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Now they know that two people can do anything if they apply the right kind of stickum, and just keep plugging away. It was Wen's hobby of tinkering with lamps that started them on this thrilling new adventure that has tagged him as "Wen—the Lampmaker," and "Dr. Wen of the Southwest Lamp Hospital," and by the same token has transformed Norma from a nurse to the expert maker of exquisite shades.

Though this hobby started from what looked like a bad break, it has skyrocketed into an industry that has attracted hundreds of local customers and tourists to the small duplex on a side avenue in Phoenix, that popular winter resort in the heart of the Valley of the Sun.

IT WAS back in February, 1945, just at the close of the war, when Wen began to feel his old arthritis creeping back. Finally, it got so painful that he had to quit his job as editor of a trade magazine. It was a tough break for this wiry man just in his prime that he had to sit idly at home while his wife went back to her profession of nursing.

One day Wen was rummaging restlessly around the house when he stumbled onto his favorite pair of hand-tooled cowboy boots in a far, dark corner of the closet. Feeling his old self again, he began to put them on. Something was wrong! They didn't fit anymore, and somehow he knew they never would over the new shape the bones in his feet had taken. Fondly, he traced the emerald green insets in the soft leather before he started to pitch them back into their deserted corner.

Suddenly, he had an idea. With a quick look at his hands, he saw that his fingers were bent just a little at the joints. But not too much—maybe. If he could work just a little each day, he might be able to mount these boots like other men did big fish and game they'd caught. He sighed when he thought what useless dust catchers a pair of cowboy boots would be. Just a minute. He could light them up. Lamps—sure! He'd make them useful again, these faithful old boots that had carried him through the friendly streets of Phoenix and across the desert country he loved so well.

It was with that thought that he began the slow, painful process that was to change him from Wen, the editor, to "Wen—the Lampmaker."

FIRST HE tore up one of Norma's broken boudoir lamps, and disassembled each part of the wiring. Then as he re-assembled the parts, he made notes on a piece of paper, jotting down each step until he had a set of directions. As he looks back on it, he can laugh at that crude beginning. It wasn't until several years later, and when he didn't need it, that he found a book called, "The Complete Home Handyman's Guide," by Hubbard Cobb, which explains socket wiring on page 196.

But this first time, he had to depend on his own ingenuity. So with time on his hands and a dream in his heart, he tackled the job of making lamp number one. Somehow, with patience and almost stubbornness, he stumbled through it, mostly by trial and error. The reward came several months later when friends complimented him on the cowboy boot lamps that stood proudly at either end of the divan in the Baccuses' living room. "Why don't you go in the business—Wen?" one asked. "You're a natural," another said.

That thought was just the shot in the arm that Wen Baccus needed. He had made himself useful—he could do it again. Through the long days and sleepless nights, he began to make plans. He would hunt around for some old things, maybe salvaged like his boots, and make lamps for other people. He could work at home with no extra overhead and that way help Norma with the living and help make payments on the duplex. The thought gave him a glow of pleasure, but where could he find material for the bases?

ONE NIGHT as he tossed restlessly on his bed, the flash came to him. He could almost see the city dump he'd hurried past so many times and the green, blue, purple and amber discarded old wine bottles that sparkled like flashes of confetti in the bright Arizona sun. By early morning, he had twenty-four of those wine bottles lined up on the back porch under a plank he'd set up and called the "tinkering bench." Now he was ready to go into production of lamps.

He first chose the purple bottle for his base and tried to figure out how to make a hole through the bottom of it. That was a new one, so he hobbled off to the corner electric shop where the proprietor grinned as he sold him an outmoded drill press and a second hand rheostat. The rheostat, he explained, was like a governor to control the speed of the drill, and Wen figured the man knew he was a novice and might need to start slowly. On the way back home, Wen picked up materials for an abrasive. After he mixed one ounce of carborundum with enough ten weight crank case oil and made a paste, he dabbed it on the true center of the bottom of the bottle.

Then with his drill whirling, he watched a perfect hole fall out of the dust of the grinding. Now he needed a wooden base, and he knew just where to find it. In the corner of the garage was a stack of wooden blocks eight inches square. He couldn't remember what he had saved them for—until now. Carefully, he sanded them to satin smoothness and bored a hole through the center of one with his brace and bit.

Now he disassembled a single socket, removing the outer shell by pushing down on the metal where it fit into the socket cap. He then separated the two insulated wires, baring the ends of each just enough to wind around the terminal screws inside the socket. That done, he simply put the shell and cap together, making sure they fit securely. Then, just as if stringing beads, he ran a piece of eighteen-inch tubing left from his boot lamps, on through the bottle. Through that path he pulled his light cord, out through the hole in the bottom and on through the block of wood. He had to give the cord an extra tug and pull it tightly so the newly joined socket would fit into the bottle top.

