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I can remember walking down Mission Street from Precita to Twenty-Second, to a discount store where I bought some of my tools to build the wheels. It was three floors and a basement and may have been called 'Value Giant', or that may have come later. It was a fun store with lots of stuff and I used to like to go in there. The tools were in the basement. I walked down Mission quite often usually in the mornings just to get out and go some place sociable for a cup of coffee. One of my favorite places was the 'Chat and Chew' at Twenty-Third and Mission, an old style counter and booth place that had small mounted juke box consoles with the pages of selections you flipped over with levers and ten cent coin slots, for each booth along one wall. It was patronized by a lot of the local workforce. There was a big car dealership on the corner of Army and Mission.
The Chat and Chew was owned by someone I was told was a Mafioso. Never really knew if that was true or not, but acted appropriately just for the excitement if nothing else. It was said he have spent time in San Quentin. He hired me at some later time than the subject of this discussion to make for him a drip-less coffee saucer. He had dreams of patenting it and making a fortune. This meant ribs in the saucer so that if coffee spilled into it, the cup would sit high and dry. I made him a few saucers. It was not easy because I had to carve the ribs by hand and make them into swirl S design as shown on his drawings.
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