Blind Man Back In Business, Starts Used Car Lot

Mlive.com. Michigan USA Saturday, March 31, 2007
By Pat Shellenbarger Saturday, March 31, 2007

GRAND RAPIDS — Willie Scales can tell you all about the used cars on his lot: make, model, year, color, miles. If you’re interested, he can start one,
put a dealer plate in the back window and let you take it for a test drive. And if you decide to buy it, he’ll negotiate the price, fill out the paperwork,
take your money and send you on your way.

He started a ‘93 Dodge Shadow the other day. “Belt’s a little noisy,” he told a customer. “We can fix that no charge.” Inside his office, he slid the customer’s
driver’s license into a reader, and a computer-generated voice verbalized the name, expiration date and other information. “Whoa,” the man said. “I haven’t
seen one of those before.” “I did tell you I’m blind, didn’t I?” Scales said.

For many of his customers, it isn’t apparent Scales hasn’t seen any of the cars he has sold since losing his sight more than eight years ago. The dealer
he was working for fired him a year ago, ostensibly due to his fading vision, although Scales believes it was because she wanted to give his job to her
boyfriend.

He stewed about it a while — “It kinda broke my spirit,” he said — then decided to start his own used car lot. A few weeks ago, he opened Willie Auto
Finance and Auto Repair just north of 76th Street.

Scales, 48, traces his love of cars to when he was 5 years old and living on a farm in Tennessee. His dad would prop him up on the seat and let him steer
the car. Both parents died when he was a small boy, and he lived with relatives and in foster care until he was old enough to go out on his own.

When he was 21, he moved to Grand Rapids and began buying used cars, muscle cars mostly, anything he could fix up, make look sharp and go fast. An all-state
football player during his years in Tennessee, Scales worked for the city parks and recreation department, coached a softball team and managed the Richmond
Park Pool.

In the spring of 1998, he got his dream job selling used cars for Roberts Motors on South Division. The following November, he awoke one morning with blurry
vision. Over the next few days, he went blind. No one could figure out why, even the doctors at Mayo Clinic. All they could say was something had damaged
his optic nerve.

Scales kept working, memorized where each car was on the lot, all the details about each, where the keys hung. His boss, Dave Roberts, said he wouldn’t
trade him for a million bucks, but Roberts died four years ago, and those who took over eventually decided they could do without Scales.

He could have stayed home and collected Social Security disability, but “I gotta do something,” he said. “I’m not ready to sit back and do nothing. After
one day it gets old.”

So he began looking for a place to open his used car lot and found it in former tire shop at 7364 S. Division. The Michigan Commission for the Blind is
helping him with the rent, utilities and other expenses until he turns a profit. He’s hiring a mechanic, and his longtime friend Kevin Miller, who owns
a repair shop a few miles away, drives him to auto auctions and helps him pick out the cars to bid on.

The other day, a man pulled onto the lot and offered to sell Scales a ‘96 Grand Am. He couldn’t see the car, but started it up, listened to the engine and
paid the man $1,200. “I can pretty much tell if somebody’s trying to cheat me,” he said. “You can put it in gear, drive it a little backward and forward.
You can tell if that tranny’s gonna go out. When you get in, you turn it on, and you listen if that fuel pump is humming. If it is, you know you’re gonna
have to replace it.” He pointed to his ears. “These are my eyes,” he said.

A woman handed him a $400 down payment on a car — three $100 bills and five $20s. Scales riffled them close to his ear. “That sounds about right,” he said.
He stapled the bills to a receipt. His wife, Betsy, who is hearing impaired and does the bookkeeping, will verify the amount later. She is his eyes; He
is her ears. He doesn’t want your pity, only your business.

“A lot of good stuff has happened to me since I been blind,” Scales said. “It’s been a blessing, really. I accomplished something most people wouldn’t take
on. If it works it’s because I make it work.” Besides, he said, “Every day we’re above ground is a good day.”

Send e-mail to the author:
pshellenbarger@grpress.com

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