FAMILY LEGACY

I don’t wear jewelry.  At least I really never did until I was given a diamond pendant designed by my brother for me.  The stone was my mother’s, and his intent in designing its setting was to create a piece of jewelry that I would wear with casual, business, or dressy clothes.  He wanted me to carry with me the memory of my mother who wore it, my father who gave it to her, and my brother who gave it to me.  It was the ultimate gesture of love, conveying a piece of our family’s legacy to me.  It is my personal family heirloom, cherished as my brother’s most loving personal gesture to me.

That gesture of love was performed the summer after my father died.  I was visiting my brother and sister-in-law at their beach home in Maine, and had flown all day from my California home.  I arrived to a lovely dinner, enjoyable as always because it was the first meal we had shared together as a family in several months, yet slightly awkward as a powerful reminder that Dad was absent. 

Our father had been the sole survivor in a family business that had, at one time or another, employed three generations of our family.  His was a family of seven children, and my grandfather’s notion of starting a family business as an immigrant in the early 1900s had revolved around a vision of creating a livelihood for his brood.  Jiddoo (Lebanese for “grandfather”) considered the wave of immigration going on around him, and wisely chose to build a business around two commodities whose demand would only increase with population expansion: home heating oil and electrical fixtures and cabling.  New England homes needed heat, and electrical lighting was a new addition to those homes which required cabling and fixtures.  My grandfather, an immigrant who had never gone to college, parlayed his economic outlook into a recession-proof business that endured over 60 years.  Along with his idea he had his built-in labor force of four sons and three daughters, and a stay-at-home wife who supported him.   He secured a piece of centrally-located real-estate on Merrimack Street, constructed a garage with shelves to warehouse cabling and other parts inventory, had a fill station and two underground tanks installed, and was open for business.

The start-up of the business sealed the fate of our father.  His tenure was the 60 year span that made him the lifelong steward of the family business.  As the youngest son, and the second-youngest child, he started his career shadowing his older siblings, relegated to performing menial tasks after school.  Soon he was actively engaged, as the business was growing.  The first wave of customers, Lebanese immigrants whose acquaintance my grandfather had made at our local church, had told their friends.  As the list of customers expanded from Hajjar, Nassar and Haddad to Silverstein, O’Neil and Anderson, oil and electrical cable was leaving our family’s Merrimack Street plant and traveling to homes around the area.  Our uncles were all driving the delivery trucks that carried heat to the customer’s doorstep, sometimes in the form of 50-gallon drums of kerosene to be carried, other times as heating oil to be delivered across lawns and driveways through a fill pipe by hose.  Our aunts were lugging BX cable up the many flights of stairs that characterized the two- and three-tenement homes that dotted the landscape.  Our father stepped in, and never stepped out. 

As I write this story, I wonder what their lives were like.  I Google “BX Cable” http://homerenovations.about.com/od/electrical/a/artbxwire.htm  and find a few insights (in italics):

What is BX Wiring?

Bundles of insulated wires sheathed in a very sturdy metallic "armor."

Hmm. Probably very heavy.  No wonder Aunt Alice, maybe 5’2”, said she “lugged” this stuff

When was BX Wiring Developed?

BX is one of the earliest types of electrical cable developed for both residential and commercial uses in the early part of the 20th century. Early forms of BX can still be found by homeowners renovating their homes. "BX" is the older term for this type of cable. It's not certain how this term came about, but it may have something to do with the cable first being produced in the Bronx, New York.
Must be durable, in keeping with my family’s customer-centric history.

Because it's Old, is BX Wiring Bad?

No. It is very good wiring. Romex or NM wiring is not necessarily "better" because it is newer.
In those days, business ethics prompted owners away from selling product with expected obsolescence.  There’s a lesson.

“Are There Instances in Which the Physical Condition of BX Wiring is Bad?

Yes. If the armor is nicked, cut, or shredded. Also, if the wires within display degrading of their rubber insulation. If old BX wiring is in good condition, though, and can carry today's higher power demands, there is usually no reason to replace it.”
Some of our customers may still have this in their house!

“How Do You Cut BX Wiring?

