By Kathy Kreiger
Sentinel staff writer

The final tip-offs are the little devil horns and wicked grin on the "Have-a-nice-day" smiley-face logo on Schot's lavender polo shirt.
He gets off the phone and seals it all with a big smile and the firm handshake of someone who's been immersed in a lifetime of construction.
"It's a real Santa Cruz operation he says of Benches, the small business he operates out of a Soquel Drive storefront-and-shop near Cabrillo College.
Since graduating from Santa Cruz High School in 1962, Schot has been in the service and worked at TWA hosing off airplanes, working his way up to airline agent.
He worked as an electrician, bought a house in San Jose, built a fence, and decided it was work he'd enjoy doing. He organized what was first known as Frisbee golf and now goes by the name of disc golf.
His store, BENCHES, started eight years ago when Schot rented the small shop next to the old Rose Garden house as a place to store his tools.
His high energy went into making the benches, and the high-visibility location brought in
plenty of curious customers.
He also takes his line to home and garden shows. A mentor arrived in the person of Bill Sendell, who walked in to get a rocking chair and now helps Schot get the business chops he needs to succeed (like raising his prices).
His main task so far is to try to convince hime to raise his prices, he said. Later, as Schot shows off the area where furniture is built using high-end homeowner woodworking tools, Sendell arrives on his bike, wearing shorts and a faded blue baseball cap that says, "RELAX."
"That's for him," Sendell says, nodding his head at Schot.

One particular Santa Cruz part of the operation are chairs made from wood that once supported the old railroad trestle bridge near the warf in Santa Cruz.
Schot did not do the dismantling on that project, but he was there, day after day, ready to haul away the 12-by-`1-inch timbers that supported the bridge sine it was built in 1918.
The timebers were upto 20 feet long, and made for some very heavy lifting. Schot sawed them into pieces six and eight feet long, and hauled them off in his truck.
Earlier this month, a mill operator brought in his portable mill and sliced the pieces into inch and a half slabs.
Schot is building Adirondack chairs from the wood, and expects to get 100 of them. The chairs will sell for $300.00 each, and will have a memorial phrase burned into the wood describing the origin.
Matching ottomans, not made from the bridge wood, go for $70. Finished and sanded, the chair's color is once again warm and red. It's reassuring to see that the color has survived all these years inside the weathered gray of the bridge timbers.
There's a message in there somewhere. It's something to thank about as you take a seat, put your feet up and close your eyes in the sun.

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