Question

Short story of 'joy of learning' lesson written by jacquliene cross

Answer 1

In those days Kaplan had an ambitious pompadour, kept aloft by Wildroot Cream Oil and a comb that he carried in his back pocket. In the other back pocket he kept a shoehorn. Working after school and on Monday and Thursday evenings and all day Saturday, he was, at seventeen, the ace part-time salesman at Maling Brothers Shoes on South State Street. It was at Maling Brothers that he first discovered he had this knack, ability, gift—call it what you like—for persuasion. His customers at Maling Brothers were thick-ankled Polish women and Irish girls, who worked in the Loop as secretaries, file clerks, saleswomen at Carson’s, Goldblatts, and The Fair Store. He flattered them, pretended their feet were smaller than they were, quickly sensed their susceptibilities, and usually sent them home with two or three pairs of shoes when they had come in to buy only one. “Shelly,” said Sam Margolis, the old shoe dog who managed the South State Street store, “you are a natural, a born salesman.”

When his father, in his fifty-first year, died of a heart attack Kaplan dropped out of the University of Wisconsin, where he was in his third year, majoring in marketing, to return to Chicago. He acquired a real-estate license, began selling what were known as “starter” homes to young Jewish couples then moving to Skokie. He was very good at it. He followed up on even the flimsiest leads, spent tedious hours on the telephone in the attempt to get new listings, worked twelve- and fourteen-hour days, often seven days a week. He could enter into the dreams of these young couples—they came from much the same background that he did—and play to them in a quiet but efficient way. Ruth Rosenzweig, the broker out of whose office he worked, marveled at his ability to close a sale, and on occasion she brought him in to help on her own deals, splitting the fees. “Sheldon,” she once told him, “some day you are going to be a very rich man.”