OUT OF THIN AIR nious. Inevitably, connections were severed. I think it was a case of trying to pour new wine into old bottles. The pressure to quit everything but the insurance business must have been constant. Dad was going on thirty-five and he had a growing family to support. Instead, he moved the radio business to the basement of the insurance offices on Great and operated from there for the next two and a half years. The biggest contributing factor in the rift between Dad and Rogers Hardware was due to internal problems. The partners running the hard¬ ware store were not getting along. The partner who eventually got the upper hand had not taken to Dad from the start—a "young upstart" he called him, and he wanted him out of the building. "That radio stuff is too damn messy," he would complain. "Doesn't belong here at all. This is a hardware business. No place for all that noise and commotion from that dratted speaker!" When Dad had eventually moved all his radio parts and the offend¬ ing loudspeaker, and they were painting the shelves in preparation for replacing hardware items there, the senior partner came along and commanded the workers: "/ want that shelf taken down! Thais where that damn loud¬ speaker of Keith's was. Take it down and he sure you paint over that spot well. I never want to hear about radio again!" 40