(3 of 3)
"At first," he remembers, "business was slow, but it's just sort of gone wild." The boys began helping out when they were five or six, and as they grew up and got more involved, Betty specialized in decorating the concrete. When Harper built the shop, which is about a 15-second commute from their red brick, one-story house, Betty got a corner, where she uses an air compressor to spray-paint the animals with automotive-grade enamel. Almost from the beginning, says Harper, "I've been saying I want to slow down. But then I order more molds." That is an expensive habit: the deer mold cost him about $700 and the pig $400 or so. It would be cheaper to make his own molds, and Harper has tried it, but the job is just too time consuming. To keep the assembly line going, he needs as many as six copies of each, and he carries scores of items.
Just then, a visitor walks in, a chubby man with the kind of short, wire- brush haircut that has been out so long it is back in again in certain regions of New York City and Los Angeles. He is Ray Judd, a colleague from the days when the concrete business was populated by honorable men. "Ray had a place up near Luray, but we didn't used to compete," Harper reminisces. "We even traded molds. Nowadays the competition won't even tell you where they buy theirs. I think it's time to get out of this business." But then he drags Ray outside to inspect a new figure, a massive concrete hound balanced on its hind legs. The front paws could rest on the shoulders of a man 6 ft. tall. Harper did not make the dog: he bought it from another dealer. "I'm trying out the statue first before I order the mold," he explains, while Ray nods sagely. "I don't trust those hind legs. They're so thin I think they'll crack, and I don't see how we could reinforce them." If there is a way, though, Harper will probably find it, and connoisseurs of concrete will find it harder than ever to narrow down their choices.