Very carefully. You can cut it with a hacksaw, assisted with a very strong pair of wire snippers or pliers. With this method, though, it's very easy to nick the insulation on the inner wires--not to mention lacerating your fingers on the sharp metal armoring. If you think you will be doing a lot of cutting, invest in a cutter, such as the Roto-Split.
NOTE:  Seatek Co. Inc. pioneered and patented Roto-Split in 1973. My relatives were using their hands and some pliers.

I conclude that BX cable, chosen for its quality and durability and hefted by my strong young aunts and uncles, has earned its stripes as a perfect mental placeholder for our family.  Through it we learn the real customer service lesson of delivering a product or service, building a business, building a family, to last.

Dad often told stories of parking by the side of the Gill Avenue playstead and watching kids play ball.  Of course, his “wheels” were conspicuous not because of the classy convertible top or the whitewall tires, but the orange and blue tank with the family business name.  He and his brothers had to create a different brand of fun, like a “Moxie” break taken from tarring the Merrimack Street garage roof on a hot, humid day (only to be chastised for laziness as Jiddoo came unexpectedly around the corner and commanded they get back to work!)  Yet the business was a 24/7 commitment, and was synonymous with family.  Dad had abbreviated opportunities in the outside world: he went to military school in Staunton Virginia, but came back to the family business;  he spent a year commuting by train to business school in Boston, but was called back because the business needed him.  Even his two years of service to his country as an Army lieutenant was truncated.  By then he had met and married my mother, they had been stationed in New York and enjoyed the independence, and he was offered a commission as a Captain if he re-enlisted.  But the family business called them back.

And so, for the 45 years during which he and my mother were married and raising their own family, Dad kept the Merrimack Street fires burning.  First subservient to his older siblings, then replacing them in hierarchy as they aged or, in the case of all the sisters and one uncle, left the business, Dad managed and grew the operation.  The heating oil side expanded beyond oil delivery to furnace maintenance, and the electrical fixtures and cabling were replaced by appliances.  Once again, demand was constant for both sides, and with the particular emphasis on home convenience, appliances presented the opportunity to invite customers in to shop.  Washers, dryers, refrigerators, freezers, and TVs needed to be seen and demonstrated, and Dad and his brothers needed a clean, inviting place to meet and greet walk-in customers, so in the late 1950s the business added a downtown showroom location while still maintaining the Merrimack Street plant for the oil business.  By that time we joined our cousins in after-school duty at the store or on the trucks.  Appliances needed unpacking, arrangement and re-arrangement on the showroom floor, dusting, and delivery.  Oil needed delivery, then metered tickets needed total price calculation, processing onto accounts receivable ledgers, and billing.  General plant and showroom cleaning and maintenance was ongoing.  Regardless of our ages or abilities, we could all be assigned to a task and kept busy.  It was Business 101, and we were like little sponges.

Eventually, all the brothers had passed away and Dad was the sole survivor.  He continued to operate the business, moving it back to a newly-remodeled and expanded Merrimack Street location in the 1980s.  The family name proudly adorned every business location he had occupied, and as the new sign went up in front of the Merrimack Street plant, the last chapter proved to carry the same reputation for service that had launched the business half a century earlier.  Dad eventually sold the oil business when Uncle Mitch, who had overseen it all his life, passed away.  He sold the oil business, then the building, and eventually closed the business.  Before he died 16 years later, he saw the imprint of customer service excellence our early start had made on my brother and me, as well as all our cousins.  He retold stories to the next family generation as well, and after his death we had much more than the cherished mementos of pens, refrigerator magnets and photographs to remember the business.  We had the events that animated the stories that created the lore that formed the legacy.  The memories of the family business included those who worked there, those who left, and those who married into the idiosyncratic lifestyle created when “Family First” is ratcheted up to “Family AND Family Business First.” 

Family lore contains many stories which emerged from our early days learning customer service in the family business.  One day, my brother was assigned the task of painting the shingled overhang around the showroom.  Having recently received his driver’s license and in turn earning the right to learn how to drive the delivery trucks, he opted to take one out of the garage and use it as a moving platform instead of a bulky ladder.  The idea was a good one, as the truck’s flat top and height provided the perfect perch from which he could easily reach and paint the overhang.  However, when it was time to move to another section, his driving inexperience trumped his plan as he backed into the pane class showroom window!  How would he ever explain this to our father?  As he trundled down from the truck and into the store imagining the confrontation about to take place, Uncle Mitch came to his side.  “I backed the truck into the window” my father heard.  As expected, he exploded, but not at my brother.  At his brother.  Uncle Mitch had taken responsibility for the damage.  He was my brother’s godfather, and that day he was his godsend.  And he carried that story with him to his death.  It was only after Uncle Mitch’s funeral, as we gathered over a family meal, that the truth came out.  It was another thread in the tapestry of what makes a family a family.

