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| PRESS RELEASE
MARCH 3, 2002 |
The Soap Opera® Celebrates 30 Years in Business
Madison, Wisconsin, March 3, 2002—
Thirty years ago Chuck Bauer and Chuck Beckwith, two newly minted UW
graduates, realized they had to earn a living. Trained in the fine arts
(and art history) they made handmade crafts and sold them on a blanket
on the street and on Library Mall next to the University campus. Helpful
police requested that they use a “cart” (no one said what kind of cart)
to comply with regulations. Brought up to obey the law, they went to St.
Vincent de Paul’s and found a child’s wooden wagon (red) and used it as
their cart.
Winter was approaching. and they needed shelter. At 515 North Lake
Street a three story, wood frame, Victorian rooming house offered a
vacant hallway space 8 feet by 12 feet as a sort of alcove complete with
steam radiator and a tall window onto a concrete backyard. The building
owner was willing to take $30 a month for the space, and the appropriate
building permit was granted at City Hall (during lunch hour) when no one
seemed to notice that the coveted STAMP of Approval somehow fell onto
two sheets of “blue book” paper showing primitive hand drawn plans.
Several weeks of inexperienced and inefficient construction began.
Creative drive and youthful naiveté made up for inadequate tools and
non-existent skills.
Inventory was ordered costing $600. The store opened for business at
10:00 AM March 3, 1972. Thanks to well wishers and friends sales were
$22.00. Sales the next day were $4.00 There were one dozen different
soaps, Tiger Balm, herbs for the hair, two different hairbrushes, 14
essential perfume oil, house plants raised from cuttings, handmade
puppets, and hand knit mittens. (Thirty years later these same products
remain the backbone of the business, and people still ask for the last
two which are no longer available!)
Six weeks later student riots erupted as a result of the US bombing of
Cambodia. Their building was tear gassed along with their neighborhood (W.Gilman
Street) where fires blazed in the street for two days.
Summer came and the enterprise became a regional chain with a second
outlet: a new cart to take to Library Mall. A wooden chest of drawers,
flipped upside down, received roller skates on its solid top and shelves
where the drawers had been. A simple canopy completed the miniature
gypsy wagon that made a deafening noise when it was rolled along the
sidewalk.
A year later the building was torn down. Two weeks before Chuck and
Chuck had spotted a slip of paper taped to a tiny, vacant storefront at
312 State Street. The almost illegible paper offered a phone number.
Rent was the princely sum of $210 (exactly seven times their prior
rent). Everybody took a chance, and three people signed a one page
lease.
At this point another $600 investment was made, and more cobbled
carpentry began.
One month later the first day’s sales were over $100 and Chuck Bauer and
Chuck Beckwith knew they were going to make it.
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