One: The Grass Menagerie

I’m a war baby. I was one year old when my father returned from the war in Europe. In my memory, the end of the 1940s and the early 50s were halcyon days. Men replaced their military uniforms with fedora hats and wide ties. The biggest boom in housing construction got underway and the economy exploded. Women were home raising children, housewives wearing house-dresses.

The 1960s was a contentious decade. This was the era of the Vietnam War and the unrest it created at home: sit-ins, marches and campus shut-downs. The Civil Rights Movement began in earnest, fraught with riots and violence. From 1963 to 1968, important leaders were assassinated. By the end of the decade, everyone was exhausted and demoralized.

President Lyndon Johnson didn’t end the Vietnam War. In fact, he ramped it up. But he also energized Kennedy’s nascent idea of a War on Poverty. Johnson said this was a war we could win! Economic development offices opened in poor communities across the country. Hearkening to Kennedy’s ideal of asking, ‘not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country,’ Johnson put out a call for volunteers. This was the beginning of the Peace Corps, volunteers helping people in impoverished countries throughout the world and Vista, Volunteers in service to America. I am a student and a product of history.

I had completed two years at the University of Utah, majoring in American history. I thought there was no better way to learn about history than to be a part of it. I became a Vista Volunteer stationed in North Carolina. I helped start a community newspaper, a day care center and with other volunteers, helped a community get running water. During training, our supervisors repeatedly told us that we would get more out of our experience than the people we were there to help. They were so right. I got to know people different from me, living in the same country but in a seemingly different world. I realized how sheltered my life had been. I loved being in this new mix of cultures. It gave me a chance to get to know myself better while learning to know and understand other people. I definitely picked up some survival skills, too. Maybe that’s when I became an adult, being away from home and forced to be self-sufficient.

After two years of service, I came back to Salt Lake, got a job and finished college. The work part was painfully unrewarding and my degree, as much as I love history, was almost superfluous since I didn’t want to teach. But that really bad job I had at the time did lead me down a good path. I was spending a tiny portion of my paycheck on 2” houseplants. I loved them. I loved learning about them and taking care of them. The idea of opening a retail plant business came from out of the blue. I wasn’t thinking so much about creating a small business as I was looking for an escape from my job. The independence I gained and the survival skills I learned as a Vista volunteer showed me I could do it.

When I’d think about opening a business, I’d get butterflies. Was I afraid? Scared to death. Fear of failure. The idea of self-employment is daunting. Writing a paycheck seems impossible compared to just getting one. To make decisions rather than take directions is nail-biting. There is no safety net. Was I just jumping from one pot of hot water into another?

Despite my anxiety, I jumped. On Mother’s Day, 1975, I raced to find a building. I found one that very afternoon – a two-story building with an apartment upstairs. Someone was just moving out. The shop below, once a dry-cleaners, was boarded up and the windows soaped. It looked perfect. I found the owners, signed a five-year lease with a five-year option, put the keys in my pocket and became an entrepreneur.

The building on the corner of 1st South and 8th East in Salt Lake City had been empty for a few years. Everything had to be done to bring it back to life. I had the help of a friend, Stu Gelb, a man I met in North Carolina as a fellow Vista Volunteer. Since our work together, he had married and he and his wife moved to Salt Lake. Stu and I would be lifelong friends and over the years, in building out Cactus & Tropicals, he was right there with me.

Other friends helped to restore the building, too. First, the interior had to be flushed out with a fire hose to remove years of dust and grime. The 14’ high walls were stripped clean and painted a brilliant French’s Mustard Yellow. (Dark green foliage looks great against yellow). We built shelving, counters and display cases. We constructed a lodgepole pine pergola for hanging plants. After a few days I found piles of sawdust on the floor and I could hear the chittering sounds of bark beetles. The lodge poles had to go!

I checked off each task on a constantly evolving ‘to do’ list. Of course, that included all the government permits, licenses and dispensations. Then there was all the business infrastructure stuff like banking, utilities, insurance, signage, yellow pages…

One of the most important decisions I had to make was choosing a business name. I couldn’t have made a poorer choice. The Grass Menagerie was a terrible name, a solid lemon. Although, improbably, this is a lemon-to-lemonade story. The name drew a certain curious and adventurous type, folks looking for something other than houseplants. (Did they really think I sold grass—a slang term for marijuana in the 70s?) The shop was in walking distance from the University of Utah, so I ran a $2.50 ad in the University Chronicle, “Wandering Jews looking for a Home.”

I scrounged for houseplant suppliers. They were non-existent. Some say ideas are in the air but at the time, the grocery stores didn’t sell plants and Home Depot hadn’t yet been born. As sales inched along, finding a steady supply of plants became a problem. You can’t sell something you don’t have. I discovered there were plenty of wholesale growers in Southern California. The question was how to get the stuff. The answer was my VW van and me. About once a month, my mother would mind the shop while I drove to San Marcos. Once there, I’d drive from one astonishing greenhouse to another, buying every beautiful plant I saw. The van became a sardine can. I couldn’t see out the rearview mirror and could barely close the doors. Saturday night I’d stay in a motel, be up before dawn and home by 5 that afternoon, in time to unload before it got dark. I was ready to open the shop at 10:00 Monday morning.

The Grass Menagerie was another three years of undergraduate school. I learned about plants and about business. I was happy and I was free.