The Lemonade Stand

Three or four times in the course of events, Al hired in Frank and his crew from Space Concepts to take care of special projects at Image International. They fiberglassed the Phantom statuary. They made a canopy for a storefront set. They took up the slack on several occasions when the volume of work and the time frame were impossible for two of us to handle. So Frank knew me and knew my work when he heard I'd left Image, and he made me one of his crew - the only one, evidently, who was sober.

The best part for me: his shop was located in Kissimmee, about half as far away as Image International. I could go home for lunch if I hurried.

The first thing I worked on was Planet Hollywood Miami. It was mostly finished when I started, and a crew was in Miami installing. There were several additional pieces to fabricate, and fabricate them I did. Meanwhile, Planet Hollywood Las Vegas was gearing up, and it looked as though we were going to have a lot of stuff to do for that.

Details about the three and a half months with Space Concepts are very blurry in my memory. I've told people in the past that whatever company we were working for and they were complaining about was a great company compared to some I've worked for. Space Concepts was the one that stood out bright and bold in my memory.

We had a huge trade show exhibit (20' x 20' x 20' cube of aluminum framing, two stories of exhibit space) for some European computer company that sent us all specs in metric measurements. I had to miss The Eagles Hell Freezes Over tour concert in Orlando because they brought their literature to put in their literature racks, and it didn't fit because Frank hadn't converted the measurements correctly. I had to build and laminate two new literature racks to go into the exhibit before the show opened in the morning.

We did get a pile of work for Planet Hollywood Las Vegas. Frank's business partner Steve took the crew out to install it. While they were waiting for the room to be ready for the inatallation, Steve gambled away the whole company bank account.

For a several weeks, they scraped by by paying us what they would owe us after taxes and Social Security, but then not sending in the taxes and Social Security. My wife was not amused by this little game. She wanted some documentation to show that it was not me defrauding the IRS, but they never provided it. I told them repeatedly: "I'm an easygoing guy, I can roll with it. But you DON'T want to piss off my wife!" They laughed indulgently. I didn't laugh, because I knew that my paralegal law firm manager wife wasn't one to joke around where the IRS was concerned.

We got the job of creating a huge lobster to put on top of a little delivery truck - Space Concepts had done one a year or so before - for Boston Lobster Feast restaurants. There are two details of that job I remember vividly: First, when the truck was delivered to us for the fitting and attaching of the lobster, Frank immediately sent me out in it to the lumber yard to pick up a huge order of plywood, glue, staples, screws and other miscellaneous stuff; second, when the lobster carving was finished, Frank's fiberglass crew went to work, working late into the night. When I came in early the next morning, I was supposed to start sanding so it could be painted, attached and delivered so Frank could pick up the check so we could get paid. I came in early in the morning, found two trash barrels overflowing with empty beer bottles, and the lobster covered with sticky wet fiberglass resin. They forgot to put hardener in the mix. No sanding, no painting, no check, no pay. I went home, changed clothes and applied for another job.

When I went in for my last paycheck, I carried in a big bag of lemons off our tree. "My wife sent these along. She thinks you might better try running a lemonade stand before you try operating a real business!"

Not long after I left, the IRS came knock knock knocking at their door. I done damn told you - you DON'T want to piss off my wife!