Joe Nastus loves his hometown of New Brunswick and details many fond memories of growing up in the area. Joe worked full-time in the plumbing business, owning a company that he sold in 2015. He discusses the many reinventions of New Brunswick that he has witnessed over the years. He is involved with Rotary fundraising, likes to take cross-country motorcycle trips, and is earning his private pilot’s license.
“But, um, yeah, it was, it was amazing. With all the tragedy and scary stuff going on in North Brunswick, I still felt sa– felt safe in the house. And, uh, you could– you could ride around the block as a kid, and if you fell off your bike and skinned your knee, a neighbor would come over and doctor you. And there was no problem with the– a parent coming back and saying, ‘Well, why did you touch my son? Why did you do this? We’re going to sue you. We fell on your property.’ There was none of that kind of stuff, I mean. You know, if you fell, you were– you were, you fell! You know? It was an accident. And people understood that. People took care of one another. Um. I don’t see that kindness today.”
ANNOTATIONS
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TRANSCRIPT
Interview conducted by Dan Swern
New Brunswick, New Jersey
June 7, 2023
Transcription by Hannah M’Lynn
[00:00:00]
Uh, today is Wednesday, June 7th. It's 11:13 AM. We're here at coLAB Arts at 9 Bayard St. My name is Dan Swern and I am interviewing?
Joe Nastus.
Joe, thank you again for making the time to share your story with us today.
My pleasure. Always like to talk about the New Brunswick area where I grew up. Um, I was born at the Middlesex Hospital, which is now Robert Wood Johnson Barnabas et al. I've lived in North Brunswick until recently, until the last three years. I now live in Whippany and, uh, we also have a little small beach house in Wildwood Crest. But I grew up on Cleremont Ave. in North Brunswick and that’s C-L-E-R-E-M-O-N-T, which I don't know how they ever came up with that spelling, but it's– that's what it was. And it's, uh, right up the street from Babbage Park where I spent most of my youth. They had a wonderful parks program. Um, and, uh, the Township provided well that way. My mother's name is Sadie Nastus, and she grew up on a farm in South Brunswick. She was born in 1913, and my father's name was Joseph. And he was born in Somerset, Pennsylvania in 1910, and the family, my father's family moved to New Brunswick sometime in the late teens. Uh, my father's mother, uh, passed away when he was three. And, uh, they, his mother and father, emigrated from a little town in Sicily called Rocco Baldino, which is just west of Messina in Sicily. And so, uh, Grandpa Nastus, after Grandma passed away, they had three children. They had my father, had two older sisters. And my father was three, so, they were kind of dispersed to relatives while Grandpa went back to Sicily. We don't know exactly why. Maybe he was planning to bring the family back there, or maybe he was looking for a wife. Uh, we don't know what the cause of, uh, his wife, my grandmother's death was. Uh, we can only suspect that it was either influenza or childbirth, since she seemed to be having children one after the other. She's buried somewhere in Somerset, Pennsylvania, near Johnstown. Uh, we don't know exactly where, but our search will continue this year with my brother and sister. I have, uh, an older brother, Tony, who's thirteen years older than me, and a sister, Joanne, is seven years older than me. Uh, Grandpa, uh, came back to the United States from Sicily, and after a year or so, the family had fixed Grandpa with the– a widow. And, uh, the widow had four children. Grandpa had three. And then together, they had three more. So, we had a your’s, mine, and ours family.
[00:03:08]
And with that, they moved to, uh, the New Brunswick area. Uh, my father, ah, worked at several different kinds of jobs. He worked in an asbestos factory. He worked with Delco Battery. Um, his last position was working at a plumbing supply business, Grant Plumbing Supply, uh, which was, uh, founded in New Brunswick in 1933. Buy a man called Edward Lafave. Edward– Edward Lafave married my mother's sister. And so, my mother went to work at Grant Plumbing Supply, uh, in New Brunswick. And that's when my mother and father met. At the Plumbing supply, in 1933. They were married in 1936. The reception was held at the Roger Smith Hotel, uh, which is no longer there. It's now the site of the Heldrich. Um, and life began in, uh, in North Brunswick for my parents. Uh, so, that's– that's sort of a little bit of the background or history of my father's family. My mother's family, again, uh, her grand– her grandparents came from, uh, outside of Naples in the Basal Arcata area of– of Italy. And they immigrated to New York City, and they were farmers at the lower end of Manhattan when that, when that was all farmland. And then my mother's mother was born in Manhattan, and then they immigrated to, or moved to South Brunswick, Sandhills, where they were farmers in Sandhills. And that's– my mother always said, you know, “We raised all kinds of animals, chickens and pigs, and we used everything on the pig except the squeal.” My mother had a wonderful sense of humor, and I'll tell you some stories about my mother as well, later on. So they– My mother got an education, uh, at New Brunswick High School, graduated from New Brunswick High School and was on Livingston Avenue. My father had an eighth grade education but did very well for himself working at the plumbing supply. Um, Edward Lafave, the owner was a– a fair and– and good boss. And also, I guess, eventually brother-in-law. And so we, uh, we lived in– in North Brunswick. We– we moved, um, three times, they were houses one right after another in a row on Cleremont Ave. I never moved off of Cleremont Avenue, so. My father just liked that area. Um. My mother, uh, used to say there's a big difference between my– my siblings and myself.
[00:06:00]
Um, but, you know, but my mother always told me that she planned to have children at the age of 40, so I kind of went with that. Um, I remember coming down to, uh, New Brunswick. We had a– a neighbor next to us, a Dave Paladino, and, uh, Davy was my age. And he had a brother, Richard, and, uh, his father Dave had a woman's and men's beauty salon that was right next to the State Theater. It was just one door north of the, uh, theater. And so, we would, uh, one of our parents would drop us off at the State Theater when they showed movies. I think the first, uh, movie I ever saw was the original Flubber and, it was, we’d– we’d stay and watch the movies and then go next door to the beauty salon. And Mr. Paladino would then drive us home. And the first time I ever had pizza was at their house. My mother was always, we always cook. We– we didn't go out to dinner much or order out much in those days, but Paladino seemed to do that quite frequently, so that was my first taste of pizza. Uh, the Paladinos eventually moved to Florida. And we've sort of lost contact over the years. A little bit about New Brunswick. Um, just a little bit further north, one, 100 feet north of the State Theater on the corner of New Street and George Street was, um, a beautiful department store called Arnold Constables. Arnold Constables had a parking deck on the roof, so you would drive up this, uh, go down New Street and you'd make the right hand turn and wind up to the parking lot, uh, on the roof and then take the elevator down. It was just a one floor, just, department store, but it– it had everything. And it was quite– it– it was really quite, uh, lovely. And the salespeople were all professional sales people. They, you know, they weren't part timers. They weren't, uh, kids. Nothing against that. But these were, this is how these people made their living. A little further around the corner was a store called, um, P.J. Young's. I believe it's a Law Offices now, along with others. Uh, and that was– that was, had two stories to it. And that was the only place where you could see Santa Claus, uh, during the Christmas times. There's only one Santa Claus. There weren't really any in the late ‘50s, shopping centers filled with Santa Clauses, that sort of thing. So we, my mother, would take me down to P.J. Youngs and we'd go downstairs, this huge staircase. And down the bottom of the staircase was Santa Claus. And so that's, uh, what we did at Christmas time. Uh, Christmas didn't really start for us until after Thanksgiving, and I don't remember any of the stores being decorated in New Brunswick before then, uh. But it was really quite festive.
[00:09:06]
Uh, we would shop for the Christmas tree the day before Christmas, sometimes Christmas Eve. Uh, my father would getting one of the pickup trucks from the plumbing supply, and– and my brother and I, we’d go off to some place to pick up a Christmas tree that was a precut tree. Usually Veal Howards, which was next to the old orange cart near Saint Mary's Church on, uh, the corner of Remsen Avenue and Sanford Street. And, uh, we’d come home and decorate the tree. And my father was less of a perfectionist about decorating the house or the tree than my brother. So arguments would always ensue. My brother, everything had to be symmetrical, color-coded. Uh, he was eventually turned out to be an engineer, and that's we– we knew that was going to be the eventuality with my brother, and he had a very successful career at that. One of the other stores I remember in New Brunswick was, uh, Wolfson’s, which was, I guess, became Nadelson Wolfson's. And it was a two-story of lower half was– was a men's store. Very fine men's store and, and haberdashery. And upstairs was, um, young men’s store. And also where you could buy Boy Scout and Cub Scout clothing. Was kind of unique, I guess. And so, that's when I became a Cub Scout and Boy Scout. We’d go to Wolfson’s and go upstairs, and that's where I would get my, uh, my scouting equipment. Um. In the late ‘50s, very early ‘60s, I don't remember my mother having a checkbook. Certainly no credit cards. Um, my father would get a paycheck in, you know, not a paycheck. Would get an envelope with cash every Friday and, um, being the good husband that he was ,would turn the– the envelope to my mother who knew how to handle the finances, and she would divvy up the– the money, you know, for the, uh, utilities. And, uh, there was no paying online or mail in or anything of that nature. We’d come down to New Brunswick. Sometimes we just take the bus, walk out to Livingston Ave. and take the McCullough Drive bus to New Brunswick and get off the bus somewhere, um, either by Arnold Constables or a little further down. And we’d walk to the public service building, which I believe was, um, where Cousin’s Restaurant is now, on that corner. And a lot of things were done that way, were just paid in cash and done by hand. Um. It was– it was a much simpler time. And New Brunswick was a– a very easy place to– to get around. It felt very safe. Um. I went to North Brunswick School’s Elementary School, Parsons, the original Parsons, which was across the street from the municipal building now, which is– which has been torn down, much to my dismay. I don't know why they had to tear that building down. It was a perfectly good building for many years. And, uh, then they built another Parsons school in the park.
