Cullen Caners take pride in their accomplishments
By CLAUDIA FELDMAN, July 3, 2003, Copyright 2003 Houston Chronicle
Lonnie Hohle found the Cullen Caners the way most people do.
She had four cane chairs too good to throw away, too far gone to sit on. So she asked around. Did anybody do repair work anymore?
Friends who were furniture connoisseurs pointed her to the workshop run by the Center Serving Persons with Mental Retardation, then known as the Center for the Retarded.
Fourteen years and thousands of chairs later, she has jumped from customer to volunteer to caning coordinator.
“It’s not about the money. I could retire,” says Hohle, 67. “It comes down to the sense of fulfillment and accomplishment I get every day. To me, this isn’t a job. It’s my service to them.”
She gestures toward the disabled workers giving new life to chairs and stools just a few yards way. In many ways, they are employees just like those found in offices or factories all over America. They look forward to breaks. They worry aloud about their families, girlfriends, boyfriends. They have tender egos. They need lavish praise. They enjoy silly jokes. They even have a plastic fish, Big Mouth Billy Bass, nailed to the wall. When someone is upset or sad, a co-worker or Hohle pushes the fish’s button. It sings, “Don’t worry. Be happy,” and “Take me to the river.”
One caner, Mary Santamaria, can’t speak, but joins in the workshop chit-chat with enthusiastic guttural sounds. Once in a while, a word pops out. Santamaria, 58, is so proud of her many caning successes, sometimes tears pop out.
Another, Susan Cox, is the resident poet. When she weighs in with an opinion, her co-workers listen. In her spare time Cox, 48, reads, writes and swims for the Cullen Dolphins.
“I wish I could write poetry,” says Shanna Sollock, 28. “But I can’t spell.”
“I’ll help you,” Cox says.
Sollock is restless, curious about work beyond the center’s protected environment. What would it be like, she wonders, to work in a restaurant or a cafeteria?
Most of the 11 caners live on campus in the nearby residence hall. Scott Carver tells his friends, as he repairs a chair, what it is like to live in an apartment off-campus. Last night he went to a wrestling match, and he got to see a burping contest, a pie-eating contest and a woman dropping her drawers.
Not wanting to offend, Carver, 40, doesn’t explain exactly what she did. But he wiggles his bottom so his friends get the idea. He could be holding forth in any office, during any coffee break.
Carver sees Cox, the poet, is absorbed in her work, and he buys her a diet Dr Pepper. They are dominoes partners, and they usually win.
“Thank you,” she says, touched. “Pay you 50 cents later.”
The caners, located off West Dallas near Shepherd, opened for business in 1979. The center staff thought correctly they could offer a service to the public and their clients by reviving the disappearing art.
In 2002, Hohle says, her workers repaired 762 items, mostly chairs, and made $54,000 for the center, a nonprofit, United Way agency.
Hohle sighs as she repeats the numbers. They did fine last year, but in past years, working in more prominent locations, they had done even better. In their heyday, working from a house at 2301 Westheimer, they repaired about 900 pieces of furniture and brought in about $98,000.
When that property was sold and they lost their lease, the caners moved to 429 Heights Blvd. That was a good location, too, but the building needed work, and eventually it, too, was sold.
That brought the caners back to the center, where they started. The problem, Hohle says, is they’re no longer in the thick of things — in fact, nestled in the midst of the center complex, they’re a bit hard to find. To help customers, she’s posted lots of signs.
On paper, the caners work from 8:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Mondays through Thursdays. But Hohle arrives between 6:30 and 7 a.m. to avoid the traffic and get ready for the day, and shortly after that she hears gentle knocks on the door.
Often it’s Cox, Carver, Santamaria and Sollock, anxious to play dominoes and, in their own way, prepare for the day, too.
Santamaria, who has been at Cullen Caner the 24 years the program has been in existence, growls excitedly. She and Sollock have beaten Cox and Carver once.
She raises her right index finger.
It’s clear. One. Once. And she wants to beat them again.
“I think they’ve won three times,” Cox says graciously. “But we’re the champions.”
The early start makes for a long work day. Hohle serves as teacher, friend, coach, cheerleader and quality controller. The work the caners turn out is excellent, she says, and satisfaction is guaranteed.
For caning, customers pay $1.10 per hole, and the workers receive 77 cents of that. For rush or any other material that wraps around a rail, customers pay $5.50 an inch and the caners earn $2.67 an hour.
Workers stick with one piece of furniture until it is fixed. Depending on the condition of the piece and the speed of the caner, most jobs take from two days to two weeks. Prices vary widely, but customers can expect to pay about $100 to have a cane chair repaired.
Midmorning Hohle calls over to the residence hall. One of the caners is missing, and Hohle needs to find out where she is. Turns out she got her dates confused, and she is sitting in her room, thinking she is going to the movies. When she finally does arrive at the workshop, she is upset and breaks into tears.
Cox hugs her. Hohle hugs her. Another friend pushes the button on the fish. Plastic mouth open wide, it sings, “Don’t worry. Be happy.”
At lunch they take 45 minutes to eat in the residence hall.
Sollock says she really doesn’t like the food. She doesn’t think it’s cooked through and through.
“They are trying,” she says of the kitchen staff. “We have a residents’ association, there’s a president, and he is talking to a person in the cafeteria.”
The hardest part of her job, Sollock says, is concentrating on work when she’s worried about other things. For example, she says, a friend might get mad at her but not explain why or what she did wrong.
Every morning, Sollock says, Hohle visits with each caner and makes sure everyone is happy and ready to work.
“She doesn’t try to fix it,” Sollock says. “It’s just nice to know somebody is listening.”
The caners take breaks at 10 a.m. and 2 p.m., and by 3:15, they’re on their feet, sweeping and cleaning up.
Santamaria is hard at work, but she takes a moment to show with her hands that she has nine brothers and sisters, and they visit and send funny e-mails. The siblings try to make up for the loss of Santamaria’s parents, who died years ago.
When Hohle mentions parents, Santamaria stops and frowns, a look of pain flashing across her face.
Then she cracks up, laughing. Someone has pushed the button on the fish.