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Transcript of interview with Jelindo Tiberti by Stefani Evans and Claytee D. White, April 18, 2017

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2017-04-18

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As Jelindo Tiberti describes his childhood as the youngest of five children growing up on 15th Street, he chronicles a seemingly idyllic time of playing with a large group of neighborhood friends, of doing outdoor chores with his brothers, of spending summers at the family cabin in Utah, of high school dances, and as a high school junior, of meeting Sandee, whom he would marry within two months after they both graduated from the University of Southern California. He talks about his parents: about working for and with his namesake father; about taking his mother to her daily radiation treatments, about cooking his mother's recipes, and about his mother making sure her youngest child earned his college degree before he married. He explains the ubiquity of fencing and shares his experience of taking over Tiberti Fence Company, of retiring and selling the company, and of starting over with Red Star Fence Company. Throughout, Tiberti speaks to living with dyslexia: of attending an after-s

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OH_03173_book

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Tiberti, Jelindo A. Interview, 2017 April 18. OH-03173. [Transcript.] Oral History Research Center, Special Collections and Archives, University Libraries, University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Las Vegas, Nevada.

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i AN INTERVIEW WITH JELINDO A. TIBERTI II An Oral History Conducted by Stefani Evans and Claytee D. White The Building Las Vegas Oral History Project Oral History Research Center at UNLV University Libraries University of Nevada Las Vegas ii ©The Building Las Vegas Oral History Project University of Nevada Las Vegas, 2017 Produced by: The Oral History Research Center at UNLV University Libraries Director: Claytee D. White Editor: Stefani Evans Transcribers: Kristin Hicks, Frances Smith Interviewers: Stefani Evans and Claytee D. White Project Manager: Stefani Evans iii The recorded interview and transcript have been made possible through the generosity of the UNLV University Libraries. The Oral History Research Center enables students and staff to work together with community members to generate this selection of first-person narratives. The participants in this project thank the university for the support given that allowed an idea and the opportunity to flourish. The transcript received minimal editing that includes the elimination of fragments, false starts, and repetitions in order to enhance the reader’s understanding of the material. All measures have been taken to preserve the style and language of the narrator. In several cases photographic sources accompany the individual interviews. The following interview is part of a series of interviews conducted under the auspices of the Building Las Vegas Oral History Project. Claytee D. White Director, Oral History Research Center University Libraries University Nevada, Las Vegas iv PREFACE "I think because I couldn't read, I learned the gift of gab." As Jelindo Tiberti describes his childhood as the youngest of five children growing up on 15th Street, he chronicles a seemingly idyllic time of playing with a large group of neighborhood friends, of doing outdoor chores with his brothers, of spending summers at the family cabin in Utah, of high school dances, and as a high school junior, of meeting Sandee, whom he would marry within two months after they both graduated from the University of Southern California. He talks about his parents: about working for and with his namesake father; about taking his mother to her daily radiation treatments, about cooking his mother's recipes, and about his mother making sure her youngest child earned his college degree before he married. He explains the ubiquity of fencing and shares his experience of taking over Tiberti Fence Company, of retiring and selling the company, and of starting over with Red Star Fence Company. Throughout, Tiberti speaks to living with dyslexia: of attending an after-school program at UNLV—he called it "dyslexia school"—of developing verbal and mathematical skills to v compensate for being unable to read, and of struggling to study at USC. As he put it, "I used to study five, six hours, I would just go back to the dorms, and I would read and read and read and read and fall asleep and wake up and read and read and read."vi TABLE OF CONTENTS Interview with Jelindo A. Tiberti II April 18, 2017 in Las Vegas, Nevada Conducted by Stefani Evans and Claytee D. White Preface…………………………………………………………………………………..………..iv Childhood on 15th Street as youngest of five children; schooling at Crestwood Elementary School, Saint Anne's Catholic School; dyslexia and "dyslexia school"; boy chores and girl chores, mowing lawns, working at Verne's Fashions in the Fox Charleston Mall; working construction for father high school and college summers. Mother's cancer. Bishop Gorman High School and dyslexia. High school dances and dating ……………………………………………………..…………. 1–9 Mother, dining out, and cooking; college at UNLV and University of Southern California (USC); dyslexia and studying; organization and planning; meeting wife and marrying 1982; Tiberti Fence Company; hunting and retiring……………………………..……………………….…..……. 9–19 Red Star Drilling and Red Star Fence Company; wife, Sandee Tiberti; the ubiquitous metal fence; Father J.A. Tiberti's philosophy of work and Tiberti Fence Company………………..