Part 70 - 79

Part Seventy
Over the years of running a comic book and collectible store, I've gotten to know hundreds of interesting people. Zvi Szafran is one of the most interesting of them all. He began shopping at my store in the very early 1980's. Each week I would save all of the comic books that he collected and Zvi would come into the store to pick them up once every few months. He would have come in more often if he could but he actually lived in Columbia, South Carolina. He had relatives in Worcester so when he'd come into town to visit them he'd visit my store too. He would buy all of the huge piles of comic books that I had reserved for him and then he would shop for many back issues that he needed to fill in his massive collection.

I always appreciated Zvi's business but I mostly enjoyed visiting with him. He was always intelligent, funny, politically aware and also the first person I had ever met who was willing to share his Jewish faith with me. Zvi would explain the many differences and similarities between his faith and mine and he was never critical or judgmental. Zvi told me the following story about a trip to Israel that he and his wife, Jill, made years ago and I thought it was interesting enough to share with you.

Zvi and Jill were taking a bus in Tel Aviv, going to the beach. As they got on the bus, an elderly woman sat in the seat behind the bus driver, and Zvi and Jill sat in the seat behind her.

The elderly woman began to complain to the bus driver that he was late. In Israel, the bus drivers are part of a cooperative where they own their own buses, and they don't put up with much from their riders. The driver said to the elderly woman, "Shut up old woman, or I'll throw you off of the bus." A few stops later, a second elderly woman got on the bus and sat in the seat next to the first woman. The first one said, "Don't complain about the bus being late or the driver will bite your head off." The second woman said, "You're so right. That's how youth are today. No respect!"

The two started talking and the second asked the first where she was from. The first woman answered with the name of some small town in Poland. The bus driver said, "Where did you say?" When the first woman repeated the name of the small town, the driver said, "That's where I'm from." He then asked her what her name was. When she told him, he stepped on the brakes and stopped the bus. He grabbed her and gave her a big kiss. It was his mother! She thought that he had died during World War II in the death camps, and he thought that she had died. They hadn't seen each other in thirty years!

The driver and his mother left the bus parked on the side of the road, and went off together, leaving Zvi and Jill and the rest of the passengers, to wait for the next bus. It goes to show you that you never know just who you're dealing with when you meet a stranger, doesn't it?!

Next chapter: Brian Paquette and I publish "The Toys From Uncle" memorabilia guide.

Part Seventy One

I had attended a convention called "Spy-Con" in the late 1980's to promote "The Man From Uncle" comic book series that I was publishing. This convention was a gathering place for fans of spy-related movies and television shows including "James Bond," "The Man From Uncle," "The Wild Wild West," "The Avengers," and many more. Dealers and fans from around the United States set up booths to buy, sell, and trade many spy-related collectibles. I hoped that I'd be able to locate some of the rare Uncle toys that I was missing in my collection. I was disappointed to find out that most of the dealers only stocked the paperback books, magazines, and fan-produced fiction. There were very few toys offered for sale at this show.

One collector displayed a small notebook that contained photographs of many of his favorite Man From Uncle collectibles and this was of great interest to most of the Uncle collectors. Many of these items were rarely seen by collectors and a group of us discussed the need for a complete listing of everything that was made about The Man From Uncle. When I returned home, I got together with my friend, Brian Paquette, and we came up with the idea of publishing a book about The Man From Uncle collectibles.

I had published the official Man From Uncle comic books in 1988 so I figured that I could handle publishing a "real" book. Brian was an artist and I knew he'd be great with the entire creative end. Between the two of us, we had almost every item ever made about The Man From Uncle television show. We would use our collections as the main part of this new book project. We began photographing the hundreds of items using colorful backgrounds and began to write detailed descriptions of everything. We wanted this book to be different from most of the memorabilia guides based on other television shows so we made sure that the photographs were large and clear and the descriptions were detailed and accurate. We also carefully researched the current values and actual selling prices of these collectibles by attending toy conventions and monitoring dealers' catalogs and auction results.

Since this project began before home computers were commonplace, the whole book was done by "hand". The photos were taken using a film camera and then developed at a local photo studio. If the photos came out okay, we matted them with a black paper border. We designed each page and pasted the written descriptions underneath the photos. We got together at my house to combine our collections in order to create a photograph for the front cover of our new book. Brian designed our chapter title pages and was mostly responsible for the professional "look" of this project. We decided to title this project "The Toys From Uncle Memorabilia and Collectors Guide." My good friend, Michael Warshaw, a very talented writer, wrote the introduction for this book as a favor to me. After a few months of work, we sent the pages to Associated Printers of North Dakota (my favorite printer) and they "screened" all of the photos so the photographs would reproduce quite clearly.

The cost to produce this project in full color, as we had wanted, would have been outrageously high. A cover price of almost thirty dollars would have been required. Brian and I wanted collectors to be able to buy the book for less than ten dollars so the book was printed in black and white with full color front and back covers. Most of the books were sold through Diamond Comic Distributors at fifty percent of the cover price of nearly ten dollars. Although it was a lot of work to put the book together, Brian and I enjoyed this experience.

