The teacher came up to me and said, Wow, you’re a messy painter.
I had paint on my face and my clothes.
But you could’t worry about what others think when you’re starting a second act.
Read below, or listen to the audio version.
Here is Liz’s second act story.
I did everything wrong.
At least that’s how I felt a lot of times over the years.
There were many days I didn’t really know what was happening next.
I was born and raised in Kansas and graduated high school in 1955.
In 1956, I married my high school sweetheart.
It was my dream to be a wife and mother.
My husband started out working for the railroad.
His first job was in Montana, so off we went to start our life and family together.
So we picked up and moved to Alabama.
We discussed where to go next, and I said I always loved the West Coast.
My husband had a school mate who was the president of the Western Region of AT&T.
He reached out to his friend, who offered him a job in California.
And sometimes it didn’t.
After all, we had seven mouths to feed.
They said, No problem.
We will teach you everything you gotta know.
It was up to me to bake, clean, serve, and sell.
I gave my whole heart to the task and started by scrubbing the place from top to bottom.
I made curtains for the windows and treated that little shop as if it were my own.
In fact, people started thinking it was my shop because I invested so much heart into it.
I would stay and make them dinner and help them with whatever they might need at the time.
After a couple of years, a BBQ place opened on the other end of town.
They offered me an extra dollar an hour to go work for them baking their pies and biscuits.
An extra dollar an hour at that time was substantial an offer I couldn’t refuse.
They declined and opted to hire someone else, so I left and started working at the BBQ restaurant.
This place was right in the middle of town and highly visible.
It was also busier than any place I had worked before.
There were windows to the street where people could look in and see me making pies.
I said, Thank you so much, but I just work here.
I don’t own the business.
He said, That’s okay.
I want to buy your pies.
I was a bit surprised and not sure what to say.
He gave me his card and asked me to think about it.
I was flattered by the offer, and it planted a seed in me.
I knew every recipe by heart for every place I ever worked.
Not only that, her husband was a contractor and builder.
My husband wasn’t so thrilled about the idea at first.
He was still working for AT&T and had the opportunity for a promotion in LA.
But I never gave it a thought that I might fail.
Because I had developed a following over the years, my business started with a bang.
We were constantly busy from the day we opened and immediately became profitable.
The whole family helped out back then, too.
My youngest two were in sixth grade and seventh grade.
The kids would roll the dough and my husband would take the dough to the bank.
We used to tease and call him Ol King Cole.
It probably goes without saying he retired early.
We had to learn the wholesale business step-by-step by ourselves.
We didn’t know anyone who had done it before, so there was no one to ask.
I started out by approaching Harvest Ranch Markets, a local gourmet grocer.
I baked three or four pies and took them over to the manager and gave him my sales pitch.
He said, We already have Julian Pies.
He had been ordering from another pie maker in the area.
He took the pies to be polite.
Store after store wanted them because people were asking for them by name.
We now have more than 130 stores we deliver to in San Diego three times a week.
We are at Albertsons, Stater Bros., Aldi, and many others.
She’s a regular customer now and a good friend.
Her favorite pie is the Natural made with Golden Delicious apples and sharp cheddar cheese.
It’s amazing to think what has happened since that first pie so long ago.
I’m not involved as much as I used to be in the day-to-day operations.
My sons have taken over the business at this point and my youngest is the CEO.
Now, during certain seasons of the year, you might hardly get into our shop.
We’ve maintained our quality and consistency even as we’ve grown.
And if you think our apple pie is good today, wait until you taste it tomorrow.
From YOUR SECOND ACT: Inspiring Stories of Reinvention.
Copyright 2020 by Third Coast Productions Inc. Reprinted by permission of Simon & Schuster Inc. Unlock Access to AARP Members Edition
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