1980

CORAL GABLES

1995 –????

JAMAICA -HOUSING

When we arrived in Sarasota we found a delightful Gourmet Market named Morton’s, which had been in Sarasota for years. It was a place where we eventually knew all of the personnel by name and they knew us by name. Besides the Market it included Annabelle’s Gift Shop and J.D. Ford Wines.

After having shopped there for a couple of years I wrote the following frivolous parody on the famous “Night Before Christmas” Poem

A MORTON’S CHRISTMAS CAROL

By Charlie Tilson with apologizes to Dr. Clement Moore

T’ was the night before Christmas and all through the store

And all you could hear was one big roar

The doors were closed and the work was done

And now it was time to have some fun

Charlie was ecstatic while Todd counted cash

And Scooter and Wally were taking out trash

Cindy, Conchetta and Amelia too

Were all drinking Egg Nog as some naughty girls do

Jerry and Lou were not at all bored

They were drinking up the profits of J. D. Ford

Lester decided it was time to get loose

So he and Dawn were drinking Grey Goose

The girls in the Bakery treat Mr. Ann so nice

But they decided tonight to add a little bit of spice

So from under the counter they carved a big notch

And Lo and Behold there was a bottle of Scotch

Dave and Mary Ellen were tired of produce

They decided tonight to have a little bit of juice

Dave said “Mary Ellen, taste of tomatoes will vary

But they really taste best in a good Bloody Mary”

The Ladies in Annabelles must remain more sedate

So they’re squeezing the juice from a great big Rum Cake

Patty and Linda said “That is so tacky.

All they left us was bottle of Sake”

The chefs in the kitchen said “Forget the linguini

Let’s all settle in with a good Dry Martini”

And Herb at the meat counter and Mike too

Were passing around that Old Mountain Dew

And out in the parking lot there arose such a clatter

They sprang to the door to see what was the matter

And who did they see but Charlie and Ann

And Charlie was holding a jug in his hand

“I know you are closed ‘cause it’s quarter past ten

But I’ve run out of wine, so please let us in”

Ann said “Excuse him, his taste is mundane

What I really want is Verve Cliquot Champagne”

And to all of the rest not listed by name

At least we have spared you a good bit of shame

While the rest of the group is having its quota

You can now settle in with Old Bushmills and soda

Santa arrived to see such a sight

He said “I’ll join you with a cold Bud Light”

And they heard him say as he rode out of sight

“Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night”

The mushroom operation was now the focus of attention. This operation was started by a Chinaman and was located in Constanza which has an altitude of 4,000 feet above sea level. The idea was that the weather would be cool enough for growing mushrooms. Unfortunately this was not true and it was necessary to install air conditioning in the growing houses. This was a costly investment particularly since diesel generators had to be installed to power he units.

We sold fresh mushrooms to the local market and had to do extensive public relations to get people used to calling them “championes’.   The reason for this is that the word for mushroom in Spanish is hongo. This also means ‘fungus’ and no one wanted to eat a fungus.

The bulk of our sales were canned mushrooms sold to the USA through a broker. This business was developing nicely until a 30% tax was placed on imported mushrooms in the Carter administration.  The reason for this is that the market was being flooded by mushrooms from Hong Cong. Of course Hong Kong does not grow mushrooms and these were coming from communist China-shipped through Hong Kong. The mushroom growing in the USA is mostly in Pennsylvania. The congressman from that area, Mr. Heinz, pushed this law through. We spent lot of money trying to get the Dominican Republic exempt from the tax because it was aimed at China and the Dominican portion was a small percentage of the imports – but, to no avail. The Chinese are smart and, seeing this law coming as it was being debated, they filled many warehouses with canned mushrooms before the import duty went into effect. Thus, they were able to hold their price for sometime before having to increase it. We were no longer able to compete.

This was a shame because the operation was getting to be efficient and profitable. Ricardin saw the value of good people and he always found qualified people for his new ventures. He had Dr. Kneebone from the University of Pennsylvania as a consultant and he had hired Aldo Pia who had formerly been the manager of one of the mushroom growing plants of Ralston Purina Company.

Ricardin, being the entrepreneur as always, closed this operation (with a large loss) and converted the buildings to house hogs. Pork is a staple of the Dominican diet and this business grew rapidly. However, we did not have a satisfactory system for disposing of the waste and the nearby townspeople complained bitterly about the odor and we were forced to close the operation.

We had three nice houses which had been built for the management of the mushroom operation and some land which had come with this operation. Additional land was available at a reasonable price since most of the trees had been cut for firewood and the mountains were bare. He began to plant coffee. The Government was offering substantial tax advantages for re forestation and Ricardin’s contention was that pine trees were not the only means of re-forestation and coffee plants also served the same purpose. However, the government did not accept this interpretation.