Over the years following the publication of "The Toys From Uncle", this book has become recognized as an important reference work and a valuable "checklist" for every collector of "The Man From Uncle." Ironically, this book now sells on Ebay for as much as fifty-five dollars!

Next chapter: The end of the eighties.

Part Seventy Two

As the 1980’s were coming to a close I took the time to reflect on my current situation. I now had two stores that were successfully selling comic books, sports cards, and other collectibles. With the recent addition of Richard Ortwein and Chris Ball from my newly purchased Fitchburg, Massachusetts store, I felt confident that my group of employees was more than adequate. I now had a bunch of good quality part-time employees, including Mark Dufresne, Rob Leary, Albert Aeed, and occasionally, David Hartwell. Sales were so good that I wasn’t worried about meeting my payroll needs each week. I was paying Richard and Chris more than I thought I could possibly pay them but it was working out fine. I even agreed to pay for their health insurance, which was unusual for someone in the comic book retail industry. The sports card business was “on fire” and it appeared to many people as if it would be an easy way to make a lot of money. Card collectors and some unscrupulous “flea market” dealers began opening up small card stores in Worcester. They’d rent a small storefront and stock it with new card product and just wait for the money to begin rolling in. At one point in the late 1980’s there were over thirty sports card shops in the city of Worcester. Many of these stores would be out of business within six months. Some hung around longer. I’m not a big fan of competition. I understand and appreciate the dream of private business ownership, so I don’t criticize people for opening up a store. It’s just that many people try to run a business when they lack the sufficient capital to make it work. Many people just don’t have the “business sense” necessary to take it past a hobby into a real profit-making business. I don’t believe that any business enterprise benefits from having competition. The only thing that I could do to protect our business was to make sure that we did our best to watch our cash flow and be reasonable and fair with our customers. Of course, we didn’t always accomplish this.

One such situation has bothered me for many years. We had a customer named Mike Daley (not his real name). He collected comic books and he’d come into the Worcester store every week on “new comic day.” Mike had a great sense of humor and a deep knowledge of comic books. He’d spend time with our fun group of serious “That’s Entertainment” customers each week (the group that would come in on “new comic day” and hang around for a few hours at a time), talking about comics, laughing at my bad jokes, and having a good time. Mike shopped at my store for quite a few years. One day he called me before he came into the store and asked if I’d be interested in purchasing a 1968 Nolan Ryan rookie card from him. He told me that it was in very good condition and that he wanted eighty dollars for it. If the card had been in perfect condition, it would have been worth about five hundred dollars but in very good condition it probably would sell for one hundred and twenty dollars so I told him that it sounded like a fair price to me. When he brought it into the store later that day, I looked at the card and disagreed on the condition of it. I made him an offer that was lower than eighty dollars. He declined my offer, but he seemed to understand that the card really wasn’t as nice as I was led to believe. But I must have handled the situation wrong somehow. Mike must have felt that I wasn’t being fair to him. Mike cancelled his comic book “reservations” with us and he stopped shopping at my store. I missed his fun personality and for many years I’ve wondered how I could have handled this better.

In December of 1989 a man named Lee came into my Worcester store carrying an old mailing envelope from the mid-1950’s. Inside of it was a comic book published by a company called EC Comics. Lee had received this comic book in the mail in 1954 and he had read it once, placed it back in the shipping envelope and carefully stored it away. The comic book was in near mint condition with beautiful white interior pages but because it had been stored in this mailing envelope for all of these years, there was a slight indentation on the cover where the envelope clasp touched the comic. Lee recognized that this was a significant enough defect to make this otherwise gorgeous comic book actually only be in only very good to fine condition. I offered to ay him fifty percent of the current price guide value of the comic as if it was in fine condition. He accepted my offer and seemed as if he was ready to leave my store when I remembered to ask him this very important question, “Do you have any more comic books?” He told me that he had about four hundred other comic books from this time period. I went to his home and was thrilled to make him an offer for the entire collection. This collection had over one hundred EC Comics in the original mailing envelopes including The Haunt of Fear, Weird Science-Fantasy, Incredible Science Fiction, Tales From The Crypt, Two-Fisted Tales, Vault of Horror, the original comic book sized Mad Magazine, and many more. Lee also had some of the original form letters that the EC company had sent to the mail-order subscribers to inform them of publication changes and subscription expirations. I bought all of these too! There was also a nice selection of hard-to-find 1950’s DC Comics publications including Superman, Batman, Showcase, The Brave and the Bold, and more. Within a year, all of these comic books were sold to eager collectors. At home, my son Adam, was doing great. Adam was developing into a unique individual. He was very confident in many of his abilities. He was a voracious reader of books; sometimes he’d read a book each day. He enjoyed comic books, magazines, novels, and history books. His grammar school was located next to a library and one day he came home all excited because the library had thrown out a lot of old books. Adam “rescued” a whole bag of these books from the dumpster including science books and World War II history books about the Nazi death camps. He read them all. Although Mal and I tried not to spoil our kids with lots of toys, we willingly indulged Adam’s desire for books. Adam was also confident in “who he was.” He dressed in nice clothes when the occasion called for it but he had developed, even at this early age, a fashion sense that wasn’t always typical for kids his age. Nothing seemed to embarrass him. The Imago School was having a play rehearsal one day that called for some of the boys to wear kilts, but Adam chose to wear his while he was waiting for our “carpool partners” to pick him up. He had no problem being seen in a kilt as his local town friends rode by on the school bus. I know that I would have been very self-conscious when I was his age. I guess I was too vain.

