Dry Cleaning Business
My great uncle was blacklisted as a Communist in the fifties. Unable to find work anywhere, he was nearly destitute when he made a business partner. They both took what little they had and invested it in a dry cleaning business. Little did they know in those humble first days that their dry cleaning business would go on to make them rather well off, if not filthy rich.
My great uncle George had a way with words and a way with people. Being in his business for himself, it didn't matter that he was black listed any more. People would still talk to him and do business with him, even though they had been unwilling to hire him before. He took out ads in the paper under an assumed name to popularize his business, which was in an area with no other cleaners for miles. A dry cleaning business on its own, however, isn't that lucrative, so uncle George did something that no one at the time had done. At least no one he had met.
He opened a coffee shop in the front of the dry cleaning business. People could get coffee and chat while they waited for their laundry to be done. And he would do it fast, faster than anyone else at that time. And my Uncle always had the news and gossip too, so it wasn't long until everyone was coming to his dry cleaning business just to hear the latest about what was going on. He was a good guy to talk to, and it paid to know him too. He had an uncanny way with advice. He could be talking about something he knew nothing about – stocks, some tricky aspect of overseas politics, horse racing, beer brewing, whatever – and he'd still somehow find a way to be able to tell you just what you needed to hear and just what you needed to do to succeed in any endeavor, no matter what it was.
And he was quite a success himself. Soon he opened another dry cleaning business across town and then a third one. Business was booming. They could talk all they wanted about his politics, but no one could doubt my uncles business sense. Soon he had money to help out other people who had been black listed, offering them jobs at fair pay, which was unheard of at the time. He was a hero to his friends, and to anyone who needed a helping hand.