When Two Cents Was Money: A Memoir

By Abe Silverstein

Abe Silverstein's standard response to the question, "So, what kind of work did you do?" is, "How much time do you have?" The story of his life and work experiences, from his childhood as one of seven children of poor immigrant Jews to the boardrooms of corporate America to the recording studios of the music industry to the fields of the small farmer is a quintessential American one. When Two Cents Was Money is his first literary work. He lives with his wife of 64 years, Judy, on the Upper Westside of New York City.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Dec 3, 2013
• ISBN: 9781491716083

Book preview

Contents

A Brief Note

Preface

Earliest Memories

Childhood

Teenage Years

The War Years

Judy

Looking for Work

Career Beginnings

Kinney Rent A Car

Family

Kinney Service Corporation

New Worlds

The Record Plant

Grape Hollow Farms

Miriam and Yussy and Isla Mujeres

Back to Business

Author Biography

To my beautiful wife Judy and all our beautiful children

I would like to thank the many people who helped me in the writing of this book. I could not possibly list everyone, but I am confident they know who they are. In particular, I would like to thank my dear friend, Yvette Pollack, and my daughter Pamela Baptiste, who both provided invaluable help with editing. I would also like to thank Todd Faulkner for his technical support.

Sheppen Nakhes

Sheppen Nakhes is a Jewish expression that describes the feelings of pleasure, pride and satisfaction about one’s family. My wife Judy and I had four children born over a ten-year period from 1953 to 1963. Pamela, the oldest, married Kim Baptiste, and has given us three bright, beautiful granddaughters—Chelsea, who is married to a fine young man, Brian Galioto, Caitlin, and Gillian. Chelsea and Brian became parents themselves when their daughter, Annabel May, was born on January 24, 2013. Annabel’s birth has made Judy and me great-grandparents and indescribably happy. Our son Gary unfortunately succumbed to cancer at the age of 35. Jamie, the next in line, married Loren Danielson. They have two handsome sons, Collin and Matthew. Our youngest, Yitzhak, (formerly Douglas) married Jennifer Morse. They have two lovely daughters, Alex and Eva.

So, all told, we have three children who have given us seven grandchildren, and a great-grandchild. If that isn’t Sheppen Nakhes, I don’t know what is.

A Brief Note

Writing my memoir is probably the last thing in the world that I ever thought I would do. I never finished college, was not a good student, and read very few good books. Yet, here I am approaching my 84th birthday, spending a fair amount of time trying to write my memoir. I vividly recall how this whole thing got started; if anyone is responsible, it is my dear friend Sue Pollock.

A few years back, Sue, who is very bright and an accomplished television producer, had just taken a new job. She was executive vice president of a new company called Sobel Awards. Sobel Awards was creating a book competition for first time novelists, with a $100,000 first prize. Sue had asked me to meet Mr. Sobel, perhaps with the thought that I could raise some fresh capital for him.

That afternoon I started to tell Sue about some volunteer work I was doing for an organization called SCORE, a non-profit association that provides free small business counseling. I described an African-American woman, about 35 years old, who walked into the office. I asked how I could help her. She answered, I am about to hire my first employee. How do I protect myself so that I don’t teach her the business and then watch her go off on her own with my customer list? A perfectly good question. I talked to her about a non-compete agreement and how it might work. I then asked her what business she was in? She asked me if I had ever heard of Tupperware parties, and I answered yes. She then told me that she ran sex parties and handed me a menu of sex toys. She would invite a group of friends/acquaintances to her home for an evening, provide some food and drink and demonstrate all these toys. I never got into the split on the profit, I just grabbed one of the menus. Since then I found out that these types of sex parties are big business. There are at least two companies that employ hundreds of woman organizing these parties.

With that, Sue chimed in, You should write a book. I thought about it for a few minutes and said I couldn’t do that. People come to SCORE for business advice and there is an implied confidentiality agreement. Although I dare say a professional writer could write a good book with the stories I have collected.

However, I did have an idea for a different book, which I would name Start-Ups. It would be about companies—more importantly, individuals who started companies from scratch. It would be about the beginnings of Starbucks, Home Depot, Avis-Rent-A-Car and so on. When I started out in the car rental business I worked for Avis, so I knew a little about its origin.

