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Wilbur J. Pike of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, who has followed the same avocation for close to half a century, has found an answer that borders on the remarkable. His hobby, umbrella making and repairing, provides him with a greater annual income than he realizes from his forty-hour-a-week job as a bill collector for Bethlehem's City News Company.

Few hobbyists harbor quite the fondness for unpleasant weather that Pike does. "When it rains, I shine," he exclaims philosophically.

And shine he does! In the little shop he has in the rear of his home, Pike has built up a business that will provide him with a steady income for the rest of his life. "If my wife were in better health, and could help me more," he muses, "the two of us could make a pretty decent living out of this umbrella work right now."

Strangely enough, the 57-year-old Pike had little to do with his own entrance into the umbrella repair business. Back in 1898 his grandfather strung a couple of premises together and concluded that nearly everyone used umbrellas and that nearly everyone at some time or other found them in need of repair. The tangible result of this conclusion was a small shop at the rear of his home in the woods north of Bethlehem.

As his assistant, he had his son. In 1902, when grandson Wilbur was about 6 years old, he took up the trade too, with no more enthusiasm than any youth his age might be inclined to have.

AS THE years slipped by, the grandfather's original premises withstood the test of time, and as the rains came so did the business. When he died in 1928 at the age of 104, his son and grandson took over. When the son passed away in 1950, Wilbur Pike was left to perpetuate the business, with more than forty-eight years of experience behind him.

If all the umbrellas Pike has either repaired or constructed in the last half century were opened at the same time, they could keep about two and one-half times the number of people in Bethlehem dry. Pulling figures out of thin air is risky business, but suppose for a moment, that Pike in fifty years has worked on ten umbrellas a day (it's usually more), for five days a week (more often six). That would mean that in his lifetime he has worked on no less than 150,000 umbrellas of every make, size, shape and color, including golf umbrellas and parasols used in Broadway stage plays.

"I wish I had a dollar for everyone I've done since I started in," Pike says. "I sure wouldn't be working any more."

Actually, Pike, whose shop today is next door to where his grandfather started in business, was using this illustration to make a point and nothing more. From watching him work and listening to him tell about his hobby, you can't help feeling that there's nothing he likes to do better.

"Every job I get is a challenge to me," he points out. "Take one of these automatic umbrellas for example," he will explain as he withdraws one from a rack of already completed work. "Some of these you push a button and the umbrella automatically flies open. Others, you press a button and they automatically close. Both kinds are very good when you're carrying an armful of packages. They operate by means of springs inside the center pole and are a challenge to me every time I get hold of one of them.

A folding umbrella is the trickiest piece of work you ever laid eyes on. German folding umbrellas are made so that after dismantling them so far, they just fall apart on you and all you have left is a handful of pieces. They pose a real problem, but the Germans do produce the best umbrellas as far as workmanship and material go."

But Pike doesn't have to repair an unusual umbrella or one of foreign make to find a challenge. You can give him the one standing in your closet, say the one with the broken rib, and he'll find a challenge in it too.

WHAT MAKES Pike's hobby so profitable, as well as so intriguing, is not the prices he charges, but the volume of work he handles. As far as he knows, he is the only person engaged in umbrella repair work in a region including eastern Pennsylvania and probably northern New Jersey. In an hour he can repair almost any damaged umbrella and in an hour-and-a-half or two hours he can do a complete recovering job. Making a new umbrella from his own material, which he seldom is called on to do any more, usually takes an hour.

Thus in one evening, after he comes home from work and eats supper, he can complete anywhere from three to six umbrellas. "However," he says, "it's hard to tell just what I can do in one night. I rarely start on one umbrella and keep at that one until I've finished it. Usually I'm working on three, four and sometimes six at one time."

Pike seldom stays at his work later than 11 o'clock at night, but he's at it every night plus a full day on Saturday, putting in between 30 and 35 hours a week on his hobby. By carefully budgeting his time, he can produce an amazing amount of work in one week. Even while the interview for this story was being obtained, Pike continued to recover a woman's umbrella while reeling off the answers to questions.

Converted into dollars and cents, Pike's work on an ordinary repair job usually brings him between $1 and $3. For a recovering job, the price is closer to $7. Many factors are taken into consideration in both cases, such as the type of umbrella, the amount of work necessary and the cost of supplies.

Some people, he says, are frequently piqued by the prices he charges, although his rates are the same as they were five years ago, despite the general increase in the cost of living. However, Pike has been forced to cut costs by eliminating his pick-up-and-delivery service.

As a sound businessman, Pike believes in doing the best job possible on every umbrella he receives, and then charging a fair price for the labor and materials. There have been times when he did work free of charge, such as the time a number of years ago when he made parasols for a theatrical production at Liberty High School in Bethlehem. But these gratis jobs always bring forth the inevitable "pals" who ask, "Can't you just fix this umbrella for me as a favor, in a spare minute or two?"

CONSIDERING the amount of work Pike does on each umbrella he handles, the only possible unreasonableness about his prices is that they are so low. To understand the process Pike goes through in repairing an umbrella, it is first necessary to recognize the names of some of the various pieces used in an umbrella.

