2017Issue6_Alabama_v9.indd

MOMMY BLOGGER

T h e Fam i ly Bu s i n e s s

LARA FONG BALDWIN BLOGGER

“It’s in their blood, you know,” my father says. “Maybe they’ll go into the family business.”

As payment from struggling customers, he famously accepted nothing more than an “IOU” in the form of a signed receipt, with no questions asked. During the Vietnam War, Stanley would never fail to ask the wife of a deployed soldier about her husband, a kindness she remembered for years. He mentored the teens he hired, some of whom are still in the grocery business today. My late grandfather was more than a grocer. He was a self-made businessman who created strong ties between his store and the community it served. His success was not just due to his business acumen and entrepreneurialism, but also to his enthusiasm, love for people, and his flexibility to changing times. The store imparted more wisdom than words ever could. It shaped the lives of his children, and his children’s children, by standing as a living example of how to be a pillar of community and anchor a family. If that part of “the family business” can live on in my kids, then pass the paper bag. ■

If Mrs. Smith wanted a 13-lb Norbest hen or a 19-lb tom, he would faithfully log each order and deliver the birds himself. When deer season came he would offer to cut, individually wrap, and label each piece of venison. My grandfather worked 14-hour days. He worked through weekends and holidays during an era when others closed shop. He worked when his kids were sick and when his wife was in labor. What he couldn’t offer in precut butternut squash or fancy craft beer, he made up for in service and quality. If you needed celery or foil on Christmas Day, you could count on Stan to be open at 8 a.m. There were challenges. Theft. Robbery. Bad checks. Spoiled meat and produce. New age frozen meals that wouldn’t sell because the price point was too high. In the store’s early years there were no scanning machines, no codes for produce, and everything was weighed on a classic mechanical scale. Yet “Stan the Man” was known for his charisma and compassion. He had relationships with all his regular delivery people – from the meat distributors to the bread man. He knew their families.

Dad and I sit in my living room, watching my kids “play grocery.” My eldest has a paper bag that he loads with wooden produce and plastic sandwich fixings until it is nearly bursting. My youngest then dumps it all onto the hardwood floor with delight. Repeat. The suggestion irks me at first. I like to believe my children will change the world. Perhaps if “the family business” was curing cancer or winning Oscars, I would be more enthusiastic. My late grandfather Stanley was a grocer. In search of “The American Dream,” he emigrated from China and built a business from the ground up alongside his brother. Over the next three decades they turned it into a family-run Sacramento landmark. Their combined 11 children learned to make change before they could ride a bike, and grew up stocking shelves, bagging groceries standing atop a crate, and sneaking beef jerky and cola when the store was slow. Stanley was a self-taught butcher, and a damn good one. He prided himself on custom cuts and a level of personalized service that was second to none. Each Thanksgiving, he would personally take orders for fresh turkeys.

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ALABAMA GROCER |