By Josh Katzowitz

Eddie Lane and his son, Mike, are men of contradictions. Eddie is a successful, respected businessman who takes some of his cues from the wait staff at Waffle House. He’s an Irish-Catholic who’s never tasted a drop of alcohol. He sits in his beautiful showroom in Montgomery and pets a beautiful standard poodle named Prince who’s spewing the vilest gas since the campfire scene in Blazing Saddles.

His son, Mike is a jeweler who, on this day at least, is wearing nothing glittery on his fingers or his wrists. He’s a former state champion football player from Moeller High School who played at Notre Dame under Gerry Faust, yet nothing would make him happier than selling you the prettiest, girliest diamond ring for the woman of your dreams.

The two of them curse and laugh on the golf course, and they poke fun at each other whenever an opportunity arises. They’re men who would like to beat your ass on the racquetball court. But when a family member is truly in need, they’ll fly through hellacious storms filled with hail and 2,000 foot drops to be at a bedside in an instant. When they talk, they speak about integrity and doing what’s right.

They’re hard men, but they have a soft, gooey center.

You’ve probably heard of Eddie Lane and Mike Lane. Eddie Lane owns Eddie Lane’s Diamond Showroom in Montgomery where he’s been in business more than 25 years and where he’s served, by his own estimates, more than 90,000 customers and designed more than 20,000 rings. He deals mostly with the retail side of the business, selling jewelry to customers off the street.

Mike Lane owns Diamonds Rock in Kenwood where he’s created a showroom that is, for all intents and purposes, an extension of his factory and mostly sells pieces to independent jewelers around the country. If you don’t want to drive the two extra miles to his father in Montgomery, he’ll sell to you instead.

They don’t fit the stereotype where the only distinguishing features between a jeweler and a used car salesman is the flashy watch and the diamond pinky ring. Instead, they are two independent businessmen who want their customers to be the best-educated consumers they can be. They don’t want to make buying a diamond ring an exercise in misery. They want you to get your way.

“We’re totally different business models, but the same philosophies still run through,” Mike Lane said. “Our main goal is to treat customers with respect. Make the whole process easy.”

That’s one major knock on the industry they’ve chosen for themselves. It’s not an easy – or a fun – process to buy expensive jewelry. Since it’s hard for a Zale’s or a Kay Jewelers or a Jared to brand themselves or their merchandise as unique – after all, does it really matter if you bought your engagement ring from that place in the mall or that place across the street from the mall? – one way to get ahead in this industry is to disparage your competition up the road.

“Our industry has done a very poor job making the consumer enjoy buying jewelry,” Mike Lane said. “The way you compete in this industry without a whole lot of branding is to create uneasiness. They’ll say, ‘Are you sure you’re being taken care of down the street?’ We combat that with complete transparency.”

They’re also helped by an industry that doesn’t necessarily reward the biggest corporations. That’s one reason why the Lane’s can afford to keep prices lower than the mall chains.

Take, for instance, the outfits you can find in every mall in America.

You have to remember that diamonds are not an unlimited commodity. It’s a very competitive business, and when a big chain store needs 5,000 1-carat stones because they have to fill their 2,000 stores nationwide that sit open 12 hours a day and seven days a week, they pay more money for their merchandize.

Eddie and Mike Lane need only a fraction of those stones, and thus, they pay less.

“It’s that simple,” Mike said. “They go out in the market and they need 5,000 stones, and (those stones) are not just sitting around. This is an out-of-the-ground commodity that’s regulated and controlled. That’s where we absolutely bring significant values.”

As the Lane’s sit in Eddie’s office, discussing their ideas about business and customer satisfaction, they fill the room with jokes and asides. And it’s apparent – the two are entertainers.

This was especially true one early morning in March. As Eddie Lane greets a visitor at the door in his showroom, he warns that his dog, Prince, isn’t feeling so good. When he enters his office, he can smell it.

Prince is a beautiful dog. But man, he stinks.

And just a few minutes into the meeting, Mike rolls his eyes, pulls his undershirt over half his face and blurts out, “Dad, your dog is farting. That’s terrible.”

It’s not the most charming sentiment, but it’s also pretty hilarious. And that’s what these two men are. They are not buttoned down and corporate, although when they need to get serious, they will. They are, instead, awfully funny, and you can see why people – and customers – like them.

Take the story Eddie tells about where he and his wife, Barbara, like to eat when they travel (she sometimes craves toast with raisins inside) and what he learned from one particular experience. Call it the Waffle House Way.

“You walk in there in the morning and five people say to you, ‘Good morning! How are you?’” Eddie said. “And they kind of mean it. It makes you feel good. I said to my staff, that when those customers open that door, I want you to say ‘Good morning! How are you? I’m here to help you if I can.’”

And they’re off and running.

“I spent some time talking to a minister, a rabbi and a Catholic priest,” Eddie says. “I’ve asked them to get rid of the clause in the wedding vows, ‘These rings, for eternity.’ I’ve asked them to add in “These rings, until upgrade.”

And then Eddie is talking about the two’s competitiveness.

“We’re pretty competitive. Mike’s prices are normally 40 to 50 percent higher than mine.”

Mike responds: “Start the article that way – ‘Father undercuts son by 50 percent.’”

And then Prince, with the flatulence, again.

“Jesus, Prince,” Mike exclaims as the shirt goes back over the nose.

And then Eddie with the line of the day, “The sweetness of low prices never equals the bitterness of low quality.”

Pipes in Mike: “Or the bitterness of going out of business.”

When these two knock off the joking, they return to their discussion about values and standing by what they think is right. For them, there’s no other way they wish to conduct themselves. Even in an industry that they always have to counteract.

Eddie, as his wont, hides his moral in a story. One day several years ago, while talking to a jeweler to whom he was selling some wholesale pieces, he declared the price to be $180. Responded the jeweler: “You know, son, I don’t care what I have to pay for it, as long as I can get what I want to sell it.”

Many years later, Eddie says, “I mean, is that inflationary or what? What an ass.”

Says Mike: “If you look at where things are going and what we’ve done, it all comes down to who you are and what’s passed on. That’s how I look at it. I learned very valuable lessons watching my parents, and that really comes through in my business. Those characteristics are handed on. Your family business is an extension of who you are. My business decisions and my dad’s business decisions are based on who we are.”

Soon after, Mike leaves his father’s showroom, climbs into his Escalade and drives west to his own store. Eddie, meanwhile, prepares for the day as his salespeople begin the process of unveiling the jewelry underneath the glass. Prince, unfortunately for everybody within a 100-foot radius of him, continues to have digestive problems.

It’s a brand-new day, and the Lane’s are ready to cut you a deal. They act not like the disparaging, shyster jewelers you see in your nightmares. They act like they care about what you think and what you want.

It’s because they do.