20th Store Anniversary

Greetings and Salutations. See below for Friday Letter #72. Enjoy.

Our 20-year odyssey

Toward the end of October in 1988, Laura and I officially opened our business, “The Real Leather Company.”

Do the math. That’s twenty (20) years. Twenty years this month in a business that has been described as “a studiously unconventional destination niche.”

With the backing of Dad’s rental business, we found a poor old decrepit building on the eastern fringe of Greeley.

We’re still here – although in 1995 we expanded to use the whole building. At first, we crammed our sales and service departments into one-third of a 3,000-square-foot floor space.

Our very first customer ever was “Kansas Donnie,” a pear-shaped brute from the plains. Laura altered a pair of chaps for Donnie, using denim because we didn’t even have any leather in stock yet.

When Laura finished her work, Donnie put on his newly enlarged chaps, put his huge leg over his well-worn Knucklehead Harley and deliberately rode off into the unknown, neglecting somehow to pay the bill.

Later on, in passing, I mentioned this unacceptable behavior to Willie Spaedt at his motorcycle shop, “A Righteous Ride.” Willie offered, “I’ve got a mechanic’s lien on Donnie’s bike. He will come and pay you before I let the bike go.”

Later that same day, would you believe it, Donnie showed up to deliver $25 cash. We never saw him again. We were thrilled. And our thanks once more to Willie, who has continued to be our supporter through the years.

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We sought the advice of several business people before opening the business. All of them encouraged us, but some said “you’ll know” whether to continue “after three years.” Frankly, we still don’t know.

Among our first customers were Tomas Mondragon and Tomas Gonzales – both of whom we still see in the neighborhood. We have dozens of such examples of our long-term clientele.

We must have done all right in the good will department, because hardly anybody gets mad at us. Some exceptions happen when we get slow on filling custom orders.

At present, the RLC is open only on Saturdays. This has happened before: we tend to accept too many repair and alterations jobs, so we close up during the week to try and catch up. This also serves as R and R time.

Ironically, the inventory here is the best it has ever been. Volume, variety, selection, size range are all way up. So we have lots of leather duds for sale and we’re closed.

I said we are unconventional, didn’t I? Rest assured, the plan is to be “open” more regularly come November.

Speaking of inventory, in 2003 we began stocking and reselling books and gifts, targeting specifically a Roman Catholic clientele.

Laura likes to say, “That means you can buy a biker jacket and a Bible at the same place.” Unconventional. The Catholic orientation of this enterprise has been very fulfilling and enlightening.

No, our biker customers and our Catholic customers don’t fight. Or even clash. Actually, many of them are the same people. We have created our own venue for evangelization, which is productive and enjoyable.

We have statues, Bibles, rosaries, pendants, crucifixes, leather Bible covers, pamphlets and tracts, gifts and just plain Christian good will.

The building itself is unconventional. We occupy the premises of the former Public Market, a neighborhood grocery and butcher shop just down the hill and across the tracks from the UNC Jackson Field.

So we have cold storage areas that haven’t held frozen meat for probably 35 years. It’s almost eerie how the building is similar to a very memorable one in Fort Lupton: The Community Cold Storage, operated until the mid-50’s by my Dad and Grandfather, still stands at Fifth Street and Denver Avenue.

The roof still leaks here, and the goat-heads do their invasive thing every summer, but we now have central air, and insulation, and filtered forced air heat. We’ve been very fortunate.

Dad quit the grocery/custom butchering business after 25 years. Currently, I don’t have any plan to retire, mostly because I haven’t a clue as to how I’d maintain my high standard of living if I did. Ask me in five more years.

Addendum

Perhaps some readers picked up on this in last week’s spiel about our daughter Jayedominique.

Jaye was born just two weeks before President John Fitzgerald Kennedy was murdered.

I was on campus at the University of Wyoming when I heard that the President had been assassinated. I drove directly home to our little student housing apartment.

My first reaction then was to pick up my newborn daughter and hold her tight to my chest for long, long moments.

As young as she was, she knew something was wrong. Though she is a happy person with an engagingly beautiful smile, there continues an element of wistful pensiveness in Jaye.

I am positive that somber element has its provenance in the horror of the assassination and its aftermath. Things were “this way” when she was born but quickly became “that way.”

She lost something precious within two weeks of being born, and there still isn’t anything to be done to assuage that grief. All her life, she remains too young to understand. For the record, I don’t understand either, Jaye.

The middle kids

Last week, the Letter concentrated on Jaye, the eldest, and Matthew Benjamin, the youngest.

The Middle Kids are twins – Tamara Louise Hodge and Monica Anne Hodge.

Tammy and her family live in New Zealand. We’re currently not on speaking terms, a condition I don’t pretend to be able to comprehend. It has something to do with me being an Ugly American.

Monica moved to Florida right after her high school graduation in 1983. In Florida, she has built herself a loving support community and made herself a home. Monica does what she sets her mind to do, which is a good personality quality.

When she’s “home” from frequent sales trips to promote her SCUBA diving equipment business, “home” is what’s called a “cabin” in the Keys. Quite an accomplishment for a little blonde girl from Idaho.

I’ve been making notes on the dynamics of parenting twins. While I’m studying that, I’ll turn to scripture. Jesus says the first will be last and the last will be first.

He says nothing about the middle ones. But I have dozens of anecdotes about the Middle Kids. Watch this space!

Word of the week: Katzenjammer. Sadly, we have been unable to find a dictionary definition of katzenjammer. In days of old, there was a comic strip called the “Katzenjammer Kids.” They were a bunch of little hooligans, always creating havoc, eager to play a practical joke. Some of them were probably twins. If you have a better definition, please write.

Next week’s word: Vessel.

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Gripes? Complaints? Whines? or Comments? Adoration? Puppy love? Reciprocal rant? Feel free to express yourself in the comment section below!