[00:12:18]
And, uh, the sidewalk to Parsons, to school, and we lived right up the street from Lynnwood School, which was the junior high school. At that time, it was 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th and 9th grade. North Brunswick didn't have a high school at the time, so, when it came time to go to high school, I had the choice to go to New Brunswick High School, uh, which was—the second New Brunswick High School was on, between 12th and 11th Street on– on Livingston Ave. And that was within walking distance. Or, I could have gone to Saint Peter’s, um, which my cousins definitely wanted me to go to Saint Peter’s. They said, you know, “Things might turn.” It was the now the late ‘60s and things were happening. Um, Robert Kennedy had been assassinated to Doctor Martin Luther King in 1968 had been assassinated. Things were starting to heat up in the New Brunswick area and all over the country. Um. During the Civil Rights Movement and, uh, my, my mother just left the decision to me. But maybe that wasn’t– wasn't good judgment on her part. But, you know, I just said, “Geez, I’m just gonna go for all my friends are going. We're going to New Brunswick High School!” So. That was settled. So in, uh, in, uh, 19– fall of 1968, I started New Brunswick High School. And things were fine for the first year, um, maybe two. And then in 1970, uh, late ‘69, ‘70, things kind of really erupted at the school. There were lots of, lots of tensions, uh, between different races. And became almost unsafe. At some point, uh, we ended up having guards in the hallway. Uh, my senior year, we went into split sessions. Things were a little bit better by, uh, by 1971 in the school. But still, if you weren't in your classroom when the bell rang, you were locked out of the classroom and had to go down to the office. Things were that– they just didn't want people wandering in the hallway. Um, anytime there was a– a scuffle or something, you know, school was ended and, uh, the plumbing supply had then moved from, uh, 1 Little Burnett Street in New Brunswick to Joyce Kilmer Avenue in North Brunswick between 12th and 13th Street. So, we were right on the corner. The high school’s right on the corner of 12th Street. So, I’d walk out of school and walk over to the plumbing supply, and, uh, that's where my mother had returned to work after my father's passing in, uh, in 1967.
[00:15:04]
Uh, he passed away, unfortunately, a young man. But, you know, with all of these asbestos, acid, and everything else that he had worked with all his life. When he was a young boy, after he graduated the 6th or 8th grade, they put him in the coal mines to work in Pennsylvania. So, he kind of stepped on every life hazard you could, uh, in, in life and it, it took its toll on him in his mid 50s. But my mother went on to reinvent herself. Went back to work at the plumbing supply after a twenty or twenty-five year hi– hiatus. Our school was now in split sessions in 1970 and I thought, “This is great! I've got the afternoon off, hangout with my friends,” and my mother said, “Oh, oh by the way. I– I got you a job. You're gonna work at the plumbing supply after school.” You know, so, I'd walk across the street after school and started working at Grand Plumbing Supply in those days. And, uh, it was– it was good by then. Ed Lafave’s son, Robert, was in the business with him. He was a Wharton School graduate. Brilliant young man. Um, high school, also my cousin and we, uh, had a nice relationship. Um, Edson, Edward soon passed away, in his 80s. Actually, he died at his desk in the office. Um, but, he was, it was his dream. It was something that he loved to do. He loved to be there every day, and he was good at it. Um, Bob, his son, may not have been his dream, but he did take over the– the business at one point, and I worked on and off for them during my college years. I went to Middlesex College, uh, for my associates degree, and then moved on to what was then Trenton State College. Finished my bachelor's degree. I entered into the graduate program at, uh, Trenton State College and I finished my first semester. And was starting my second semester, and Bob Lafave called me and he says, “I need to talk to you.” I said, “Well, what would you like to talk about as well?” He says, “Well, let's meet.” And so we talked. And, um, he knew I had some experience in the business, and he needed somebody, I guess, that could help him out. Most of his employees were starting to age. And, um, he made me an offer and he said, “You know, you're into your next semester, or whenever,” he says, “if you want, uh, we’ll make this arrangement, You can come work for me and I'll see that you're taken care of.” And, uh, that's what happened. I ended up going full time in the plumbing supply business in 1977. Um. Eventually, uh, Bob wanted to sell the business, but at that time, we’d taken on another employee who helped manage with me. And, um, they'll stand back and I ended up purchasing the business that– that– that business that my mother and father had met at in 1933. Which I thought was kind of ironic, but, uh. Very pleased to have done that and had a great business partner for about forty years. Um, until we sold the business in 2015, uh, to a nice company, but by then, we had grown to three stores, and we had over 100 employees. And that was, in– in– right on the border of North Brunswick and New Brunswick. If you cross the street ten feet you were then in New Brunswick from where we were.
[00:18:39]
Um, so, that's a little bit about my– my career. Um, New Brunswick had changed, gone through many iterations. Especially after all the rioting. Um. French Street then started to change. Um, it was boarded up for many years. Businesses were gone. There was a– a new group of– of immigrants coming into the country. Um. Very industrious, hardworking, family oriented, and little by little this group started renting, uh, storefronts. Taking care of their own, you know, with food, uh, with barber shops, all kinds of things. Flower shops, clothing stores. And within a few short years, French Street became vibrant again. It was just reinvented as New Brunswick was starting to reinvent itself. The– the Hyatt was built. Um, Johnson and Johnson built their world headquarters on French Street, which I remember, um, there being. I think it was the Rivoli Theater. Used to be– we had several theaters. We had the State, um, the Strand, Rivoli. And for the life of me I can't remember the– the fourth one. Uh, Sears Roebuck used to be on French Street before they built their big store out on Route 1. Um, there was a, um, wonderful luncheonette called Hockey’s Luncheonette. Made the best pastrami and corned beef. I– I wish it was there today because it's, we’re hard pressed to find a good pastrami and corned beef today. But that's that area, all that renaissance in that area. Just built up. Um, and really turn the– the city around with there being new housing. The theater changed from being a movie house to an actual theater again. Um, although the original pipe organ that was installed in the, uh, in the theater was no longer there. That was installed sometime in the 1930s. It was a magnificent, uh, Kimball or Moller pipe organ that used to be in the theater itself. Uh, the theater itself has changed over the years, gone through many renovations. Uh, one lovelier than the other, bringing it back to its original glory. Um, other theater groups have, have, uh, arrived in New Brunswick, where the old YMCA used to be. Is, uh, was, it turned into a theater group and several, several arts in New Brunswick were happening all of a sudden. It just seemed and, um, let’s take a break.
[00:21:23]
[END OF RECORDING ONE]
[BEGINNING OF RECORDING TWO]
[00:00:00]
Some of the other stores I remember in, uh, New Brunswick, uh. Woolworths and Newberries, where you can sit at the counter and, for probably less than a dollar, have lunch. Uh, there was a Buster Brown Shoe Store on Church Street somewhere near where Steakhouse 85 is located. Um, Sosen's Jewelers on, uh, on George Street is now, that exact building has been reconfigured, is now Harvest Moon Brewery, and it's always neat when I go in there just to remember what it looked like when– when it was the jewelry store. Uh, but that was small things I remembered when I was, you know, when I was a youth growing up in, uh, North Brunswick. Um, had a wonderful youth growing up. Uh, my parents were, uh, very active in the community. My father was one of the founders of the North Brunswick Rescue Squad. My father and several other men, uh, chipped in and bought a used ambulance. The town didn't have any, uh, rescue at that time. I guess they relied on New Brunswick, or possibly Milltown may have had a rescue. Uh, one of the fellows, uh, he and his brother owned a body shop in North Brunswick and they kind of restored the vehicle and, uh, so we had one ambulance with no place to store it, so it was kept in various home garages. Uh, during the– the mid to late 50s, occasionally, you know, if someone was on vacation, the ambulance would end up in our driveway or garage. Phone calls were made to alert, uh, members of the Rescue Squad to go on a call. Eventually, there was a– a bell system that was installed. I remember my father had one at his office and one by his bedside. It would go off at all hours of the night and up he would go and put on his white, uh, overalls. The North Brunswick Rescue Squad in red and his black cap, and off they would go. And, uh, he serviced the community for many years that way. My mother worked on the– with the Ladies Auxiliary to do fundraising for the Rescue Squad. And then in 1959, they built, uh, the first building for the North Brunswick Rescue Squad on Ridgewood Ave. And I remember being there for the, uh, the cornerstone, uh, ceremony and the opening of the Rescue Squad. By then they had two ambulances. They were Cadillac ambulances, red, white. And, uh, they– they kept them running fairly well for many years. Um. My parents were, uh, volunteered for many things in the community. My father was a little too old to participate in World War II, um, but he did participate in, um, when they had drives for rubber and other metals and that sort of thing for collection. Uh, so, he did his part for the war in World War II. As I say, they were, they were very generous to a fault. Uh, my father was doing well. My mother was, uh, at that time, a stay-at-home mom with us three kids.
