JANUARY 7, 2023 – When I first heard the Southwestern method of finding summer living quarters, I was dubious. As the hours grew on that cold rainy miserable Saturday in Buffalo, I decided the approach to finding housing was nothing short of hare-brained. Yet in the end, it proved to be effective. And who was I to question it? Southwestern had been in the door-to-door sales business a lot longer than I had.
In keeping with Southwestern’s true-and-tried direct sales method . . . and the company’s religious streak—a characteristic that had become more evident as training week had progressed—our overseers had told us to knock on doors of rectories, parsonages, and church offices. We were then to ask the answering clergymen if they knew any parishioners who might be willing to take in two, even three college students for the summer door-to-door selling season. If we encountered any skepticism, the Bible Stories book might help overcome it.
For the next six to seven hours we took turns squeezing in and out of C.R.’s Plymouth outside one clergy residence or office after another. An all-day rain accompanied our abysmal failure to develop any viable prospects. After each of us had struck out multiple times, the effort began to feel like a fishing expedition without bait or tackle. C.R. seemed stuck to his seat the whole time, and not because he was the type who wore a seatbelt. He exercised plenty of patience with us but took no initiative on our behalf—or his own. It was up to us recruits to do all the door-knocking.
By four in the afternoon each of us had pretty well exhausted our reserves of PMA. I was beginning to succumb to a bad case of self-doubt: how could my judgment be so bad that it had led me such a horrible job, which technically hadn’t even started yet? The prospect of spending another night in C.R.’s car seemed unthinkable until someone joked bitterly that we should start looking for an overnight parking spot.
At around suppertime we got our big break, proving what had been pounded into our soft heads: to sell a lot of books, you’ve got to knock on a gazillion doors. After trying more Catholic rectories than we could believe existed, we encountered a Baptist church. C.R. slammed on the brakes. It was my turn to knock and ring. A lone staff member was on hand, and when I explained our predicament, she offered to call the pastor who lived a short distance away. After a brief conversation with him over the phone, she told me he was willing to meet us to see what he could do.
In a sign of our collective desperation, we all converged on the pastor’s front door of his little rambler. From the start he was surprisingly sympathetic to our plight. He and his wife ushered us in as if they were cat people and we were a bunch of rain-soaked strays. The pastor began calling members of his flock. As he spoke, I began to rethink my negative reaction to having been force-fed a positive mental attitude. Miraculously, the good pastor scared up two households willing to take us in—three at one place, two at another, including C.W. We’d been accepted sight unseen, except the parishioners’ trusted and discerning pastor and his wife had vetted us, underscoring the importance of first impressions of character. Clearly overlooked was the fact we’d crawled out from a faded green Plymouth coupe with Missouri plates, wearing the same clothes we’d donned in Nashville early the day before. They’d never heard of Bowdoin College, but they nodded credulously when I told them it was in Brunswick, Maine.
I was a member of the trio that got dropped off at 75 West Sobieski Street in Cheektowaga. We didn’t know that our wanderings had put us in a town called Cheektowaga, and of course, none of us had heard of the inner suburb near the Buffalo Airport. After a day and a half, though, we would learn how to pronounce it—our new home away from home. The one-and-a-half story house was small, but given what we’d been through to find a place—any place—to live for the summer, the modest dwelling looked like the Grand Hilton. Waiting to receive us were our hosts, Mr. and Mrs. Mikolon, a friendly enough couple about my parents age if not a bit older.
We soon learned why the Mikolons were so welcoming: their son—gone from Buffalo for the summer, so he wasn’t on hand to meet us—had sold for Southwestern the previous summer. He’d had his own unpleasant tales of misery to tell his parents, and consequently, they were immensely understanding of our circumstances. They said they were happy to do whatever they could to make our experience in Buffalo a better one than what their son had endured in Ohio or Illinois or wherever it was he’d been assigned.
Our sleeping quarters were a half-finished room in the half-story above the main floor. Mrs. Mikolon pulled out some sheets and fitted them over floor mattresses. The basement, small but finished, was equipped with a refrigerator, a hotplate, shelving for whatever food we bought, and a table and chairs. It was a perfect setup for three guys who’d been instructed by Southwestern to “fix yourself a good breakfast, knock on your first door by 8:00 a.m., your last door no earlier than 8:00 p.m., then back to your quarters to fix yourself supper, fill out your daily report, and go to bed—Monday through Saturday.”
On that evening of our arrival, however, Mikolons invited us to join them for dinner on the main floor.
The Mikolons were kind, serious, sincere, and down to earth. They were curious about us and genuinely interested in what we had to say. They were as free of pretensions as their home was of clutter. Their furnishings were presentable and comfortable, if a bit sparse.
They owned a piano, however. After the meal I asked if I could play it. Spontaneously, they encouraged me, so to affirm my personal revival of PMA, I played the only piece I knew: a Bach toccata[1]. If the Mikolons had harbored the slightest fear that my two compatriots and I were actually ax murders posing as innocents, any such fright was put to rest—judging by Mr. and Mrs. Mikolon’s applause. The power of Bach.
In conversation that followed, Mr. Mikolon mentioned that his ancestry was Polish, but at the time, this was of little more significance to me than the name of their street—“Sobieski” who was the Polish hero-king who’d led the defeat of the Turks at the gates of Vienna in 1683. In 1974 I was seven years short of my first trip to Poland and my subsequent immersion in Polish history. The Polish connection was befitting at the time, however, because as I’d soon learn, Buffalo was a very “ethnic town,” and Poles, it seemed, were the leading ethnic group.
The following December and for many years thereafter, I exchanged Christmas cards with the Mikolons, who are now no longer among us. While they were, however, they served as angels.
The next day was Sunday. Despite the religious slant of Southwestern, money was as much a part of the company’s religion as was Christianity. Throughout the sales season, Sundays were set aside not for church attendance but for regional sales meetings. Salesman from all over western New York, herded by their managers, would convene in a state park in the Finger Lakes region, where we’d hear presentations on “best tips for selling,” applaud the “best salesmen of the week,” and get re-inoculated with another strong dose of PMA. It was an all-day compulsory affair, but to get yourself there was your responsibility. You had to link up with another salesman who had wheels—and space that hadn’t already been committed.
On that first Sunday, my roommates and I hitched a ride with C.W. We straggled back to Cheektowaga just after suppertime—MacBurgers and fries, in our case. The Mikolons were then kind enough to take us to a grocery store where we could load up on food for the coming week.
I went for bananas, whole wheat bread (for toast), honey, and wheat germ (for sprinkling on the toast) and skim milk, all for breakfasts; peanut butter and honey (and bread), oranges, Tab, and chocolate chip cookies for “lunches on the go”; canned green beans, Chunky turkey soup, and ice cream for dinner. My fare was nutritionally upscale from my roommates’ diet of Fruit Loops, Pop-Tarts, hot-dogs, ketchup, mustard, white buns, Taystee bread, Twinkies, and Coke, all consumed interchangeably for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
I’m sure the Mikolons had opinions about our culinary choices, but our kindly hosts knew better than to act like our parents.
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© 2024 by Eric Nilsson
[1] Years earlier I’d learned the piece bar by bar. My oldest sister, Kristina, an accomplished pianist, though she’s a professional violinist, used to play it when she was at home during college breaks. I liked it so much, I asked her to show me the music, which she did from our mother’s extensive collection. Over a period of weeks, months, I hammered away at it as if learning to type. Eventually, I had it memorized and could fly through it as if I were one of Mother’s more serious piano students. I was never destined, however, to be more than a one-act pony.
