Employed 14 Part 2

Thom was planning to open a store on the four acre property with a five-bedroom, three bath house at the Northwest corner of Moorpark Ave. and Winchester Blvd. First, he wanted me to hire and direct an asphalt contractor to pave and mark parking spaces,walkways and driveways. That finished,he wanted brother Irvin to select an aluminum building contractor and direct the construction of ten free-standing models and a half-dozen attached covers at the new location. Thom would pay Irvin $150. a day. His hand-picked crew would receive the highest rate per square foot. Thom wanted Patio Village to be Northern California's leader in recreational aluminum buildings. He was considering approaching the board of directors to ask them to change the name of the company to "Patio Village". The name was changed before the store at Moorpark and Winchester was complete and doing business. Thom's vision for the place would transform the neighborhood. The huge house, near the center of the property, was completely sided with aluminum panels, matching the material and colors of the awning and patio cover models, including the houses's roof. It seemed comical in concept, but when Irv and his crew finished it, it was fantastic, a real attention-grabber. At Cal-Lum's Bascom Ave. location we almost never had drop-in prospects; at Patio Village we had a regular stream of walk-ins. In fact, all of the ten salespersons volunteered to man the store, one evening in ten days to convert walk-ins to people with presentation appointments. As the construction of Patio Village progressed, Thom spent more and more time on the site. He liked the general lay-out (he mostly liked Irv's beautiful and unique way with aluminum panels. Irv had plenty help,too. So the most difficult steps in construction almost seemed to fall together on their own. A week into the project he was a day-and-a-half ahead of schedule. At completion, he was nearly two weeks ahead.Over the time taken to build the place, Thom got the San Jose bug. The first week we were open, Thom spent four nights at a Best Western in Santa Clara. He had a great time that week.For years, while he was Nor Cal GM, he had closed next to no customer contracts, but he closed nine customer contracts for screenrooms and more than a dozen awning contracts in the four days that he was "one of my salesmen".(He insisted that since he had made his sales in my store, I was due the overides). How could I argue with that? During that first week, at Patio Village I made more money (legally) than I ever made at any other job in a week's time,than in any week of my entire working life.Counting commissions for my sales and overides for ten sales- men (plus Thom's overide) my net check for the week was $8,668.00. My last week's check from Firestorm, before Thom "rescued" me, was $104. (these are all 1964 numbers) I remember the 8668 because because of it's 2 86's mirroring each other. We all know it takes only one 86 to get us thrown out of a bar (or basketball game) but, put a dollar sign to the left of the number; loser becomes win- ner. When I first saw that 8668 check, l thought of the day I came home from Firestorm in mid-afternoon to find Thom parked on my driveway. He had said that he thought he could help me (find a way out of Townhouse city).I knew what he meant, in general, but I had no idea what was coming, opr the scale of it. We gave notice at the beginning of the next month and soon moved to a 3Bdrm, 2 bath apartment on Williamsburg drive, a block from Winchester Blvd. and less than two miles west of Patio Village, essentially walking distance. (I did walk to work and back the first day we were at Williamsburg Drive. After that I would make that walk about eight times a month. I should mention that the winchester mystery house was (and is, to this day) was, and is, to this day located about half-way between Williamsburg Drive and Morepark Ave./Patio Village. Just so you'll know where we were in 1964. In the car, home to work it's four to five minutes. A very comfortable home, very conveniently located near (very) the workplace. A great setup. We had been in the townhouse in North San Jose for only a few months,but our stay on Williamsburg Drive stretched to a little over three years. That place was convenient to more than a few places where I found employment later. Thom was determined to have a big success with Patio Village in SanJose and then to follow that with repeats in other California cities. He didn't tell me that in so many words,but that was easy enough to see in his total devotion to making his newest (and best) location big, beautiful and lucrative. We hadn't parted on the best of terms when the Bascom Ave. store was closed. But, as we worked together to build the first Patio Village and talked about eventually putting them in many California cities, we came to be pretty good friends. In the Fall of 1964 a third baby girl joined us almost in the very middle of September.We named her Tess, after somebody's grandmother or other. Her just-older sister, Sarah, was only 14 months old at Tess's birth. Tess didn't like her name and changed it to Aleda before she was out of high-school. I say more power to her; some of my favorite people have re-named themselves. We