Next chapter: The big jewelry goof-up. Another one of my huge mistakes!

Part Seventy Three

I worked hard to earn my living as a seller of comic books, toys, sports cards, and collectibles and was rewarded with a fun place to work, relationships with some really nice people, and a sizeable income. Our lifestyle was not extravagant; money was spent carefully and most of it was saved and invested. My biggest “splurge” was usually spent on a nice vacation.

When I was in my teen years, my family would usually go camping for our family vacation each year. My mother and father would pack up the car with the tent, lanterns, sleeping bags, and tons of other equipment, along with the six kids, and we’d head off to the mountains of New Hampshire or Maine to spend the week “roughing it.” Although I usually put up a fuss about going, I’d end up enjoying the vacation. My father would spend time hiking, boating, and playing around with us. My mother ended up doing more work “on vacation” than she did when she was at home. Cooking and cleaning was much more work at a campsite than at home. It didn’t seem right to me. Now that I could afford a little more “luxury” for our vacations, I wanted it to be fun for my wife, Mal, too. We would usually stay in decent hotels and we’d eat in restaurants as often as possible. But Mal and I also wanted our kids to experience camping.

Our friends, Brian and Claire, invited us all to go camping with them for a couple of days. Brian knew that camping wasn’t high on my list of fun things to do so to entice me to commit to this trip, he offered to have the tent set up by the time we arrived. Brian spent time fishing and canoeing with my children, and Claire was patient enough to include the kids while we all played cards. Although we had a great time with Brian and Claire, our camping trip was still plagued by the usual camping hardships including sleeping on the cold, hard ground, waking up feeling all damp, and being attacked by gnats and mosquitoes. For years, we’d joke that we took the kids on this camping trip so they’d be motivated to work and study hard in school so they could get a good job so they could afford to stay in a nice hotel and they’d never have to camp again.

I’ve told you about this camping trip as a “lead-in” for my real story. The night before we met Brian and Claire on the camping trip, Mal decided to hide her jewelry. Mal didn’t own a lot of valuable items but she did have things that were meaningful to her. She had her high school ring, her original, small engagement ring, the special rings I gave her when she gave birth to our two children, a ring her mother wore, and some other pieces like that. We didn’t have a safe to store our valuables in at the time and although we had an alarm system, we thought it would make sense to simply hide the jewelry. Mal placed the small jewelry box filled with jewelry in the bottom of a small wastebasket and then placed a trash bag inside, on top of the jewelry. She made sure that I knew it was there so I wouldn’t throw it away by mistake. Then, the next morning we went camping.

We returned home on Thursday night after our fun camping trip. We were scheduled to leave for a week long vacation in Disney World early on Saturday morning so we were busy on Friday getting all of our last minute errands and details taken care of in preparation for the trip. As Mal was finishing her packing of our clothes for the trip she said, “Paul, could you get my jewelry for me?” I asked her where she had put it and I was shocked when she told me that she hadn’t taken it out of our wastebasket. It was gone! I had wrongly assumed that she had taken it out of the wastebasket as soon as we had gotten home on Thursday but she hadn’t. I had emptied all of the wastebaskets on Friday morning and put them out for the rubbish company to pick up on Friday morning. All of her special rings, necklaces, and pins were now buried at the dump.

Since it was late at night, and we were scheduled to leave early the next morning, there was nothing that we could do to recover the jewelry. We called my mother and told her the story. She took some of my brothers to the dump the next day and they spent hours digging through the trash piles looking for the box of jewelry. They convinced the dump’s bulldozer driver to help by uncovering and moving large piles of trash. The jewelry box was never found. Maybe someday, many years in the future, some kid will be digging around and they’ll find an actual treasure chest buried there.

Next chapter: Neil Gaiman, the creator of DC Comics Sandman comes to town!

Part Seventy Four

In 1990, Diamond Comics Distributors organized a huge gathering of comic book retailers, suppliers, and publishers, in Las Vegas for a comic book retailing seminar. I decided that it would be an important business and educational experience for some of my new employees so I booked the trip for Chris, my Fitchburg store manager, my friend Kevin Simpson, and Mal and me. My cousin Steven and his wife Donna also booked the trip. I had also convinced Dave Edwards, a friend of mine who had recently gotten into the comic book retailing business, to attend this seminar.

I had attended a few of these seminars before and although I learned something new at each one, I had decided that I would have my employees attend the teaching parts of the seminar and I’d give much of my attention to the blackjack and roulette tables. My cousin Steven also enjoyed the occasional “game of chance” so we spent many hours together at the tables gambling. By the end of our trip we both had won substantial amounts of money at the tables. Our wives enjoyed sightseeing and shopping. By the end of their trip, they had both spent hundreds of dollars on jewelry. It was a “successful” trip for everyone.