……. 20–29 vii 1 Today is April 18th, 2017. Claytee White and Stefani Evans are here with Jelindo Tiberti, who is going to spell his first and last names for us. Jelindo, J-E-L-I-N-D-O. A, middle initial. Tiberti, T-I-B-E-R-T-I. Roman numeral two. Oh, that's right. You're named after your dad. Speaking of your dad, why don't you tell us about your early childhood; where you were born and what your childhood was like and where you are in the family and all of that? I was born in Las Vegas, Nevada, at Las Vegas Hospital downtown Las Vegas. I was born December tenth of 1959. I was raised in the same home until I moved out when I was twenty-two years old and had graduated college. We lived on 1805 South 15th Street and that was between Oakey [Boulevard] and St. Louis [Avenue]. We lived next door to the Foleys on one side and the Mowbray family on the other side and the Von Tobels and the Binion family. They all had large families with lots of kids. We probably had fifteen or sixteen kids in our neighborhood. I had a great, great childhood in that old Las Vegas. We played outside every day, all day, until it was dinnertime. That was very much a daily routine, playing with all of our friends. Bicycles were very important, and we rode bikes like nobody's business. We had a great, great group of friends that grew up together on our block. We were always called the 15th Street Gang, and the gang back then was a little bit different than the gang term today. We were a gang because we were a gang of kids. So that was a very, very pleasant, great time in my childhood. My parents were terrific. I was the youngest sibling, Tito being the oldest and I was the youngest. I had a great upbringing in our family. Being the youngest it seemed like a lot of the problems were solved in the world, and I had pretty clear sailing being the youngest growing up. Everything bad that the other siblings did, I was the beneficiary to see that you didn't have to do 2 those things and you could skate around those issues. I learned what not to do very young. I had a great, great childhood growing up. I went to Crestwood Elementary School when I started in kindergarten and first grade. Mrs. Winterheimer was my first-grade teacher there. We used to walk from our home on 15th Street to Crestwood School, and when you were a little tike that was a long walk, and it was uphill both ways. We walked by the Jewish temple. I can't remember the name of that right this second. What was the Jewish temple? Temple Beth Sholom? Temple Beth Sholom. We cut through their parking lot every day, so thank God they were there; we got to shorten our walk just by that much. But I remember walking up Oakey Boulevard. We'd go up Oakey to 15th Street and then down home every day. Then after first grade I went to Saint Anne [Catholic School] on Maryland Parkway at Bonita [Avenue]. I went from first grade to eighth grade there. I liked school a lot, but I was not a very good student. I was always a C student. I had a great time, great childhood in school. I remember all my teachers—Mrs. Drennan, Mrs. O'Connor. But I had a great time in elementary school. I don't remember any issues. When I was finally in eighth grade... I have a problem with dyslexia and reading, and I really never learned to read nor write until I was about in eighth grade. At Saint Anne's, as soon as school was out, I remember I used to have to go—to UNLV to a dyslexia school. I went all the summer before my eighth grade and all my eighth grade year. The first time I learned to read and write was probably in eighth grade. So that was an odd time in my life when you could finally realize other people were actually getting ahead of you, and you couldn't figure out why. So that was a very strange time. 3 CLAYTEE: So no teacher had discovered that prior? I don't know if dyslexia was...That was a whole new thing back then. But discovered that you couldn't read? I don't recall one way or the other. But there was a program for it before you went into eighth grade. Yes. So that must have been kind of a relief to know that there was a reason for that; that there was a reason that you couldn't read. Well, when you grow up with it, as a child, I didn't care. All I wanted to do was play baseball, play football, and ride bikes. That's true. I couldn't care less about it. But, no, I do remember my mother sitting down with me, and it was a torture every night trying to get your homework done for the next day. My mother must have been a saint, because I was one of these kids that wouldn't sit still. I just didn't care to do schoolwork. I'd rather do anything but that. Yes, she must have been a saint when she sat down with me. But, yes, I never minded school. I had a great time in school and had lots of friends. Still to this day I have a very close friendship with a lot of my classmates. Matter of fact, Gary Ellis and Jaime Holcomb are two close friends of mine, and we went all through Saint Anne's together, and we still go to lunch at least once a month and we go to dinners quite a bit. We see each other regularly all of our lives. So I have great friendships still from first grade on. But that's kind of what I remember about Saint Anne's. Here again, Saint Anne's was only a couple of blocks from our house and we'd walk to 4 school every day. Back in Las Vegas that was just the way it was. These days now everybody is on a school bus. I never understood about school buses or ever wanted to do that because we walked. We always walked in a big group, in a big pack. We had a big pack, and that was fun from the time you left your house until you came home. Do you remember kids who came into Saint Anne's as new kids? Do