A Book that Changed My Life

The book that turned me into a reader

In Watermelon Sugar by Richard Brautigan was the first book I read as a maturing person that inspired me to read more. I never enjoyed reading but this book was so "out there" that I soon gobbled up every book he had written. I had found a new world of writing existed that could keep me inspired. It was 1971.

My 10th grade teacher had a face like a bird and a personality like a porcupine. She required us to have our books pre-approved before we could read them and write a book report. I didn't do that; I just read it and wrote the report (such a rebel teenager I was!)

She gave me and 'A' with a note that said, "I would never have approved this -you did a good job on a difficult book." Guess she wasn't that bad after all....and I became a reader in her class from her encouragement.

Thanks Mrs. Whatever-Your-Name-Was.

Me? An Entrepreneur?

WHAT WAS I THINKING?

Italian ceramics

Many years ago I fell in love with Italian ceramic pottery. The art was stunning; every piece caught my eye and I wanted to buy it all. I decided to start my own business importing and selling it. I figured I would be able to travel to Italy, shop in all the ceramics stores buying all my favorite things and be surrounded by all that beauty without overstuffing my home.



But I had no business education or experience, so the idea just died.....until one fateful day when I mentioned it to a mom I had met through my sons' preschoool. She jumped on the idea and before I knew it, we were dashing around Italy in a rented Lancia station wagon ordering pottery and learning words like "invoice" and "inventory" in Italian. (We also learned the words for "rubbing compound" when we took out the side of the car trying to maneuver the narrow lanes of Sicily.)



One of my partner's "great" ideas was to purchase a huge urn as a focal point for the decor of the shop, also offering it for sale. It cost us about $700. Another ideas was to purchase a type of ceramic-covered indoor heating stove, similar to a Franklin stove. She was convinced this would be a unique item that we could make big money on. The smallest model cost us $7000 and we arranged to be the "West Coast U.S. Distributor" for the stoves. She chose fire engine red as our display model. We paid a 50% deposit on the stove when we ordered it. Between these two purchases, we had used up a pretty large chunk of our entire budget.... and I was very skeptical about the stove.



But she had so many ideas; so much energy that I got swept up in the excitement of renting the shop space, painting from ceiling to floor to make it look Italian. It was spectacular to look at and when the shipments of pottery started to arrive, my head was spinning. Our shop was beautiful. We had a wonderful grand opening feast or Italian cheeses, wines and pastries. All our friends and families came and some bought things. But then the days and weeks went by and no one came to the shop.



We had very little money for advertising; our location was not visible from the street and was in a small plaza few knew extisted (that's why we could afford the retail space on our limited budget.) My parntner didn't like staying at the shop if business was so slow; she closed early, especially when it rained; she had more and more ideas for decorating, arranging and advertising - but absolutely no follow through. I became discouraged after only a few months.



And the saddest part of all was that I stopped loving the beautiful pottery. I realized that opening a retail business was not about loving your product; it was about SELLING IT. I could have been selling widgets for all that mattered....I needed customers and I didn't have any. And I was spending more and more time in the shop to make up for her absence.



Then the ax fell....the big red stove arrived at the Port of Los Angeles a month before we expected it and we had no money to pay the balance. Without the final payment, we could not pick it up and get it through customs. What was my partner's response? "Screw the stove....let's just not pay for it." We had paid $3500 up front and spent a fulll day of our week in Italy negotiating the purchase and the "distributorship" agreement. Now she wanted to abandon the whole thing! That was the beginning of the end.



We tried to sell it on eBay for the balance of the cost; we posted signs in the shop for the trickle of customers we did have. When I finally told her I was bowing out, we had no choice but to liquidate. We brought in a few new customers who were looking for bargains but the large urn and the stove did not draw any interest. In the end, we split up the remaining items and parted on very bad terms. Of course, she took the large urn and I took most of the remaining inverntory, which I sold piece by piece at house parties and by word of mouth.



Valeria, the representative for the stove was quite distressed with us. We did have to pay the final payment per our contract, but we never picked up the item at the port. We abandoned this expensive piece because of the extra cost of transporting it to our homes and the complicated assembly. I didn't want the darn thing and for some reason, either did she! So there it sat until one morning, six months later, my phone rang at 5 a.m. It was Valeria calling to tell me the stove had been shipped back to Genoa and was there for her to pick up. I had never thought another thing about the poor thing once we'd decided to abandon it. She was so angry - why should she have to pay to transport it back? I told her to sell it - she said no one would ever buy a bright red stove (duh). Finally I had to tell her - since we had paid for it, we owned it. It was not her property and she had no responsibility to pay for it and could likewise abandon it. She was so upset, but I never heard from her again. Thank God she didn't sue us!



Will I ever own my own business again? HELL NO!