Friday, February 24, 2017

Lyle

I have a signed copy of “See You At The Top” by Zig Ziglar.
The book, as described on Ziglar.com, “stresses the importance of honesty, loyalty, faith, integrity and strong personal character. It’s basic premise – you can have everything in life you want if you will just help enough other people get what they want.” Lyle Arneson, a disciple of Ziglar’s, gave it to me when he hired me for a job thirty-two years ago.

Lyle, fifty-nine at the time (I considered that old at twenty-five), also gave me an opportunity I probably didn’t deserve. However, true to Ziglar’s advice, Lyle was helping me get what I want, which was a job and a way to provide for my young family.

The “interview” process consisted of a written test to judge my sales acumen, several meetings between the two of us where we just talked, and a final interview with his boss at the Perkins on Highway 100 in Edina. I drove through a heavy snowstorm and arrived more than an hour late. When his boss in the tailored suit, cufflinks and pointy shoes suggested that I should be ashamed of my previous job as a garbage man, Lyle defended me by pointing out that it demonstrated a willingness to work and an ability to do whatever it takes to provide for my family.

Lyle was one of the few people I have met in life who could get the immediate, undivided attention of the person on the other end of the phone call. “Hi, this is Lyle,” delivered in a smooth tenor tone, while pleasing to the ear was both disarming and intimidating. Although he was small in stature, it took only seconds for your view of him to be that of a very powerful man, and that was true whether you were talking with him on the phone or face to face.

My dad described Lyle as “polished.” “He could tell you to go to
Hell and have you looking forward to the trip.” I was in a meeting of Lyle’s district sales force one day when he announced the date of our next meeting (as something like), “Thursday, the 21st.” When I reluctantly told him that the 21st was on a Wednesday he replied, “Just a minute,” and left the room.
“Oh my gosh,” I told the group, “he’s going to change the calendar.” We laughed, but wondered what could be impossible for Lyle.

Lyle was wealthy but never flaunted it. For instance, he drove a Ford Tempo, a fine automobile to be sure, but it was not a luxury sedan. He treasured time with family and getting his hands dirty. He loved to come out and help my wife, Rhonda, in the garden and entertain our two little children with his perfect Donald Duck impersonation.

His humble beginnings included being a teacher and a coach – wonderful training for his role as a sales manager. Like everyone else, I always wanted to please Lyle and make him proud of me. He would often tell me to slow down when I was writing, as he thought that would improve my almost illegible penmanship.

I learned much from Lyle and I will be forever indebted to him. He passed away last Sunday with a view from the top.


Thursday, February 16, 2017

The Sandman Cometh

I like having a supply of necessary items on-hand, including sand. Last Saturday, although warm for this time of year, still allowed for a slippery layer of ice to remain on our gravel driveway in the early morning. Normally, I would let that kind of thing slide, but my wife was having the neighbor ladies over for brunch, and even though some skimming and skating would be amusing to watch from my second-floor bedroom window, she wanted some sand put down over the ice to avoid any crunch. I got on my coat and went outside to assess the hazardous conditions.

We have had more ice than snow this year, so I have learned to shimmy, shake and shuffle as I move across the ice. It takes some concentration and perhaps a little more time to make my way from the house to the barn, but on that day I was in no hurry, as I had an hour before the second cup was to be poured (the first one was mine).

I keep some sand in a garbage can just inside the barn for such a time as this. When I peered inside I was surprised at how little sand was left, a metaphor about the passage of time, I suppose. There was perhaps thirty pounds in there – enough to fill a bucket, but not near enough to cover a rural driveway. Taking both the can and the bucket I went back to the ice.

Not worrying about spilling, as it was going to end up on the ice anyway, I carelessly poured the sand from the can into the bucket. Wishing I had asked Santa for a spreader, I flung the sand about with my free hand much like Johnny Appleseed would have done (only different). Casting my fate to the wind, I imagined the sandman putting smiles on slumbering children as he went on his rounds.

