I officially retired from industry in 1988 at the ripe old age of 40.
I haven't punched a time card since. That's not to say I immediately started cranking out cues. There was a progression of events that led to that.
I've always owned shops of some sort. Back in the `70s, while I still lived in Detroit, I owned/operated a shop, WorkShop Mfg. that manufactured custom springer front-ends for motorcycles. In 1980, I had just been laid-off from a pretty good job at Mohawk Liqueur Corp. because the economy in Detroit was headed down-hill fast. I left Detroit and moved to the country where I reside today.
It wasn't long before I opened another shop, Aluminum Specialties, where my primary intent was to serve the marine industry. I basically did welding on boats and pontoons and machine work as needed. I still run that business to this day.
About this time of year in 1988, I was working part-time for a buddy of mine at his shop, Cummings Engineering and we were building the world's largest 3-wheeler, 'Super Trike'. 426 Hemi, blown & injected running on alcohol. Rich Cummings did the monster truck events with it and eventually sold it to a collector in Texas.
I'd been playing in leagues for a year or two and wanted a dedicated break cue. Not too far down the road from Rich's shop, in a shopping mall, was a little 3~4 table room owned by none other than Lee Malakoff.
(No offense intended Lee, but I gotta tell it if I'm going to tell the story.)
I didn't know Lee at the time but wanted to stop in and see what he had that I could use as a break cue. This is starting to get interesting, ain't it?
Well, Lee had a new Dufferin sneaky for sale and I thought that it might suit my purpose. This was the beginning of the week and I asked him if he could hold it until Friday when I got paid. He said, "sure, no problem."
Friday, I go back to his pool-room, cash in hand to get the cue and he tells me he's sold it. "I didn't know if you were coming back and I had a chance to sell it so I did". I think he sensed that I was not a happy camper so he says, "wait here". A moment later he emerged from his office with a 1pc. Dufferin cue and asked if this would work. Well, I wasn't about to truck around with a 1pc. cue on league nights but I had a machine lathe in my shop and felt I could successfully convert it to a 2pc. cue. I bought the cue, told him what I was going to do and he told me when I got it done, to come back and show it to him. I think he threw in a pin & insert in the deal. The next week, I had it done and took it back to his room to show him. After he looked it over, rolled it, etc. he asks me : "would you be interested in doing some cue work for me?"
One thing about the marine weld/machine business is that come Oct. you're sitting around twiddling because all the boats are now in storage. The lathes and mill I had were very capable of building cues, etc. so that's when I started, as a means of getting me through the winter. As soon as the league players, etc. saw the work I was doing, they started bringing me their repairs. In Jan. of 2001, I started doing all of Seybert's custom & repair work.
The ride has been a trip. I have an absolute hatred of alarm clocks & time-cards and don't have to cater to either.
Cuemaker??? Call me what you want, it doesn't matter to me. I enjoy what I do. As I've said before, I repair cues for the money. I build cues because I want to.