had opened for business a few weeks before Patio Village was completely constructed (at least for in-house presentations). When we were fully opened we were able to close presentations in our offices. Something that was not done at Bascom Avenue or at any other Northern California branches.At our party to kick off Patio Village's grand opening, Thom told us that Arden Stark,Cal-Lum's CEO at the time, would soon retire. Thom would,of course, succeed him. Nothing was said about who would take Thom's position. I got a little rush when it struck me that I was probably the most likely candidate. When I told Dahlia the news later that evening she also figured me for the job. And she was stoked;"How much does Thom make, do you know?" "I would think at least a hundred and fifty K,but they're not going to pay me that much." "Why not" ". Thom has been Nor Cal GM since 1958 and he is truly great at the job. I think Ican do better man- aging Patio Village, San Jose. Remember, opening week I made over Eighty-six hundred bucks. Half that much per week would amount to more than 200K annually and the way Patio Village is coming along, I'm very optomistic. Besides, I like San Jose, and I don't like Hayward. I like doing presentations and closing contracts and I especially like meeting new people every work day.And I like working with other front-line salesmen like myself. Sure enough, once Thom was ensconced in the CEO's office, he called me and said he'd like me to come in for a talk. I asked what the subject would be. He said there was a staff opening in Hayward and he'd like to get my take on how we might go about filling it. I told him that my wife thinks that I should apply for that job. "And You?" "I think I would be honored to have any job that you had held and I think I could do it. Just not as good as you. Now that I think of it, one of my new salespeople, Alice Johnson, strikes me as being a few cuts above the rest of us (her percent closed number currently beats everybody at Patio Village and this is her first try at direct, in-home sales)". And Howard; his percentage is close to Alice's, but he has a way that is confident in himself and his plan. I know he could do my Job. With your direction I think he could be your successor." "But my job is in Santa Monica, now." It was clear that Thom didn't want my recommendation for his replacement. He wanted me to want the job and to appreciate his offering it to me. I would have, if I could do the job from my new office in San Jose. But I knew that was not a possibility. I half-expected Thom to take back my new job as Patio City's San Jose Sales Mgr, for declining the promotion.I don't know why, but he didn't. Not then. Not a few weeks later,not, in fact, before I decided to leave Patio Village to take another position some months later. When Irv and his crew finished the display part of his Patio Village contract, he and his friend Adolph, whom he met in Alberta while traveling in Canada.Some months later when we startedconstruction Irv had hired Adolph to be part of making the 5 bdrm house into a sales building with a large entry and reception area and ten salesman's offices. The large manager's office doubled as a conference room with twelve chairs around a large table that was also my desk, at one end. I know it sounds kinda weird but it looked great and especially as conference room, it worked great. When Patio Village was completely constructed, Irv got back to his world travels and Adolph became our installation chief supervising five crews. I'll tell you this: we were cuttin fat hogs in the ass in a wholesale way, but chargin retail prices. What could be better? Even though we were making relatively much money again, rather than go out and buy a house, right away, we played it cool and stayed in our very comfortable (and reasonably priced) apartment until we left San Jose altogether.

Employed 14 part 1

Officially, Lil was the last person of our Bascom Avenue contingent, as she called us, to leave 983 So. Bascom Avenue. I thought Thom would re-staff the Bascom Ave. location and buy some ads, but as the weeks after the close rolled by, no new staffing or other signs of business life were to appear there. A couple of months later, I noticed a used radio and TV store open for business at that address.
I missed being with Lil and the salesman and realized it would be forever before I found myself in such good company at work. But it was good to be involved in a kind of work completely new to me.
We bought a 2 1/2 ton refrigerated container truck. We took it to Sanger, Ca. and loaded it with 300
boxes of fancy grade Sunkist oranges sizes 118 and 88. We had sold the last of them before noon
Sunday, that first weekend. During the following week we hauled three loads  @ 300 boxes each of
choice grade oranges, which we put in the large, cool garage of our Eichler on Goodwyn Ave. We began our produce business in the same week (early July 1963) that our daughter Sarah was born. What a neat kid. Early on she was so aware of her surroundings and so likely to be moved to laughter. Her big sister Reyann, three at the time, became her favorite. They spent a lot of time together and enjoyed each other greatly. I was so pleased with the family that Dahlia and I had made.
