George is another elderly man with a downtown business, a hardware store.

Hes not a very pleasant person but he at least has the good sense to let his brother (and partner) handle most of the dealings with the customers.

He deals with suppliers and berates them, their people, their service and their products at every opportunity.

He always pays on time, although always grudgingly, so they keep supplying him.

He deals with the bank, the accountant and the newspaper advertising people the same way.

They dont like him but he pays so they put up with him.

His two sons wanted no part of working in his business.

One, the eldest, left home at age 16 to work as an apprentice in a Ford dealership. He later built a successful home business supplying hardware online.

A couple of years later, his daughter, pregnant at 17, moved out of town with a fertilizer salesman she had met while working part time at a landscaping company.

George's wife Annabelle had put up with him for forty years, fighting almost every day and eventually died of lung cancer, even though it was George who smoked two packs a day.

He continues, a miserable, snarky old man now who cares for no one (a mutual feeling) lives alone and never feels alone. He has a big house in the fashionable older part of town, drives a luxury sedan that he replaces every two years.

He travels alone to Vegas and Atlantic City on a regular basis. His business has made both him and his brother very comfortable, if not even wealthy.

You might say George has a successful business but still, I would call George a very unsuccessful man.

So how do you spell success?

Len McNally