Jul Balyoz becomes a Burlington staple
by Rebecca Wetherbee
Oct. 8, 2008
Burlington, N.C. – Jul Balyoz sits at a desk with an archaic metal sewing machine. “Old, but better than new one,” he says. “Nothing melts in here.” He pats his moss green co-worker, explains how it was used in factories and ran for hours at a time. “If plastic gets hot, it melts!” he says. But this one is built for endurance, even self-lubrication. “Once in a blue moon,” he says, “I turn it inside out.”
Balyoz knows how to work with his hands—for nearly all of his 63 years, he has worked as either a tailor or an auto mechanic. He grew up in Ankara, the bustling capital of Turkey, and though he’s spoken English for almost 20 years now, the Turkish language still curls his tongue.
As a child, Balyoz lived in an apartment above his father’s alterations shop. While the other kids played outside, Balyoz was with his father learning how to tailor, putting his nimble child’s fingers to work. “Other kids are playing outside; I was playing in my father’s shop,” he said. “It is history, you know, I grew up that way.”
As an adult, Balyoz operated an auto mechanic shop. But within a few years, gas prices in Turkey climbed so high that most citizens could no longer afford to drive. “If you stop driving,” he jokes, “you don’t have trouble with your car.” He was out of the job. It was little matter, though, because soon he would be out of the country as well.
It is a tale that Balyoz is hesitant to tell. “It’s a long story,” he warns, the way he does before most of his explanations. But it is a story told in every language, one version or another. Balyoz is a Christian, and Turkey is dominated by Muslims. “We didn’t get along,” he says. “They pressured us to move… You could not get a government job or anything.” He speaks of his experience the way most people speak of ancient history— his words indicate removal, but his tone is nostalgic.
Jul lived in Germany for 10 months before coming to the United States. He had to kill time; it took him two and a half years to get permission to move to the U.S.
But Germany was even less eager for Balyoz to get settled. “They don’t accept immigrants, you know? They have a contract with the other countries. If people come to Germany for labor, when they are finished they go back to their country,” he said. “They cannot stay there and become German citizen. Not like here, you know. When your work is done, go back. If you lose your job, go back.”
But Balyoz refused to go back. In July of 1981, he crossed the Atlantic and entered North Carolina to live with his sister and brother-in-law. He was 36 years old.
Balyoz wasn’t the first in his family to emigrate—his sister and brother-in-law came to Burlington in 1977. His brother-in-law owned the shop that Jul owns now—Miran’s Alterations at 127 East Front Street, downtown.
It is a small shop—Balyoz’s work table is by the front door, next to a huge picture window so he can glance up from time to time and watch the happenings outside. Clothes form huge piles behind his desk, bins of giant spools decorate every spare surface and the pin cushions scattered across his desk explode with needles. It is a colorful, cluttered place to work, but it is comfortable for Jul, who spends most of his time in the shop alone.
Two years ago, he hired a part-time employee: an Iranian woman named Sezavar Barghasa who helps him during the week. Barghasa is Bahai, and, like Balyoz, fled Muslim persecution by moving to the U.S. Balyoz recalls the time a Muslim senator appeared on television and called all non-Muslims infidels. Barghasa, who is still learning English, writes the word “infidel” down in a tiny spiral notebook, as if to remember that that’s who she is, that’s who Balyoz is.
Balyoz is unmarried—he lives alone a couple miles from the shop. “I never had the time!” he says, eschewing the idea marriage. Each day, he drives his old-model van to work. “If I want to lose this,” he says, gripping the gut that hangs over his belt, “I walk!”
He finds a lot of ways to stretch his back after spending hours hunched over in the shop. If it isn’t swimming, it’s dancing. “Last five years, I am taking shag classes,” he says, his expression bright. Every Friday night, upwards of 300 people gather at the Ramada Inn to dance shag to music spun by a local DJ. “I don’t want to brag on myself,” Balyoz says, “but I dance good. I don’t embarrass my partner; I don’t step on their feet.” Balyoz motions to the stereo across from his desk. “920 AM station all day long play shag music, and I stuck with that last five years. My car, my home, store, all my radios connect to that station.”
He holds up a stack of papers mailed to him by the shag group. “Look at how they spell my name,” he asks, shaking his head. A sticker on the front has his address, and the name “Tul Baylor.” The inside of the flyer lists the birthdays of all of the group’s members. Jul turned 63 on Sept. 20, and there he is alongside the other September birthdays, “Tul Baylor.” “Aren’t they awful?” he says. However, this lack of identity doesn’t trouble him too much. He’s well known around town, he has been featured once already in the Burlington Times-News and he frequently waves at passers-by through his shop’s window.
He’s come a long way since he moved here all those decades ago. He recalls with humor his first three years in the U.S. His sister and brother-in-law were still alive, and he worked diligently in their shop, struggling to learn English. “My English was, ‘Me Tarzan, you Jane,’” he says. “Tarzanian, we call it.” Frustrated by his slow progress, he started taking English classes at Alamance Community College.
“It take me quick to learn after that,” he said. “And then they told me, ‘You learn enough English. Come, let’s give you some G.E.D. courses.’” So Balyoz got his diploma. He took auto mechanic’s classes, too, brushing-up the skills he’d learned in Turkey. But it was to no avail—he never found a job. “My age wasn’t good enough for them,” he says. “I was too old to hire.”
So he found himself back in his brother-in-law’s shop: hemming pants, loosening waist-lines, taking in seams, just as he always had been. At least until 2000, when his brother-in-law passed away. Partnering with his sister, they ran Miran’s Alterations without Miran. In 2002, when Balyoz’s sister was diagnosed with cancer, she put the shop in his hands. “She asked me, ‘Can you handle?’ I said, ‘I’ll try.’”
Balyoz has been the shop’s sole proprietor for the past six years, and though the summer months are slow, it is largely a success. He has a number of regular customers, including some who live out of state, and bring their long, loose, or torn clothes with them whenever they return to Burlington. Busy or not, he always accepts their business.
“I cannot say ‘no,’” he says. “We don’t have that ‘no’ word in our dictionary.” It’s a lesson he learned from Miran, among others. “My brother-in-law, his advice was good,” Balyoz says. “When he was working, his eyes were connected to the needle of the machine. He was telling me, ‘Look at whatever you are doing. Don’t talk, work.’”
And Balyoz does work—however long it takes him to finish his projects, to satisfy his customers. But he talks, too. He has a lot to say. If you see him outside his shop, smoking a Pall Mall on a long plastic filter, he’ll stop and talk to you, too.
He has stories to tell. He’ll smother his cigarette on the bricks of his building and talk for as long as you’ll listen.
