A tribute to Bud Smail 1936-2018

Three days before I turned seventeen I walked into Bud Smail Lincoln Mercury and began my career in the automobile industry.  My aunt worked there as a bookkeeper and asked me to help out for the summer.  I would be starting the new school year as a senior and having a job seemed the perfect way to fund the crazy high school events ahead of me.

Thus began what would be fifty-one years (and still counting) of my employment for the Smail Family.  In 1967 there were just slightly over thirty people working for Bud Sr, who at the time was at the helm. (Bud Sr on far left, Bud Jr next to him)   These days there are well over 400 total employees, which is where I stopped counting.  But this is not about me – it’s about the man who took the helm and moved the Smail name forward.

Bud Jr. was very fun to work with.  In those early days, we worked closely together in everything from reporting sold vehicles to manufacturers to sending out customer statements with little, personal comments written on them.  The very first letter he dictated to me was a sales quote to a business for three different Mercury vehicles.  He was explaining the Mercury Brougham, but I thought he said Broom (how did I know what a Brougham was???), and I typed the letter and presented it for a signature.  It was a long time before he let me forget that.

When he paged over the intercom, he’d blow into it first – just a couple puffs – to make sure it was working and was loud enough.  Sometimes when we walked over to Gee Bee’s Department store next door we could hear Bud puffing through the outside speakers.  Occasionally he would ‘chant’, which always made us laugh. That, along with his never-ending supply of stories and jokes that ‘we never saw coming.’

It was nothing for me to sew stray buttons on his suit jackets, shirt collars, and cuffs.  Once I hemmed a pair of dress stacks for him while he had them on – he sat with his leg propped up on the desk.  I stitched in a circle around his leg while he conducted business as usual. 

In those early days, we often had cheesy steak sandwiches from Pete’s up the road, or rigatoni to go (with garlic toast!) from Rizzo’s right next door to Pete’s.  Valley Dairy had great Mac and Cheese and their hot rolls were yummy.  It was sometimes the biggest decision of the day: where to have lunch! Bud’s favorite – as I remember – was a Pete Junior.

As time went on, and the community up and down the Route 30 corridor changed, so did food choices.  Mostly the executive offices ordered from Vallozzi’s or Boston Market, but when the majority were out of town, Bud would call me and ask me where I was going for lunch.  That was my clue that he was hungry for something that he wasn’t supposed to eat.  Bud’s diet was to consist of healthy choices and increased water intake.  But those sneaky days when no one else was around, I would make a McDonald’s run and bring him back a hamburger with ketchup, small fries, and a vanilla milkshake.  It was always a vanilla milkshake.  Occasionally we’d pop over to Chick Fil-A, but it was always the milkshake!

Dealership hours were very long, and Bud never skipped out early.  He was there for the 8:30am sales meeting and was still there to lock the place up at 9:00pm.  The exception to that was on summer weekends when he joined his family at their cottage, and every Friday I would take his Lincoln (me, driving a Lincoln!), and always with Jim Croce’s 8-track playing ‘Time in a Bottle’ or ‘You Don’t Mess Around with Jim’.  I still think of Bud when I hear those songs! I would drive into downtown Greensburg and pick up his airline tickets right after lunch so he’d be ready to leave after work.

Unless it was for a business or community meeting, Bud seldom left the building.  He walked the dealership, knew his employees, and always enjoyed stopping to have personal conversations.  This practice – started when there were only a handful of people to chat with – continued until his health prevented him from being there.  Until then, every Saturday Bud would go around to all of the numerous building, walk through all the departments, and make himself accessible to the people he worked with.

Always the gentleman, he commanded respect by giving it, was pleasant and knowledgeable about every facet of the operation, and kept a good pulse on the community.  He genuinely cared about the people who surrounded him, both within the building and outside of the business.  He was a champion for the auto industry and was up-to-date and informed on issues economically and politically related to the business.  His love of all things vehicle was obvious even to the casual observer, and those who knew him well knew his name was synonymous with the very reputable business of selling and servicing cars.

But more than just respecting his relationship with his business and community, I appreciated his care and nurturing of a young, impressionable teenager, being patient with my mistakes, sharing in my joys and successes, and sympathizing with my hardships and sorrows.  He would encourage me to do my best and patiently teach and share what was important to him.  That relationship matured and continued throughout my years as an employee and friend. He would often introduce me as the “best damned title clerk in the state”, which I took as a compliment. When my book was published in 2014, he and Ellen were my champion sellers.  I do believe my book as traveled to more states and countries that I can ever hope to!

He was a great brother, husband and father, and his children and grandchildren now emulate his strong work ethic and devotion to family and business.  His legacy will continue to live on in the dealerships that wear his name, through the love and dedication of those left to move forward into  the future.

Not too long ago he began to be confused about the days on the calendar, the pages in his planner.  He struggled with his appointments and his schedule and repeatedly needed confirmation of day to day activities.  He had always double checked everything so that in itself wasn’t entirely unusual.  But this went beyond that.  Let me just say that it’s very hard to have someone be sitting at his desk – as he had for 50 years – but be somewhere else entirely.  It’s been a long, slow journey since then.

When I got the call on Wednesday evening that Bud had gone to be with the Lord (which was exactly how it was put to me!), I felt lost and overwhelmed.  Sleep was illusive and my thoughts stayed captured by a mixed up combination of my half a century of memories and my concern and sympathy for the Smail family.  By morning I felt ready to tackle the day, whatever it would bring – until I pulled into the parking lot and the flag was being lowered to half mast.  Then, I simply lost it. 

But I could not have been in a better place, because the text messages, emails, phone calls, visits and hugs from not only his friends but mine as well sustained me and encouraged me through the day.  I was surrounded by people who knew and often loved Bud Smail, held him in high esteem, and recognized him for the icon that he was:  An era had ended, and some things – many things – would never be the same.  With Bud’s passing we lost a connection to a time and way of life that will never be again.

I am honored and blessed to have had a part in that era, been a part of Bud’s life, and I will always respect and remember the gentleman who was Bud Smail.

In loving memory.