Chris came back from this seminar eager to work at promoting our stores and expanding our business. Chris worked with Diamond Comic Distributors and DC Comics to arrange an in-store appearance of Neil Gaiman, a relatively new comic book writer. Gaiman had created a new character called “Sandman” and DC Comics had been publishing the comic book adventures for less than one year. DC Comics believed that this comic book series would be successful if they could get comic readers to try it so they were very willing to spend some money and expend some effort to get the comic books into reader’s hands. DC Comics gave retailers one free copy of “Sandman” issue #8 for each copy that they bought. We were urged to be sure that these “free” copies got to the potential new readers so they’d get “hooked” on this exciting, well-written series.

All of the “events” that we planned for our Worcester location had been successful in the past but we had no experience running these kinds of events at the new Fitchburg store location. Worcester, Massachusetts was a huge city and Fitchburg was a small city with a high unemployment rate. We had no idea if the customer base and the mainstream population would turn out for an event of this sort. It was our intention to show our “new” Fitchburg customers that we didn’t just care about our larger store. Chris wanted this to be big! He also arranged to have Kevin Eastman, the co-creator of The Teen-Age Mutant Ninja Turtles, and Steve Bissette (a popular artist and writer of comic books) attend the event as guests. They all visited with the fans and did free drawings for the collectors. These professional comic book guys were also happy to come because it gave them an opportunity to visit with Neil Gaiman.

As it turned out, the event didn’t draw a large crowd but the hundred or so people who came seemed to really enjoy themselves. Just as importantly, the local newspaper wrote a half-page article with photographs about the appearances that promoted our store to the local population. Some of these people eventually came into the store or the first time because of this article and they’ve become regular customers. Every new customer is as important to us as our existing customers. We’re satisfied if we can get a few new customers from each event we plan. Chris was enthusiastic about planning future events and I knew that if we worked together, the events would be even more successful.

Next chapter: “Warning, Warning, Will Robinson!” Bill Mumy from the TV show of Lost In Space comes to the Worcester store!

Part Seventy Five
As my second store’s manager, Chris, and I thought about possible future events to stir up some more excitement for the customers of our comic book and collectible stores I received a phone call from my old pal, Kevin Burns.

Kevin had moved from Massachusetts to California to work for Twentieth Century Fox. Kevin was a long-time fan of the 1960’s television show of “Lost in Space” and he had developed a friendship and business relationship with the original cast of the show. Kevin had been the primary force behind the big twentieth anniversary Lost In Space convention that was held in Boston in the mid-1980’s that reunited the surviving cast members. June Lockhart, Marta Kristen, Mark Goddard, Angela Cartwright, Bill Mumy, and Jonathan Harris were all there. Kevin invited me to attend a very intimate dinner party with the cast. Since I was allowed to bring a guest, I chose to bring my old journalist buddy, Mike Warshaw. The cast of “Lost In Space” was seated in a straight row of tables and they were introduced to the sixteen guests as we were seated across from them. Kevin had also acquired and rebuilt the original Robot from the TV show and we had a chance to get our photograph taken standing with it.

After the first dinner course, June Lockhart came around and spoke with all of us. She remembered all of our names and seemed to be genuinely interested in our comments. We were impressed that she cared enough to spend this time with us because she could have stayed seated with her celebrity friends like most of the other cast members. Mike and I got a real “kick” out of this special dinner. Now, a few years later, Kevin Burns was offering me an opportunity to have Bill Mumy as a guest at my Worcester store. Bill Mumy played young Will Robinson in the television show of “Lost In Space” and he still had many fans who would enjoy seeing him in person. Because Bill was a serious comic book collector we agreed to pay him for his time by giving him his choice of $250.00 worth of collectible comics. A few hundred fans lined up and got a chance to meet Bill and get his autograph and, as usual, many of the local newspapers ran interesting stories about his appearance in our store.

In 1990 we also arranged for my old friend, Carol Kalish, to come to my Worcester store to evaluate portfolios of aspiring artists. Carol had collected comic books for many years, she worked as a comic book distributor, and she was now a vice president of “Direct Sales” for Marvel Comics in New York. She was one of the few people in the comic book industry who understood almost all aspects of this business. I enjoyed Carol because she was honest and humorous even in her role as one of the most important people in the comic book business. I remember her speaking to a gathering of comic book retailers at a comic book seminar in Baltimore. Referring to a popular (but poorly written) comic book series she said, “ Let’s be honest. Secret Wars series one was crap, right?” The room full of comic book storeowners all agreed. “ But did it sell?” The retailers cheered. “ Well, get ready for Secret Wars series two!” We all laughed but we knew she was right. Secret Wars series two would be one of the biggest selling comic books of the year. We knew we could trust Carol’s opinion.

When she came to my store, Carol chatted with dozens of artists and writers and because of her “gentle spirit” she was able to honestly critique my customer’s work without hurting their feelings. She pointed out the weaknesses in their work but also encouraged many of them to continue to work to improve. Like most people who met Carol Kalish, my customers enjoyed the time she spent with them. Within one year, while walking down the streets of New York City, Carol died of heart failure at the age of 36. We all lost a special friend on that day.

Next chapter: The family goes to England.

