Memory lane for Stan!!!
I have been asked many times where I get my passion for stair building.....so in a nutshell....I am warning you, its a BIG nut!! ha.....so here it is...
I graduated from HS in 1972,,,yea,,,I am getting on the "other side" . I was always interested in math and physics and received straight A's in them. Did I place in the top 1/4 of my class of 110...no. I have a problem that if I am not interested in something such as English, History,.,etc...I give it no effort.,. But the math and science I would go at them with an obsession.
I was enrolled at DeVry Institute of Technology in Chicago, but never attended. I went up late in the summer before classes to find an apartment. I had the biggest gut ache as I could not stand all the concrete and steel and people. I came from a rural area and I just had not grown up yet. I dropped out before even attending. I remember my dad saying that I could work for him on the farm while I figured out what I wanted to do. Let me mention that dad had a large farming operation. All his land was paid for...and I had a silver spoon situation. However...I am extremely independent like my dad, And I just didn’t want any special offers. So I just basically worked for wages, bought only a corn planter in my 15 years of farming. I hated my situation. I had not found myself and I can remember many times just going out by myself and sobbing. 15 years of this started an embryo for one very large catalyst that was about to bust out of its shell.
This shell cracked one day in June of 1986. My dad and I were sitting in the truck watching some grain being loaded in a wagon. I was a very timid and quiet person and for me to say what I was to say to my dad took years of this festering misery with my farming occupation. I finally mustered up the courage to say to dad " I am going to find something else to do after this year". Dad just looked at me and said...."WHERE are YOU going to find a job?"
Man I got to tell you this hurts still to type But this was the turning point in my life. Even though dad was stating cold reality because at that time it was hard to find any kind of work I took it personal. I did not utter a word, but my soul was boiling. I had never felt so diminished in all my life.
I went home and had been sitting in my chair staring at the wall and finally my wife asked, "What is wrong with you tonight?". I said with a tear in my eye that I was done farming after this year and I don’t care if I am stocking shelves at K-mart I was going to do something else.
The fall farm work went on and I had been searching the want ads for weeks. I found an ad from a contractor looking for a carpenter. I called up and was hired over the phone. I was so elated to have a job that paid $7.50 an hour.
I told my dad and he didn’t say a word. Enough about that area it took him years to realize I meant what I said.
I showed up for my new job in late November. I had all new equipment, even a new flannel shirt. My contractor seeing me for the first time walked over and said new tool belt? Then he pulled my hammer out and said new hammer? then my tape measure and said "new tape measure? Just how much experience do you have?
I knew this was a defining moment, and with all the quick and cool thinking I could muster I replied "After today I will have one full day of experience!? My employer paused then just laughed the biggest laugh. I didn’t know if I was coming back for a 2nd day or not. Well I did make it and stayed with him till the spring. I was working on some trim when the best and the biggest contractor was talking to my boss how one of his trim carpenters left to go on his own and they were short of help. This is the spring of 1987 when the big building boom started.
I high tailed it down to this major company over noon hour and applied. The boss asked me if I could build stairways. I again had to think fast I was thinking, he asked if I "could" build stairways, not if I "have". I answered immediately, even though I had never built so much as a two step stoop, "Yes. I can build stairways!". He said "Good, you’re hired and I have a stairway for you to build in a few weeks". I went home with a catalyst burning so deep and researched everything I could find about stairways, mind you, no google or computer back then.
I started my new job and with some desperate prayers to God built that stairway. I was called in after it was completed and received a one-dollar raise. Now mind you after a year at this company, .25 cents or maybe 50 cents was the norm.
My employer then asked me another question which had me digging fast for a comeback. He asked "Stan, how many stairs have you built? I replied, "You wouldn’t believe how many!. I got away with not revealing my secret of this being my first stairway.
I was blessed with stairs after stairs, after stairs. I loved the challenge and loved life again.
Well this catalyst really started getting out of hand thanks to Fine Homebuilding. I still have the magazine that changed my life forever. It was an article about three curved stairbuilders, one especially that worked in the sanctity of his own stairshop. I drooled over that article repeatedly. The catalyst was having gasoline dumped on it now.
I tried for a few years to let my employer have me build a curved stairway. No luck. I was going to have to find one by moonlighting. I had the first section of my stairshop built because I was prefabbing straight stairs for my employer and installing them after hours.
I went to look at a moonlight job for another straight stairway when the contractor thrust a set of prints in front of me showing a curved stairway.
"Can you build this? I again dug deep and knowing I had never built a curved stairway said with confidence, "Yes, I can build that. He asked me to give him a price. I went out to my truck and conservatively figured out a price that had plenty of "head scratching and learning time in it" and went back in with a quote. I ended up coming home with a $5000 down payment that day!
I remember ordering all the materials then when they arrived, I went out to my stair shop to start on this stairs. I had an immediate dose of reality right then. I had spent all that $5000 on parts and I had the biggest gut ache come across me. It was an almost insurmountable task. I just remember making two fists. and saying out loud in my shop, "I can and I will build this stairway! I did get it built and the rest is history. I moonlighted until I was confident I could make it on my own.
Now in 1997 I was still working for this major contractor. I had just passed my 10 year anniversary with them by two days. Something in me clicked and I realized if I didn’t go on my own now, I would soon be there 15 years, then 20, then it probably would be too late.
I thought to myself the seriousness of leaving the best and a very secure job I had ever had. I had overtime 52 weeks a year. But I thought to myself, "I would rather try and have failed, than failed to have tried". So I gave my notice and the rest is history.
I have remained small but I have had the biggest life from following my gut and I never ever forget thanking God for giving me a free will to do such.
Sorry for this long winded story, but in reality, I am leaving out scores of experiences that I have been blessed going through.
My latest is this Dewalt contest and I swear this thread is no way connected, as I don’t think one more vote could be mustered out of this fine group anyway. I believe this contest will be the pinnacle of my career and its causing me to reflect on where I came from. It does not matter where I place, I have had a life I won’t forget.
You have done well pilgrim. Hoping for you and your family all the best best!