[00:03:28]
And, um, they had lots of friends. And they were a lot younger than them, and they just seemed to have started a little later in life with children than– than their friends. And, uh, if their friends would get a new apartment or a new home and they needed a piece of furniture, I remember coming home and the dining room furniture was gone one afternoon. And, uh, “Mom, what happened?” “Well, so and so just bought a new home or just rented an apartment and they needed a– a dining room set and we were planning on getting a new one anyway.” And so, periodically furniture would leave the house and then new furniture would– would arrive somehow, and that was, that was kind of neat growing up. Uh, lots of, lots of kids on our block, on, um, on Claremont Ave. Uh, lots, stickball in the street. Again, we were right up the street from Babbage Park, who had great programs, you know, and I'd leave early in the morning and, uh, you know, by 4:00 o'clock or so, um, I was on my way back, never to return home, you know, not even for lunch. We would play or do some– I don't know how we, but we ate. Maybe there was something at the park that they had for us, but that was always, that was always fun. I had a really great childhood growing up. The schools in North Brunswick were– were just marvelous. I remember the– the– the teachers were just very caring and nurturing. Um, I remember my third grade teacher, Mrs. Gorgous. It was her first year as a, uh, teacher. She was a first year third grade teacher and she was a lot younger than the other teachers, uh, that were at the school, and very enthusiastic, and we did things. We put on a– a play. We put on The Nutcracker Suite play. We made Father’s Day gifts out of wood and old tin cans and Mother's Day gifts, uh, with bottles, with all kinds of bath salts. She was very creative and very, very loving woman. Wonderful person. That same year, we had a– a brand new student teacher by the name of Pete Maloof. And, uh, Pete was our, Mr. Maloof, as I still call him, uh, was our, our gym teacher. And he was, he went on to teach in the North Brunswick school system and Parsons, and then mostly in Linwood School until his retirement, and, uh, was a wonderful in– influence. Helped me, you know, in baseball and also golf. I always remember the phrase that he used to use in baseball. He would always say, “See the bat, hit the ball, see the bat, hit the ball.” And so when I play golf, that's what my mantra is, “See the club, hit the ball,” thinking of Mr. Maloof. Uh, again, his– his brothers own the, uh, the car dealerships in town, so they– they be– went on to become a very prominent, uh, and prosperous family in the community.
[00:06:26]
Uh, yeah. Growing up was, was just great. Of course, the shock of losing my father, you know, when I was 13 years old was, was tough. And, uh, my sister that was in October of ‘67, and my sister was getting married in February of ‘68 and, um, my father, on his dying bed pretty much wanted, told my mother, “This, you have to go through with this.” You know? “She's getting married. Just, this has nothing to do with me. I'm sorry I'm not gonna be there. But, um.” And so my sister was married in February 12th, 1968 and, uh, the celebration went on and my mother went back to work at Grant Plumbing Supply shortly after that, after a long hiatus. I think I mentioned that earlier. And worked until her retirement in, um, she turned 65. She told my cousin Bob, uh, that, um, her, her busy schedule and travel were, the work was just interfering with her lifestyle at this point and she had to retire. And then, she went on to live a long life. Never remarried. Uh. Lived to be 92. She drove until she was 89 years old, which was a very scary thought for all of us. She was developing cataracts in her mid 80s, and I remember going to the eye doctor with her, and the doctor says, you know, “Mrs. Nastus, you, are you still driving?” She says “Yes, oh, yes!” He says, “Well, your cataracts are bad enough that I'd recommend that you don't drive anymore.” She says, “Well, I can still see the big cars.” [laughs] So that was, that was my mother's humor and, uh, my mother would never say no. She would always say, “Well, yes. I, I could.” You know, it was never no. It was, “Yes, I could.” But my mother knew what she always wanted, and my father was the same way. He was a, a very content person. Always knew what he wanted. Um. Always, always had a wonderful time with, uh, my mother. They, uh, they never failed to, to go out on a, on a Saturday night with, either, it was friends. There was a little place down the street from us on Livingston Ave called Candido's Restaurant. It was an Italian restaurant. And Joe Candido was the owner. My father was very good friends with Joe. Um, and they had entertainment on Saturday nights. And one night after, I don't know, quite a while, um, they made friends with some of the members of the band, and there was a woman, Julia Augustina. Julia lived in, um, in the lower end of Manhattan. But she would commute in on a Saturday and Chris, the music would go on till 2:00 o'clock in the morning and, God, God knows when she would drive back. And so my parents just said, you know, “We, we have an extra room if you want to just stay overnight with us.”
[00:09:30]
And so, I mean, Julie, remember, only, didn't really know them well. But, uh, so Julie started staying with us, and, uh, eventually she'd bring her wardrobe and would hang in the basement, you know, in a– in a nice room we had. Uh, and Julie and my parents became fast friends for many, many years. And, um, she was a marvelous performer, had almost an operatic-type voice and she never married but was, uh, just loved us kids. She was just wonderful. Uh. Julie influenced me in such a way that, Julie had, uh, polio when she was a young girl and had lost the use of her left arm after surgeries, and that her arm kept twisting and she had to have several surgeries to kind of counteract the effects of– that polio had had on her. Many years later, uh, I became a Rotarian in New Brunswick area and Rotary had a program called Polio Plus, which is the worldwide eradication of polio. And they have been very, very successful, although it is not completely gone. It's only in, in, uh, Pakistan and I, I believe, uh, one other country, and there is just very few cases. This has been going on for almost thirty years and billions of dollars have been spent on it and I donate to it every year, as most Rotarians do. There's a program called, um, Every Rotarian Every Year. Uh, and billions of dollars are put together. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has also donated hundreds of millions of dollars towards this program. So that, meeting Julie and then finding this program, uh, really was, I think, a good way of remembering her. Uh, she was such a stellar person. Of course she's passed on many years now. Um. But I still remember, as she sang at all of our weddings, my brother and my sister, at my wedding and, um, well, speaking of weddings, we had my– my father and his siblings all lived, almost all of them within walking distance of our house. So we had tons of cousins. And my father being the oldest of the males was kind of the matriarch of the family. Uh, his one sister lived in Virginia. One sister lived in Highland Park, and one other step brother lived in Queens, but other than that everyone else was within walking distance of the house.
[00:12:19]
So, during the holidays, our house was always full with cousins, aunts, and uncles. And, uh, one of my favorites, my father's sister, she was one of the, uh, ours. The– the last of the three that were, that were, uh, part of the family. Aunt Kate. She married a fellow by name of Jack and, uh, Aunt Kate was pretty much 4 by 4 in size and Jack was as tall and thin like a string bean. Uh, they were the most marvelous entertainers and, and, aunts and uncles. They had a swimming pool which we could walk to, and we were always invited to Aunt Kate and Uncle Jack. And Uncle Jack was a real renaissance man. He was a chef. He was once a professional chef. Um, he was now a professional tailor and cutter working in a coat factory in Perth Amboy. Uh, he could dance. He was once a professional singer. Uh, just, just one of these guys that just could do anything. It was just a real personality. And Uncle Jack also sang in all of our weddings too, “When You're Smiling.” That was one of his, his, uh, part of his repertoire. So we’d go to Aunt Kate, Uncle Jack's, swimming, and Aunt Kate would ask us, uh, “You, you kids, are you a little bit hungry?” “Yeah, Aunt Kate, we could eat!” So they kept going. “Jack, can you make the kids something?” So that was, that was Aunt Kate and Uncle Jack. But they were the most marvelous dancers together. You'd see them at a wedding or some event and the– the floor would just part and they were off. Great, great relatives. Uh, of course we had the other part of it. The Nastus family. Which was an interesting group of people. Uncle Carmen, uh, who lived around the corner, and they, Aunt Sarah, they had four kids. Oh, all grew up to be very successful, uh, wonderful parts of society. They were, they– they had a tough time growing up. Uncle Carmen, uh, did other things, other than work most of the time, but was. Had some problems. He had served in World War II. Um. Had– had other other problems growing up, and Aunt Sarah really kept the family together and, uh, but it was, you know, amazing the way they, they really came out so wonderful after such a difficult upbringing. Uh. All the other cousins have– have done very well for themselves. Um, sorry to say many of them have passed on as, now as I reach my– my 70th birthday. You know, a lot of my other cousins have passed on all the aunts and uncles are gone and, uh, my sister and I– I talk to every week, along with my brother. You know, we– we often say, uh, you know, the– all the characters are gone. Who are going to be the characters now?