Part Seventy Six
When I bought my second comic book and collectible store from Hank Stolz in Fitchburg, Massachusetts, I was afraid that his employees wouldn’t stay on board with me as their boss. Thankfully, this wasn’t the case. Chris enthusiastically embraced his opportunities with my company. He worked hard at developing relationships with our customers and he had a great ability to match the right product with the waiting collector. Hank’s other former employee, Richard Ortwein, was finally given the responsibility of becoming the Fitchburg store manager. Richard worked hard to keep all of our customers happy and he quickly learned how to order the new product for this store. The customers seemed to like Richard. The only problem was with me. I was not an easy guy to work for. I held the store manager responsible for the profitability of their store even if it was out of their control. I also tended to “micro-manage.” I expected the employees to think of ways to increase sales but I felt that I needed to be included in all of the planning and discussions for these decisions. I’m sure it wasn’t a pleasant environment to work in. My poor management skills didn’t seem to bother Chris, but after about a year and a half of working full-time for me, Richard decided to devote his efforts to a more meaningful career. He went back to his previous vocation of helping disadvantaged children find foster families. I was sorry to see him leave but I couldn’t try to talk him out of such an important career choice because he really had a “heart” for helping children.

Ken was a pleasant, regular customer, who had an almost encyclopedic knowledge of comic book history. He was quiet and soft-spoken but he had a unique, dry sense of humor that always “cracked me up.” I hired him to work thirty-two hours each week in Fitchburg and eight hours in Worcester. It didn’t take long for Ken to increase the sales in Fitchburg because he is a real “details” guy. He carefully and meticulously made sure that each customer was able to find the items they needed to fill-in their collections and he would recommend interesting new product that he knew they’d enjoy. Customers appreciated his attention to detail. So did I.

Ken also began to work on what would become the first “Employee Handbook” for That’s Entertainment. Although I was now paying my employees better, I was not excited about beginning to offer decent benefits. My policy was that there would be no paid sick days. If they were sick, I’d still pay them, but they’d have to make up the time on some other day that they didn’t normally work. When I worked a normal job I noticed that employees would consider sick days as extra vacation days and I didn’t want that to happen in my store. I offered no paid holidays. We were open every day of the year except Christmas and Thanksgiving and I needed every employee to work their shifts as scheduled. I had no “extra” employees. Everyone was essential. Ken worked hard to convince me that I needed to treat the employees better and it was really just about the only disagreement we would have. Eventually he convinced me to start improving the benefits a little bit at a time. We began to give the employees paid sick time and increased the amount of paid vacation time. Most of my employees appreciated this and they didn’t abuse the new upgraded benefits.

At one employee meeting, one employee shocked me with his lack of understanding. Ken and I had just finished explaining that these new, paid sick days were not to be considered as “personal days” or extra vacation days, when one guy said, “I’m going to be moving next weekend and I was wondering if it would be okay if I took my sick days as personal days.” Arrrggg! That’s exactly why I didn’t want to offer these kinds of benefits! We explained the situation to this employee again and we’ve really had no problems since then. I must admit that most of the employees I’ve had have been dedicated “professionals.”

1991 was also a busy year for my family activities. During the winter Mal, Adam, and Cassy had convinced me to learn to snow ski. The kids had learned to ski with a group from the Imago School that they attended, and although I hated the cold, it would give me a chance to do something with them. I learned pretty quickly but Mal and I enjoyed nice, slow trails, while Adam and Cassy preferred the more difficult, fast trails. I did my best to keep up with Adam but he usually left me far behind. Speed seemed to be his favorite part of skiing while I tried for style over speed. Cassy was fun to watch as she skied. She was about four feet tall and she skied without ski poles. She was very graceful and always seemed in complete control. My favorite part of the whole ski experience was the time we all enjoyed on the ski lift as we rode to the mountain summit. We’d finally have uninterrupted time together as a family. No phone calls or television. One of our highlights each winter was our trip to my sister Sharon’s house in Laconia, New Hampshire. New Hampshire students had their school vacation the week after most Massachusetts schools did, so Adam and Cassy would frequently go to the private school in Laconia just to be with their “favorite” cousins. Then, on the weekend, Sharon’s family would come skiing with us at a nearby mountain called Gunstock and we’d usually end up spending close to a week with them. Our kids all got along great! But inevitably, no matter how long we stayed with them, when it was time to leave Mal and my kids would say, “But we hardly had time to play!” I’d end up being the “bad guy” because I knew we really had to get back home to get the kids ready for school the next week.

1991 was also the year I took Cassy to her first major league Red Sox game at Fenway Park in Boston. One of my customers gave me free tickets. I wanted this to be a special father-daughter day so I made a big deal about our big train and subway ride to the baseball park. Our seats weren’t very good. We were out in the direct sun and it was over ninety degrees that day. We spent most of the game eating like pigs! We ate lots of hot dogs, ice cream, and we each had multiple sodas. The sodas were a problem because Cassy was only seven years old at the time and each time she had to go to the bathroom I had to stand outside of the ladies room nervously waiting for her. I was certainly paranoid about someone harming my little baby girl! By the end of our day those free tickets ended up costing me $70.00 by the time you totaled up all of the expenses. But it was worth every penny. Cassy and I still laugh about all of that junk we ate.