you remember them that came in like in the fifth grade or...? Oh, sure. Here again, like I said, I think—looking back, I'm sure we tortured all the new kids just like still happens today in school, but back then you don't think you're doing anything when you're a young tike. Yes, we'd always have two or three new kids every school year. I remember in eighth grade Coach Tarkanian moved to UNLV, and Jodi Tarkanian was in our class. I think she got along just fine. Matter of fact, she's a close friend of mine still to this day. So I don't think we were terrible on new students, but I'm sure we made them go through their paces just like any other kids in any other schools, but I don't remember anything that was too serious with that. Did you work in the family business as a teenager? That's an interesting question, because when I grew up the boys had to work outside on the weekends, and the girls had to do everything inside, and that's just the way it was. I never made my bed. I never washed a dish. I'm okay with dishes today, but I still have never made a bed; that was one of those things. But, yes, the girls and my mother, they did all the housework and the boys and the men did the stuff outside, mowed the lawns and swept up and did all that kind of stuff, and that's just the way it was in our house. I remember the boys carried dishes in and stuff like that but we didn't really have to do the dishes. It was a great arrangement as far as I was concerned. I don't think anybody ever complained too much about it one way or the other, about 5 the chores in the family. But until eight grade I don't remember working out of the house. Then I think starting when I was a junior in high school, I remember mowing a lot of lawns for a lot of neighbors. I was the kid that pushed the lawnmower down the street and knocked on your door. I must have mowed thirteen or fourteen different houses during the summer and made a few bucks that way. And 15th Street had big lawns. Oh, yes. From what I remember it was just a summertime gig. I wasn't a full-time gardener by any means. I just pushed a lawnmower; that's all I ever did. I remember doing that. We'd walk to the corner of...Maryland Parkway and Sahara [Avenue] was the gas station. Gasoline, I think, was thirteen cents for a gallon of gas, and I'd fill up the gallon can of gas for thirteen cents. I remember that. That only lasted for a summer because that was a lot of work. But as far as working in my dad's business, when I finally got into high school—I had quite a few different jobs—but some summers I worked for my father in the construction business and I hated every day of that. That was torture when it was a hundred and fifteen degrees out. I wanted to be doing anything but that, but that's the way it was. I remember doing that. Then during the school year I worked at Verne’s Fashions and Jerry Shapiro was my boss and he owned, I think, five different stores around Las Vegas. After school I would go and unpack boxes of ladies' dresses and I would hang them up and steam them straight and then I'd put them in a van and I would deliver them to the five different stores, and I did that every day after school. It took me three or four hours every day after school. I had a blast doing that. I loved doing that. How did you get that job? That's an interesting job. That's a good question and I don't remember the total details. But in the Fox Charleston Mall on 6 Charleston [Avenue] and Bruce [Street]—that mall is not there anymore—there was a pizza joint. Of course, being a good teenage boy, I loved hanging out at the pizza place. Right across from the pizza place was Verne's Fashion. I think I just saw a help-wanted sign and stumbled in the door and said, "What are you looking for?" And they told me the position. I said, "I can do that." So I remember delivering women's dresses for a long time. All the ladies loved you. As a young man you'd walk in and all the ladies would fuss over you and stuff like that. It was always fun. So, yes, they were always nice to me and I was always nice to them. But I did that during high school. In the summers I would work construction for my father. I finally became a truck driver and during the summers I would deliver all the construction materials to the different job sites and tools and whatever. We would always have three or four different job sites going and we'd have to kind of feed them materials and tools and equipment all throughout the day, so I did a lot of that. Back then I remember delivering forklifts. The forklift used to tow the truck around. These days they don't deliver forklifts that way. But I remember driving a ton of forklifts around and that was a scary deal because when you would put on the brakes, the forklift would push you wherever it wanted to push you. So that was always an experience whenever you delivered forklifts. That was always a fun time. I seem to work during my younger years and then I always worked construction during my college years. One summer I did not work—my mother had cancer—in college. I used to take her to radiation treatments every day. Here again, I always had a good attitude with that. I would sit there and talk to the people. You could tell who was a cancer patient because they had 7 these purple lines drawn on them where the machines would focus their radiation on. So I'd sit there and talk to those types of people. I was never afraid to talk to them. I don't know what we'd always talk about, but I remember talking to cancer patients while I was waiting for my mother to come out. I was always amazed how when she got out we would go home and we'd have a quick lunch and then she would get tired. She