[00:15:27]
You know, and so. My sister says, well, she says, “I think you and I probably are the– the characters in the family now.” I said, “No, definitely brother Tony is the character in the family now!” My– my 81 year old brother, uh, who is still a– a paramedic. Um, still rides on the back of a fire truck or drives the fire truck. He jumps in and out of medevac helicopters, passes his physical every two years. He is, uh, an amazing, uh, just an amazing person, fit person. Obviously never abused his health in any way. And has a lovely wife and two children. I have two children. My daughter Kate and my son Michael. My daughter Kate is a 4th grade math and science teacher in Somerset. She lives in the historic East Millstone area. And she's winding up her school year this year. My son lives in, uh, Boca Raton, FL. And, uh, does something with artificial intelligence and security programs for a pharmaceutical company. And as he says, “I'm not quite sure what I do.” He says, “but they pay me a lot of money to do it, and so I continue.” [laughs] Um. They– he's married. No children yet. And my daughter is still single. But they both have wonderful lifestyles and wonderful friends. And, uh, and that's– that's all. I could only hope that they would, you know, if they have children, that their– their childhood, uh, would be as wonderful as mine. I hope that I was able to give them, my wife and I were able to give them a, a wonderful childhood like we had had. Uh. I– I don't know. I don't know where else to go from here.
Do you wanna share anything about your own relationships?
Um. [pause] Well, I was. I was married in 1981 and, uh, divorced around two– 2006, 2007. Um. My wife was a– was a good person. There were just some things that– that we couldn't, I couldn't let slide. But she did a lot to encourage the children. It was really her doing that gave them their love of– of learning and reading. I'm not much of a reader, but my children are voracious readers and were wonderful students. She really impressed that upon them, so.
[00:18:11]
Uh, to her credit, I give her credit for that every day. I was single until just two years ago, uh, when I happened to meet a wonderful woman at a Rotary Club holiday party in, uh, in Madison. And, um, a mutual friend of ours in– introduced us and, um, we sat down and had dinner together that night at the party, and talked, and decided it might be a good thing, maybe we'll meet again and we'll have dinner or something. And so a month or two went by and we got together again and continued our relationship, uh, and so that was, uh, so. We got married in– on January 2nd of 2021. And so, that's– we– we, I sold my home in North Brunswick and we built a lovely home in Whippany, NJ. And we're just concluding some of the renovations and things on the house this week after two years. Can't wait till that's done. So, but that's– that she has– she has three children, two boys and a girl and they just lived the next town over in East Hanover and they have accepted me. Uh, not as dad but as mom’s husband. And we have a really nice relationship. Um, two of her children have children. Her oldest son has a boy and a girl and, uh, her, uh, daughter has a boy, and her youngest son is expecting a child. He and his wife are expecting a child in August. So we're, we're busy grandparents. Um. So that's– that's pretty much my– my personal life. Uh, I retired in 2015. I've been doing things with, uh, Rotary District 7475 fundraising. I've served in many capacities. Uh. I have a lot of hobbies. I play golf. I ride motorcycles. I do cross-country trips with my cousin. Um, recently I've started taking flying lessons to gain my private pilots lessons. So we may have to cut this short. I have a lesson pretty soon, this afternoon. But I don't know if we're going to be able to go up today. It's a little hazy, but, uh. So, that's been a lifelong dream of mine, to have, not to own a plane, but to be able to fly my own plane. Small, private plane. I don't– I won't be able to fly commercially, but I could fly larger planes and jets at some point if I wanted to take it there. So that's– that's pretty much all I know.
What is the experience of doing a cross-country trip on the motorcycle?
[00:21:05]
It was spectacular. 2017 was the first time my cousin Carmen and I did this. We– we have a regular group that we ride with. The Sons of Arthritis, we call ourselves. And we're the Ibuprofen Chapter. So, we– five of us shipped our motorcycles to San Di– Santa Monica and, uh, Los Angeles. And we flew out to Los Angeles and, uh, picked up our bicy– bikes, motorcycles at the depot and drove to Santa Monica Pier, which is, whether you consider it the beginning or the end of Route 66. That's where we started. We had a little lunch, and then started our journey, and from there we drove to, uh, Barstow. Which is right at the edge of the, uh, Mojave Desert. And so we spent the night there, got up early, fueled up the bikes, and started out across the desert. And this was in August of, um, of 2017. It was hot. Uh. We had special shirts made, long sleeve shirts that were UV protected, and also provided some moisture, uh, for us so we didn't dry out. And we started our– our trek across the desert. It was 112 degrees, and I'm on my 125 degree Harley-Davidson Street Glide Special. And so the five of us are heading out on Route 66. And, uh, we would get within 100 or 125 miles from a town that we would designate and it was, we’d take turns finding a motel or a hotel and we'd make reservations. Um, get three rooms and someone would always get, you know, private room by themselves. And so we did that and, uh, it took us about two weeks. [church bell tolls] Riding across the– the desert to, um, through, through, uh, through New Mexico, Texas. Oklahoma was spectacular. ‘Cause you’re on and off Route 66. It's not been kept up in repair. Uh, so you have to go on to the modern highway. I think it was 40 that we would go on and off of. Again, just saw all the sights. We did, we saw all of the touristy stuff we could do. We saw the largest bottle of soda. Uh. We saw a round barn. We went, in Oklahoma, we went to the, uh, the site of the bombing in Oklahoma City, and saw the memorial there. Um. We saw the, uh, the, uh, largest whale in– in Oklahoma. Oklahoma was beautiful to ride through, by the way.
[00:24:00]
And the weather was with us most of the way, except in– in Texas. Uh, we were near the– we were having lunch with the Big T Texas Steakhouse where if you could eat a 48 ounce steak, a baked potato, I don't know how many shrimp, and a salad, the meal was free. If not, it was $75. And so, there was several people trying that day. Uh, we're having lunch and one of the fellows was kind of our weatherman, he says, “There's a real strong storm coming up.” He says, “I don't think we should proceed.” And so, the other side of the parking was a little motel, so we walked over there. They had rooms for us, so we got the rooms, covered our bikes, and went back to the restaurant and, um. Had, had, uh, they had some games and that kind of stuff there, and the storm came through and it was, it was really a monsoon, and it closed parts of Route 66, flooded Route 66. So, we had to take some alternate routes. And through, uh, through Texas and through, uh, Oklahoma and parts of Kansas. Uh, went to this gas station right on the border of Kansas and Oklahoma, and, uh, there was a tow truck called “Tow Mater, and, uh, you may remember the, the, uh. The Disney cartoon or movie. And, uh, so what happened, we learned they had a little museum there and so I guess the– the people from Disney, they were riding up and down 66 looking for inspiration, and they came across this gas station with the tow truck and they thought, “Well, you know, this is, this is a great, uh, great idea.” And so that's how the– the Disney– I forget the name of the movie. Whatever. It went on to be a great success. And so, we had some pictures taken there. We have lots of– lots of photographs all over wherever we went. And from there instead of taking Route 66 up to Illinois, we went a little bit east and south into, um, Tennessee. And so, we spent some time in Nashville. And of course, when you were in, naturally you have to go to Memphis and you have to go visit The King, go see his house and his museum. The house was kind of underwhelming and kind of gaudy, 1980s decor. But, you know, that was The King! And, um, he is buried in the back with his mother and. Kind of odd. It was a beautiful property. But the house was a lot smaller than I thought it would be. The museum was spectacular. He had all kinds of cars and motorcycles, two jet planes and, um, it was. It was really very interesting. If you go to Memphis, uh, there's a– a fried chicken place that Diners, Drive-ins and Dives recommended highly and was called Uncle Jacks’. And so I'm thinking, “Well, gee.” I'm thinking of my Uncle Jack. “This is going to be spectacular.”
[00:27:02]
So, we pull up there. And we have lunch there, and it really, we were just lucky not to be told ptomaine poisoned! So! [chuckles] So, some of the meals weren't so great! Um, most of the time, we had a wonderful time. Nashville was just wonderful. Um. We saw a group called The Eskimo Boys. It was a trio. Absolutely entertaining. I’ve been back to Nashville and saw them again. From there, we drove to Kentucky and, uh, we spent some time in Kentucky and then made our way, uh, through West Virginia, Virginia, through York, Pennsylvania, to the Harley-Davidson Factory and Museum. And, uh, and then from there, back home again. It was a– a rigorous trip. Um. It was absolutely wonderful. The guys that I– I ride with, they’re expert riders, and we all know each other’s habits and, uh, know how to keep each other safe. We wear, wear an intercom system on our, on our helmets. And so we, we can always determine, you know, if a car’s coming up behind us, or too close, or someone's trying to get in between us, you know, we'll give them space. We always give the cars right of way because they're bigger than us. Same thing with the trucks. So we try and be very safe. And we ride, um, we ride pretty much every– every Tuesday or sometimes on the weekends. Two years ago, we did have a a tragedy on one of our rides just outside of, uh, Rocky Hill on 5-18 coming home. Uh. It was in the fall and was starting to get dark and the deer were starting to move and, um, one of our riders, uh, a deer tried to jump over him and the bike. And, uh, and took him down with the bike. He hit his head. Um, and unfortunately several days later he passed away. Uh, so we're, we're very aware of riding in the fall or dusk with animals. And we try, we've moved our rides a little bit earlier to make it a little bit safer for all. But anything can happen any time when you're riding. Our last trip last year, we rode to Alabama. And it was the world's largest motorcycle museum. Uh, Burgers. And they just had six stories in a spiral of motorcycles and cars, and they do restorations there. The, um, experience. They have an indie style race track on the premises where, if you want to learn to become an indie driver, they had a dozen brand new, uh, Porsche 9/11 less, S Turbos that you could rent and they'll teach you how to drive on an indie track for $2000 a day, if that's you wanna do. And we watched the riders. And , uh, so we did a lot of the the riding, you know, back through the Smoky Mountains and it was, it's just beautiful. We do a lot of back road kind of driving. It takes us a long time to get to where we're going because we're doing switchbacks and, uh, doing things, uh, like, like the snake, which is about 11 miles of roadway downhill with 111 twists and turns.