At that same family meal a series of other funny stories seemed to pour out, one of which is among my fondest memories.  I had been on the telephone with a customer who had asked for the total of her bill for an oil delivery the day before. Showing off the efficiency I had learned from our bookkeeper, I recited that the meter slip she had been given provided beginning and ending meter readings from which she should calculate total gallons delivered, which she should multiply by the price per gallon, which was… but the sentience never finished its way into the phone which was snatched from my hand by Uncle John.  In his sweetest voice, he restarted the conversation with this loyal customer with some Arabic niceties, followed by an assurance that our new system would provide a detailed monthly statement and therefore allow them time to pay.  When the customer insisted that her husband wanted to come in and pay that coming Saturday, Uncle John quickly grabbed our copy of the meter slip, and moved to the full-key calculator I so revered for its magical abilities.  I proudly heard him answer her question first with the total gallons delivered, and as his fingers flew over the keys, the price for that total delivery.  He thanked her, hung up, looked at me, and said, “Let’s go to Miville’s.”   Miville’s was a nearby bakery, and Uncle John’s chosen destination for lessons in customer service.  His pattern was to light a cigar on the way, sit me down at one of the few tables available for eat-in treats, order two pieces of banana cream pie (both of which he would eat), and carefully teach the lesson at hand.  As we walked, I considered the conversation I had just had with our oil customer, and testing my responses against what his had been I was hopeful that this lesson might actually be a commendation.  It wasn’t.    “Never, never say 'should' to a customer " he had warned that day.  “The customer has driven past many other businesses selling what we do, and has chosen us.  We never tell them they ‘should’ do anything else! “

To this day, when I see banana cream pie, I smell cigar smoke and remember Uncle John’s nuanced lesson, lovingly given to me 50 years ago. Uncle John was my godfather, and my godsend, as he handed down to me a perfect preparatory gift for my 40 years of professional customer service, during which I am positive I never said “should” to a customer.

 
I am fingering my necklace and drawn back to the story of its presentation to me.  After dinner, we moved into the living room and relaxed for a few minutes.  Despite the effects my day’s journey and the delicious meal were having on my ability to stay awake and alert, I noticed that my brother was antsy, and my sister-in-law had a Cheshire grin.  Suddenly I was confronted by a small jewelry box being handed to me.  As I opened it, I saw the unmistakable stone from my mother’s engagement ring set in what appeared to be a necklace.  As I carefully removed it, and color and light danced off the stone and chain, thoughts raced concurrently through my mind and my brother’s:

“I don’t wear anything but a simple, functional watch.”
“She doesn’t wear anything but that watch and maybe simple earrings.”

“This is so beautiful, so thoughtful, so overwhelming!”

“She seems to like it; I hope she knows I intend it as a special gift.”

He took it from me and began, with my sister-in-law’s help, to describe in great detail the process of his idea, design and purchase.  He had gone to a jeweler friend whose taste was always more elaborate than my brother’s or sister-in-law’s, forewarning him, “My sister makes my wife look like Nefertiti,” and thus explaining his design’s necessary simplicity.  He had learned the jeweler’s vocabulary, which he recounted as he held the chain and described it to me.  “Mom’s original diamond had several begets surrounding it which the jeweler wanted to use, but I said no.  I chose this bale to hold the chain because of its simple, seashell style, and the box chain so it would not kink and would allow the pendant to be worn with casual or dressy outfits.”

He put it on me.  As he clasped it, I wondered if he saw the hairs standing on the back of my neck. 

“I hope she likes it.  I hope it doesn’t feel scratchy or uncomfortable.  I hope she’ll wear it all the time.”

“I love it.  It feels like I don’t even have it on my neck, and yet like I’ve always had it on.  I’ll never take it off.“

I never have.  Nor have I ever forgotten the sequence of events that made it possible.  My grandfather’s vision.  My uncles’ and aunts’ hard work.  My father’s loyalty.  My mother’s support.  My brother’s love.  My family legacy.