Chapter Two:

A Day In The Life

Kent Hill has gotten to the office at 7:00 A.M. taking up his new job as route supervisor, but George has already beaten him in. George is making the rounds on the plant, checking the schedule for the routes and whether the new pumps are working right. Kent thinks that one good thing about letting his boss arrive fist is that at least the danger of being in the parking lot when George drives up has passed.

For workers coming in early to the plant, the boss’s arrival is a show not to be missed. From his house up on the hill, the sound of his accelerating Cadillac DeVille can be heard. With gravel spraying, the car comes flying down the road. The peacocks—supposedly kept in the tennis courts—scatter into the bushes as he zooms by. The Caddy is headed for its anointed parking spot closest to George’s office. Mercy to any man or machine that gets in the way. The old timers know better than to park anywhere near George’s Cadillac, the one with the gold horse hood ornament on it. George is famed for backing up first and looking back later.

Contageous Energy

George bounces out of his Caddy at about the same speed his Caddy has bounced down the hill. “Every day’s a holiday!” is his shouted morning greeting to the front desk occupied by Ruth Markley (Ross’s mom), Evelyn English and Marsha Chambers. As he speeds down the hall they can hear him yelling at a couple drivers, “C’mon, get these bottles going!” George is not really starting his day. Actually he is continuing it, never having stopped from the day before. He is already full of ideas he has come up with overnight; excited about seeing blueprints for the new Cap Snap molds being installed at Menlo Park; talking to the drivers about expanding their routes even further and trying to find the leak that continually reappears outside the pumping area.

When he is reminded of this last problem, George loudly curses, jumps up from his desk, grabbing a pick ax as he rushes out the door. In a moment he is whaling the ax at the wet ground. As they see their 60-year-old boss yelling and trying to locate “this goddamn leak”, other workers join him in his newly dug ditch. Cursing, laughing, and even some digging mark the next half-hour of the search.

Eventually, having located and hopefully sealed the leak, the boss is eased back into the office. Now Evelyn English, his vigilant bookkeeper, is reminding him that he has bounced another check. On his way in he sees one of the new drivers standing around and directs him to lend a hand loading the new half-gallon bottles. To others in the increasingly busy office, he smiles and yells out his other morning greeting, “How ya doin’ boys!” The energy is contagious and the office hums. He grabs some coffee and neatly spears the ever-present morning donuts with the stubs of his missing fingers as he bounds into his office.

The Man and his Men

The men in the office today—and it is all men—are an old team. They’ve worked together for years, come from similar backgrounds and are often related: Bud Hunt, Ross Markley, Kent Hill, Rudy Pucci and George’s grandson, Sparky. Not one has been to college. All are tough, driven men who will get their education from their work in the business. They started with George when they were young, often as drivers, and moved up the ladder as they proved themselves to him. Bud acts as manager and has been with George since the business began, hired as the company’s first employee in 1936. Ross, whom many mistake for George’s son, signed on in 1954 because he knew Bud. He will later take Bud’s place. Kent has recently been hired as a driver and will move up, to route supervisor, manager and vice president.

Grandson like Grandfather

Sparky, the grandson, has been working with his grandfather since the age of six. He has clearly inherited his grandfather’s genes for creative tinkering, hard work and the confidence of a tough, amiable extrovert. Joe, whom everyone calls Sparky, also has his grandfather’s sense of fun. Only last week he took his scissors to the ties of Cap Snap employees who dared to wear them to work. All of these men are loyal to George, laugh at his eccentricities, fight and argue with him, and are a bit awed by his strengths.

As usual, George is not going to be at Black Mountain for very long today. After starting Cap Snap in 1964, he shifted his interest to the caps he invented and their improved production. The water business seemed less attractive. Day-to-day management of an expanding company merits even less attention. He’ll stay at the water plant for only an hour this morning, returning at the end of the day to check on what’s been done and left undone. But even in the morning hour he will make his presence felt. The roar of his voice can be heard throughout the office, chuckling, yelling and cursing. Everyone knows that George is not beyond chewing people out publicly. Some employees claim to have noticed a mellowing in recent years, but this moderation has not yet been extended to management and family. Sparky sums up this point, with only half a smile, “Gramps is an easy man to work for, but a hard man to work with.”

George expects a lot from people around him. The good side of this is that everyone is equal in his eyes. There is no caste system at Black Mountain. If you’re willing to work hard, George will give you a shot. He hires black drivers without hesitating in this far less liberal time and place. They, like most of his workers, stay a long time. He hires Mexican migrants, both legal and otherwise. (And when the immigration officials stage unexpected visits to the plant, he hides these workers while distracting the agents with chatter).

The flip side of this coin of equality is that George is not about to suffer fools gladly. Quite the opposite. Granddaughter Claudia Winder Leonard observes, “if you disagreed with Gramps, you were stupid” (though sometimes, she remembers, he would give you the chance to change his mind). Nor is George about to cut family members much slack in the business. Grandson Brett Brown is about to get fired again form not coming in on time. (He will also be rehired in a few weeks and will later candidly agree he had it coming). George is a force of nature with strong opinions, especially on matters of family and business. Everyone who works around George remembers arguing with him. But they recall it with surprising fondness.

George and Altha relaxing around the pool at the “Party House” on the hill.

