It’s raining hard, but Alan Saks doesn’t care. At age 61, he’s president of Saxon Paint, a company his grandparents started 75 years ago out of a storefront on Roosevelt Road. The company’s worth millions these days and has 50 branches, some as far away as Milwaukee. People who have seen his ads for Saxon on TV recognize Saks. He enjoys his notoriety. Life’s been good to Saks–a little rain can’t spoil his day.
“Unless you don’t have money,” I say.
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“I love Chicago,” he says. “I’ll never leave. My headquarters at 3850 W. Fullerton is just a few blocks from where I grew up. Except for a couple of years in the Army, I’ve lived my whole life here. I’m not like those sons of bitches at Sears. They made millions in Chicago. They soaked this city dry. Now they’ll go to any state that’ll give them the most land. That’s like the guy who marries the nurse who puts him through medical school. Then, once he’s a doctor, he divorces her–because a high-class doctor can’t be married to a nurse.”
He stops at the light near the Museum of Science and Industry and points to the beach across the street. “When I was going to the University of Chicago that was a lily-white beach. The blacks went to that beach on the other side of that spit of land. Now look. You’ve got white joggers and black joggers. Things aren’t perfect. But we’ve made progress.”
“Why?”
“Someone can’t smash the window to steal the car?”
He turns off Stony Island and starts to weave through clean, tree-lined side streets. The houses are brick–duplexes and bungalows; the lawns are trimmed. The neighborhood’s quiet and empty– presumably, its residents are at work.