Warren Avis, the founder of Avis-Rent-A-Car, flew during the Second World War with Eddie Rickenbacker, an American flying hero. Rickenbacker clearly saw the future of aviation in this country and around the world. He envisioned airports opening up across the country, and given the land requirements, the fact that these airports would be outside city limits and far from public transportation. So Rickenbacker suggested that Warren place rental car outlets at all the airports. Warren followed Rickenbacker’s advice and Avis grew very quickly. It took Hertz a couple of years to realize that the growth in car rentals would be at the airports.

After dwelling on this a little longer I thought—why don’t I write about my own business career. I was part of the start-up of a company that grew into a giant corporation. From there it was easy to transition into a memoir.

Preface

Looking back today I keep marveling at how much things cost. My circumstances haven’t changed in quite some time; if anything, they have gotten better. I am comfortably retired and continue to do most of the things that I want to do. In 1963, I was President of a division of a public company, Kinney Service Corporation, earning $50,000 a year, which at the time was a substantial salary. I recognize it is 50 years later, but today there are some executives earning tens of millions of dollars a year. That amount of compensation is absurd. It is being earned by a few thousand individuals who—fortunately for them—have jockeyed themselves into a position at a public company, a bank, or a hedge fund, where they are in complete charge.

My feelings about the cost of everything can be explained by the fact that I am a depression baby. Born in 1928, I was eight years old at the height of the depression. As a child I was always looking for pennies. With a penny you could buy candy in the Candy Store. Playing in the streets, I would look for coins that might have fallen through the sewer grating. I could retrieve them, using a broomstick and some gum. It was the same broomstick that we used to play stickball, a form of baseball played with a Spalding ball and a broomstick, on the city streets. I wouldn’t pass a public phone booth, a popular street feature then, without putting my finger in the return box to see if a nickel had, inadvertently, been left there.

I am reminded of the time I was visiting my grandson Matthew at his school. It was visiting day for grandparents, a marvelous creation of many private schools. Matthew was probably eight or nine years old at the time. We were sitting in a large circle: six sets of grandparents, the children and the teacher. The teacher asked the grandparents to tell the children about an experience when we were their age. When my turn came, I told about going into the backyard of the apartment house that we lived in and calling up to my mother, Mom, throw me down two cents, and my mother answered, Abela, I don’t have two cents. I guess I was trying to impart the value of a penny at that time. My grandson Matthew’s response to my story was, I don’t even bend down to pick up pennies.

The value of money is established very early on in one’s life. That value usually stays with you. Not too many people go from being thrifty to being extravagant in their lifetime, or vice versa. It is also interesting that with siblings raised by the same parents in the same household one child may be a spendthrift and the other hoards his money. Making decisions about money is with you constantly. Every day you must decide how much you are willing to pay for something: food, clothing, gifts, travel, investments, etc. If you have a large enough circle of friends and family you have met all kinds.

Obviously a lot has to do with how you were brought up. Some years ago, I was sitting over the breakfast table with my young son Douglas (who now goes by Yitzhak, but that’s another story), when I complained about the cost of a hot dog. A hot dog cost 50 cents at the time. I said, I remember when a hot dog was a nickel. With this rate of inflation, it could go up to two dollars; that’s 40 times a nickel. With that, Douglas, who was very good at math, said, Yeah, Pop, but I only remember a hot dog for 50 cents, so if it goes to two dollars, that’s only four times as much. I was going to tell him about an ice cream cone for three cents that is now three dollars (oops, in some places, it is five dollars), but it serves no purpose.

I firmly believe that because of my childhood, I wanted more, and was not too lazy to work for it. I started working after school when I was 14. I worked for Henry Rosenfeld, a dress manufacturer in New York City. I worked in the shipping department, which was mindless work. On the other hand, it introduced me to what a job is and what it’s like working for someone else. I would take the subway from the East Bronx to Manhattan after school. It was a big deal for a kid who had not gone farther than the local playground. Between the ages of 14 and 18 I probably had a half dozen jobs.

I set pins in a bowling alley before there were automatic pin-setters. That truly was back breaking work. I would sit in a well at the end of the alley. The ball would hit the pins and they would start flying. Besides being back breaking there was an element of danger. You could get hit in the head with a flying pin.

I would work from 8 p.m. to 3 a.m. on Friday and Saturday nights. The alley would pay pin-setters ten cents a line. We would make about two to three dollars an evening. After I finished work I would bowl. Actually, I became a pretty good bowler. I can remember older guys who gambled would take two to one odds that I would bowl 200. I have often said that if you start a sport early and you have some natural athletic ability, you will be good at it. You name the sport, I’ve probably played it.

When I got a little older I got a job selling Formica Dinette Sets. It