[00:30:31]
And, uh, quite challenging. It's tough to go over 30 miles an hour, at least at my level with my size bike. Some of the other guys on the smaller bikes pass by me. I take it, take it at my own pace And so, that's– that's what it is riding, uh, cross-country or doing these long trips where you're doing three or 400 miles a day on a motorcycle. Um. The camaraderie is wonderful. Uh. The guys I ride with, as I say, are very careful, experienced riders I've been riding since I was a kid. Uh, didn't start riding again until about, uh, I guess I sold my one, my last motorcycle when I was in my 30s to buy a couch for a new house, and I was married. And then I didn't pick up riding again until about, uh, 2013. But I bought a used bike and then bought a new bike in 2015. So that's– that's been a– a hobby of mine that I enjoy.
Uh, where did airplanes come in?
My brother. Again, when he was, uh, he was working for the Navy Department. Uh. As an engineer. Um, I guess they would build these ships and then someone would have to figure out how to get some of the equipment into the ships once they've closed it all up with the iron. So, it was part of his engineering tasks to figure out the best way without having to tear the ship completely apart to get some of the equipment in. And, so, he's working in– in the Navy Department. At that time, my– my father was becoming more ill. And so, my brother and my cousin, Nick, who lived in Virginia. Bought a small, uh, two seater Cessna 152. Was canvas covered. And he would fly it up from Virginia. Uh, to what was then Cupper Airport, which is now Central Jersey, which is where I'm taking flight lessons. And, um, it was, someone from the family would come and drive over to Manville, and, um, pick them up at the airport and bring them, and then Sunday and late Sunday afternoon, he’d get back from the plane and fly back to, uh, to Virginia and I’d go up with him occasionally. Take me, fly around the Central Jersey in his plane. Uh, and, so I always had a a real interest in flying. My brother learned to fly in North Brunswick on the corner of Jersey Ave. and Howell Lane, which is, well, warehouses now, was an airport. Uh, North Brunswick Airport. And there was a– a fellow that he studied with. His last name was Rooney. I just remembered.His name was Art Rooney, and that's who taught my brother how to fly.
[00:33:12]
I think my brother was 16 years old or something when he started taking flying lessons. And, um, he got his– his private pilot license and he maintained it for many years. Uh, he since, he still holds the license, but it's since lapsed. And, uh, I don't think he has any interest in flying at this point, but, uh, my brother, God knows what he's going to do next. So, you know, he's raced cars, built cars, flown planes, jumps in and out of medevac helicopters. Uh, I can only hope I have some of his, some of his youth and genes, so when I'm in my 80s. So that's, I think that's where I got the– the desire to fly.
And, uh, what, what do you aspire to do with your license?
Just to fly privately. We have a, a small place in Wildwood Crest and there's a small airport called Cape May Airport, which is actually in Rio Grande. And, uh, they have a nice little restaurant there. And it's only about three miles from our house. So I would fly down there. I'm– my wife has made it, made it, uh, um, clear that she's not flying with me. [chuckles] Which is fine. I– I– I'd be quite a while before I take a passenger in my plane with me. Until I feel absolutely secure. I felt the same way when I started to ride motorcycles again. I was, um, it’d been many years since I've been on a motorcycle and it was quite a while before I took a passenger on. Until I felt very confident. And so that's– that's what it will be with that just to fly there. Um, my brother lives on the Eastern Shore of Maryland now and be nice to, instead of drive over the Delaware Memorial Bridge or around Philadelphia, um, to fly down there, and there's a little private, it’s a General Aviation airport right near his house. Fly down there, spend an afternoon, have some steam spice crabs and shrimp and, uh, no beer, of course. But if I stayed overnight, and you can rent planes and keep them for a few days. In Central Jersey, you can, you can rent planes. So I’d go down and see– see him a little bit more often than I get to see him now. So, that's, that's pretty much my goal with that. I don't– I'll– I'll get my private license. I'll get my instrument rating. Uh, just to make it safe, because if I'm ever in a situation, like, today, um, it's, it's pretty much overcast and fog from smoke. What's going on here, um, you'd have to do just IFR. You couldn't, you couldn't do a visual flight today, so. So, that's– that's, um, any, anything else?
[00:35:57]
Um, I was wondering if you might share a bit about running the business and things that were– that you liked about it.
Oh.
Particular challenges, anything, things like that.
Yes, it was, uh, ever since I was a little kid, I always liked to sell things. Um, I know from, uh, from Catechism. They would have– have us selling Christmas cards, and I was good door to door. Always sold Christmas cards. And then the Boy Scouts or Cub Scouts, we sold candy and I always did that. I always enjoyed marketing, selling. Um, my first Kool-Aid stand that I had had, I couldn't have been, maybe first grade. I asked my– my brother and sister to make a little sign for me on my Kool-Aid stand and I would set it out the end of the driveway and have my little stand, my Kool-Aid, my red number– number five dye Kool-Aid or whatever it was. And so, uh, people would come by, and they'd stop, and they'd look, and they'd laugh, and they'd give me a dime or whatever it was for a little cup of Kool-Aid. And this went on for part of the day. And finally, one of my friends, my older friends said to me, “Joe,” he says, “do you– do you know what that sign says?” I said, “Well, my brother and sister made the sign. It was, you know, ‘Kool-Aid 5 cents’ or whatever it was.” He says, “No! It says, ‘if you want to get sick, drink here!’” So that was, that was a brilliant marketing thing about my brother and sister did because everybody stopped! [laughs] That was the– that was the thing about being the little brother, much younger little brother. Uh, but, uh. Anyway, so moving along, I had the opportunity to– to be in business, to be in sales. I was inside sales, and during the– the late ‘70s, the home centers, the do-it-yourself market was becoming more and more, at least by yourself market was– was becoming more and more apparent. Uh, we didn't have a showroom at our North Brunswick store. That was the only store we had. And more and more people were coming in and into the office and they wanted to see a fauc– they wanted to buy a vanity they want, you know? So I started bringing things out of the warehouse that were maybe slightly defective or whatever, and they had– surrounding my desk in the office. I'd have faucets and toilets and eventually started lining one part of the office with vanities and finally, the owner said, he says, “Look, you, you can't keep doing this.” He says, “It's, it's going well,” he says, “but you're disrupting the whole office.” I said, “Well, we have a– an area that used to be a showroom back in the ‘50s when you guys moved up here,” and I says, “it's vacant now.” I says, “what do you think we– I– I'll design a showroom and, uh, we build a showroom?” And he says, “Well,” he says, “better than that,” he says, “let's hire a designer. Let's get someone from American Standard and get one of their professional designers, and we'll build a professional showroom for you if you'll run it.”
[00:39:05]
And so, that's what we did! And, uh, we took out a lot of the glass and blocked it up so we’d have plenty of wall space. American Standard did a magnificent job building a showroom. It was really the first showroom in the area, uh, in many years. Aaron and Company didn't have a shower on. There wasn't another supply house near us. And so, uh, in, uh, 1979, we opened our first showroom, the Elegant Bath Show. And, um, hired an employee, and the two of us, it was really quite successful. Uh, was so successful that my partner, Bill, said, “I found the location for us in Madison, New Jersey. A storefront.” He said, “I want you come up and look at it.” He says, “It's a very wealthy community. Just outside of Morristown,” he says. “I think you'd do well up there.” So, we looked at it and it was about a 5,000 square foot storefront. Had a couple of other little stores and strip mall and, so, in, um. We incorporated that store in 19– the end of 1979. We're already into the other store and, uh, formed the Elegant Bath Shop in Madison, New Jersey. And by 1980, we had opened our second store and I was now commuting from North Brunswick to Madison. No good way to get there, uh, especially during a snowstorm. It just was, there just wasn’t any good way. We then put a new manager in the North Brunswick store, and the person that I was working with in the North Brunswick store came with me to Madison and I, uh, I just enjoyed the marketing. I did all the– the marketing for the store, the advertisements. I even did some of the photography at that time. I was doing a little bit of that. And the store grew! And it– it grew to the point where we had to move out of that location to a much larger facility a couple blocks away. And we built a new showroom. We now had a warehouse. We were now a full plumbing supply, not just a retail outlet. And, uh, that was very successful. Um. We then purchased a– a supply house in Pleasantville, NJ, outside of Atlantic City. By then, I was the president of the New Jersey Wholesalers Association, the North Jersey Chapter. And, uh, I had a– a counterpart in South Jersey who owned a supply house in Pleasantville. Uh, Taylor Supply, Warren Taylor. And Warren was also Rotarian like me. And so, we would get together a couple times a year, uh, down at his, uh, his golf course, Atlantic City Country Club. And we play golf and have dinner and, uh, we had a nice, nice friendship and at some point, uh, Warren developed Alzheimer's and became ill.
