By Bill Quain
If you are a new reader, you’ll find that my weekly columns are all about catching your attention with surprising or interesting six-word stories that might or might not be on a boardwalk bench. If you are a regular reader of this column, you are doubtless thinking “Bill, what the heck are these six words all about?” In either case, new reader or old friend, I gotta tell ya – these six words really drew me in when I saw them in my YouTube feed.
“The Way I Heard It” Podcast
“Selected Garbage from Families of Distinction” is the title of an episode on television host Mike Rowe’s podcast. In this episode, Mike is interviewing Frank H. McCourt. McCourt is a builder who owned a Major League Baseball team (The Los Angeles Dodgers), founded one of the first telecommunications companies that helped break up the “Ma Bell” (AT&T) monopoly, and is now the director of Project Liberty – a group that is attempting to break up the monopoly of the social media giants. By the way, I highly recommend this particular episode of Mike’s podcast. It is available on YouTube.
But, what about the selected garbage?
Good question! Frankly, that’s what got me interested in watching the podcast. McCourt is the fifth generation of his family to be in the construction business. He prefers to call himself a “builder.” Apparently, his great-great-grandfather founded the company in the 1890s. McCourt grew up in the business. As a young man, his father would take him to work and ask one of the heavy equipment drivers to show the teenager how to operate the big machines. As you can imagine, this was a big thrill for the boy.
But his father would not allow him to actually work in the business until he was 16, so McCourt, as a 13-year-old, started his own garbage removal business.
Collecting garbage for 100 lakefront homes
The McCourts spent their summers on a New Hampshire lake, where there were no municipal services for the 100 or so homes. This meant that they each had to take their garbage to the dump twice per week. McCourt talked a neighborhood friend (who had a driver’s license) into borrowing his father’s pickup truck, and they contracted with the neighbors to do twice-weekly pickups.
But this was messy work. Back then, nobody put their trash or garbage into plastic bags. Instead, the boys had to drive around, pick up the trash/garbage cans, and empty them into the pickup’s bed. At the dump, they had to rake out all the garbage, and then drive back and do it all over again.
To give their business a distinctive brand and to make it possible to carry more garbage in one load, they mounted plywood boards around the sides of the pickup, painted them white, and added a picture of a man in a tuxedo, with the words “Selected Garbage from Families of Distinction” on the plywood.
Frank and his partner built the business into a big success – and Frank never stopped building. He and his family built roads, infrastructure, commercial buildings and stadiums. In the interview with Mike Rowe, McCourt talked about the feeling of satisfaction he got from actually building something that lasts.
If you build it, it’s real.
During my multifaceted career, I’ve had the pleasure of building. After graduating college, I was the executive chef at a ski area in Lake Tahoe. During the off-season, many of us went to work on the mountain. One year, I was on a crew that built a ski lift, installing towers and hanging the cables that took the chairs up and down the mountain. I’ve never been back to see that ski lift, but it is on my bucket list. I also worked in the Napa Valley at a winery and built a walkway and patio out of field stones from the vineyard itself. Forty-five years later, I returned to Napa, and wow! There it was, still standing.
Are you building or just working?
This summer I’m in the final stages of completing my 28th book, “Bankrupt U.” In part 1, we show students and families how to get the best from their college experience while they also save money. In part 2, we show them how to use a college degree to make money. The first chapter in part 2 is titled, “Become a Builder, Not a Worker.” Building is the process of creating something that lasts. Working is an hour-by-hour process, but when you stop working, it just ends.
Jersey Shore: Building Families of Distinction
Why have the Jersey Shore resort towns prospered? I think because they built something that endures. My family has had houses here in Ocean City since 1904. Both sets of grandparents were OC landlords. Jeanne and I still are today. People return to OC year after year. Ocean City and the other beach resort towns have been built on certain principles.
But it isn’t just the infrastructure.
Yes, we have all the ingredients for a great resort here – beaches, boardwalks, amusements, entertainment, etc. But that’s not what built New Jersey’s “families of distinction.” Frank McCourt is the fifth generation of builders in his family’s business. How many generations have built your family of distinction? Who started your shore tradition? Was it a grandparent, great-grandparent, or maybe even an aunt or uncle just one generation ago? And how many of us have made the conscious choice to build our family traditions here? Maybe you were the one who started it all, and now you have one or two generations with you.
Share your family of distinction story
OK, let’s hear it! How did your family start building your Jersey Shore tradition? Send me an email to bill@quain.com. As I say each week, “I’ll see ya in the papers!”
Bill is a Professor in Stockton University’s Hospitality Management Program. He is the author of 27 books, and a highly-respected speaker. Even though he is almost totally blind, Bill is a long-distance runner and runs the Ocean City Half Marathon each year. He lives in Ocean City with his wife Jeanne, and his Guide Dog Trudy. Visit www.billquain.com or email him at bill@quain.com.