During that summer, we all got together with my sister Sharon and her family at a multi-day Christian Festival called “Kingdom Bound” at Darien Park in Darien Lake, New York. Darien Park was a decent sized amusement park with some pretty exciting thrill rides including The Python Roller Coaster. Cassy was a daredevil and she really wasn’t afraid of anything. Adam was not too thrilled with heights and he had never been on a real roller coaster. Sometime during the three days we were there, my brother-in-law Greg and his son Jesse and I convinced Adam to try this roller coaster just once. I explained to him that if he went on it and hated it I wouldn’t try to force him to ride it again so he agreed. While we waited in the long line I could see Adam was getting more and more nervous. I’m sure he thought that this was a bad mistake. He wanted to back out of this agreement but we all talked him into trying it, just this once. All during this ride Adam had the funniest forced smile on his face. He wanted to pretend that he was enjoying this. I know he was really frightened but I didn’t let him know that he wasn’t fooling me. When the ride was over I asked him if he wanted to go again. Trembling, Adam said, “No thanks. Not right now.” I didn’t want to pressure him anymore. Although it was obvious that Adam didn’t enjoy scary rides as much as his little sister did, he would always at least try them.

Before the kids went back to school, we went on an eleven-day vacation to England with our friend Kevin Simpson. We spent most of our time in London, exploring art museums, antique stores, and the usual tourist destinations including Big Ben, The Tower of London, Buckingham Palace, 221 Baker Street (the fictional home of Sherlock Holmes), The Wax Museum, The London Dungeon, and more. We also took the kids to see the famous murder mystery play of “Mousetrap”, which was the longest running play in the world. Kevin was adventurous enough to rent a car and drive us all to Bath, a small community north of London where there are natural hot water springs. Driving on the opposite side of the road was no problem for Kevin. We had a great time on this vacation and even though we were in London for almost eleven days, there was still more we wanted to see. We’d have to return to England some other time.

Next chapter: Even on a vacation to Maine, I find unusual stuff to buy for my store.

Part Seventy Seven
Although comic books were my primary interest when I first opened “That’s Entertainment,” I learned to appreciate many other fields of collectibles including records, trading cards, toys, movies, model kits, and more. I enjoyed reading price guides and books about collectibles and I found that this new information enabled me to profit from a wider array of materials.

In the 1970’s and early 1980’s I only specialized in comic books so when I’d travel to the large flea markets in Brimfield, Massachusetts, I’d be able to browse through the thousands of dealer’s booths in a short time. As I learned about more collectibles, these trips took longer but I was able to make more money because I was now able to sell almost anything in my store. On one such trip to Brimfield, I was disappointed in the selection of old comic books but as I was leaving I found a booth that specialized in glassware. This dealer also had recently bought a bunch of old model kits (still sealed) based on the television show of “The Flintstones.” These were model kits that became large battery operated Flintstones vehicles when they were assembled. It was at the end of the day and he offered these to me for ten dollars each. I bought all that he had and sold them very quickly at my store for $150.00 each.

On a vacation to Cape Cod with my family we discovered an old junk-antique store and we all enjoyed digging around for potential “treasures.” While Adam and Cassy enjoyed old toys, Mal looked at jewelry and furniture, and I looked through a pile of old record albums. An album by a group from the 1950’s called “The Five Keys” struck me as something that I’d seen pictured in a record album price guide. I couldn’t recall what was “special” about this particular record album but I figured that it was unique enough for the price guide publisher to include in the full-color section, then I should take a chance on it. Besides, it was only one dollar. When I got back to my store I looked in the record price guide and discovered that the record album had been pulled off of the market because the front cover photograph seemed to be lewd. It wasn’t, but at a glance, it looked as if it was. I sold this to a serious record collector for one hundred dollars and he was thrilled because this was “valued” at over three hundred dollars.

At the same antique store I found some hardcover children’s books from the 1950’s priced at five dollars each that featured beautiful, full color illustrations by N.C. Wyeth and Maxfield Parrish. I had a hunch that some fan of these great artists would buy these books for at least thirty dollars each. I was right.

In October of 1991 my family went on a vacation with my good friend, Allan Traylor, and his wife Pascal and their children. We rented a cottage in Maine and because of the cold weather we spent most of the time trying to watch the televised Clarence Thomas hearings on a television that had poor reception. The kids all played together while we listened in amazement. Later, since my son Adam was old enough to “baby-sit” the other kids, the adults had a chance to go out and explore the area at our leisure. We ended up at an old country general store full of vintage and antique stuff. I didn’t see much that I was interested in buying to resell in my store except for some old products on a shelf near the ceiling that had a large sign that said, “Not for sale” on it. I brazenly asked the shop owner if I could buy some of these items and he explained to me that these were just for display and they weren’t for sale. He also told me that these items were very collectible. I don’t remember what I replied to him but I know that within a few minutes he allowed me to actually buy three or four of the old, empty cereal boxes that were “not for sale!” He charged me two dollars each! The “Corn Flakes” and the “Rice Krispies” cereal boxes were from the 1930’s or 40’s but my favorite was the “Sir Grape Fellow” cereal box from the early 1970’s. This was only sold for a very short time in the early 1970’s and it’s quite rare to find an example of this cereal box. I sold this box for $175.00 within a few weeks. It took me a few years to sell the other boxes but I had decided many years ago that I’m not in a hurry. I can wait until the right collector comes along.