always said it was like when you were at the beach on a Saturday and you got sunburned and by the end of the day you were just tired from the sun. She said that's the way it was every day is she was just tired from like partying all day out in the beach and sun. So I always remembered that. That was an interesting summer taking care of her and working with the different people that were around her and the doctor visits and all those kinds of things. That was an interesting time. How old were you? I must have been eighteen probably. Then once I graduated Saint Anne's—you want me to go on about high school? Sure. So I went on to high school and I went to Bishop Gorman High School, which was right next door to Saint Anne's at Oakey and Maryland Parkway. It's now the old campus. I played football my first couple of years in high school. I was a big kid when I was younger. I remember I quit growing about my freshman year and all the football players got bigger every year and then it wasn't fun anymore and the coach asked me not to try out because I was too small and I used to get killed. I remember getting knocked out a couple of times when I was younger. I had no problem quitting at that time. I thought the coach did me a big favor. Here again, I had a great time in high school. I loved all the kids. I loved going to school every day and playing with friends. Here again, in my freshman year and I was in special reading 8 with Sister Bethania. We had a class of about eight or ten of us that were in the same class. That never bothered me. A lot of kids said, "You're in the dummy class," or they'd tease you. I didn't care. I couldn't read, so that's the way it was. I remember Mr. Seif in high school. Mathematics, here again, they put me in pre-algebra and I didn't go right into algebra. But he was an extremely good teacher. I think I ended up with an A in that pre-algebra class. Mathematics I did great. I got A's all through high school in math, and I think it was all due to having one really fabulous teacher who taught me the basics and to remember the basics. So that was always a good time. I wasn't very good in reading, but I was good in good math. So I had a pretty good balance. I didn't feel bad one way or the other. But high school I was...I want to say a troublemaker, but not compared to today's troubles. We used to drink a few beers here or there or smoke a cigarette here or there; that was a big deal. We never really got into drugs or try to hurt people or shoot somebody. We used to get in fistfights, and we thought it was fun. Today, now, boy, you would think people are trying to kill each other. Back then we were just fighting, because we were boys, and that's what you did. It was fun. High school was really interesting. Then you turn sixteen and you're a sophomore and you like all the girls—that was a whole new experience in my life. I jumped right into all that. I liked dating and walking girls to football games and going to basketball games on Tuesdays. If there were girls at the wrestling match on Thursday, we went to the wrestling matches. So wherever the girls were, we went too. Yes, that was a fun time. Like I said, we were always in a pack, so it wasn't just me. Were there girls in the pack? Not really. Shannon Foley was my next-door neighbor. She was the closest thing to being in the 9 pack. She was one of the cheerleaders, so we were chasing her friends. So she was the closest thing to being in the pack for us. Did Bishop Gorman have a prom? Yes. I went to homecomings and proms. Did you go on the Strip the night of the prom? Yes. Back then, you asked a girl out, and you took her out. In today's proms, when my children went to the proms, it was different. There would be four or five couples who would get together and maybe rent a van or go to a big dinner or something like that. I think that's a little better than trying to be a boy and trying to impress one girl and trying to spend all the money at one place. I don't know. I liked homecomings, but it was too much back then. It was right when everybody wanted to rent a limousine. Man, I was pushing a lawnmower. I didn't want to spend money on a limousine for no girl. Are you kidding me? I don't know. Don't get me wrong, I had a good time with proms, but I think kids today have a better time with proms. It was a lot of pressure back then. I think I was—I don't want to say a leader of dating, but I was with all the other guys who were dating, and we were on top of the world and everything was great, but the pressure of trying to get all that together... Then a lot of friends, when I was kid, their parents worked in the casino business. So they could get comps in the casino, or they could get a deal or something like that. I paid full boat on everything. I just paid. At the end it was like, I don't know if that was worth it. But, no, proms were great. Don't get me wrong, I had a great time. Did your family ever go out as a family to any of the casino shows or dinners? No. No. My mother was raised in Garden City, Kansas, and she was raised during the Depression. We ate at home all the time. When I was growing up, once in a while—and I mean maybe three times a year—we might get to go to Fong's Garden. Fong's Garden was down on 10 Charleston almost to Fremont Street. That was the treat of the weekend. But going out to dinners, that was very rare. My mother was a very good cook. When I say the Depression, she grew up very, very poor. My mother taught us the value of a dollar when we grew up. I understood all that. Spending money back then... It was very strange. To my mother, if you wanted an expensive pair of shoes or a good bed, money wasn't an