ROYAL CITY — There are small businesses, and then there are smaller businesses, such as Valdez Tire Service at 109 Royal Ave. in Royal City.

But no matter how small it is, Valdez Tire Service is big to proprietor Elias Valdez. Tire service is something he knows, and it keeps him out of the hot summers and cold winters of the farm worker life.

“It’s going well,” he said. “I’m eating.”

Valdez Tire Service seems big because the service station property it’s on is big. But Valdez’s space is only the auto repair bay. The property owner operates the gas pumps and the car wash.

Valdez deals in new and used tires. He can serve every need, he said, including trucks and tractors.

“What I don’t have on hand, I can order and have it here the next day,” he said.

Valdez handles a variety of brands of new tires. His source is in Portland.

“I do this because it’s something I can do,” Valdez said.

Valdez came to the U.S. from Mexico in 1980. He landed in Madera, Calif. Like many of his countrymen, he started his quest of the American Dream as a farm worker.

Before moving to Mattawa in 1999 and going back to farm work, Valdez took a tire service job at a truck stop. Tiring of farm work, Valdez opened his small business in Royal eight years ago.

“I know about tires,” he said. “I learned well working at that truck stop.

“And I can serve the entire public,” he added. “I speak English. Some words are still new to me, but when I hear a new one I learn it.”