I’ve never really been one for team sports, that’s probably
why I like playing racquet ball, chess, and poker where it’s just me against
them. Most of my life (even the one year on the high school soccer team) I
never felt like I fit in or was part of a team, family, or community. Growing
up my family was fairly dysfunctional so we weren’t that close and definitely
didn’t work well as a unit. Most of my past jobs I either worked for a strong
boss or I was the boss, not the best formula for building a team. Living most
of my life in a community (Flint, MI) that was in social and financial decline
also didn’t create much sense of camaraderie.
But some of that changed when we moved to Winters. I started
to feel what it was like to be part of a community. The very first experience I
had here in Winters was when we were trying to buy our house. It was for sale
by owner and that owner was the (for lack of a better word) eccentric Bruce
Goulden. Diane and I had come to look at the house for the first time with
check book in hand but Bruce was in no hurry. He was still fixing it up and had
some other people that were interested in it as well.
It wasn’t that he was trying to
start a bidding war; he really didn’t care about a few thousand dollars. He
wanted to know who would best fit in the community. I on the other hand just really
wanted this house. I felt it the second we walked in, it felt like home (still
does just a little noisier). So I wrote Bruce a letter telling him how much we
wanted the house and that if he sold it to us we would give back to the
community (weren’t really sure how). After a week or so he told us that we
could have the house so we jumped on it.
We started to get to know our
neighbors and they introduced us to their friends who introduced us to their
friends and we quickly started to feel like part of the community. Bruce took
us to one of the Winters Express Friday the 13th parties and
introduced us around and so it went for the first few years.
Things were also starting to change around Winters, The Palms
came to town, Dan Martinez started making wine in the back of a building on
Main Street, the Participation Art Gallery was open, and there were plans to
rehab an old modular building that had been moved downtown.
It’s that rehab project that got my attention; I thought it
would be a great location for someone (other than me) to open a coffee bar. But
long story short, two years later Steady Eddy’s Coffee House was born and
that’s where my contribution to the community comes in. It may not be what you
think because creating a business that’s still going is not what I’m talking
about.
I’m trying to bring this back full circle to the team player
thing. More importantly I’m talking about sacrificing for the team because
that’s the reality of what happened. If we think of Winters as being the team
then Steady Eddy’s is now a successful part of it. They are poised to have a
good long run but that’s not how it was in the beginning. The truth is that the
first four years were rough (as most start ups are) and Diane and I were almost
bankrupted. I’m talking physical, emotional, spiritual, as well as financial
bankruptcy. To use that sports analogy we “took one for the team”.
That being said, I love that Steady Eddy’s is part of the
community but would I do it again? Maybe not, but probably yes because as much
as I hate to admit it I’ve kind of become a bit of a team player. At work I’m
not the boss but I feel that I make a contribution to the Turkovich Team. At
home I do my share of the cooking, cleaning, and cat care. In the neighborhood
I’m working with the City to come up with a compromise solution to the noise
and parking problems. In the community I applied for a seat on the planning
commission (I didn’t get it) and am watching all the planned growth with an
optimist eye.
To view the column in it's original form go to page 15 of the following link. Winters Express 9/10/15
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