My late father-in-law, Cecil Shustick, had a roofing company in Columbus, Ohio.\u00a0 He was an orthodontist prior to being a roofer. \u00a0\u00a0Look it up.<\/p>\n
Cecil was an orthodontist in the early 1950s.\u00a0 Meanwhile, Cecil’s father owned a roofing company. \u00a0Cecil had a wartime neck injury, so he didn’t relish standing all day at a dental chair.\u00a0 Furthermore, orthodontia wasn’t yet a big moneymaker in central Ohio.<\/p>\n
He talked to me about roofs and gutters.\u00a0 Gutters are interesting: copper, galvanized (the worst) and coated.<\/p>\n Cecil didn’t offer me the biz.\u00a0 He should have, my father said.\u00a0 My dad said Cecil should have at least given me the opportunity to say no.<\/p>\n Dad, I wasn’t moving to Cow-lumbus to run a roofing company! <\/em><\/p>\n Cecil Shustick (w\/ ciggy), 69. (1978)<\/p><\/div>\n When Cecil retired,<\/strong><\/span> he sold the business to Don The Goy, his right-hand man, who ran the biz into the ground.\u00a0 Cecil lost a lot of money on that, and so did I, indirectly.<\/p>\n If I had taken over the business, I probably would now be in a nice house in Bexley, Ohio, with a stack of workers’ comp claims in front of me. \u00a0(A lot of roofers are overweight drinkers with back problems.)<\/p>\n That wouldn’t be much different than the way I did wind up!<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n Cecil Shustick, U.S. Army Dental Corps, circa 1942<\/p><\/div>\n Cecil worked in<\/strong><\/span> roofing, went to war and raised a family. \u00a0I didn’t know that “early Cecil.”\u00a0 I knew the retired Cecil, my father-in-law in the velour warm-up suit with the Marlboros.<\/p>\n Don Whitehead, an A.P. correspondent, filed a dispatch, Dec. 3, 1943, with the Fifth Army south of Rome:<\/p>\n <\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n In one large,<\/strong><\/span> roomy cave Capt. Cecil Shustick, Columbus, Ohio, and Lt. Samuel Clarkson, Lebanon, Ky., set up a medical detachment station.\u00a0 On the little ledge, a charcoal fire was burning to take the damp chill from the air . . .<\/p>\n \n The Italians<\/span> had used the caves as storage places for vegetables, fruit and grain.\u00a0 When the Americans came along, they moved into them and used them as command posts, medical stations and billets.<\/p>\n \n This is a valley of hell – a man-made hell of thunder and lightning . . . The guns never cease their striking.\u00a0 Whole batteries of them roar in unison with a concussion that shakes the earth.<\/p>\n \n \n \n Cecil Shustick<\/strong><\/span> came home a major with a Bronze Star for heroism at the Battle of Monte Cassino, Italy.<\/p>\n Give him the pi\u00f1a colada medal too, posthumously. Cecil kept things light and bright. You’d never know about Italy.<\/p>\n![\"roofer-fleet2\"](\"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/01\/roofer-fleet2-300x196.jpg\" "\\"roofer-fleet2\\"")
Cecil did mostly<\/strong><\/span> roof estimating.\u00a0 He eventually ran a 27-man, 9-truck company.<\/p>\n![\"Cecil](\"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/01\/cecil-131x300.jpg\" "\\"cecil\\"")
![\"pina-colada\"](\"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/01\/pina-colada-212x300.jpg\" "\\"pina-colada\\"")
Cecil was<\/strong><\/span> a bon vivant.\u00a0 He kept a quart of pi\u00f1a colada by his bed for dry throat, due to antihistamine overuse, he said.\u00a0 He liked top-shelf, like Chrysler Imperials and Chivas Regal.\u00a0 And he didn’t like sweating.\u00a0 Golf was his game. \u00a0Cecil said, “If man was meant for jogging, he’d have hooves.”<\/p>\n![\"Cecil](\"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/01\/cecil-capt-wwii4-213x300.jpg\" "\\"cecil-capt-wwii4\\"")