I wish I would have kept records of my earliest customers—from 1981 to 1990. So many of them are long forgotten. Back then I never thought I would ever need those records. Those first customers were the most fought for, and, of course, they were all new. Mrs. Collins, for example, told me that her first impression of me wasn’t that good, because I came to do the estimate in shorts and a t-shirt. But after a while I guess she got to like me and the way I explained how I would do the work—and also, the page of references I gave her. She liked my work so much that I was called back three different times, every 7 years or so. The…