Now, so the lamp wouldn't wobble, he chiseled a groove in the bottom of the base. Into this groove he fitted the cord and braded it down with insulated staples. He needed a piece of felt to pad the bottom, but before he had time to think about traipsing off to town for it, his man's intuition nudged him into cutting a square piece from one of Norma's old broad rimmed felt hats. This he glued to the base, never once thinking of a woman's wrath.

WEN THOUGHT the shades in the dime store too expensive and besides, they all looked alike. He did select a wire frame though and took it home to trust to his ransacking to find a cover for it. It was while he was scooping the chicken feed from a burlap sack on the porch that an idea whammed him. Burlap! it said. And as quick as you could press a light button he dumped the chicken feed into a box and stretched the sack on the line to blow clean while he cut a paper pattern to fit his wire frame.

Wen fitted the burlap on the frame. He had to glue it because he couldn't sew, but it was shellacked and ready just in time for Norma's return from work. Her dark eyes beamed as she looked at it and just one important word sprang into her mind—rehabilitation. Wen Baccus had won his first battle—she knew. She smiled right on through that evening as together they made a sign to hang on the narrow front porch of the duplex. It read simply, "Wen—The Lampmaker."

That small sign, only about three feet long and eighteen inches deep, became more than just a sign. It became a symbol of the Baccuses' hopes. Every day for the next twenty-four days Wen made another lamp from one of the wine bottles, and at night, Norma made the shade. When the lamps were all finished and nearly crowding Wen and Norma out of their living room—they faced the cold reality that there were no takers. One day while Norma was working, Wen put a three-line advertisement in a small weekly newspaper, "Hand made lamps for sale." It cost him a dollar but it brought one customer. When the woman walked out with the purple lamp, it was hard to tell who was happier, Wen who had just made his first $4 profit, or the customer who bought a bargain for $5.50.

Wen would like to say that first sale was like magic, that Aladdin rubbed his lamp and presto! the customers cleaned up the bottle lamps. Not so. Not another lamp was sold and a dull stare returned to Wen's eyes as he settled down to be just a lamp repairman. But Norma wasn't satisfied. Maybe he needed a change, she thought.

She marched to the chicken yard with her spade to start a garden for Wen. With a sudden thrust, the spade struck something metallic. It clanged as she dug around and around it. Dirty and corroded, it emerged a Chinese brass bowl. She stood there wondering how it happened that this rare treasure had been buried in the earth, when Wen came into sight. She caught just the reflection of a sparkle in his eyes as he exclaimed, "A lamp!—I'll make a lamp for you because you found it." Then he added, "And it won't ever be for sale."

AS NORMA hurried into her white uniform next morning she hummed in tune to Wen's drill press singing on the back porch. All day the lamp shade for the bowl lamp was taking shape in her mind. It would be pleated flowered material this time instead of burlap—and it would be prettier than any lamp shade she'd ever seen—she knew. But what she didn't know was that a chain of events had begun that was to transform her from Norma, the nurse, into Norma, the stylist of custom made shades.

After a few days, a young mother came to the door. "I heard you made boots into lamps," she began timidly as she handed him a pair of outgrown baby cowboy boots. "Could you have these ready by Father's Day?"

Wen smiled fondly as the sentiment of the moment struck deeply into his sensitive heart. They could have belonged to his own little boy. The little boy he'd always dreamed about, but never had.

"Sure—sure," he gulped out the answer. And before the woman's light footsteps had reached her car, Wen's steps quickened toward the "tinkering bench" on the back porch.

When that order was delivered, Wen was convinced that he wanted to make a business of lamps because it not only paid well, but there was a personal satisfaction he felt in pleasing customers. That's when he started to talk to Norma about systematic advertising. "But Norma is Scotch," he grins as he tells you, "and it takes longer to talk her into spending money, than it takes her to make a handmade lamp shade. She finally agreed to spend a dollar a day for thirty days. Together they went to the classified advertising department of the Phoenix Republic and signed a contract on a three-line ad. They can still repeat the wording as though it were yesterday. "Lamps and shades to order. Repairing. The Lampmaker, 318 E. Clarendon Ave."

That advertisement paid off well when it brought more than a dozen local customers, several mail orders because of the wide state circulation of the paper, and also one order from a tourist who would be back in New York by the time the lamp would be ready to be shipped.

ONE INTERESTING order came from a woman who brought a rusty old metal shoe last to Wen. She knew it sounded silly but somehow she thought Wen would understand why she wanted a lamp out of it. It had been a long time since she was a little girl, but in her memory she could see her father bending patient shoulders over the last as he mended her shoes.

Wen did understand, but he was baffled about how he'd run a light cord up a solid shaft of metal. That was out, so he ran a piece of figurine bent pipe wiring up through the wooden base and glued it to the back of the last. When it was all painted black, the wiring was well camouflaged. It was after 2 o'clock in the morning when Norma finished the old fashioned polk bonnet for a shade and she and Wen turned out the lights and fell into bed.

