But just barely. Atkinson, 33, died two days after the grand opening of L&S Custom Wheels in Knightdale.

The business opened Nov. 12, 2004, and Atkinson died of congestive heart failure Nov. 14.

The business survived the death of its founder when his mother, Linda Sanders -- the "L" in "L&S"; the "S" stood for "Son" -- took over. It kept running after the kidnapping and murder of Sanders' younger sister, Cynthia Moreland.

What finally stopped L&S Custom Wheels from spinning, though, is a financial crisis that, if we survive it, will leave on us psychological scars that match those left on previous generations by the Great Depression.

"Starting last year, because of the economy, people weren't putting custom tires on their cars; they were putting gas in them," Sanders told me Wednesday. She spoke with sadness about pulling the plug on her son's dream, of severing a last link with him.

"I made that decision last month, but I had been thinking about it since August," she said. "My husband and I talked it over and realized it was time."

Sanders, of Wendell, had always planned to be her son's partner, but a silent one, supplying financial backing.

"He had the knowledge, the contacts. He'd been doing this for 15 years. ... My son taught me a lot before he passed," she said.

She needed to learn more, though, and she did. "God did not allow me to sell the first set of tires until I learned everything about tires and rims that I needed to know.

"We opened on Nov. 12. I didn't sell the first set of tires until Dec. 23," she said.

Once she sold that first set, she said, the business stabilized. "We did OK in '05, exceptionally well in '06, but '07 and '08?" She shuddered at the memory of how difficult it became trying to sell high-end rims to people forced to renounce bling. A custom set of 22-inch Ashanti's rims for a BMW 745 might go for $8,400, she said.

"If I'd known that things were going to happen as they did -- my son's death, my sister's death, the economy -- I don't think I would've opened" the business, she said.

Without L&S, Sanders said, she plans to join her husband, Everett A. Sanders, pastor of New Jerusalem Holiness Church, in his ministry.

That didn't prevent her from offering a blunt assessment of the federal government spending hundreds of billions bailing out greedy, profligate financial institutions but offering nothing to small businesses.

"It sucks," she said. She noted recent reports of AIG executives luxuriating at an exclusive resort while golfing, receiving manicures and massages and hosting bacchanalian banquets for almost half-a-million dollars after being bailed out by the government.

"They didn't bail me out. They didn't help me or the other small businesses" touted by both presidential candidates as the lifeblood of the American economy.

"If I'd gotten a loan, I would've been able to survive," she said. "I could've financed my customers whose credit is now so bad they can't buy a lollipop."

Despite her personal losses and the struggles of running a business in such an unforgiving economic climate, Sanders said, "I think I came out of it a better and stronger person."

Let's hope we can all say that after this is over.

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