Do as I Do

Perhaps what makes their boss unique to his workers is his uncanny way of making everyone feel that if he can do something, they can too. Whether it’s jumping into a ditch to fix a leak, covering a sick driver’s route himself, or building an addition to the plant, George never expects anything from anyone else that he won’t do himself. And because he works all hours, they do too. One recently hired welder recalls that on his first day he saw George on a forklift, rearranging the warehouse at 9:00 p.m.

Today a large argument brewing. George is on one side of it, with Ross and Sparky on the other. Often the younger men can turn him around, but not this time he’s having none of it. Ross, from his metal desk in the corner and Sparky, with his chair in front of George’s big desk, are insistent. Finally Sparky says, “Gramps, we’re gonna do it this way.” George is already yelling up a storm and Sparky’s comment doesn’t exactly calm the waters. He storms out to where he’s parked his Cadillac. Let Sparky tell the story form there:

He goes running out of the office to his car. He jumps in, slams the door. Everybody in the office is looking at him because they’ve all been hearing him rant and rave. Now they see him jump in the car and everybody breaks out into hysterics. When he reaches for the steering wheel he realizes what he’s done. He’s sitting in the back seat. And everybody’s watching. He gets out of his car, kicks it, then opens the front door and gets in the front seat. He backs the car into a water truck parked behind him and takes off.

Everybody also knows that by the time he comes back he’ll have calmed down, that he won’t be carrying a grudge, and that he may well agree with them by then. In fact, a few minutes later the sound of squealing tires is heard as the Caddy comes careening back. George jumps out and heads to his office. Through the open door the staff can see that he’s got Sparky in a bear hug as the two men joke and choke-up a bit about their fight.

All Problems are Solvable

Soon, George is heading down to Cap Snap to go over the drawings for the new molds for the 5-gallon caps. He will then move on to Milt Peterson’s Belmont tool and Die shop where he and “Mr. Peterson”—as George always addresses him—will be working on the prototype molds used to make the plastic into tamper-proof caps for 1-gallon containers. The molding equipment they’re using is jamming up and he’ll spend most of the afternoon fixing it. Before he does this, he fits in lunch at home with Altha. His wife is a night owl—usually TV, bridge or both have kept her up the night before. So George comes home, wakes her up and fixes them both a breakfast-lunch combo of bacon and eggs.

Late in the afternoon, he’s back at the spring going over with Ross the measurement for the new cap for the 5-gallon plastic bottle. The computer billing paper tapes used by the new IBM 32 are pasted on the walls as George rushes by. He scarcely notices. Most daily management problems that are brought to him inspire a standard reply—“Get a couple girls in here.” Office Manager Marsha Chambers tells Sylvia Pignatti, the new girl in the office, that George is like one of the workers. The truth of that is seen about twenty minutes later when he hops onto the forklift heading towards the garage. Some crates have just been off-loaded and he is unable to wait for them to be stacked. George on the forklift is an unpredictable wonder to behold and some drivers returning early know enough to keep their distance.

On his way back to his office he picks up some coffee cups thrown around the parking lot and heads for the little bar in his office, a gift from Marsha Chambers. Uncle Harry—Altha’s uncle—wanders by. George has built him a place to live upstairs in the plant until he gets back on his feet. Some Mexican workers also eat and sleep nearby. Harry is grumbling to his unpaid landlord about the downside of integrated housing. Other men crowd around their boss’ desk and as he mixes a concoction he calls “Moose Milk”—bourbon and milk. The customary drinking on the job only comes late in the day. But it is a reminder that this is a generation of men that sees no conflict between hard work and hard liquor.

Later, George finds out it’s Evelyn English’s birthday. That’s enough of an excuse to invite everyone up to his house. Drivers, secretaries and executives pile into the back of George’s pickup truck and head up the hill. Evelyn says she’ll walk. She still remembers riding with George on a trip to his Idaho cabin. He was going close to 90 mph and turning around to carry on an animated conversation, which at that moment seemed most important to him. Evelyn swore never to get in any car he was driving. Her apprehension seems well placed when the truck manages to knock off a low-hanging branch from a tree. George doesn’t even slow down.

Dick Winder, standing, and Evelyn English with her son Burt Thomas at a company Christmas party.

One for All, All for One

Like many of George and Altha’s dinners, this one is informal, almost spontaneous. It starts with martinis as people come through the door. There will be more than one round of martinis. Then more family members, friends and workers arrive. Arguments—loud, if not overly serious—are breaking out all across the room. George might be complaining to his brother Bill, the police chief of Redwood City, about how the damn county won’t let him do something or other. Sparky is arguing with Ross about the unions screwing up their drivers’ route assignments. Several women in the corner by the player piano are clucking about the family’s latest divorce and who is to blame. Altha talks to her grandson Georgie about his Hare Krishna group. Soon, several buckets of Kentucky Fried Chicken arrive. Uncle Lou Longwenus invites Shirley’s new beau. Gene Brown, to carve anything he likes into the large wooden Spanish table. His initials join dozens of others, guest known and those barely remembered, who have left their lasting marks in this family tradition.

It’s an open bar at the house. The old player piano with its roll of songs is cranked up. The partying begins and the drinking continues. Strains of off-key versions of “Take Me Out To The Ballgame” and Five Foot Two, Eves of Blue” fill the cool night air. George is front and center. He clearly loves the people around him, people whose lives have been changed for the better by knowing him. And he doesn’t seem to care how long they stay. Altha, more reserved, graciously joins in, resigning herself to another evening sharing her husband with last minute guests. What’s fun about the party is that the workers, drivers, clerks and managers of a business are having a good time, much as they did in the office that day. It is a family gathering and they are family.