object. She spent money on things that you were going to have around. We had a cabin in Utah. When I was very little, Mom used to take us the day school was out, let's say June first; the very next day, June second, we would go up to the cabin. We would spend most of the summer up there, and Dad would go home and work during the week and then come up on weekends. She didn't mind having a second home and going places and stuff. But when we got there we didn't go out to dinner. We cooked at home. Spending money wasn't like today's world—fast food, no. That wasn't a part of the program. What did your mom cook? Wow, my mom cooked...a lot of good stuff. What was that one thing? She became a good Italian chef, though she was zero Italian. Spaghetti and meatballs from scratch, really good. Chicken Islander: she made this with pineapple and green peppers, Chicken Islander. It was kind of a Polynesian-type dinner that was good. We'd have everything from pork chops to baked chickens to... Do any of the boys cook some of the dishes that she made? Yes, myself. Actually I've learned to become—not being allowed in the kitchen as a kid—when I got back from college I got really interested. To this day I cook a lot of the meals. Just last Sunday was Easter Sunday, and I prepared the lion's share of the meal or helped my wife. My wife and I have always kidded around. She cooked to feed the family, and I cooked to create. So 11 I'd only cook one meal on a week; I would cook every Sunday. She would feed the family the rest of the week, because I went to work and there just wasn't enough time to cook by the time I got home. But, yes, I've always cooked for as long as I can remember—for a long time. I very much enjoy cooking. I always have and still to this day. I watch all the cooking shows and I read all the cookbooks. I work on cooking all the time just for fun. I learned the secret of cooking. It took me a long time to learn it, but the secret is to buy the best ingredients. Then it doesn't matter what kind of a cook you are, as long as you've got good stuff, it tastes good. You can't make a bad tomato taste any better than a bad tomato. So you buy a great-tasting tomato and you don't have to do much to it. That's one of the big secrets of cooking is getting the right food and picking it out. I was at Whole Foods last weekend and they had a new fruit from South America. It looks like a small pineapple, but it's the size of a baseball. I had never seen it. I asked the guy and he taught me all about it, and we ate one in the store. I bought a bunch of them. I'm constantly trying different foods and investigating what they are. We definitely have our staples. My mother, speaking of one of her recipes, she always made a flank steak out of flank, obviously. Still to this day I cook that and everybody loves that. That's always a great dinner. The way she made it? Oh, yes. How did she do it? Well, she marinated it, and it was just the marinade is really good. So that was the secret of that is the marinade. She did that, and then she did linguini and clams that we still have the recipe for. Also different soups that she had, and I still like doing all those. Cooking, I like to cook a lot. 12 That's one of my favorite things to do is prepare meals. So did you go to UNLV or did you go away? When I was at Gorman, like I said, I was never embarrassed about not being able to keep up, but I knew that I had to keep up. So when I was a senior in high school, I enrolled at UNLV. In my senior year I went and took English 101, because I knew my mother would be there to help me and drag me through it. So I would go to Gorman during the mornings and then go in the afternoons to UNLV. Then I took Economics 101 during my senior year. I think I took those two classes. Then during the summer I took another class at UNLV. So, yes, I attended UNLV. I did not graduate there, because I went to the University of Southern California in Los Angeles (USC). I went to school there. I did graduate in four years from USC. It was the toughest— Your father's school. My father went to school there, yes. It seems like ever since I left. USC was really hard to get into. But when I was going to school, if you could afford USC, you could go to school there. But they didn't try to save you, either. It was as hard as it could be. I remember I would study every night for five, six hours, and everybody else was partying, playing. I just had no comprehension how they could sit down and read. I'll never forget the first few days of college. Back then they'd say, "Okay, read chapters one through ten and we'll go over that on Thursday." I was used to high school. It's like, okay, this week we're going to do one chapter. When he said, "One through ten and we're going to cover it on Thursday," I was all ready to pack my bags. I'm going home because there's not a chance in the world. So like I said, when I said I used to study five, six hours, I would just go back to the 13 dorms and I would read and read and read and read and fall asleep and wake up and read and read and read. I kept going and going and going. When I told you I went in eighth grade to UNLV to dyslexia school—is what I call it because I didn't know what else it was—they taught me to use a ruler. What I would do is I would skip a sentence. I would read from left to right and then when I went back to the left, I would skip a line. So after a paragraph, what do I care? It didn't make any sense, so I didn't care. So I remember learning in eighth grade to use a ruler. When I got to college, it was like, wow. So I started using a ruler. But college was very, very tough. I don't think I ever got any better grade than a C