[00:42:09]
He had two children, a son and daughter, that were not involved with the business, or at least, just maybe peripherally. And when it became apparent that, uh, Warren could no longer manage the business, um, we were approached by the family to see if we had any interest in– in that store, as we were doing a lot of business in Atlantic City at that time. We were supplying the– building hotels, and we were constantly down in that area. And so we made a deal with the family and we bought the property, the inventory, lock, stock and barrel. As old and worn out as it was, and, uh, revamped the supply house and that became a grant supply company. And that was our third store, built a big showroom. That was a big property, on six acres of property and we serviced the local community. They were doing a lot of building still, Atlantic City. By then we were in New Jersey state contractor and vendor. So, we had a location in Madison, we had a location in North Brunswick, and then South Jersey. So, we could cover the state, any of the state locations. Uh, prisons, hospitals, uh, schools. Anything that the state was involved, where their contract covered. We were able to– to service those facilities usually within an hour or less. And so, we did that for about twenty years. I've did most of the contracts for the– for the state. I also did a lot of the purchasing and managed all three of the showrooms, which I had a lot of joy out of. We had wonderful employees in the showroom. Long term employees. My first employee that I had in North Brunswick, um, stayed with us, uh, until, uh, until we sold the business in 2015. And she went on. So, that was nearly forty years and, uh, she stayed on a couple years later, then retired. We had a lot of employees that stayed with us for twenty-five, thirty years. And that was very gratifying. Uh, we had kind of a family atmosphere. I think we treated our employees fairly. We had a 401K, we had good benefits. We shared a lot of the benefit costs with them. Even during the recession in 2007, 2008, my partner very astutely saw things kind of happening and, um, we tightened up our budget. We reduced our inventory. We– we did have to lay some people off, some of the lower hanging fruit and, um, we stopped taking, uh, bonuses and built up our cash supply. Paid off our, our, uh, any loans we had. Any equipment we had, we were completely debt free by the time that recession hit. And it was, it was a good thing, because it was hard. We lost about 25% of our business, but we were able to continue because we had a wonderful cash flow going and, uh, we were debt free. Our employees still received their bonuses and pay increases through all of that while my partner and I did not. Which was fine. We were, we were okay. And, uh, then after a couple of years, we were able to make up the difference. And I think that made it, ment a lot to our employees that we were able to make them whole even during the toughest economic times.
[00:45:42]
To this day, I– I know we– we did okay when we sold the business. We sold it to a very large company. They do in excess of $1.3 billion a year in business. Uh, they have, uh, close to ninety stores in New England, New Jersey, Pennsylvania. And, um, they– they treat the employees very well. It was very important for us that we hand off the business to someone that would be, do– do right by them. And , um, I still visit some of the stores. I visit the Madison store more often because I live up that way. And, they all, they often say, “Well, why did you sell the business? We wish you hadn't sold the business.” I said, “Well, look, I couldn't work forever.” I said, “but are you, are you making more money now?” “Yeah.” “Are the benefits better? “Yeah,” he said. “But it’s not the same.” “No, of course it's not the same!” I said. I said, “but, you're– you're doing fine, right?” “Yeah, we are.” I says, “Okay, well, don't unfriend me on Facebook so that I'll know we're okay.” Uh, so, I still see a lot of the old employees and, and talk to them, and. Yeah, my business partners’ since, since retired. Uh, he lives mostly in Florida and in LBI. Uh, my cousin who bought the business from passed away several years ago, um, which was a shame. He was, um, very inspirational in business and, so. Had a really, really good head for business. Um, my business partner, Bill, was– was brilliant in terms of commodities. And he bought all of the– the commodities, the copper, you know, the iron, the plastics. Knew how to time it. We made a lot of money doing– doing just that with the commodities in our commercial businesses, um. Our– our biggest coupe was, um, the Jehovah's Witnesses were moving out of Brooklyn. Uh, they owned the– the waterfront on the Brooklyn side, all the way up to the– to the, uh, the Brooklyn Bridge. They had a thirty-story apartment building there, the Printery. Uh, and all of their offices. And they were moving, uh, up into the Catskill area. And they were moving the printery and, uh, all, they were selling the property at some point. Or had sold the property and had to be out. And so, for seven years, uh, we were their primary plumbing supplier. And we would send a tractor and trailer every day. Uh, up, up to the Catskills. Just– we had one designated driver, one tractor and trailer every day for seven years, plus direct shipments.
[00:48:27]
Um, I can't tell you how many millions of dollars we did with these people. And extremely wonderful to deal with, extremely organized. Um, we'd have a quarterly meeting and they would bring out this chart and they'd say, “well, you, uh, you bid on—there were some things that were outside of the contract that we've bid on.” And sometimes we’d get it, sometimes we wouldn't. And so they said, “oh, you, you missed on X number of, of bids. You were, didn't have the right price, the right—" Whatever. And they kept track of that. “Oh, and by the way, your deliveries were, were late this number of times and this amount.” And, so we would take issue with that because we were building at such a frantic pace and the materials were coming into their warehouse so quickly, they couldn't check the material in the same day. So, we knew on our manifest, which was all computerized, when the material got there, what time, who signed for it. So, that was an ongoing battle with them. But they were just wonderful people to do business with. And, uh, during, during the 2008 recession, they had called me and then we had received a letter. But they called first to see if, uh, how we were doing. They had lost a couple of their primaries, had gone bankrupt. I said, “no, we're, we're fine.” And they said, “well, we're willing to advance you cash flow, give you more cash flow on any order we give you, whether you ship it or not. We'll advance you the money.” I said, “you don't need to do that.” But that was a, a very generous offer and they were very generous and very kind to do business with. Uh, so, that was, that was an exciting part of the business, driving up there. Or they’d come down. They used to like to come to New Brunswick and we’d take him to Steakhouse 85 because we were, they're in the middle of nowhere and there wasn’t a good place to eat. I mean, there was a taco stand. I think we would, they’d take us to lunch. Uh, they did have a good cafeteria and occasionally if we were there over lunch, they’d invite us to have lunch in their cafeteria, which was wonderful. And they raised everything. They raised all of their own wheat products. They had their own farm. Everything that was there, they raised. They canned their own blueberries and jams. Uh, just amazing people. Everybody that was building that project was Jehovah's Witness and they were volunteering their time. They needed a crane because they were building three or four high-rise apartments. I think they were almost 400 apartments that they were building and they needed a crane, so they went to Japan, where this crane manufacturer was. They had the crane built to their specifications.
[00:51:12]
And then the– someone from Japan who was a crane operator. Jehovah's Witness came back to the United States and lived there and operated the crane. They had their own cement factory. They had their own trucks, their own truck drivers, their own plumbers, their own licensed electricians. And people would come in for six months, a year. That would be their tithing. And, uh, I just, I mean, I'm amazing stuff that you just you don't even think of it. Eventually, they moved out of, uh, out of Brooklyn. And moved to upstate New York. And that, that was a tremendous experience, though. You know, I still still remember. I mean, I'd get up and you know, five or 5:30 in the morning actually couldn't wait to get to the office. There was, there was always something exciting. The customers, by and large, were absolutely amazing and we did business with. Some of the fun was, I actually did business with some of the customers that my father did business with early on. Uh, one in particular, Jack Dolman. Jack Dolman and Sons are still in business on Franklin Boulevard. Uh, Jack had– had two sons in the business. One son, Jackie, had passed away and he had a couple of daughters. And his wife, Mary. Jack Senior was just one of those– He walked into a room and he just lit up the room. And later I learned– he used to come in and tell me, “How you doing, handsome? I hand–" Everybody was handsome to him. And, so, I remember at, at his funeral, I was talking with his wife Mary and I said, “one thing I’ll always remember about– about Jack– his positive attitude. And everybody was, ‘hi, handsome! How are ya?’” She said, “Yeah, it’s because he could never remember anyone's name, so he used to call them handsome!” But he was just the most marvelous guy and raised such wonderful children. Uh, so we had a lot of great customers like that. When I was in high school working at the counter, um, oh jeez, I wish I could remember the guy’s last name. Elmer, he was an old timer, came to the counter and I didn't know. I was just working at a high school, working at the counter, buying, getting parts for guys, and so, um, I asked him his name so I could pull the card out of the drawer. And he said, “What do you mean, you don't know me?” I said, “Well, I– I– I don't know you. Do you have an account here?” Oh, God, he was. He stormed around the counter. Went into Eddie Laffey's office to complain about me, that I didn't know who he was and blah blah blah. And I think, yeah, Eddie will face, sat him down and said, “Look, this is Joe Nastus’s son, Joe. He doesn't know you, so just give him a break, will you?” And straightened him out. And, um, but a lot of the customers were just really, really lovely and helped me get my start in the business like that.
