The Ash Creek Papers

It’s been awhile since I “transferred the flag” from the mercedes to the porsche; but unknown to most of you… the mercedes remained on Grapes’ Lido deck awaiting for its final disposition.

I had heard about various charitable organizations that would gladly cart the car away (for which I could claim a handsome tax deduction).  After making a few calls I found out that these organizations wanted the car in driving condition… picky, picky…

Well, shit… if it were in driving condition I wouldn’t have had to pick-up Maheesh’s porsche… I would still be tooling around the hills of Connecticut in dignified style!

I had to approach Vinnie, master automotive surgeon who was largely responsible for keeping the merecedes on the road all these years, to make the call to the vehicle undertaker of Fairfield County: Lajoie Bros or one of the others, whose names I forget.

Meanwhile, the mercedes immobilized on the Lido waited on death row.  This waiting period proved a source of contention between Ash and me… you see sometimes Ash comes back from his late lunch to find the parking lot filled to capacity, and there the mercedes was sitting in mute silence taking up a valued spot.  I explained that I was waiting to hear if the Govenor had issued a stay of execution, or maybe outright clemency.

Even this imaginative excuse lost its charm in the second week.  I was beginning to feel a tad guilty… yet I resisted telling him that perhaps if he took a shorter lunch, then maybe he would still find a parking spot.

Well… the time really was at hand.  I had cleared my personal effects two weeks ago… the essentials: a beach chair, a picnic blanket, two beach towels, two paperback books, Hugh Johnson’s Atlas of Wine, and something to clear off snow and ice had been moved to the Saturn (my better car that I have re-claimed, albeit temporarily, while Suzy is in her Freshman year).

Still… when I returned from Maheesh’s Exxon Cafe this morning… I saw that the mercedes had been carted off. 

I am glad that I wasn’t there to see the truck arrive…

And as stupid as this sounds… I feel like I have just said goodbye to a favorite pet… and if it wasn’t quite animate, it certainly was a “mascot”… something that was easily identifiable as part of my persona.

I will be sitting shiva over at the Office or in the Eagle’s Nest at the close of business.  Those of you wishing to make a donation… please send what you can to the Return George Bush to Texas Fund.

I hadn’t been there in awhile.  But from time to time I feel the need to “re-charge the batteries”, as they say… and a visit to the sea shore is something that restores my inner gyroscope.

A visit always refreshes me.  I love the crash of mean waves in the teeth of a storm, or the gentle curl of water under an August moon.  It is the rare day, or time of the day, that I do not in some way benefit from seeing a stretch of water spread beneath my feet.

Today my destination was the familiar Calf Pasture Beach… not the beach itself; but rather the area just to the west of the pier that marks the end of the beach proper.

It’s a special time of the year… a special time of the day.

A September beach is something to behold.  It can still be warm; but most folks are bored with the shore by the “fourth” month of summer, plus its after Labor Day & kids are back to school… so that by this time of the year the shore is the territory of the “serious” and not just the “casual”.  There is definitely an air that bespeaks a degree of peace and solitude to the “true believers.”

And then there is the time of the day.  It’s 5:30PM.  In September, sunset is not that distant.  The colour of the view is bathed in a yellow hue of a late afternoon.  The air is warm; but dry and the water has flattened to a still lake-like quality.  Let’s call the scene “almost sultry.”

To the place itself:  I put myself at a low wall that separates the parking area from a tiny inlet, the inlet itself is framed by sea grass and a small rocky spit that juts into the Sound.  The tide is nearly full high, the smell of the sea ripe, and the water is a mere five yards or so from my vantage point on the sea wall.  There is barely a ripple on the Sound.  I block out the sound of the seagulls voicing their presence, and feel like I am living a “still life”.

The serenity is piercing.

The day’s anxieties begin to fade… and I ease into looking about the immediate view.

To my front, situated on the rocky spit are four fishermen.  Three are seated on advantageous rocks, their stationary rods positioned in smaller rocky nooks waiting for the tell tale tug on their lines.  One fisherman, standing to the side, actively casts his line into the inlet… I have a perfect view of his technique… his casts range between 20 and 25 yards each time.

Their voices carry wonderfully in the still air.  They are Hispanic.  I can hear the musical lilt of their phrases.  Although their “melody” I can clearly catch… the meaning of the words are lost to me… but I can imagine that the casting fisherman is being chided by his comrades for expending to much effort in a wasted quest.

Just in front of the spit is a squadron of Canadian geese making their way to the pier (or to points further to the East).  They stay well clear of our enthusiastic angler, bellying their processional deeper into the Sound to avoid an errant cast. 

I love the stateliness of Canadian geese… in the water.  They look like “ships of the line”.  The Royal Navy would be proud.  On land… Canadian geese are foul beasts that treat any patch of green as a latrine.  Too bad we can’t convert geese turds to a combustible fuel (then we could tell OPEC to take a hike).

I follow their line and scan to the East and the pier.  A dozen or so fishermen are scattered on its length.  The sun to the West puts a pinpoint reflection on their pails, lures and other assorted metallic accoutrements.  I am sure that position for each fisherman on the pier is key; but in my time there I see no strikes.

I wish I could paint the scene.

And now I turn my attention to the grassy area in the back of the road that separates the beach path from the ball fields beyond.  There, on folding beach chairs from Wal-Mart, protected by tall shade trees, are four “senior citizens”.  To be honest, I forget their specific genders; but I feel certain that both males and females were represented. 

