MEMOIR, PART 3: THE 'OLD STORE"

With first car, 1951.

Note blue suede shoes

This is the third "memoir" article'  It was written as commentary on an story that appeared in the Beaumont Gazette a few years ago.

The recent article in the Beaumont paper concerning the family business at 5th & Grace was entertaining and largely (but by no means entirely) correct.    I am surprised the author didn’t try to contact me; I am, I think, the last living person who worked there, unless Bill did some chores there as a little kid.  People seem to be interested in what I remember, so here goes.

Let’s get to the conspicuous inaccuracies first:  In the BH&L Co in the ‘30s and 40’s men emphatically did NOT sit around on nail kegs, smoking cigarettes.  First, the nail kegs were open, so they would have been very uncomfortable to sit on.  Second, they were stored in a dark, dank area off the loading dock; a place nobody would linger.  And, finally and conclusively, in those early days we also stored dynamite in that area; you would need to be dumber than a door knob to light up anywhere nearby.  Up in the rafters of this storage area were a few kegs of horse shoes. 

Now, for some of the things that I remember. 

I don’t remember, but I remember being told, that when my father and mother came to California to buy a business, they settled on a hardware store about a half-block west of 5th & Grace.  It didn’t have room for a lumber yard, and that was part of what Myrl Sr. was used to managing, so they promptly bought the Old Store building, which had room for lumber on its south side.  All this probably happened in 1930.  Later they expanded eastward into a building that had been, I believe, a grocery store.  There were sheds and lumber storage units in the Yard; they must have built them in the first year or two.

The OS was configured so that the cash register was near the front door.  That was where Lynn ruled; he took peoples’ money, traded wisecracks, and watched out that people like me didn’t waste too much time.  The other male partners - Dale, Earl, Myrl - waited on trade and did specialized things.  Ruth, the final partner, worked at the store some of the time, mainly as a book-keeper.  The office was small and crowded; all of the partners worked there part of the time: ordering merchandise, collecting past-due accounts (yes, it’s true – they had charge accounts), that sort of thing.  The Store (the business was configured into Store (inside) and Yard (outside)) was heavy to builder’s hardware and paint, things like that, but we did have a few pots and pans.  We also sold and installed vinyl and for a time, at another location between Beaumont and Banning, we shaped and installed sheet-metal.  The partners dabbled in other activities (contracting; real estate) from time to time.  There is a Beaumont neighborhood where the streets are named things like Myrl, Dale, Ruth, etc., and there is a similar subdivision in Cherry Valley.

I think I first worked in the Yard when I was ten, in 1943.  I picked up sticks and straightened lumber stacks for, I think, $0.25/hr.  (I doubt if I was worth it.)  I advanced to waiting on trade by the time I was in high school, and when I turned 16 I became a truck driver!  I worked every Saturday and all summer, except when we were in Lake City.  I believe I worked my way up to $2.00/hr.  However, I saw only a little bit of my earnings; most of it went into a college fund.  I did have enough to buy those 5-cent cokes mentioned in the newspaper article, with plenty left over to go down the street to a bakery and buy a half-dozen donuts nearly every day – big greasy affairs, dripping chocolate.  I stashed them in the lumber stacks and had no trouble consuming them during a shift.  When you’re in your teens and working in a lumber yard, calories are of no significance.  Some of the things I remember doing in those years: selling lumber, stacking lumber, unloading railroad cars filled with lumber (hard work; we didn’t have a fork lift), cutting lumber to length, threading pipe, loading and unloading 90 lb sacks of cement and plaster (dirty, hard work – and remember, no fork lift), throwing bundles of shingles onto roof tops from the back of our truck, stuff like that.  It was hard work, and I loved it.  Looking back at that guy from my present stage of age-modulate decay I wonder who in heck he was?  Certainly not me! 

I remember many of the people who worked for us back then, although some names I can’t spell and others I’m unsure of.  The Yard managers back then were, perhaps in this order, Ted Ward, Ted Linden, and Andy Chavez.  Ted was a carpenter and son of a carpenter; he could drive a 6-penny nail completely into a 4X4 with one blow.  Ted Linden was Bev’s father; he had lots of experience and I learned much useful stuff from him.  Andy, of course, everybody knows.  He began as our truck driver, became Yard manager, and at one time – I’m pretty sure – was a minor partner.  In point of service I believe our earliest employee was Ben Elam, who retired probably before 1950 and set up a shoe-repair business.  Possibly he was preceded by Don McLaughlin, who came to us right out of high school.  In the Store I remember Jerry (Merlin Jerrell?), Duke (DeForge?), and, of course, Mrs. Baker (Ada?  Ida?).  I’m sure there were others; sorry if I’ve forgotten you, it’s been a long time.  I remember that Don and Andy were in WWII; I suspect that Duke, Jerry and both Teds were, too.  I was too young, and my Dad was too old.

I have dozens of stories I could tell about those old days; I could be like an old codger sitting on a cracker barrel (not a nail keg), telling whoppers that are mostly true.   Like the time I backed the truck completely through a wall, stopping only inches from the TV.  Or the day that our rival, Ralph Fell Lumber Co,  overloaded a truck and, when driving past the BH&L Co to rub our nose in it, took a corner too fast and flipped over.  Or sitting on the top of the store watching the Cherry Festival parade, with Patsy Dale – certainly the most beautiful girl ever to attend Beaumont High – leading the band.  Good times.  Wish I was back there again – of course, knowing what I know now.

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