on a volume basis. He was a great guy and we got along tremendously well because he was really fond of Aunt Jaye and he knew that we were of Italian descent, as he was. When the bottom fell out of the construction industry in the 80â€[emoji]8482[/emoji]s Al never laid a single man off – we knew that he wasnâ€[emoji]8482[/emoji]t making money but he kept us busy doing repair work at all his friendsâ€[emoji]8482[/emoji] homes, his place, his girlfriendâ€[emoji]8482[/emoji]s place, shoveling snow (When it snowed – once a winter) and when the industry hit rock bottom and he was forced to cut our hours back to 28 hours a week (So we could get the remainder from Unemployment) Al literally broke down and cried when he told us – Even so, a week before Christmas that year he called us all into the back of the warehouse and passed out envelopes and apologies he couldnâ€[emoji]8482[/emoji]t do more, and when business returned he promised heâ€[emoji]8482[/emoji]d increase the hours and the bonuses. All of us thanked Al profusely but put our envelopes in our coat pockets unopened, so in case the bonus was small Al wouldnâ€[emoji]8482[/emoji]t feel any worse than he did. So you can imagine how WE felt when we convened at Hooray Harryâ€[emoji]8482[/emoji]s for a little happy hour and looked in the envelopes - every man in the crew got 15 crisp, new $100 bills. It wasnâ€[emoji]8482[/emoji]t until many years later when Al had a massive stroke and died that his right hand man Ray Sands told us that Al had lost about a quarter of a million dollars with the business that year and that those hundred dollar bills in our bonus envelopes came from his personal savings…. Thatâ€[emoji]8482[/emoji]s some boss..
The business eventually recovered and work started coming in and life was good, Al would sell us materials at cost + 10% and weâ€[emoji]8482[/emoji]d do a little side work to pad out our ribs and the world was spinning in greased grooves (Thatâ€[emoji]8482[/emoji]s from John Steinbeck – he really could turn a phrase.)
One morning he told the two ceramic crew chiefs to load up an insane amount of 12†square ceramic floor tiles – frost proof, half black, half white, and ride out to this address in Oak Ridge, which was about ten miles from Greensboro. There we were to install a checkerboard floor in the ownerâ€[emoji]8482[/emoji]s new garage. We found the place and it was this neat, well kept three story farmhouse on a hill with a path leading down to a barn that needed some repair , complete with a coral and a couple horses standing about, gazing serenly at us from their vantage point. And at the side of the barn, next to the paved driveway sat a brand new, 10 bay brick and steel garage complete with 5 double bay roll-up doors.
Steve Brewer who was a great ceramic installer but not really the brightest bulb on the Christmas tree took a look and declared:
“This must be the placeâ€
So we unloaded the tile, mixed the thinset mortar and began scraping and sweeping the already scraped and swept concrete garage floor. We got rolling pretty good and were about a third done with the actual installation by the time the Sun reached his zenith – About this time a brand new Porsche 911 Cabriolet rolls down the driveway and stops behind our van and a sort of smallish, well dressed man got out and takes a look at the work in progress – The owner, beyond doubt.
He complimented us and said that it looked great, and we were relieved, as we always were when an owner showed up unexpectedly and said that they liked what they saw.
So old Steve Brewer (Who, as far as I know hadnâ€[emoji]8482[/emoji]t gained much more intelligence in the interim) strolls over to the gentleman and asked:
“This sure is a nice Ga-rage – Got some cores to keep in heyayer?†(Notice that authentic NC Country drawl?)
And the man told him that, Yeah, he had a few old clunkers he had been fixing up for a while and that they were down in the barn, and, if we liked we should feel free to take a look. He added that they werenâ€[emoji]8482[/emoji]t anything special but we might find them interesting.
So, being about lunchtime and time for a break, the four of us walked down the driveway to the barn whose door was held shut by a piece of nylon rope and pulled the door open – At first we were sort of Cave-Blind, coming from the dazzling summer sunshine into the dim, unlt interior of the barn. When our vision returned we looked around.
There were cans of house paint on shelves,, an old roto-tiller, his childrensâ€[emoji]8482[/emoji] bicycles scattered about the outer edges of the huge room – Hay for the horses was crammed in the loft, and light filtered feebly through the cracks in the siding. And there, in two neat rows, were ten vintage Ferraris……..