They have a homogeneous appearance: comfortable white slacks, legs crossed in the same direction, light sweaters, sunglasses & hats.  Theirs is not the animated conversation of youth; but the more subdued and measured tones that are the product of patience and maturity.  I find strength in their presence.

And now I have come full circle, and pan back to the fishermen on the rocks.  As far as I can gather, each is unlucky.  But only unlucky in that they have landed no fish.

Maybe their words, unknown to me, do not address their good fortune: that the sun is warm on their shoulders, the Sound rests still for their pursuit, and while on the rocks, the rest of the world, and its weighty concerns, are held at bay.

I look once more to the Sound.  The Norwalk Islands sit less than a half mile off shore… Long Island is a full inch and a half above the horizon… I squint into the sun to the West and tune into the cries of the gulls.

It’s been a long time between visits… too long between returns.

I have a friend… Glenn Grossman.  He went to Union with me.  Please don’t misunderstand me.  It’s not like we’re the best of friends, and all. But we are friends.  At Union his nick name was “Spider”.  I think it might have been because of his love of the NY Giants (who still played in Yankee Stadium in those days)… and specifically his appreciation of the talents of one corner back by the name of Carl Lockhart… Carl “Spider” Lockhart.  

But to the point.  After Union, Glenn became a very successful man of business.  As I worked in my family business at Chipp, Glenn became a hot shot at Canter-Fitzgerald (the firm that suffered near complete devastation at the World Trade bombing).  

I mention this latter detail parenthetically… it is not meant to distract from this story.  No.  This is a story, as the title suggests, about family businesses.  A subject that I am intimately familiar with.  

Glenn Grossman’s family had a dry cleaning establishment in a fancy shmancy Westchester burg.  That business helped fund Glenn’s expensive education at Union College.  

Good.  We all work hard for our kids.  But there came the time that when he had well established himself that Glenn stepped up for the “small guy”… the time he made it known to his wife, Joyce, not to buy books from Barnes & Noble or shirts from Brooks Brothers.  He would pay more to buy the same item from the individual guy, the small guy… I don’t know, he may have even said this, “we’re buying from the ‘small guy’… my Dad was a ‘small guy’ & his business provided for my family and paid for me to go to Union.”  

Glenn was more than willing to pay extra to protect the individual entrepreneur, to protect the retail diversity that has made this country great.  

Maybe if more folks had his attitude, I would have remained in my family business.  

But I have led you astray.  This is not a tale about Mr. Grossman’s dry cleaning store in Scarsdale, it’s not about Chipp of New York, nor about the corner-book-store-with-an-owner-who-wears-a-cardigan-and-has-a-cat-that-sits-in-the-window (by the by, there is a book store as just described in Taos, NM).  

This is a story about Smitty’s Shell Station on Westport Ave. in Norwalk.  I still call it Smitty’s Shell even though he recently changed his “flag” to Gulf… to me it will always be Smitty’s Shell, regardless who the “man” is.  

Gas stations are unique businesses.  They are part of the corporate giant; but they can retain the individuality of “entrepeneurship”.  Maybe not every gas station is a family enterprise; but make no mistake, Smitty’s is 100% family.  

I am reminded of this as I glance across the bar to see who was my benefactor… who was responsible for the inverted shot glass placed in front of me (bartending code for “you got a free one”).  I scan the patrons, and Sean Smith lifts his glass to me in recognition.  I would reciprocate, and put his, and his lady friend’s next round on me.  

I have known Sean and his brothers since they were in middle school.   At that time, their Father Dave was the major domo of Smitty’s Shell, having acquired the “family business” from his Father.  Dave’s Father filled-in on weekends allowing Dave to spend time with his kids: David, Sean and I-forget-the-name-of-the-third-son (it’s a mental block folks, like not remembering the name of the seventh dwarf).  

When the kids were old enough (probably not long after being toilet trained) they started to help out around the station… pumping gas, wiping windshields and the like… this was in the days before “self serve”.  

I know nothing about cars.  And prefer it that way.  Give me the key, let me start it, let me drive to where I have to go.   And whenever something pertaining to the vehicles I owned had to be attended to, I would trust the Smith’s to the task.  At no point has my trust ever wavered… at no point did I ever feel that they took advantage of my automotive naivete.  

And that trust has been handed down generation to generation.  Not only do I trust the Smith’s; but I have handed that trust down to my kids…  

I sip some of my favorite whisky, smile and nod to Sean again.  I poke at the ice with my swizzle stick.  Well… it’s a gas station… a Gulf gas station.  There are thousands of Gulf Stations that dot the land.  But still… it’s Smitty’s, and it’s like no other Gulf Station extant.  

And like Glenn Grossman, who went out of his way to give business to a particular establishment, to reward the “small guy”, I encourage us all to not “buy on the cheap”… to make sure to support those enterprises that still express individuality… those places where caring and pride more than justify the extra expense.  

Smitty’s deserves our patronage.  

Thanks for the drink Sean… and while I’m thinking of it, thank you Glenn Grossman for buying suits and shirts from me… and let me lift my glass in salute to all the small guys out there who battle against all odds… here’s to all those little guys who stand amidst a sea of sameness, to present personality and character in whatever their pursuit.