Remembering the early days of the firm makes me think of Salvatore Spitieri, son of Malta. He was the first man I hired and he worked out of the Jersey office for years. Sally Spit retired when he turned 70. He sold his brownstone and went back to the island of his birth. His grave is in a small Roman Catholic cemetery in Buskett near the site of the festa he loved so much as a kid, the annual Feast of St. Peter and St. Paul.
My mind floats to Staff Sergeant Robert E. Holeman, son of a South Carolina lowlands sharecropper. He spent 40 years in the Marine Corps, the last twenty-one as a warrant, then commissioned officer. He retired in 1982 as a Lieutenant Colonel and one of the go-to guys in the Ordnance field. In 1983, I was being given a tour of the Colt's Patent Firearms Manufacturing Company in Connecticut. My small group passed a glass enclosed conference room. The door was open, and what I heard stopped me in my tracks. It was the simple directive, ‘Now, Listen up...’, a southern drawl as familiar to me as my own mother’s voice. I stuck my head in the room where several fellows with rolled up shirtsleeves were standing over a table looking at unfurled blueprints. A tall man with a graying crew cut stood in front of a well-scribbled whiteboard. A jagged three-inch scar created a white exclamation point on his tan face. He wore a tailored blue wool suit, his red four-in-hand Regimental tie festooned with small gold Marine Corps emblems. He came to the door when I got his attention. I introduced myself, and it was his turn to stand there with his mouth open.
It had been all of 30 years since I had laid eyes on Bob Holeman. Colt Firearms had courted him and scarfed him up the previous year when he retired from the Corps. He asked what I was up to and I told him I was there interested in buying four hundred .45 ACP’s. He winked and said I was smart.
“If the Department of Defense switches to the 9 millimeter pistol, and it looks like they’re going to, you can mark my words, one of these days they’re gonna have to admit the 9 just doesn’t have the stopping power of the .45 - no way!”
That night, at dinner, Bob told me his beloved Colt Firearms had gorged itself on government contracts for 20 years. “The success of the M16 rifle had them sloppin at the government trough, and they lost sight of the handgun market. They wore their reputation thin through that neglect.”
He said he hoped to be a part of the resurrection of the dynasty the Walker Colt and M1911A1 had once produced. After his 1953 tour on the San Diego Drill Field, he had served with the Marine Security Guard Detachment in Stockholm, Sweden before returning to the Warrant Officers’ Course at Quantico, Virginia. He caught me up on his time in the Corps and I told him about Stone Executive and Corporate Security and my intention to go international. The Middle East and South America were prime targets on my drawing board. I’d have been a fool not to try to hire a man of Bob’s experience, and I made the pitch. He told me that weaponry had been his life and Colt had been his hobby. He had told Colt Firearms that he had something to offer, and he intended to follow through with that. Bob is a man of integrity.
Today, Bob and his beautiful Swedish wife, Inga, are retired on a golf course at Norris Lake just north of Knoxville, Tennessee. Their three sons have produced a bevy of grandkids that keep their screen door slamming year-round. Almost monthly, I’ll take the hour drive to visit him. He’s like family to me.
I’m sitting here in a back porch rocking chair looking out across Cherokee Lake. Pontoon boats are lazing around out on the water, in and out of hiding behind a giant hickory tree. Occasionally they’re ruffled by the wake of a glittering speedboat. The Jays are stealing the squirrel food, but the squirrels won’t be provoked. The Cardinals are making cameos, bragging about their crimson color. In counterpoint, the Indigos are strutting a blue seldom seen. A Mockingbird is serenading with a score stolen from all her neighbors and somebody’s coon dog running a rabbit up the shoreline provides the bass.
In my lifetime, I’ve plumbed the depths of human depravity. My conclusion? Mankind is determined to destroy itself, but that word hasn’t yet arrived in beautiful East Tennessee. It might all be ‘luck of the draw’; but one thing’s for certain, you’ll never dance if you don’t keep your feet moving. Here, in the Upper Tennessee Valley, at the foot of the Great Smoky Mountains, I feel younger than I ever have in my 80 years.
I’m basking in the glow of the two most perfect children I have ever known. We’re sipping iced tea. Fourteen-year-old Emma, a natural beauty with long red hair, has love in her eyes and love in her heart. Chase is God’s example of a natural athlete. At sixteen, he doesn’t yet know that his blonde good looks are money in the bank.
I don’t know that they lack any natural gifts. They’re both forces of nature. It’s obvious to me how much they enjoy their visit on the lake with their Grandma twice a year. I can understand that; I find myself kind of sweet on their Grandma. I reach over and flick Chase on the knee. He puts up his dukes just like I showed him.
“You have so many stories! Can I write about them?” Emma, the budding author, is scouting for material.
“Em, nobody’s gonna want to read about something that happened soooo long ago”, I patted her arm, pursed my lips and pretended to frown. “Remind me, I’ll show you the picture Weegee took of me at the George Washington Grille.”
The evening shadows grow longer. My two young companions and I swap stories and smiles. Of course, most of my stories I have to render innocuous in the telling. The kids have plenty of time to learn what goes bump in the night. We watch their Grandma plant annuals along the path that winds down to the boathouse.
She told me she got those flowers from a place called Amazon Dot Com. Imagine! She types up a wish list on her laptop at her own kitchen table. Three days later, a guy in a brown truck brings the flowers to her door. Huh! “Semper Fi, iMac,” I mumbled. I still got it, I thought, as I chuckled out loud.
“Whadyou say, Grandpa?” Chase was back from his own wool gathering.
“Nothing, son. I’m just happy.” I pushed off the arms of the rocker, leaned over the porch rail and called to their Grandma, “You want some sweet tea, dear?”
She stands, removes her straw hat with one hand and sweeps her long graying hair back over her shoulder with the other.
“Shu- wa, you bet, Woody. I’ll be up in a minute.” She turns to the house and a last ray of the setting sun catches her eyes. Two beams of baby blue shoot straight into my heart.
“S’okay, Gina. I’ll bring a glass down to you. Better hurry with what yer doin. The kids want to take the Studebaker to Baskin-Robbins.”
In the twilight, I see a falling star in the southern sky. I can see the image of my big brother, Ronnie, in the gathering clouds above the lake.
‘I love you, too, Buttface’.
The End (but not really, cuz these are the good ol days).
The Case Of The Little Italy Bounce (Woody Stone, Private Investigator Book 1) Page 23