TEMPLE, Texas — If you head east along Adams Avenue and you look to your left just outside of town, you'll come to Pechal Cabinets. Housed inside an aluminum building, there's history inside that's been a part of Temple's growth for nearly 80 years.
"Well, I guess I started back in 1976," said John Dillard, when asked how many years and decades he's been making cabinets.
Dillard admitted, however, it wasn't always what he thought he'd be doing.
"I remember in the seventh grade, I took a woodshop class and when the teacher said cut a straight line, I cut a crooked line and when he said cut a crooked line, I cut a straight line," he said. "When I was younger, I just wasn't woodworking inclined by any means."
Dillard said while he owes a lot to his woodshop teacher, his father-in-law was the one who took him under his wing and taught him everything he's ever known.
"He was one of a kind and one of the best known carpenters in this area for years," he said. "People have told me since that I had the best teacher you could ever ask for."
Dillard relies on word of mouth and doesn't do any advertising for Pechal Cabinets. No commercials and no social media of any kind, a truly old school and pioneering way through business dealings and handshakes.
His shop, which is full of unfinished masterpieces, is always bustling, Dillard said, with some of the most honest and hardworking men he's proud to employ.
And as we all get ready to put up Thanksgiving and set out Christmas lights and go shopping, Dillard hopes you'll shop small this year because it's what keeps the heartbeat of our country alive.
"There are small businesses around that their livelihood gears on people to purchase their products," he said. "I think with any small business, it lets people know that there other places to go other than Lowes, Home Depot and Walmart."
Dillard said he isn't sure if anyone has ever ordered cabinets from him on Small Business Saturday specifically but knows if they did, for whatever project needed, he'd be forever grateful.
"It really makes you feel good and it makes you proud of what you've done and that someone is happy with the final product that you've produced for them," he said.
For all Dillard's learned through the years, from those first crooked lines in seventh grade to sitting back and watching the best of the best to do it, he believes those who order from him, they receive an incredible gift they may not have known existed.
"In a way you are because you can knowledge any slightly different cabinet," Dillard said when asked if he's passing on the greatness he learned so many years ago. "It gets passed on as it meshes in with what you've known and done in the past."
Pechal Cabinets in Temple is located at 2212 East Adams Avenue and can be reached at (254)773-4082.