The first day that we tailgated at the Skyline Blvd. wide spot  as an actual business, there were three other tailgaters who set up shop.  At sundown on Sunday we still had about a quarter of our second load of the weekend unsold. Not a very good omen. Aware of how well Roger and Hazel's fruitstand on Bascom Ave. did, we thought it might be a good idea to look for a location where we might operate such a stand. At the South edge of Mission SanJose ,about 12 miles north of San Jose city, we found just such a place. Open and airey, with plenty of display bins and a full roof. It only needed to be stocked and connected to electricity.It was about thirty miles from the fruitstand in Mission San Jose (FSM) to the Oakland wholesale produce market. Roger was a regular buyer there and invited me to accompany him there to observe how he conducted himself as a wholesale produce buyer. I was struck by how much Roger was like my stepdad,Eli, when doing his main work. Actually their main work. You buy stuff.Then you sell that same stuff after adding a nice mark-up.When it's done skillfully and with integrity, a good time can be had by all involved.From my perspective,Eli and Roger both had a great time at work. Most of the time. Most of the time they and their prospects were obviously having a good time.Much of the time they could be found laughing. Watching Roger at the Oakland Market had me laughing most of the time. The more I saw, the more I thought "I can do this work". And I did.I got along with the guys at the market just fine. I was kind of a half-assed comic there from 4AM to breakfast two or three mornings a week while we operated the fruitstand at Mission San Jose. Which was not what I would call an extended period. our quick thinking (and poor managing)convinced us to close that place in our second month there. During our last week there,Dahlia covered the closing of the fruitstand while l carried (aboard our reefer truck) three loads of oranges from Sanger to super-markets in Reno, Lovelock, Winnemucca, and Elko. Pretty good produce-peddling,Huh? It was in that month that I met Ed Dursee, manager of the Steven's Creek Blvd. office of the California Pacific Finance company. We were to have a long and active business reelationship. At first he put up the money to get the duece-and-a-half back on the road after it ate a clutch and chased it with the contents of the cooling system,leaving the engine unworkable. Ed's help quickly fixed the truck, but we sold it just as soon as it was fixed, to a couple of business men who took the truck to Costa Rica where they planned to haul fish. Using money from the sale of the truck and that which Ed advanced me I bought a little larger truck with a V-8 engine that I thought I'd use it to do some tailgating as well as trips to Nevada. The newer truck, though without refrigeration could carry more weight in less time and the insulated box that I built on it held the temp of the load very well to destinations as far away as Salt Lake City, though I never made it that far east; I usually had sold the load before reaching Wells. We were beginning to feel the effects of my losing the job at Cal-Lum. The produce business can be a bitch. The bigger, faster, newer truck that Cal Pac finance and I bought, broke down with a load of bell peppers aboard, 500 miles from their buyer. By the time the truck was fixed,I had managed to sell a few hundred pounds of the peppers to the produce mgr.at a nearby Ralph's Market, who, fortunately had brought his pickup to work that day, which made it possible for him to haul the peppers to Ralph's,about a half-mile away. Once the truck was running again,I went to the local waste area and paid most of my cash-at-hand to dump the rotten peppers. While I was trying to "make a killing" with a load of peppers, Dahlia was selling our beautiful Eichler to her parents.(She always did have a better understanding of our assets, liabilities and etc. She said the house was our only chance to recover financially. we rented a 3-Bdrm townhouse in North East SanJose. I removed the insulated box from the truck and with Roger's permission left it in the back yard of his fruitstand. I hope he made good use of it because I completely spaced it and never returned to dispose of it. My excuse is that I had my hands full, keeping my head above water. For a string of months , I went from one stupid sales job to another and another.One day I found myself at work in a Firestorm store, standing around waiting for a customer, mostly thinking about all the failures in attempts to get back in the stream. To make serious bucks like Cal-Lum had produced. My thoughts came up with Thom Kessler. I'll bet he's not suffering for lack of a high income. I wondered again why Cal-Lum hadn't opened a new San Jose store.Some weeks earlier when I was working at Commercial Carpet Outlet I encountered Russ Eames, one of the salesmen who had worked at Cal- Lum .He said he had heard that Cal-Lum was looking for a property in San Jose.I wasn't surprised.and while it wasn't going to do me any good,I was pleased to hear it. I left Firestorm at about 1PM and went home for lunch.Driving home I was thinking of some of the jobs I had done since Cal-Lum:Of course the produce business was first, followed by a few weeks as a Fouler Brush Man,Salesman for a distributor of draperies,Then sales of China and Silver place-settings, then kitchen cutlery. I even spent a couple of months selling a best-known brand of encyclopedia of worldly knowledge. It was while I worked for Commercial Carpets that one of the biggest news stories of the decade took place.I had a mid-day appointment in Los Gatos. When I arrrived there and knocked on the door,there was some delay before an answer.The lady that cameto the door was crying. She showed me to the rumpus room where she and her husband were watching TV.Walter Cronkite said that the president had been shot at Dealley Plaza in Dallas.The next thing he said was that President Kennedy had been pronounced dead. None of us was interested, right then, to be involved in a pitch for a new carpet.I excused myself and said I'd be in touch to make a new appointment in a few days. I got so caught up with the recent past jobs as I drove home from Firestorm that I nearly missed my exit. As I approached our townhouse, I noticed a black, new, (64) Olds 98, parked in our driveway. Thom Kessler?!!! Hey Thom, what are you doing in this neighborhood? "Just slummin',What are you doing here?" "I'm waiting for the next bus out, but I don't think it's been scheduled yet. "Can we go inside,I think I might be able to offer some suggestions, where is your brother Irvin?" "Last I heard, he was in Nashville".