By Patricia Burke of Safe Tech International

The calendar is holding in between the observance of Mother’s Day and Father’s Day in the U.S.

I am thinking about the tremendous stress faced by parents and children in the age of tech, and also remembering stories I’ve heard about Ray Sr. and Ray Jr. – an institution in the world of bike repair.

Ray and Sons is an American ‘mom and pop’ store. When Ray Sr. and his family emigrated from Italy, the neighborhood was filled with small family businesses. Before the store sold and serviced bikes, it had apparently been a television and appliance store, and I think before that a food market.

Ray (Jr.), who is now in his 60s, tells the tale about the family traveling to another city to pick up the bike they bought for him when he was a kid. The service at the store was terrible – back when “service” meant how the staff treated the customers, and not how fast the cellphone connection is.

When they returned home from retrieving the bike, Ray Sr. looked at his wife, took a long drag on his cigarette, and said, “Rose, we’re going into the bicycle business.” They opened in 1969. That was the start of the boys learning how to fix and to sell bikes. In its heyday a band of men worked together in the back room, assembling mountains of new bikes and fixing flat tires nonstop.

My friend Ray inherited the business when his father passed. Neighbors stop by throughout the day, because, like the sitcom Cheers, “where everybody knows your name” the store is an institution, and so is Ray.

Post-Pandemic…

Continue reading at Safe Tech International

Top Image by Jyotirmay Datta Chaudhuri from Pixabay

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