Remember the turmoil in the streets of Five Points during construction? It hasn't been very long since the job was finished, so a timely "Thank you" is still in order to the people who dug up the streets, modernized all the infrastructure below and above grade, and left a far more attractive set of sidewalks.

The same is still being done to Main Street, and the radical improvement package can be expected there, too. Both Five Points and Main Street are the work of Columbia- based L- J Inc., which is run by David Jordan.

On the way to the hospital from Lower Richland, Jordan's father's car ran out of gas. Because of this, it was surprising Jordan was born at Providence Hospital instead of on the seat. The family home was on what became McEntire Joint National Guard Base.

Jordan has a sister, Barbara Alford, a retired school teacher who lives in Eastover, and two older brothers, Johnny and Bubba. Johnny is a contractor, and Bubba lives just off the Sumter Highway across from the former Sike's Barbecue.

There was no kindergarten near the house, so Jordan's schooling began at Bellwood Elementary School, which was close to Bunky's Store on the Sumter Highway. He went through the sixth grade at Horrell Hill Elementary School, through the seventh and eighth grades at Lower Richland, and he completed ninth grade at Hand Junior High School. His three years of high school were spent at Dreher, where he graduated in 1961.

Jordan's freshman year in college was at Wofford in Spartanburg, but then he left for Army Reserve training. He returned to school at USC to major in marketing. He was president of his fraternity, Sigma Chi.

In the summers, he worked for his father in the family businesses, Cherokee Inc. and L-J Inc. There was a third company, Eastern Construction that built barracks at Ft. Jackson during World War II.

Immediately after college graduation, Jordan went with the family businesses full- time, beginning as an equipment operator with bulldozers, pans, scrapers, and the like. He soon became an assistant foreman and then a foreman.

In 1975, Jordan's father was ready to let his sons David and Johnny take over both Cherokee and L- J. The sons agreed to a coin toss, and David got L- J while Johnny took Cherokee, which is still the case.

Jordan met his wife Frances 25 years ago on a blind date. Their daughter Edie, 19, is in boarding school in Maine. Son David Neil is six years old, and he attends the first grade at St. Joseph's on Devine Street.

Jordan's L- J Inc. built the white- water venue for the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, one of his more name- dropping jobs and his prettiest. At USC, L- J built five soccer fields, four near the Thurmond Wellness Center and one next to the Blatt Center.

Much earlier, through a series of five or more contracts, L- J graded I- 95 from the Edisto River to Ridgeland.

Jordan often runs into visitors and regulars and merchants on the Columbia streets where he upgrades. He says a nicer crowd probably cannot be found anywhere, as long as just 99 percent are counted. There's always that difficult 1 percent, but Jordan prefers to recall the nicer 99.

The Jordans like to charge their batteries in Mt. Pleasant, where they have a new house on the marsh in I'On. In the early '70s, Jordan and four friends kept a 41- foot sailboat at Charleston's City Marina, but he doesn't sail much anymore. Still, the sailboat directed Jordan into a lifelong habit of spending his off hours on the water near Charleston's better offerings.

Jordan is a reader of all kinds of books. He prefers to expand his mind instead of developing a second serve or correcting his swing.