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He's at work on 90th

By JARED LEONE
Published March 19, 2007

CLEARWATER - After more than 50 years of business in Clearwater, "Jersey" Jim Towers celebrated his 90th birthday Friday.

But his birthday wishes don't include dropping his golf game or retiring from the shop he founded in 1956.

"I hate being at home. I can't wait to get to come to work in the morning and I can't wait to play golf," said Towers, founder of Jersey Jim Towers TV Appliances Electronics & Air Conditioning. "I don't intend to retire."

Each workday, Towers still builds TV stands and entertainment centers. He also makes some air-conditioning repairs and does other odd jobs around the 22,000-square-foot building at 17722 U.S. 19 N.

His son Jim Jr. now runs the business, but no one else builds the home theater furniture. Jersey Jim won't let them. Two workbenches sit outside his office for the jobs.

"I build them all myself," he said. "The hardest ones are the ones with the glass."

And he still takes pride in the business he built, now housed in a colonial-style building. He fixed the blue shutters that flank the 30 windows outside the two-story building twice, he said. He also put up the white rail that lines the sidewalk in front of the building.

After 50 years, Towers is a master of organization. Nuts, bolts, screws, old appliance cords and parts, batteries of all sizes, and a litany of other fixtures are neatly stored in cigar boxes, old tins and sliding shelves in 50-year-old cabinets he had moved from the shop's former location at the corner of U.S. 19 and Gulf-to-Bay Boulevard.

On top of the workbench is a spice rack filled with more nuts and bolts. The cabinets fill the office with a musty smell from the miscellaneous parts amassed from his years in business.

"I have got to get a maid in here," Towers said jokingly. "This place is dirty."

While Towers admits he has had to make repairs to the old cabinetry more than a couple of times, he will not get rid of them.

Among the awards, family photographs and an authentic tommy gun hanging on the wall lie mementos of Towers' other joy: golf. There's a picture of when he played a round with Ben Crenshaw. He said Crenshaw complimented him on his putting, a skill he still has.

Towers and 90 friends and family members planned to celebrate his birthday Sunday at Bob Heilman's Beachcomber Restaurant. He made those reservations five years ago during his 85th birthday party.

"They're telling me I'm going to make it to 100," Towers said. "I said, 'I'm a little tired already.' "

He added, "I've had a lot of friends in my lifetime and I've had a full life."

[Last modified March 18, 2007, 20:37:18]