"It's wonderful, Norm. I can't believe it's happening. When can you take over?"
"I haven't got those details worked out yet. I've got to talk to a lawyer to make sure the agreement is all properly documented and on the up and up. Walter wants me to take over as soon as possible so it won't be long before it's all in place."
"Oh Norm," she said throwing her arms around my neck and planting a characteristically powerful kiss on my lips. "I'm so proud of you. This is such a wonderful opportunity for us."
A month later the deal was done. I was now the de facto owner of Highland Home Center.
We had begun to add microwave ovens to our inventory. They were already very popular and the price was dropping almost monthly. I decided to carry only a few until the market stabilized and I wasn't trapped with units that I would have to sell below cost to move. I bought one for Andrea and while it took her some time to get accustomed to it, within a few months she said she didn't know how she got along without one.
About the same time, a store in the same block that sold sewing machines was going out of business. The owner was old and didn't have the energy to continue with the store. Like us, he only handled good quality merchandise. I looked it over and talked to my sales people. They thought it would be a logical addition to our lineup and so I negotiated with the old man to buy his inventory. I had consulted Andrea and she agreed it was a good product and expected to have one herself.
I was always following Walter Cromwell's policy of only selling quality products and nothing had happened to change my mind. True, there were cheaper products available but my customers kept coming back because they knew they were going to get fair value for money. I saw no reason to abandon that policy.
I was always looking for other products that would make sense for our business and the next item that fell into our hands was vacuum cleaners. I was given the opportunity for a dealership for a very high quality German machine. It was a hundred or so dollars more expensive than the standard ones in the stores, but I liked the engineering and some of the features that domestic vacuums didn't have. It had so many attachments that I wondered how they could all be used. Again, Andrea tested the unit and declared it perfect for her needs. I had another product line to sell.
"You know I'll try any machine you want me to," she said with a smile, "as long as I get to keep the ones I like."
"Well, you'll have the latest of everything then," I said. "I'm hoping that you'll keep some of them longer than a couple of years. There is little or no market for used appliances and TV's."
"You wouldn't want me to be seen using obsolete machines, would you? It wouldn't be good for your image."
"I don't know about that," I grumbled. "Perhaps if our appliances were older our customers and friends would see that they are durable and trustworthy. They won't wear out in a couple of years."
"Well, I for one want to be seen with the latest and greatest that our store has to offer," she said flatly. I didn't get the feeling it was up for further debate.
Not long after I took on the German vacuum cleaner line, I was approached by the distributor for a well-known brand of Japanese vacuum cleaner and, after doing some research, I decided I would add this line as well. Neither machine was cheap but both were fine products. Both turned out to be good decisions. Andrea stuck with the German machine, but declared the Japanese unit "quite good." Andrea continued as my in-house tester and evaluator. In truth, she was good at it.
As the business grew, so did our profits and I was able to pay down the debt to Walter Cromwell more quickly than planned. It was a big relief to me that I would be debt free sooner than I expected. By my calculations, I should have the debt retired by the time I was in my late forties rather than my mid-fifties. That wasn't very far away.
Our son, Brandon, was a good student and a fair athlete. He played football during the fall and baseball in the spring. He would never be the star player but he enjoyed the games and got along exceedingly well with his teammates. He was seventeen and a senior. I tried to attend every one of his games, although sometimes arriving a little late. Andrea wasn't a sports fan and didn't attend his games, but she did participate in other parent events at the school.
His sister, Candice, was fifteen and going through the usual teen problems that young girls had. I was grateful to Andrea for coping with our daughter. She could be trying at times. I wasn't close enough to my older sister for her to help me understand what went on in a teenage girl's mind. She didn't participate in any of the usual sports, but like most attractive teenage girls, wanted to be a cheerleader.
The kids and I got along great. Andrea always complained that it was because she had to be the disciplinarian while I was conveniently away at the store. That was probably true but I loved my family completely even with all the usual trials and tribulations that every family goes through.
I'm pretty much a hands-on kind of guy, especially at work. I like to interact with the customers and our suppliers. I'm usually on the move checking the products we were offering and watching our competitor's ads to see what they were up to. I had a pretty good volume going through the store and I was confident that I was reasonably competitive with the big boys. True, they could buy in volumes I couldn't touch, but that was about the only disadvantage that I suffered.
When one of our usual delivery men was off on vacation and another was off sick, I volunteered to help out Rob Stallings with a "must do" delivery one afternoon. I should have known better. I wasn't some twenty-five-year-old guy any more. I was also in less than prime condition, packing forty pounds I didn't need.
We were hauling a new front-load washing machine into an older home with narrow doors and hallways. Rob had gone ahead to de-clutter the place and lay down the paper used to protect the floor. He assured me we would have a minimum of obstacles to overcome. The last thing we needed was to trip on a loose rug or bang into a side table along the way.
The washer was strapped to a hand truck and I was the pusher while Rob was the puller as we worked it slowly up the steep steps one at a time toward the front porch of the house. It had been raining and the wooden treads were wet and somewhat slippery. Just as we reached the top step, my foot slipped. It was one of those slow-motion things as I saw both the hand truck and the washer tip toward me. I couldn't avoid it. I was frozen in place and could only watch in dread as it landed on my left leg, twisting in outward and causing me to fall with it.
I'd felt pain before, but I don't remember anything like that moment when a hundred and fifty pounds of weight fell on the top of my knee and bent it sideways in a fashion no human body was designed to tolerate. I don't recall hearing anything other than my scream. My leg was trapped between the machine and the tread and that was the only thing keeping both it and me from falling backward down the stairs. Thank God Rob was strong enough to pull it up that last step and onto the porch.
In the meantime, I had curled up on my left side into a fetal position on the top step, my hands holding my left leg as still as I could, trying to will an end to the agony.
"Rob, I'm really hurt," I gasped. "I'm going to need help."
I was gritting my teeth trying to deal with the intense pain while Rob, bless him, was on his cell phone instantly calling 911 and getting an ambulance. He did a good job of dramatizing my injury into something approaching life-threatening. I don't know how long it was before the ambulance arrived but they took over in a hurry and gave me a shot of something to kill the pain, put me on a back board to get me down the stairs, then got me onto a gurney and into the ambulance. It seemed like it had been hours since the accident, but it was probably only a few minutes.
In the hospital they gave me something to put me under before I was wheeled into surgery and several hours later I awoke to find my leg wrapped up like a tan colored mummy and suffering a terrible thirst. I found the call button and pushed it, bringing a nurse within minute.
