heir to the throne

My great-great grandfather started his own business back at the turn of the century… proof that, at some point in the past, entrepreneurial genes existed in my family. Genes that, unfortunately, have been so diluted over the generations that they fail to make any impressionable and lasting mark on our DNA.

The business that he chose to embark on was lumber. And as time went by, the company proved to be quite profitable.

It passed down from generation to generation. Eventually, my dad found himself working for my grandfather and, it was assumed, that as the eldest grandson, I would one day take over the reins of the family empire. I was heir to the Southeastern Pennsylvania lumber fortune.

As a kid, I would occasionally take a trip down to the lumber yard with my dad when an emergency wood related call arose. While dad tended to business, I would sit in the high-backed leather chair behind the desk in the back office and spin myself around and around.

Once dizzy, I would open the top drawer and turn my attention to the variety of pens and highlighters contained therein. Taking each one out, I would precisely scribble upon notepad after notepad in what I imagined was an exact replica of cursive writing.

Once the pad was filled with red, black, and neon yellow squiggles, I would turn my attention to the calculator. Not a silent, solar-powered one, but a large beast of a machine with a roll of paper attached to the back from which a receipt would emerge.

I’d punch in numbers, taking comfort in the clack...whir, as the paper receipt grew longer with each stroke. The job seemed like a piece of cake. Which made it all the more confusing when my dad found a new job and quit.

To this day, dad remains tight lipped about his time working for my granddad, except to say that working for granddad, ‘was no picnic.’ Which I can understand, because it probably wouldn’t be a picnic working for my father either…having helped him in enough home improvement projects to say this with some certainty.

Eventually, my grandfather retired. I was still in high school at the time, much too young to head up an entire lumber operation, and thus the company was sold. The lumber empire ended up in the hands of strangers, though the empire was doomed…because, years later, Home Depot burst onto the scene and all the tiny lumber dynasties fell to the imposing, ruthless, corporate warlord.

Several years ago, my grandfather passed away. After his funeral, the family loaded up into the car and my dad decided we should take a ride to the building that used to be home to the old lumber yard as homage to my grandfather.

It was early evening on a rainy and dark day as we pulled into the parking lot where lumber seekers once came to get boards of freshly cut pine and oak. As the car came to a stop, we noticed a small neon sign in a blackened out window near the entrance of the building…a neon sign that promised, ‘Live Nude Girls’ inside.

As it turned out, the new tenants were selling things of a non-lumber variety. Gone was the sawdust and assortment of pens that I remembered from my youth, replaced with garter belts and sweaty dollar bills.

My dad did a quick U-Turn and sped out of the lot with my youngest brother, only 15 at the time, glued to the rear window…transfixed by the promise of illicit desires that the neon promised from behind that closed door.

Gone was the empire I was destined to inherit. Gone were the hopes and dreams that my great-great grandfather founded the business on 100 years before. But even so, it was comforting to know that the new owners were still giving their clients wood.