{"id":31443,"date":"2024-02-21T09:00:57","date_gmt":"2024-02-21T14:00:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/?p=31443"},"modified":"2024-03-27T09:18:03","modified_gmt":"2024-03-27T13:18:03","slug":"floor-and-more","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/2024\/02\/21\/floor-and-more\/","title":{"rendered":"FLOOR AND MORE"},"content":{"rendered":"

 
\nFLOOR<\/p>\n

I rented<\/strong><\/span> to a yoga lady. I went halves with her on a laminate floor for her storefront. She did the legwork, hired the installer, and sent me a bill. I expected a copy of the installer\u2019s invoice, but I got the yoga woman’s note as to what I owed.<\/p>\n

I did a Reagan trust-but-verify; I called the floor installers, whom I knew from way back. They had rented a store from me down the street. I hadn\u2019t talked to them since they had moved out. The flooring woman said the numbers on the invoice were right, and she told me her husband had died of cancer at 54 in 2008. I said, \u201cI can still picture you and Rick walking around the [flooring] store with sweaters on, freezing.\u201d The store was on the end of the heating line and didn\u2019t warm up too quickly.<\/p>\n

The flooring woman mentioned my father, whom she remembered and had a good impression of. That always gets me –when people remember my dad. Not too many people do; he died in 1986. My dad had had a real affinity for young entrepreneurs: flower shop guys, flooring stores, beauty parlor owners, resale shops, bars, you name it.<\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

I had an essay in the Cleveland Plain Dealer<\/em> on Feb. 16. The story might have been paywalled. Here’s the whole thing:<\/span><\/p>\n

SHY NO MORE<\/p>\n

\"\"

Bert and Toby Stratton, 1957, Victory Park School, South Euclid, Ohio<\/p><\/div>\n

CLEVELAND HEIGHTS, Ohio — My family used to be shy. Then, in the 1950s, my father enrolled in a Dale Carnegie course on public speaking and became less shy. When I was in my 20s, my father bought me Carnegie\u2019s book, \u201cHow to Win Friends and Influence People<\/a>,\u201d and I became less shy, too. When my children grew up, I bought them the book. Carnegie\u2019s book, written in 1936, holds up. Carnegie\u2019s message is, essentially, it\u2019s not about you. He wrote \u201carouse in the other person an eager want.\u201d Let the other person talk her head off, and you listen. Warren Buffet displayed his Carnegie-course diploma on his office wall.<\/p>\n

Harvard psychologist Jerome Kagan wrote that shyness is partially inherited. There is a brain marker for shyness. However, if you are willing to work on shyness, you can become less shy.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m an extrovert now in my old age. When I play clarinet at nursing homes, the audience members occasionally heckle me, and I welcome that. I actually relish it. One listener blurted out, \u201cShut up and play!\u201d And I kept on talking \u2013 bantering about whatever seemed amusing. I typically poll the audience about their lives and tell anecdotes between songs. I like all kinds of interactions, short of violence.<\/p>\n

I ask the nursing-home residents what high schools they attended, and which delis they like. Corky & Lenny\u2019s and Jack\u2019s Deli finished in a dead-heat for first. Then Corky\u2019s went under. Now the residents and I try to create lists of defunct Jewish delis: Budin\u2019s, Seiger\u2019s, Solomon\u2019s, Irv\u2019s, Lefton\u2019s, Sand\u2019s and Diamond\u2019s. Are there others? As for where everybody went to high school, Cleveland Heights High comes in first. (It used to be Glenville High. I play mostly Jewish nursing homes.)<\/p>\n

My dad,<\/strong> <\/span>toward the end of his life, became fearless and often sent back tepid soup at restaurants, and he once told floor sanders to re-sand floors that came out too wavy. (My dad owned Lakewood apartment buildings with wood-plank floors.) The sanders were off-duty policemen, and my dad wouldn\u2019t pay until those floors were smooth. I was impressed my dad would go head-to-head with cops. The height of my dad\u2019s boldness was when he was in the Cleveland Clinic dying of leukemia. He told the doctor, \u201cI own this place.\u201d My father owned a $10,000 Cleveland Clinic municipal bond.<\/p>\n

A hardware-store owner in Lakewood once said to me, \u201cNobody is going to jew me down on that price.\u201d This was in the 1970s, and I was in my 20s and very shy. I spent several minutes pacing the store\u2019s aisles before reapproaching the owner. I said, \u201cBob, you know, I\u2019m Jewish.\u201d Bob didn\u2019t know that. He didn\u2019t know \u201cjew\u201d was derogatory. He apologized. No big deal, in hindsight.<\/p>\n

\"\"

Jack Stratton on his first gig, age 3 1\/2, Beachwood Library, 1991<\/p><\/div>\n

When my youngest child, a musician, finished college, he moved to California to try to make it in the music business. I told him to call Joe McDonald of Country Joe and the Fish. I had gotten Joe\u2019s number from a friend. Joe lived in California. My son said, \u201cWho\u2019s Country Joe?\u201d Huh? Had my son never heard of Woodstock? Or at least seen the movie. I said, \u201cDon\u2019t be shy. Call him.\u201d I was talking to myself mostly \u2013 my younger self.<\/p>\n

My son didn\u2019t call Country Joe. It takes time to become less shy.<\/p>\n

Bert Stratton, a frequent contributor, lives in Cleveland Heights and has also written for The Wall Street Journal and New York Times. He writes the blog \u201c<\/i>Klezmer Guy: Real Music & Real Estate<\/i><\/a>.\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  FLOOR I rented to a yoga lady. I went halves with her on a laminate floor for her storefront. She did the legwork, hired the installer, and sent me a bill. I expected a copy of the installer\u2019s invoice, but I got the yoga woman’s note as to what I owed. I did a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31443","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-landlord-biz","category-toby-stratton"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31443","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31443"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31443\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31544,"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31443\/revisions\/31544"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31443"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31443"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.yiddishecup.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31443"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}