The ribs, of course, are the thin, elongated, metal pieces, which when bowed give the umbrella its shape. The rod is the center pole to which the handle is attached. The arms are similar in appearance to the ribs but extend from the mid-point of the ribs to the tod, They are fastened to the runner, the circular assembly which slides up and down the rod, by means of a wire passed through eyes in the runner and the arms. The ribs are similarly wired to the notch, the stationary assembly near the top of the umbrella.

The actual repair work itself is not difficult. Any person with moderate dexterity in his fingers, after studying the mechanisms of an umbrella for fifteen minutes, can take one apart and put it back together using only the simplest of tools. There are no shortcuts, Pike says. For any kind of a repair job, the umbrella must first be dismantled.

The only trick to the whole business lies in the high degree of exactness required. "An umbrella can't be out of line even a thirty-second of an inch and work anyway near correctly," Pike points out. "If they're out much more than that, they won't work at all."

American umbrellas, he explains, all run in quarter-inch lengths. They are measured by the length of their ribs, which incidentally, always equal the length of the rod. Thus American umbrellas can be 18¼ inches long, 20¼ inches long and so on up to 32¼ inches.

English umbrellas, in comparison, come in half-inch sizes, such as 18frac12; inches, 20frac12; inches and so on. Since Pike's supplies are for American makes, the ribs and rods must be improvised or rebuilt when an English job is brought to the shop. The quarter-inch difference prevents using American ribs and rods directly on English umbrellas.

SUPPOSE AN umbrella with a broken rib is brought to Pike's shop. His first step is to cut off the cover by carefully snipping the threads which hold it to the frame. He then removes the ribs and arms by cutting the wire in the runner and notch. Each rib is tested for its flexibility and each eye is inspected to make certain that it is not rusted. The springs in the two catches on the rod are also checked.

Should the springs be found broken or weak, the catch assembly must be replaced with a new one. Frequently the catches can be removed by forcing them toward the center of the rod and then lifting them out. In some umbrellas with hollow rods, where the catches are attached to the springs differently, it is necessary to force the protruding part of the catch down into the rod and then pull both the spring and the catch out the end of the umbrella. Of course this method necessitates first removing either the handle or the umbrella's tip, depending on which catch assembly needs repair.

After a thorough inspection of all parts of the umbrella, the broken rib is replaced and any other necessary parts are either repaired or replaced. The umbrella is then reassembled in the opposite order from which it was dismantled.

Before the cover is sewn tight, two water-proof washers are put in place on top of the notch, along with a thin piece of material known as a flop, which hides the washers from view in the finished repair job.

The fabric is fastened to the frame by double-stitching, not only at the end of each rib, but also at several other spots between the rod and the tip of each rib. The number of times, varying from two to four, of course depends on the length of the rib and the strength desired. The more times the umbrella material is sewn to each rib, the better the shape of the umbrella, Pike says, adding that umbrellas with good, firm shapes are the ones which shed water, best.

This double-stitching, along with a few other "secret marks" which Pike places on umbrellas, enables him to tell at a glance whether he has ever worked on a customer's umbrella before. He can also recognize the work of his father and his grandfather.

One day a man brought an umbrella in, and told Pike, "I bought this from your grandfather about sixteen years ago."

Pike took a look at the inside of the umbrella, and remarked, "I think it was about twenty-five years ago, you got this."

The man didn't say any more about the matter and left the umbrella to be fixed. But when he returned a few days later, he told Pike, "You win. When I got home the other day I told my wife what you said and she said you were right. Seems she bought the umbrella right before we got married, and we're having our silver wedding anniversary in three weeks."

PURCHASING supplies poses little problem for Pike, who lives within convenient driving distance of two of the nation's leading umbrella supply centers, Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and Baltimore, Maryland. Pike makes it a practice to view the stock in supply houses in these cities at least once a year, and then orders by mail the remainder of his supplies in bulk shipment.

Some of the supplies are manufactured by companies engaged only in the supply business, while others are produced by new umbrella manufacturing concerns, which carry supplies as a sideline. At the present time most materials, including the ribs, rods, handles, ferrules, springs and even the rayon acetate and nylon covers are readily available for purchase.

Procuring orders for work is almost as easy as obtaining supplies for Pike, with his virtual monopoly on the business in Bethlehem and the eastern part of the state. He is one of the few hobbyists who can directly tie in a full-time job with his hobby.

While collecting bills for the news company, Pike finds numerous invaluable opportunities to meet people whom he might never otherwise come in contact with. "I just can't walk in a doctor's office and ask him if he has any umbrellas to be repaired," he explains.

"But when I go there to collect a bill, we often get to talking for a few minutes and eventually wind up exchanging business cards. I don't believe there's a doctor in town I haven't done work for. They all know the value of keeping dry when it rains. I also get into a lot of private homes through my job, and pick up business I'd never get any other way."

In addition to his personal contacting, Pike is helped by the Chamber of Commerce and the Hotel Bethlehem. The Chamber directs new residents in town to him when they have umbrella troubles, while the hotel follows the same procedure with travelers. Through the hotel in particular, Pike has done work for individuals in almost every state in this country as well as for other persons now scattered all over the globe, who presumably are carrying a Pike-repaired umbrella if the sun isn't shining.

Mute proof of Pike's success in finding new customers as well as retaining old ones by the excellence of his workmanship, is the fact that in 1952 he advertised in the local newspapers only twice. "If I advertised more often," he says, "I'd get so much work I wouldn't have time to do it all."