Page 182 - The Legacy of Abraham Rothstein - text

The First World War and after

enough about repair work or the business of it, and Ben knew less
than I did.
We leased a lot from the Dalton family on Central Avenue near
Washington for five years only—which was the first mistake, because
after that period the building belongs to the land owner if he makes
you move off the lot. We built the garage ourselves, and made it too
narrow where we had to park cars and work on them or under them.
Our money went into the building and the tools we had to buy. We
did not have enough to buy accessories or a few tires, in which there
is a better profit. But the greatest cause of our failure was ignorance
of the business end of it. The saying, “business is business,” really
means no ethics or morals are mixed in with business. We were home
boys from the old country, and wanted to build up our business on
honesty and a good reputation. In a small community, even in this
country, a small business is more or less reliable, honest, and
responsible to its customers. One depends on the same people for
trade, and is trusted.
Around Central Avenue at that time there was quite a Jewish
community, mostly fruit peddlers and other small merchants who all
had Fords, and we played to their trade. We were honest with them,
knew them personally, and we could not treat them as other garage
men do. When this fellow or that one came in with an old Ford that
was missing—as Fords always did, or knocked, or was noisy, we
found the fouled spark plug or timer, and did not tell him he needed
an overhaul and take him for a seventy-five dollar job. A big job, like
overhauling a rear end, was a standard price: seven dollars. We sold a
man a spark plug or timer, and with the labor, we made seventy-five
cents. We were overwhelmed with this kind of job, and within two
years we did not have a cent left of the five thousand dollars.
We were living then on Twenty-first Street, near the shop. Ben’s
boy was sick with asthma, so he moved up to Sierra Madre, and had
to go back and forth every day by car. I had to carry the burden, and
work sometimes late in the evening. Once Hilda had to help me by
holding a wrench on a bolt on one of those damnable transmissions
while I lay under the car tightening the case. She was not strong
enough, or her arms were not long enough to reach and hold the bolt
properly; it made me mad, I bawled her out, and that made her cry.
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