[00:54:08]
Uh, the employees. Again, long term employees. Um. Enjoyed, enjoyed them. Had, had some mostly great employees. Um, had some that weren’t so great and we made an adjustment when that would happen. But by and large, we, we did well. Uh, with our employees. They were loyal. Having long term employees in a business is key, I think. You don't seem that much today. Uh, maybe things change so rapidly that, um, you know, that, that you can, you can hire new people with new techniques and, and skills. Our skills were pretty much the same. We had some new, newer technologies with computers, but still. They knew the basics, and it was wonderful that a customer could call in and ask for– for Wayne or ask for this one, or Joe, or somebody. And they were always there, and they knew, they knew the problems. And they knew the– the business. They knew what they needed and, and, um, I think that's why we built a real strong loyal base. We weren't the only ones in town. Obviously, there were other supply houses in town and, and we competed with them and we, they were always fair, though. They were, in fact, when I was president of the Hoosiers Association, a lot of them sat on my board and, um, we had a– a nice working relationship. You know, we weren’t trying to kill each other. That was important to– to me, to have a working relation– even– even though we were competitors, we weren't enemies, and that was always a nice way to do business. And so, that was– that was my– my career and how I– I've really just enjoyed it. When I sold the business, it was, it was time to go. My partner was having some health problems. He said, “why don't you buy me out?” And I said, “Now, when you go, I'm going.” And so that was the arrangement we made. Um, we found somebody, you know, that could take over the business and handle the employees properly. Give them a fair share of what needs to be done. So that was, that was my career. Uh, it's, uh, it's changed. I do miss it once in a while but, uh, I guess in today's business and after the pandemic and everything, I guess I'm very happy that I– I wasn't still in the business. I think it was very difficult for people to– to do business. And, uh, or just to even. I don't know how people really getting back to work now. I know that's a problem. People used to working from home, my wife included. But she has the kind of job that she can. So that was, that was my work life. It was– it was great experience 99% of the time, uh, with customers and employees. And um. I’m on– reinventing myself and doing other things now. And enjoying life.
Um, tell me a little bit about being a member of the Rotary? Why you’re with Rotary and what– what it’s importance is to you.
[00:57:11]
Well, the– I was at the Madison store for many years and, um, developed some nice friendships with, uh, with several people that had businesses in town and, um, one of– one of the fellows that owned a nursing home and also an adult daycare facility. Uh, we would, I would help him out with some of the things in his nursing home with ADA equipment, some specialty things. Um, came to me one day and he says, “I want to invite you to lunch.” He says, “There's a– a group called Rotary, so are you familiar with it?” So I said, “No.” He says, “It’s an international service organization.” He says, “I, I think you might– you might like it. It's a way for, if you want to give back to the community or do some things in the community. It would be thankful for useful to you.” And I said, “Yes. I've been thinking about ways of– of serving the community. They've been very generous to me and, uh, and all the townspeople have been very generous and supporting us.” And so I went to the luncheon and it was the Madison Rotary Club we met at, at the Madison Hotel. Rod’s Restaurant. Uh, a big banquet room. It was a very large club at the time. Uh, they met on Thursday afternoons at 12:15 for an hour and a half. Uh, there were approximately 105 members of Rotary and, uh, they would get a nice turnout. They would get, um, sixty to seventy members to turn out for the luncheons and very prominent members in the community. Um, is– Thomas was an engineer. His specialty were plastics. Um. His– he owned a toy company in Newark, but during World War II, provided plexiglass canopies for, uh, planes and windows. He was a Welshman, had an accent. Uh, lived down the street from my store in Madison on Kings Road. He was just– just brilliant to talk with. He was in his 80s by the time I met him, but was just wonderful. Uh, Robert Bull, Doctor Bull was a professor at, uh, Drew University. He was a sociology and anthropology– archaeology, and he would go on digs every summer. Uh, his son, Camper Bull, was also a member. Probably our youngest member, was in his late 20s when I met him. Um, but Bob was– was very clever and, um, always had something wonderful to say. Auto York, um, was very wealthy and philanthropist. Um, donated an entire wing to, uh, NJIT. The engineering. If you go there, there's the Auto York Center. Uh, just, there were just so many wonderful people. And so, I joined Rotary and, uh, after about a year, they asked me if I wanted to be, uh, an officer of the club. I said, “Yes, I'd like to participate a little more.” So, I was the Assistant Sergeant at Arms, and then became the Sergeant at Arms, and then became the Secretary and, uh, Vice President and eventually in the– the year 2000 or 2001, I became the President of the largest Rotary in New Jersey. And, uh, with over 100 members. And we were still meeting at lunch, at Rod’s, at 12:15. One of our members were– were starting to get a lot of younger members in the club and they were having difficulty making the luncheon meetings, so, uh, with the board of directors, I discussed with them, can we have a breakfast meeting in addition to the luncheon meeting? And they said, “let's try it.”
[01:01:06]
And so, we had to go to the district and they said, “Absolutely not. You can't have two, uh, Rotary meetings in– in the same district.” I said, “Well, we're not going to charter this. We're just having another meeting.” “Well, you can't do that. You know, you might lose your charter.” So, I went back to the board and I said, “This is what we're going to do. We're going to do what we're going to do. We're going to have one meeting. It's going to start at 7:45 in the morning and we will end it at 1:30 in the afternoon. So, we're having one long meeting and I don't think the district is going to have any problem with the largest club. I don't think they're going to lose the charter of the largest club in the district.” And so, we proposed that, and then, uh, the following year after my year, uh, uh, Bob Connolly, who is now the mayor of Madison, we– we– when I was on the– I was the head of the board at that time, stepping down from president. We– we made this a reality. And so, we started to have breakfast meetings. One meeting. and gaveling at 1:30. And the board, the district went along with it. And that was in 2001 and we still have a breakfast meeting and a lunch meeting to this day. Which serves a lot of the younger members who need to get to business. So, we're done by—it's a 45 minute meeting. We're done by 7:30. They’re on their way, you know? Um, so, it's a great—8:30, rather, they– they're on their way. And so, that's– that was my involvement uh, still chaired. I chaired many committees, uh, at, at the Madison Rotary. Um, once my, my partner, uh, decided– decided to– to get out of the business, I moved my office from Madison to North Brunswick, which was a nice commute because now I gained twelve hours of my life and I didn't have to commute to Madison every day, although I missed Madison.
[01:03:04]
So, I joined the New Brunswick Rotary. And, uh, that was in 2006. And that was, that was a great experience. And I'm still a member of the New Brunswick Rotary. We still do the Polio Plus fundraising to eradicate polio. Uh, we provide dictionaries for every third grader in New Brunswick, North Brunswick, and Highland Park. We've done that for years. Uh, we also, uh, just had a new member who was an author and wrote a book and wrote a book about Rotary. So, along with the dictionaries, we distribute his, uh, I’m a Rotarian and How to Volunteer to all the third graders. Uh, Thomas Dewey: wonderful member, wonderful author, and so, we bought a bunch in his books to help him out and we distribute that. We do clean ups with roadside. We’re responsible for helping clean the roads, and we do that with an organization. We found it at Rutgers University called Rotarac. Rotarac is a– a membership that you can get in Rotary. Um, if you're a college student or under 30. And so, we have several members at Rutgers University that we mentor, and they participate in all our projects, uh, and they go on hopefully to become good citizens and to become Rotarians, as well. And that's a wonderful project. We do international projects. We have, uh, done projects in Guatemala. We've done projects in India. Um, we do projects here in the United States. Just up until last year, we were packaging food um, that would stay from, in our district, from Sussex County to, to Mercer County. And in our best year pre-COVID, we packaged 500,000 meals. There are hundreds of thousands of people. I don't know the exact number in our area, that are, um, that have a– a– a food disability almost, that they're lacking food or the availability of food. And these meals are dried foods. Uh, they are protein. Uh, all it requires is water. Best would be boiling water, if you could do that. And we distribute these meals through organizations like the Red Cross, uh, Sal—Salvation Army, different food banks here in New Brunswick and Morris County Food Bank. That has been a– a real wonderful thing to do, packaging these meals. So we– we did the first project at Drew University. We took over the gymnasium. Uh, we had approximately 500 volunteers and this was a group effort of several Rotary clubs: Madison, New Brunswick, several clubs in the area. Morristown.