Next chapter: Two cool customers.

Part Seventy Eight
Every customer is important to the profitability and survival of most small businesses and I really appreciate the people who support my two stores. We’ve always believed that it would be better to have one thousand customers who would each spend one dollar than to have just one customer spend one thousand dollars. Many comic book retailers just can’t understand this kind of thinking. We believe this because if a few of your smaller spenders decide to stop spending money at your store you can still (hopefully) count on the rest of your customers, but if you rely on just the “big spender” and he decides to leave the hobby you’re out of business.

Leonard was one of my big spenders. In the late 1980’s he collected every comic book that Marvel Comics and DC Comics published each week. I’m serious. He read and collected every single comic book! He also bought ninety percent of all of the various independent publishers’ comics. Comic books usually sold for about thirty-five cents each when I first opened my store in 1980 and at that time Leonard spent about one hundred dollars each week. At that time we had quite a few comic book fans that were considered “Marvel Zombies” who tried to keep up with everything that Marvel Comics published, but it was rare that someone bought absolutely everything. Most collectors couldn’t afford them all. Comic book prices rapidly increased throughout the 1980’s and it forced most collectors to stop reading many of Marvel’s comics just because the reader couldn’t continue to spend that much money on their hobby. The steady price increases didn’t stop Leonard though. By the very late 1980’s Leonard was spending about three hundred dollars each week. In their relentless attempt to increase their bottom line profits, Marvel Comics raised the cover price of their comic books until it was too expensive and it became close to impossible for any collector to continue to buy the entire output of Marvel Comics. Many customers began to trim the list of comics that they felt compelled to collect. Once Marvel made it too difficult for them to afford, it became a convenient “jumping off” point for collectors. Marvel Comics didn’t seem to care because hundreds of new comic book stores were opening up all around the country and they were ordering enough new comics to compensate for the collectors who were cutting down on the number of comics they used to buy. Although Leonard was a highly paid management guy for a local seafood distributor (and he almost always smelled like fish) even he couldn’t afford to keep collecting as many comic books as he wanted to. At one point, in order to help Leonard be able to afford all of his new comics, I hired him to drive into Boston each week to pick up our huge shipments of new comic books. It worked out great for both of us because after doing this pick-up each week for almost ten years I needed a break and Leonard needed the extra money.

Jim was a local healthcare worker and he was a friendly, outgoing customer. He had tried to invest some money in new comic books and he had been shopping at a competitor of mine. My competitor had given him some really bad investment advice and Jim came to me for my advice. I tried to encourage him to invest his money in “proven” collectibles like comic books from the 1940’s through the 1960’s because I knew that these comics were scarce and historically they had proven to be solid investments. I was pretty convinced that these comics would offer a reasonable return on his investment over the long-term but Jim was more excited by potential short-term gains in the new comic book market. I wasn’t convinced that investing in newly published comic books was the best investment choice because most new comics were printed in very large quantities and the vast majority of them were purchased by careful collectors who would take good care of them. These comics would be plentiful in “high-grade” condition for many years so they wouldn’t be considered scarce. Supply would exceed the demand for these comic books and the prices should remain low. It seemed as if I’d just about have Jim convinced and he’d get lucky because he’d buy fifty copies of Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns. These quickly rose in price from $2.50 to $10.00 within a few months because most of the country’s comic shops had underestimated the demand for this groundbreaking Batman comic book series. A few lucky purchases propelled Jim’s enthusiasm to buy more new comics.

New comic books had to be ordered from the publishers two months before they would be released and I always ordered new comic books carefully so I would sell out of each issue within a few weeks of its release. Jim wanted to buy such large quantities and I didn’t order enough to satisfy him so I worked out a good solution for him. I’d call him a day or two before we headed into Boston to pick up our weekly shipments to get a list of the comic books he wanted me to get for him. I would then call the order in to Diamond Comic Distributors and they’d have as many of the comic books Jim wanted waiting for me. Jim would come to my store and he always paid for everything he had ordered.

The first year Jim had transferred his comic book buying to my store he spent about three thousand dollars. By the second year he had spent close to twenty thousand dollars. A few times during these two years I had suggested that he should sell some of these comic books while they were in high demand but he wanted to hang on to them until they were “worth more.” As it turned out, that day didn’t come. Jim decided he suddenly “needed” to sell these comic books and when I told him that I didn’t need very many of the comics in his huge collection he said he understood and left the store. He returned in a few hours and began to question me about my thoughts on “investing” in new comic books. I went over my philosophy again in great detail, explaining that although some new comic books do increase in value, investors are better off buying vintage collectibles with many years of proven collectibility. New comics should be read and enjoyed and maybe someday in the future they’ll become sought-after collectibles. When I was finished, Jim pulled a tape recorder out of his pocket. He was trying to “catch” me saying something that might be used to force me to buy back all of his comic books! When he realized that I had been honest with him from the very first time we met, his demeanor changed and his cheerful attitude returned. Eventually, I reluctantly did buy his entire collection of comic books but Jim didn’t get the amount he was hoping to get. He understood at that point that I was paying him as much as I could.

