A brief introduction:
My name is Paul Howley, owner
of the Eisner Award winning pop culture collector’s store known as “That’s
Entertainment” in Worcester, Massachusetts and a second store in Fitchburg,
Massachusetts. Some people have called me the “luckiest man in the comic book
business.” (I’m not) My stores have been around for over thirty years and it’s
been a long and interesting combination of events and people that have brought
these stores to this current place. It is not my intent to boast or brag about
my store or my life. I just want to tell you my story. In many instances, my
wife remembers things a little differently, but this is the truth as I remember
it.
The Current Cast of
Characters:
Paul Howley: age 48
Mal Howley: age 49
Adam Howley: my son, age 21
Cassy Howley: my daughter,
age 18
We were all
packed up and ready to begin our trip to move into our newly purchased home in
Florida. My sister Sharon and her youngest son Jake drove our Toyota Camry
packed with stuff and Cassandra, Mal and I rode in Cassy’s Toyota Highlander
packed with more stuff. We left our other car parked at our Alton Bay, New
Hampshire home. We’d somehow get it down to Florida some other time. We didn’t
all own cell-phones at that time and those who did have them were on
restrictive monthly plans with limited minutes available. So, I bought a set of
Motorola Walkie-Talkies so we could communicate between the two cars. We
stopped for the night after we had driven about ten hours.
The next day
we had a total of fourteen hours to go before we reached our new home. I
remember how excited I was as we left Georgia and entered Florida. It was the
beginning of a new chapter of our lives. A new place and new people.
The long ride
went smoothly but it was getting dark by the time we arrived in Jupiter,
Florida. We had no furniture or beds so we went to a local Wal-Mart and bought
some sheets and towels and all just slept on air-mattresses on the floor. Our
furniture and household items were scheduled to be delivered by the moving
company sometime the next day.
The next morning,
we got a call from the moving company. The driver would be arriving at our
property early that day. I explained to him that there was no way he’d be able
to drive into our property in a forty-foot long tractor trailer truck so he’d
need to park on the road and carry everything about fifty feet to our home. He
told me that he only had his fifteen-year-old nephew with him to help carry our
stuff. I expressed my “displeasure” with his unprofessional planning and urged
him to somehow find additional help. My contract with the moving company did
not require ME to help unload the truck. A couple of hours later he arrived
with some “day laborers” that he found from a nearby prison program. These two
guys worked very hard on a very hot and humid summer day in South Florida and I
was pretty upset when I found out that the moving company driver was only
paying them each twenty dollars for their hard work! (When the work was done I
gave them each fifty dollars and apologized to them for the terrible treatment
by the moving company driver.)
Around noon,
our elderly neighbor, Anne, came by to meet us and she generously brought us
pizzas, soda, paper towels, toilet paper and more! What a thoughtful lady!
We spent
several days unpacking our stuff but we really didn’t have much furniture….just
a couch, some chairs, a huge desk, and a few other small pieces. My sister was
a big help because she kept urging us to keep working. We did take some short
breaks to go to the ocean beach that was only six miles from our new home.
Swimming in the ocean in South Florida was very different than swimming in the
ocean in New England. Instead of freezing-cold ocean water, the temperature of
the water at this beach was in the mid-80s! On one of these visits to the
Jupiter Beach, my daughter Cassandra and her cousin Jake asked a lifeguard if
there were sharks in the water. He laughed and said, “Of course there’s sharks!
This is where they live!” It didn’t stop us from enjoying the beautiful ocean
though!
After Sharon
and Jake flew back home to New Hampshire, Cassandra started her first year of
college at Palm Beach Atlantic University. She immediately immersed herself
into the many activities available at the school along with her college courses
and theatre productions. She joined the competitive college cheerleading squad
and spent hours each week practicing. On the other hand, other than shopping
for furniture, Mal and I had very little to keep us busy. We really only knew
Anne (the nice lady across the street) but she rarely came out of her home.
We spent some
time each week shopping for furniture and other stuff we wanted for this home.
We had three bedrooms, a family room, and a dining room in our “main” house to
furnish and the guest house needed furniture for the bedroom, dining room and
family room. We also needed pool furniture and a table and chairs for the
outside area of the covered patio. But, as those of you who really know me will
understand, I was more concerned with buying televisions for the house and
getting our cable hooked up. Adelphia Cable (the now out-of-business cable company)
couldn’t get our cable turned on for a couple of weeks and we had to have a TV
available for them to establish the connection. We went to Circuit City (the
now out-of-business electronics store) and inquired about the new JVC “flat
screen” television. This TV was one of the first televisions to change from the
rounded tubes to a flat screen. It was still a cathode-ray television and it
was huge. I asked the sales clerk how much the TV weighed and he estimated that
it weighed about 100 pounds. I bought the TV and the clerk said he’d bring it
out to the front of the store while I went to get my Toyota Camry. When I
pulled up to the front of the store it was clear that the box was far too big
to fit in the car so we unpacked the TV and with the clerks help we struggled
to fit it into the back seat. Mal had to get in the back seat and push down on
the seat so the TV would just barely fit. The TV weighed about 200 pounds. We
carefully drove home with the TV in the back but when we arrived home we found
that we couldn’t safely get the huge, heavy television out of the car. It was
too heavy and awkwardly sized for me to carry alone and Mal couldn’t help carry
it. Eventually, we moved a plastic storage bin next to the car and worked at
sliding the TV out of the back seat onto the top of the bin. The problem was,
we didn’t know anyone in the area that could help us move this heavy
television. It sat in the garage, balanced on the top of the bin, for a couple
of weeks until the cable-guy arrived. It’s a strange thing to know no one
around you!
Picture: Sharks near the shore at the Jupiter, Florida beach!