At this time I had a wild idea. Cartones Haina had some excess production. It also had a     paster which is a machine to laminate multiple sheets of light weight liner board to get a heavier weight. (The first corrugated boxes used for banana boxes were made of 90 Lb. liners and most paper machines could not produce liners this heavy). As an experiment, I had three 42 lb. liners laminated together then we hand glued three of these sheets together and had a sheet about ¾ of an inch thick. We then built a prototype house with a conventional wood frame of 2 x 4’s and 2 x 6’s and used the laminated sheets of recycled liner board as an exterior sheeting. We built one side of the prototype of wood to compare the wood versus the recycled paper panels. The results of this structure were a pleasant surprise. It went through several rains without damage.
Although we painted the structure, we realized that we would need more than paint to protect the waste paper panels from the elements. I contacted Thompson’s water seal, the Michelman coating company and they both said that their products were not sufficient for this but they wished they were because we should sell thousands of houses (unfortunately they were not right). I saw a publication from the U.S. Department of Commerce which listed products of the USA available for export. There was an ad from a company which made an acrylic coating used for waterproofing the roofs Mobile Homes. It also contained some titanium which reflected the sun light and reduced the inside temperature.

Since John Walsh, the person advertising this coating lived in Largo, FL I arranged to meet him at my son’s office at The University of Florida in Gainesville, FL. I showed him photos and he showed me samples of his product, AcraFlex, and we agreed that they would be a good combination.

Ricardo Hernandez agreed to finance the building of a model on the grounds of Cartonera Hernandez to use as a medical building. (Cartonera Hernandez provided the services of both a Doctor and a Dentist for its employees). My son Bill, who was a professor of architecture at the University of Florida, drew some simple plans for this building (and subsequent structures) and John Walsh brought two young people to help with the construction. 

The model medical building was a success so the decision was made to build a group of houses for the coffee workers in Constanza. Since this was in the mountains and there was only a dirt road access, Bill designed a panel system so that most of the work could be done in the factory. We picked a site and arranged with a local mason to pour the slabs for 17 houses. When these were ready we loaded up the panels for several houses of three small bedrooms, living/dining area and kitchen. At the back of the houses we built a small block structure which had a shower on one side and a flush toilet on the other. Water for these was piped in from the river which flowed near by.
Because we were using prefabricated panels, the structure was completed the first day. The coating and finishing took another two days but the house was ready for occupancy in three days – something unheard of in the Dominican Republic where virtually all construction was block or concrete. The workers began to move in with there families. Many of them were Haitian and many had their entire possessions in a sack. They usually had a few extra clothes, a few pots and pans, perhaps a bed, a table and a few chairs, a few personal items – nothing more. It was heartwarming to see their pleasure in having a place to live.

Here I began to learn some of the realities of life!

Most had never had a flush toilet or a shower. Because they had no toilet paper they often used scraps of old clothing and soon the toilets were stopped up and unusable. We ended up building latrines. Although we had built a “pila” with 10 spaces for washing clothes, the ladies seemed to prefer using the shower as a wash area. (Don’t give people something they don’t want).

We continued building and had a village of 17 three bedroom houses, two barracks type structures of 6 rooms for single men, a building for a school/community center and the pila.

Because of the great need for low cost housing, this project received a great deal of

publicity. Here I learned some more facts of life-

1. These were basic structures with no frills. The people who need them could not get a mortgage.
2. The people who could get a mortgage wanted something better.
3. Thus, they had to be subsidized  by governments, charities, unions or employers

Because the units are so basic, governments are not interested. If a government builds subsidized housing, it usually wants to build “a monument” –something more substantial.

Charities usually have a special area for philanthropy-Habitat for Humanity does a good job of building subsidized housing but they build conventional houses and not on a large scale.

Unions are not usually interested because all of their members are employed and can get financing for housing.

In the case of the village on the coffee finca, this was financed by Cartonera Hernandez.
About this time, Dole, Inc. was starting a project to grow and process pineapples in The Dominican Republic. They needed buildings as fast as they could get them and they decided to use the “Casas de Carton”. We built a barracks style for visiting technicians, a building of the same size but with different interior configuration for use as a cafeteria, a medical center and several buildings for use as field offices.

A charitable organization “La Hora de Dios” (the Hour of God) contacted Ricardo Hernandez and asked if he would donate two houses for use by the teachers at their school. He agreed.

Alan Marley, the consul from Jamaica to The Dominican Republic, became interested in this project and contacted Mr. Ramtalie, the Minister of Housing in Jamaica. Ricardin sent the company plane to Jamaica and brought Mr. Ramtalie to see the village in Constanza.  This resulted in the construction of two model houses in May Pen, Jamaica. This also generated much publicity but did not develop into a project in Jamaica.

