In Remembrance

The Industry Loses (From page 12) family business, and by the 2000s, Brownstein was selling to the children and grandchildren of his early customers.

“I always said that Ed could sell ice to an Eskimo,” laughed Leslie Chenin Morale, Harry’s daughter. “If he believed in a product and he thought you needed that item, you might as well give up, because you were going to buy that item.” She added that Brownstein’s gift for sales was equaled by his honesty: “He was looking at the reorders and thinking long term. He knew that if you didn’t sell it, you wouldn’t reorder it.”

Buzz Plyler, who first met Brownstein in the 1960s, concurred. “When he said something was the best, it usually was,” said the Gay Dolphin co-owner. Plyler, whose family business dates to the mid-1940s, recalls a young Brownstein setting up shop at the local Holiday Inn. “He really listened to what people were looking for, and he’d relay that to the owners of Beachcombers,” Plyler said. “And focus, and American-made quality. Our small business aims to help your small business succeed.

(For more information, circle 13 on the reader service card, call 800-732-4859 or visit www.desperate. com) they’d come up with products that met your needs.”

Brownstein’s longtime customer John Derrick, whose family owns Sea Shell Shop in Rehoboth Beach, Del., remembers Brownstein as a consummate salesman and a trusted friend. “He was a very, very good salesman, and very honest about whatever he was selling,” Derrick said.

For 30 years, Brownstein supplied the Sea Shell Shop with nautical-themed souvenirs, Christmas ornaments, and signs with slogans like “Gone to the Beach.” Derrick’s grandmother started the business, “so my mom, Patty, knew him from the time she was a baby,” noted Derrick, who manages both Sea Shell Shop locations together with his mother. “She’s bought from him all her life.”

More than anything, Derrick remembers Brownstein’s sense of humor. “He’d pull out whatever new product from his pocket and say, ‘You don’t have this in your store …and you still managed to open your doors and be in business? How’s that possible?’ He was just so funny.” ❖