all through high school, and, trust me, they were probably generous to give me the C. They probably wanted to give me a few worse grades than that; I think they felt bad for me. Except for ballroom dancing, which was my PE class, I think I got an A in that. Here again, I didn't mind dancing with girls at all. I kind of liked that. But you got out in four years. You graduated in four years. I graduated in four years. What was your major? I graduated from the business school and I got a finance degree and I specialized in real estate appraisal and real estate. I did have to go to school. I took a summer school class every year through college because there were some years it was like, man, I can only take three classes this semester; I can't take four. I couldn't do it. But, here again, I knew that because I had taken English 101 and Economics 101, I already had a jump start. I planned my life that way where I didn't have to [struggle]. You have to do it if you're going to graduate. So I didn't like procrastinating and trying to push things off until later. I'd rather get them done early and get the 14 head start. So who was that mentor that had you thinking that way? I'll bet it was my mother. I wouldn't say that we talked about it like we are here now. My mother taught me a lot of life's good lessons that a lot of times I remember, like every kid. I walked into my mother one day—I was in sixth grade—and said, "I hate school. I'm going to quit, and I'm going to go to another school." She said, "Yes, and then something bad is going to happen at that other school, and you're going to hate that school, and you're going to quit that school. Then you're going to hate the new school. So when is it going to stop?" It was like, she's right. She always had those quick comebacks. It's like, get over it. Pretty smart lady. Yes, she was very smart with that kind of stuff. Good common sense. Yes. So what did you do when you came back from USC? I'm missing a big gap in this story and I might as well stop and step back a little bit. When I was sixteen and a half I was in...I remember what it was; I think it was English class. A girl walked into class and she was a new student. And being the nice guy that I am, I started dating her right away, and she's been my wife ever since. That was junior year in high school, and I was sixteen and a half. We graduated Gorman High School together and then her family moved to Southern California. We dated when I was going to USC. Finally after my second year at USC, she moved to USC. She was going to Riverside City College, and when she got done with that then she transferred over to USC. So we went to school together our last couple of years. Then as soon as we graduated from college—which my mother threatened me that she 15 was going to wring my neck if I got married before college was done after all the work she had put in—my wife and I finished college June first or whatever that is, when I was twenty-two years old, and we got married August 21st. You waited two whole months. Yes, something like that. So we've been married ever since. So as far as childhood and stuff, like I said, I had a great elementary school, great friends, great high school. College, a lot of people, they say they go to college and they have a great college career. I loved high school better. I had a lot of fun in high school. There was no cares in the world. When I got to the college that's when work started. I agree. I had to go to work. So college was tough. I came back probably my senior year in college probably after Christmas. I went into the office with my father. At the time I think there was my father and my brother Tito and another brother was there and brother-in-law was there. I walked in there. They wanted me to go to work with them. We owned another company called Tiberti Fence Company. I went and talked to the manager there, Roy, who I knew; I really liked Roy. He said, "I'm quitting in one year. You should really come to work here and become the manager." I thought to myself, this is probably the smartest thing to do. I don't have to put up with all these other people, and I get to come over here. So I went back to college and thought about it. When I accepted his offer, the day I got done with college I came back and I started. I got done on Friday, and I started work on Monday with Roy in the fence company. He taught me everything he knew in that first year. Roy was very good at his job. He was a great manager, and he was there for thirty years. What was his last name? 16 Evans. Oh, what a great name. I know. Roy Evans. I still really admire Roy. Finally, after a year Roy did quit, just like he said. He trained me for about a year. First of all, I was a big shot then because I was out of college. I had my year of training, and life was good. I was married. I thought I was a big shot. So that next year when I took over for the first time, that was the worst year the company ever did. What happened? So whenever you think you're a big shot, the good Lord comes down and He teaches you all about being a little humble. He teaches you how to be a little humble in life. Boy, did I really—when I got the financial statements after a year, it was like, wow, I am not the smartest guy on the planet here. I thought I was, but now I know that I'm... So what do you think happened? Well, reality happens. I was going along the way I thought it should go, and then I kind of...I don't know...I just looked and decided that I've got to do it differently, and I did do it differently. I think also I didn't understand about economy. It was like being in Las Vegas in 2009, after the big recession. I don't care if you're