We decided it was time do sharpen the pencil and do some cost studies to see what the real cost of these houses were. Discounting the fact that Cartones Haina had extra capacity and the construction workers were paid by Cartonera Hernandez, we found that recycling is necessary but not cheap. In spite of the publicity and the novelty of a “paper house” we decided to investigate substitute materials which would work with our AcraFlex coating. Home Depot, from whom we were buying the 2 x 4 structural lumber, suggested using OSB (Oriented Strand Board). This product is a substitute for plywood and is less expensive. Their employees were also very helpful in advising us on plumbing and electrical materials.

Fosforos Sol, the match company of the Hernandez Group, started a publicity campaign and gave away one house each month for a year. In spite of our fascination with the waste paper panels, we decided to switch to OSB as a base panel.
We were proud to furnish housing to many people who did not have a decent place to live.

Even though I had been out of the USA for many years, I wrote often to our granddaughter. We remain close because, having been born in Mexico while we lived there, we had spent more time with her than with our other grandchildren. While in The Dominican Republic, I wrote her the following letter:

Dear Jen,

When your Dad Bill and your Aunt Kerry were about 10 and 6 years old respectively, they asked me “What do you do?” I replied that I was a Box Maker. I found out later that they were asking because their teachers were asking “What does your Father do”. They were embarrassed because some kids said “My Father is a doctor or my Father is a lawyer or my Father is a Sales Manager etc.”

If they had asked my title I would have said “Vice President, Old Dominion Box Co.” but

I was not vice presidenting, I was in charge of making and selling boxes.

Now – the box business sounds dull but actually it is very interesting. Almost every product goes to the market in a box and most go to the customer in a box. Because each box has different characteristics which fit the product, we get to learn a lot about our customers business. For example:

Until I went to Guatemala I thought pineapples grew on trees. Now, from making      boxes for Chiquita, Dole and others I find that they grow as a plant about 2 feet tall and there is one pineapple per plant. It takes` 18 months for one pineapple so you need a lot of land. If your market is 3,200,000 pineapples per month (as Dole’s is here in the Dominican Republic) you need enough land for 18 times your monthly production so that

When you return to the original plot, there is another crop ready.

Also, it takes a shock to make the plant produce a pineapple. In nature this shock comes from a change in the weather – a cold night or sudden rain storm. This is unpredictable so in the commercial operations they take what looks like a long handle screw driver and push it down into the top of the plant. In the pineapple industry this is called castration (I suppose this would constitute a shock). The local manager told me that when they advertised for this job, 3,000 women applied.

Another bit of trivia – unlike many fruits the pineapple does not ripen after it is picked so don’t bother with pulling the leaves or other ways shoppers have for checking for ripeness – if it is not ripe when it’s picked, it won’t get any better.

Now, how about bananas?

Bananas grow upside down. It takes about a year for a banana tree to grow and it is cut down after the harvest. But it replenishes itself from roots which grow around the original stalk. These are called “hijos” which means sons in Spanish. The trunk, after being cut down, usually is left to become compost since it has no vale as wood. Millions of dollars have been spent by the banana industry to try to make a starch which would be usable in the corrugated box industry. There is much starch in these trees and in waste bananas but so far, it has not been stable enough to replace the corn starch which is now used as an adhesive to stick the layers of a corrugated box together. (The next time you eat something made with corn starch- think about this).

When I was a child babies were not allowed to have bananas unless they were “scraped” This was because the fruit was virtually unknown in the USA. Now it is one of the first foods given infants.

A banana finca (plantation) is fascinating. They have grown for years in the tropics but commercialization has made any changes,

For example:

When the stalk begins to form, it is covered with a plastic bag and marked with a date. This keeps the insects from the fruit, keeps th3e heat in so that they mature about 10 days faster, and insures that they will be picked at the right time.

Bananas, unlike pineapples, are picked green and ripen on the way to the market. Their maturity is related to time, not size so the date on the plastic bag insures that all of the same age are harvested at the same time.

The corrugated box business revolutionized the banana industry (or maybe it was the other way around). When I was a teenager I worked in a fruit store. One of my jobs was to unload stalks of bananas from the truck coming from Florida where the boats docked. We then cut off the “hands”. There was an automatic 30% discount for damage since the stalks were stacked on top of each other in the4 ship and in the truck and there was much bruising. Now the hands are packed in a corrugated box with a divider between rows so there is virtually no damage.

The phrase “Banana Republic is not fiction. The United Fruit Company started to grow and export bananas from Central America. There were virtually no exports from this area.  The Company did much good – built railroads, roads, hospitals and schools and gave work to thousands of people. But – it had so much power that no one could be elected President of Guatemala, Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua or Costa Rica without the approval of United Fruit Co.

Enough of this trivia but if someone asks “What does your grandfather do?” –don’t be ashamed to say “He is a box maker”.

STILL TO COME

1995 –????

ATLANTA

JAMAICA-WASTE

DOMINICA

MEXICO-HOUSING

GHANA

TAIWAN

ULTRABOX

UBI

NASSAU

TOCCOA

NATURAL ARGENTINE BEEF

LA PEITE MAISON

ULTRABOX 2