In the late 1980’s and early 1990’s many comic book retailers complained about “speculators” ruining the comic book business. The dealers were buying huge quantities of new comic books to satisfy the short-lived demand of these “investors” and when these speculators realized that these comic books were overprinted and they weren’t scarce, they stopped buying these huge quantities and most retailers got stuck with tons of unsaleable comics. My store didn’t get stuck with any unsaleable comics. We ordered only what we knew our loyal and serious customers requested.

Leonard lost his job and decided to move to Florida. I haven’t heard from him in over fourteen years. Jim began to collect and invest in baseball cards after that and he’s been quite successful with those. He remains a special customer to this day.

Next chapter: Foxwoods Casino opens in nearby Connecticut and the life of a friend is ruined.

Part Seventy Nine
After twelve years in my two thousand square foot store on Chandler Street in Worcester, Massachusetts, I decided it was time to start looking for a much larger space in the hope that offering more products I would increase my sales. I began to scan the real estate rental advertisements and called quite a few of them but I thought that the rents were too high. A local real estate agent tried to convince me to buy a piece of property instead of renting one, but real estate prices also seemed too expensive. I couldn’t justify spending five hundred thousand dollars for a building. I was still only paying seven hundred and fifty dollars a month for my rent and I was nervous about getting into debt by buying a big commercial building. It also seemed to be a bad time to buy property in Massachusetts because of the high selling prices, but the realtor kept looking for just the right property for me.

In February of 1992, the long-awaited “Foxwoods Casino” opened up in nearby Connecticut. A nearly extinct Native-American Indian tribe had finally won government approval to open this casino and they secured financing from a Malaysian investment group to build a huge high-stakes Bingo hall, a hotel, and gambling casino. Foxwoods was a convenient one-hour drive from Worcester and an easy drive from Boston and Providence, Rhode Island. I’m sure the casino was located there to pull as many of the serious gamblers from these big cities as possible.

For me, this was certainly going to be easier than the six-hour drive to Atlantic City, New Jersey. Before Foxwoods opened, a fun trip to a casino required a lot of planning and usually took up a couple of day’s worth of time. Even if I only spent one day in Atlantic City, I’d get home exhausted and it’d take another day to feel rested again. I couldn’t justify making the trip to Atlantic City more than a few times each year but once the Foxwoods Casino opened I could go more often.

The management of Foxwoods expected to have big crowds for the grand opening but the crowds far surpassed their expectations. The news reported capacity crowds for the opening week. Players couldn’t get a seat at a blackjack table because there were dozens of people already waiting for seats. The huge parking lots were completely full. People would drive throughout the lot just waiting for a space to open. This place was an immediate success. I knew I didn’t want to fight these huge crowds so I planned to go there a few weeks after it opened assuming that the initial excitement would be over and people would get back to their “real life.” I went with my wife, Mal, my father, and my sister, Sharon. Although it was still crowded on this Tuesday morning, it didn’t take too long before we were seated at a blackjack table. We played for hours and had a fun time. The management of Foxwoods was certainly friendlier than Atlantic City casino managers. Foxwoods management set up a system to reward players with “wampum points” for playing there. These points could be redeemed for free meals or rooms at the nearby hotel. Casinos in Atlantic City made it far more difficult to receive these “comps.” The atmosphere and attention to detail at Foxwoods was carefully calculated to be exciting and accommodating. I don’t remember if we all won or lost money there that day but I do remember that we had a great time.

I was telling a customer of mine, (I’ll call him Brad, not his real name) about how nice this new casino was and he asked if he could come with me the next time I went there. Brad was more than a customer of mine; he was a friend. Occasionally, I organized poker games with my family and friends and a few times I invited other comic book storeowners. Brad had been to my home a few times when I had these card games and also played cards with other people from time to time. He seemed to be a good card player and was always fun to be around. I never thought about the potential harm that casino gambling could cause because I don’t have an addictive personality and I have no problem controlling myself. Unfortunately, Brad wasn’t as strong.

Brad and I took a trip to Foxwoods one day and we both had a great time. I won a little bit of money and Brad played all-day and only lost a few dollars. He enjoyed the atmosphere of the casino and he was eagerly looking forward to going back another day. The next time Brad went to Foxwoods he won about eighty dollars. This was probably the worst thing that could happen to him because it only encouraged his gambling. Before long he was going on a regular basis, usually by himself. He worked a good, full-time job and he’d leave work at the end of his shift and stay at the casino until late at night gambling, usually losing a lot of money. I had no idea that Brad had a problem with gambling until I went to the casino with him one day and I noticed that he was recognized by most of the “pit-bosses” as we walked by the gaming tables. They’d say, “Hey Brad, how’s it going?” and “Brad, you’re back again already?” Brad seemed to enjoy the attention he was getting there but he didn’t realize that the casino was really only interested in separating him from his hard-earned money.

Next Chapter: The situation with “Brad” spirals out of control.