Glens Falls Chronicle Serving the Glens Falls/Lake George region; Warren, Washington and northern Saratoga counties since 1980
By Mark Frost, Chronicle Editor
I made it over to Hartford Sunday for the celebration at the firehouse of Bob Liebig’s 94th birthday. Buffet lunch and many well-wishers included Hartford Town Supervisor Dana Haff and Fort Ann Town Supervisor Sam Hall.
Bob and his wife Barbara live in Hartford and operate Utopia Enterprises, a precast concrete business that Bob launched at the age of 70 after his prior business partner died.
“I told my wife I can’t sit around in a rocking chair and watch TV,” he told me Sunday.
“One thing led to another,” he said. The business “just kept growin’ and growin’. Last year was the best year we ever had.”
Does he have employees? “I’ve got three,” he said. “I had six three years ago. They dwindled down to three there in a hurry when the government started passing out free money. We haven’t been able to find anybody else. I don’t know where all the people are.”
He said he’d like to sell the business, but buyers are no more abundant than job applicants.
What’s his secret of long life? “Never smoked and I don’t drink and I have a wonderful wife. I give her a lot of credit. She takes good care of me.”
Bob and Barbara have been married 29 years. “My first wife passed away when she was 59. I went five years, six years, a bachelor. I wasn’t doin’ too good. And then I met this lady. She’s a born again Christian” and the cross he wears is prominent too.
Is Bob a native of Hartford? “No, I’m born over in Hebron.”
What Bob is well known for — and may be part of his longevity — is knowing and telling countless family friendly jokes.
I ask him to tell me some. It takes a few seconds to get the file cards flipping in his mind. Then this one emerges:
“This kid says to his grandfather, ‘Can you make a noise like a frog?’
‘Gee I don’t know I never tried. Why?’
‘Well I heard mommy and daddy talking the other day and they said we’re goin’ to Disney World as soon as grandpa croaks.’”
Then this one:
“This guy was real hard of hearing, real deaf. His family wanted him to get a hearing aid. They got the hearing aid guy to come to the house and check him out.
“Well, he wouldn’t let him in and the hearing aid salesman left.
“The salesman met him on the street a a couple weeks later. He had a hearing aid in his hand and he held it right up to the man’s ear and started talking to him and the guy perked right up. he could see he was hearing.
“He said, ‘How would you like one of these?’
“The guy said, ‘I would, under one condition, if you put it in my ear so nobody knows I got it.’
“‘Oh yeah, we do that all the time.’
“So he got it.
“A year later he met the guy on the street. ‘How do you like that hearing aid?’
“‘Oh gee I love it.’
“‘I’ll bet your family really appreciates you having that, don’t they?’
“‘Oh they don’t know I got it — and I’ve changed my will three times.’”
Then this one:
“This newspaper man was commissioned to do a story on churches and so he went down to New York City and he went in this big church. There on the wall is a gold telephone that says ‘Direct line to heaven, $5,000.’
“He went down to Washington, D.C., went in another big church and there on the wall was a gold telephone. ‘Direct line to heaven, $5,000.’
“Then he went to Chicago, went to a big church out there, same thing, gold telephone on the wall and sign under it ‘Direct line to heaven, $5,000.’
“He happened to pass through Hartford, went to the church here. Sure enough there’s the gold telephone on the wall, ‘Direct line to heaven, 25 cents.’
“What the heck is goin’ on. So he talked to one of the local people, and he said, ‘Here in Hartford, it’s a local call.’”
Beyond countless jokes, Mr. Liebig collected hundreds of motivational books. “They keep me thinking,” he told our reporter David Cederstrom who interviewed him for a story in 2016.
Among Bob’s favorite sayings then:
“The only place you will find success before work is in the dictionary.”
“You can get everything you want out of life if you just help enough other people get what they want.”
His secret of business success? “Basically, keep the customer talking,” he told David. “Keep the customer talking, keep asking questions, and pretty soon you can get them to tell you what you wanted to tell them.
“Another thing, you ask people about their families, and what they do….You show an interest in people, and then they become interested in you.”
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