My son Adam is a voracious reader. He regularly feeds me fascinating stories that inspire many of my weekly blog posts. Such is the case today with Beth DeCarbo’s family business piece “My Mom and Dad Owned Competing Side-by-Side Hardware Stores. It Was a Lesson in Life,” (Wall Street Journal, May 8, 2024). It’s a fascinating account of a daughter growing up working in her family’s hardware stores.
Upon first reading it, I didn’t grasp its application to me. Then, it hit me. I also learned “lessons in life” growing up working at Blum’s Café. It was far from glamorous, but it instilled in me a work ethic that serves me well to this day.
My father, Julius Blum, had a hard-knocks upbringing, raised behind his family’s small neighborhood grocery store in an impoverished area of Fort Worth. He was the son of immigrant parents who barely escaped Hitler. Though living in America, they were never “Americanized,” speaking only Yiddish and associating only with other similar immigrant families. Miraculously, my dad (with the help of his older brother Sol) rose from that world and became the first college-educated member of the family. Though my brother and I were Longhorns, we respected our dad’s affection for Texas A&M. He was a proud Aggie with a degree in Mechanical Engineering.
As a newlywed with my mom Elsie, Julius put his degree to use working for Almar-York Air Conditioning. That didn’t last long. As seems to be in our DNA, my dad wanted to be his own boss. Julius used to say he’d rather own a lemonade stand than work for someone else. He took it one notch up and instead opened Blum’s Café, an industrial restaurant in Fort Worth’s meat packing district.
Julius awoke every day at 4:15 a.m. in order to open for business at 5:00. You have to start early to fire up the oven and griddle and get the coffee going. Any day we weren’t in school, my brother and I were right there with our mom and dad. That’s where we spent our summer and Christmas breaks. The days started early and ended late, loading the soda water cases before we could head home, tired and hot. There was no air conditioning.
Like DeCarbo’s article reports, I learned a lot of life lessons growing up in a family business. Here’s a sampling.
- My dad never complained. Though the work was hard, he was grateful we made a good living.
- Julius treated every customer with the same dignity and respect. Upon buying the café, he terminated the prior practice of segregation where white customers ate in the front and black customers ate in the back. He brought everyone together. I noticed.
- Though he worked hard seven days a week, my dad found time to volunteer at our synagogue, proudly serving as an officer as well as cooking all the synagogue dinners. His example taught me that you have to give back.
- I learned to be self-reliant. Two of my dad’s favorite sayings were:
“If you take care of your business, it will take care of you.”
“The only helping hand you need is the one at the end of your arm.”
- I interacted with all walks of life, gaining an openness and awareness different from all my friends who never engaged with folks like packing house workers. I learned to see the value in every person.
My upbringing at Blum’s Café has certainly influenced who I am today. It generated enormous gratitude I have for my law firm. It informs the second prong of the Blum Family Mission Statement: We embrace productive work, waking up each day to engage in meaningful activity. I am grateful this work ethic is equally embraced by my children Adam and Lizzy.
Along these lines, Laurie recently asked our handyman Don for a referral to a washing machine repairman. It was 7:30 a.m., and she asked Don, “Can I text him now, or do I need to wait?” Don’s reply was choice: “Text him now. Successful people are awake by now.”
To sum this up, my heritage of hard work gave me a unique connection to the comments by comedian Jerry Seinfeld in his recent commencement address at Duke. His number one piece of advice to the graduates was “Work hard.” Then he followed it up with words that resonated: “Bust your ass.” I can hear my dad saying that to me now.