Now who would think of making lamps out of cuspidors? Wen's customers did. The first one was an old brass antique that once stood regally in a Phoenix pioneer hotel. It was displaced by "Don't Spit on the Floor," signs. Yet a former employee of the hotel had some sentiments about it and he had read Wen's ad in the paper. Wen wired it for him just as he did the Chinese bowl. It made such a pretty lamp that it brought another order. This time, a pair of exquisite French hand-painted cuspidors. Norma did the shades in gold and purple silk and those lamps decorated a French bedroom.

AS 1947 slipped away, so did the pains in Wen's body. The Baccuses vacated the other side of the duplex and made a show room for clients who were appearing at the rate of seven or eight a day. Wen made a turntable out of a steel pole and a bicycle wheel to use in shellacking and trimming shades. They put shelves in the garage for a shop and store room. Already they knew advertising was making their volume in business, so without even looking at the calendar, they signed for another advertisement for one year. Then they had colorful cards printed and distributed them to the lamp departments of the Phoenix stores, and to antique dealers and among their friends. They even went on the radio with spot advertisements and finally, Norma was asked to appear on television and demonstrate shade making. Before they knew it, they were in big business and Norma gave up her job of nursing.

A pair of bronzed baby shoes made attractive nursery lamps. A pair of old shell cases returned from battlefields made den lamps. An interior decorator who saw their advertising came with twenty-one pieces to be wired and shaded in western style. Among those pieces were two woven Indian baskets. There was a chafing dish that made a show piece with green plants growing out of its bowl. Two old oil burning river boat lamps were electrified.

A LOT of people have wondered how Wen and Norma arrive at a price for their lamps. They wondered too, until they worked out a system of their own. First, when an order comes in, one of them makes an estimate of the price. When the lamp is delivered, win, lose or draw, they charge the estimated price. Price fixing is much more difficult in a custom made business than in another business, they have found. The materials they have for shades is priced from 65 cents a yard for burlap to $26.50 for antique silk taffeta. Frames are from $1.50 to $3 while handmade roses are $1.50 a group.

All these items along with cost of labor and wiring at $1 an hour go into the estimate. One lamp shade they made consumed five yards of American beauty satin and was sold for $110, while others have sold for $2. They cater to the rich and the poor alike.

Many of their orders, they remember well. One lady brought a teapot, it was Reed and Barton's first attempt in pewter and Wen turned it into an attractive antique lamp. Yes, all their orders were being filled, but there weren't enough hours in the days and nights. Wen was the first to see that Norma must have help.

A THIN blonde girl named Millie Zavicar answered their advertisement for a shade-maker. She hoped she could please them for she had much experience. It was back in New York when she was just sixteen that she had to go to work to help support the family. She got a job in a company that made only lamp shades. One day the boss brought in a frame that was the size of a wagon wheel. It was a rush order for the queen of all ships afloat, the Queen Mary. After Millie and the other girls had pleated the yards and yards of golden silk and stitched them down all by hand, Millie was chosen to go to the docks to deliver this gigantic lamp shade.

She thrilled at the thought of seeing the elegant dining room where the lamp shade was to hang. Her pleasure was short lived. When she got to the wharf, she was not permitted to board the ship. Rumors of war had sealed the gangplank to civilians and she returned to her worktable to make more lamp shades.

Now that she and her husband were in Arizona for health reasons, she would like to work for the Baccuses. And just in case they needed an electrician, her brother was one. A good one, too.

Wen and Norma turned to each other and all they could say was "Hallelujah!" They made a sewing room out of a bedroom and turned the breakfast room into a shop, with an annex in the garage. Now they could take care of their personal calls and telephone. One of those calls came from Judge Dewitt Merriam. He must have Wen and Norma at once for wiring and shades before movies were taken of his estate "Happy Landings," the former Morton Salt grounds near Phoenix.

That deadline was met by the Baccus pair though it took both day and night. Then came a call from William Benton, then Assistant Secretary of State. He was in a hurry for lamp doctoring, too. They did the work well and did it fast. It was becoming fun to learn to expect deadlines and the excitement that goes with it. They even snicker now about the shock they got when a big truck backed up to their door with a giant coffee grinder to be made into a lamp. They just gave each other that "what-will-we-do-with-it" look, but finally delivered it, silk shade and all. It is now behind a sparkling plate glass window in a decorator's shop for all Phoenix to see and admire.

As you walk away from the Baccuses' door you have a very satisfied feeling. Somehow, you know that life does have its compensations, and that almost anything can be made to serve a purpose. Cowboy boots, old wine bottles and even failure of health can prove golden. You have seen a hypo needle turned into a sewing needle, and forced idleness turned into a business. You will always remember the cowboy boot lamps and the Chinese bowl lamp sitting together side by side as symbols of the lives of Wen and Norma Baccus.