[01:06:13]
And to package the foods, we buy all the ingredients in bulk. The, uh, vendor provides us with all of the packaging materials. The scales, the bags, all the sanitary wear, uh, terms of gowns, gloves, hats. Uh, things that you need to make the area safe for food handling and, uh, that's a real wonderful thing, that we can do that right in our own backyard. You know, we do other projects around the world, but it's most gratifying when we can do something right here at home to help people right in our own backyard. And, uh, so, I continue with Rotary. I do fundraising projects for the district last year. I– I initiated a food truck festival. We held it at Central Jersey Airport. It was the first, uh, festival of its kind for our district. Uh, we had, uh, ten food trucks, mostly empanadas. We had a beer truck. We had wine and coolers. Wine coolers distributor there. Uh, we had rides, games for the kids. Our first time out, we– we had over 3,000 people attend the function. Uh, it caused a massive traffic jam outside the airport and River Road. It was wildly successful. We weren't able to duplicate it this year, but we'll, we'll do it again probably next year at Middlesex College. One of our members is a, uh, from one of our, our Rotarian members from Edison is Vice President, um, of Affairs at– at Middlesex. And they have a new initiative that they're doing. They having a $150 million initiative in new buildings and, uh, facilities and to accommodate not just academics, but more trades. More, back– back to plumbing, electrical, carpentry. Uh, more nursing programs, more programs in healthcare. And so, they– they have funding for buildings and things, but I've been advised that they have very little money or no money to outfit the buildings in terms of furniture and things. So, I proposed to them a– an empanada or food truck festival, and so we may do that next spring, uh, which will involve the Edison Rotary, the Rotary of Greater New Brunswick and, uh, and a promoter. Um. Mega Events, uh, who helped us with our last event and did a really nice job. So, we’ll– we’ll– we're continuing to try and do things in our own backyard. Um, I think this initiative with Middlesex College is– is appropriate in these times.
[01:09:07]
I think we need more people that have trade capabilities. I think it's every– it's wonderful that everyone can go to college and learn computer skills or become, uh, an English major or sociology major or whatever. I think if that's your desire, that's wonderful. But I think we are greatly lacking in encouraging youth into the trades. And have, having been in that on the other side of the counter of those people, I know a lot of my customers to this day are having trouble finding competent people that want to go into the traids and it is tremendously lucrative. I– I know from my customers. They have all, who ran good businesses, did very, very well. So, those are the things that we're– we’re doing in Rotary, and I hope to continue. Um. With Rotary and they encourage anyone—you don't have to be a– a professional in business or a business owner today. You just have to have the desire to serve. And that's what it is. Our motto is service above self. And so, that was always something I tried to instill in my employees. Service before your own, your own need or ego, you know? Let's get the job done in favor of our customers, favor of the people that need the help. And so, that's, uh, that's what I hope to continue on as long as I can.
Um, last question.
Sure.
I was wondering if you might be able to share a little bit more anecdotally or otherwise about your experience in New Brunswick High School.
Yes, uh, New Brunswick High School, when I first started there in ’68. Um, it was– it was a great experience. I mean, we had Friday Night Football games at the stadium. Um. Of course, Thanksgiving, we'd all go to South River, and that was the big rivalry games. You know, Thanksgiving morning, uh, basketball games. Gary Brokaw was in my class who became a– a star basketball player for the Milwaukee Bucks, I think? And went on to a career in– in the NBA, uh, in management, I believe. Lot of very interesting people. Uh. Lot of– lot of my friends were there. We just had a– had a wonderful time! It was kind of easy going. The, uh, teachers were– were really– were really good. Um, we had a math teacher, Mr. Gorkov, and he would always say, “That's Mr. Gorkov with a ‘G’”. There were a lot of characters who we had, too. Had, uh, Mr. Brown who was the, was a math teacher and also, uh, golf coach. Went to school with his son, John, and his daughter, Tanis, and they were– they were nice kids. And he was– he was real– he was a lot of fun. Great sense of humor.
[01:12:14]
Things kind of took a turn for the– the worse and, well, for me. I don't– I can't speak for everyone, and– and things certainly had to change in our society, and, uh, whether I knew it or not, at that time, I knew. Eventually I knew that things had to change with the way people were being treated in this country. Uh, and things were people were doing things about it. And when their voice wasn't heard legislatively or through the vote or have, or through quiet protest, things got ugly. And things got ugly in school, and tempers flared and, um, lunchtime someone would say something, uh, someone would bump into somebody inadvertently and the words were exchanged and tables were overturned. Food was thrown. It became a dangerous situation and, um, I just, you know, I’d get up and walk out across the street and, you know, that was– that was it. We were, my junior year, we were out probably more than we were in and first part of my senior year, same thing. There were no more dances. Uh, you know, with live bands or any kind of music. No more night football games, no more football, basketball than I remember. Um. It wasn't until the spring of my senior year that I've never, the golf team came back together, and I played golf with the golf team under Mr. Brown's tutelage. Um. things started to lighten up a bit at my, that, the end of my senior year. We started to have dances again. I was playing in a– in a band at that time. Kind of a high school rock'n'roll band, and we’d played dances at New Brunswick High School or at the YMHA in Highland Park or– or different high schools in the area. We– we’d participate in those kinds of things and we had a lot of fun playing– playing music. Uh, went on through college to play in the college big bands and played professionally on the weekends, even after I was married. I played until I was in my early 30s, until my second child was born and then it was just too much, but it helped me pay for my first house. It was a lot of fun. Um, my friend who I met in the band when I was a freshman in college, my friend, Kevin. We're still friends to this day. He was a marvelous musician. We played in bands together, the college big band. That's where we met. And then we– we still get together every month. I just talked to him, uh, the other day.
[01:15:03]
Uh, he and his wife were coming to Italy with us in the fall. So, we, my wife and I try and travel to Italy as often as we can. She, uh, she was born there. Speaks, speaks several languages and, uh, grew up in Madison, right around the corner from my store, surprisingly enough. Probably walked by her 100 times and never knew her. But I knew, uh, knew her uncle. Her uncle was a plumber in town and I knew the uncles, brother, brother Joe and I knew Lou and Joe and so, when we met, you know, recognized the last name. I said, “Well, do you have an Uncle Lou?” She says, “Yeah!” I says, “Well, so do I,” because I always called him Uncle Lou, too. For thirty some years, he was my customer. Um, wait a minute. Getting back to school. Things– things really weren’t all that great, and my grades suffered for it. Through a summer remedial program, I was able to get into Middlesex College, so I had to do a little math and a little bit more, uh, English Literature and once I got into school, and once I was in college, I started to do well. Well enough that, you know, I was able to get through my Associate’s degree, my Bachelor’s degree, and into a graduate program that I never finished. But that's okay. But this, the school. It was just a complete loss of, um, e– even the teachers were kind of despondent. There was no school spirit. And that was really horrible, you know? Um, ‘cause, the– the– the class of ‘69 seemed to have had it all. They were like the last hurrah, you know? They had all the great rallies. They had the– the great– the best football team. They, you know. Uh, and it was just a shame. By 1970, it just, somebody flipped the switch and, um, it was, it was over. But again, through natural progression of things, I– things have to change. They couldn't stay the way they were. Um, people need to have, to have their voices heard. Um, no matter how it happened, it needed to be heard. Uh, and make sure to this day those voices still need to be heard. Hopefully things could be done less violently. Um, because it was, it was pretty much scary times. I mean, you know, I remember growing up, and I'm in the 5th grade in 1963, and in the library and all the teachers [siren in background] are huddled around the TV, and of course, John F. Kennedy had just been assassinated. And, um, you know, watching that on TV as youth, as a young kid, that was terrifying. Um, and in 1968, you know, Martin Luther, Doctor Martin Luther King Jr is assassinated and Robert Kennedy in 1968. I mean, there was, there was a lot of violence in those days and it was really very scary growing up. Um, and– and it's– it's funny because we were living in a town in North Brunswick at that time where the population was 5000 people. We had one and a half policemen. We had a full time policeman, a part time cop, John Nastus, who's no relation to us. I don't know how, but no relation to us, lived around the corner. He used to deliver Bond Bread in the morning. And was a policeman in the afternoon.
[01:18:21]
Uh, and in the summer, we didn't have air conditioning. We had a screen door. So we’d leave the front door open and the screen door, and it was absolutely fine. I mean, it didn't matter that my father was armed to the teeth. He had a– he was a– he was a hunter! So, there was– there was no problem there. But it wasn't even a second thought, about anyone invading the home. So, regardless of how my father, with his hunting tools. But, um, yeah, it was– it was amazing. With all the tragedy and scary stuff going on in North Brunswick, I still felt sa– felt safe in the house. And, uh, you could– you could ride around the block as a kid, and if you fell off your bike and skinned your knee, a neighbor would come over and doctor you. And there was no problem with the– a parent coming back and saying, “Well, why did you touch my son? Why did you do this? We're going to sue you. We fell on your property.” There was none of that kind of stuff, I mean. You know, if you fell, you were– you were, you fell! You know? It was an accident. And people understood that. People took care of one another. Um. I don't see that kindness today. I was in Europe last year for an extended trip. Started in Paris. And my first trip to Paris, and people are saying, “Oh my God, French oh.” It was, it was so lovely. They were so kind to one another. It was like I remember. And I would get a little choked up. It's like I remember when I was a kid, when people were so kind to one another. And I just, I don't see that now. Sorry.
Thank you. You don’t have to apologize at all. What instrument did you play?
Piano.
Yeah. You didn’t mention it. It’s awesome! Um. Before we break today, is there anything you want to share? That's important to you, that you want to make sure gets included in our recording.
Not that I can think of right now. No.
Joe, thank you so much for your time and for all your participation. Really appreciate it.
Thank you for letting me ramble on. I appreciate that. [laughs]
[01:20:34]
END OF RECORDING TWO