When the bucket was empty I went back to the barn to scratch up more grit. Many years ago I had invested in some tubes of sand. The tubes, which come in sixty and seventy pound sizes, had been purchased to place in the bed of a pickup truck which had a propensity to slide around corners and leave the road. The sand remains, whereas the truck is gone.

I was glad that I was out of the seventy-pound bags, as the smaller ones were heavy enough to hoist off the floor. Initially, I was surprised at how quickly the buckets of sand were being emptied. When I had gone through the first sixty-pound bag I had considered calling it good enough until I slipped and almost fell.

Retreating to the barn for another bag, I retraced my steps and filled in the meager areas to help people find firm footing. When I had finished spreading the last of the one hundred and fifty pounds of sand I wondered if some chemical ice-melt would have been better or maybe even some salt.

I knew I didn’t have enough of either lying around the place, but perhaps I could have gone to the one of the neighbors and asked to borrow several hundred cups of salt.





Thursday, February 9, 2017

Lost And Fond Of

The other day I found what I was looking for, while at the same time realizing that sometimes what is gone will never return. On that day, three weeks before his third birthday, my grandson, Micah, was at my house (or as he calls it – “Meme’s house”).

“I can’t find Billy,” Micah told us.

Billy is a little blue and white doll, actually more like a stuffed rattle in the shape of a baby. He had been missing for about a week.

Originally, Billy had belonged to our son, Nathan, when he was a baby. In the spring of 1988, my sister sent Billy as a gift for our new baby boy when we brought him home from the hospital, but for the past few years, Billy has belonged to Micah.

I know how toys can get lost. When I was little I had lost Diamond, my small stuffed panda bear. One morning I found him on the side of my bed cradled by the sheets and covers that were tucked in under the mattress; he had been there all along.

If Billy was in the house, we were going to find him. “I think he might be upstairs. We could go look,” Micah said.

I went up the stairs with him to look for Billy, as this was clearly within my skill set. When it comes to taking care of children, there is much I don’t do or at least don’t do well, but when it comes to looking for lost toys – I’m your guy.

“Billy might be in your bedroom Pa. He might be,” Micah said. “We could go and look. We could.”

I was reasonably certain the doll was not in our room, as my wife keeps a pretty tidy house, and Billy had not been seen there. Still, not wanting to dash his dreams or squelch his problem-solving skills, Micah and I walked down the hall to look.

We didn’t find him there, but we didn’t give up. Next, we looked in the bedroom that had once belonged to Nathan but has since been claimed by Micah as his own room.  As we looked all over the room I mistakenly referred to Micah as Nathan. I had slipped and fallen back in time. I was the same, as was the room and the toy, but the little boy was different. Micah and I looked in the bed and underneath it, but Billy was not there, so we went back downstairs, each feeling a little sad about the little boy who was not there.

“We couldn’t find him,” I said.  “Where do you think he is?” I asked Rhonda.

“Look in the toy boxes,” she said. “Billy might have been put in one of the boxes when we picked up the toys last week.“

“Let’s go look again,” I said to Micah.

So once again, he and I climbed the stairs with Micah leading the way and me close behind to guard against any missteps. We returned to Nathan’s/Micah’s bedroom, where we found two boxes of toys on the floor. We got on the floor and looked in the smaller one, but Billy was not there. I crawled across the floor to the second box and still did not see him; so I began to empty it, and soon I was handing Billy to Micah.

“BILLY, BILLY!” Micah said, as he pranced back and forth with Billy in his arms.

That night, back at his house, Micah told his mother, “I’m sure we glad we found Billy. He’s so happy to be with me again.”  


As I rattled around the quiet farmhouse that night, I found myself missing my own little boy and little girl.

Thursday, February 2, 2017

Well Enough Alone

I have heard it said that misery loves company, but I must disagree. I felt miserable all weekend, and I can tell you with a great deal of certainty that I did not wish for any company (even more so than usual). It could be said that I was better left alone.

I left work Friday at the end of the day with more than a tickle in my throat – it was like I had an entire down-filled pillow stuffed in there. My intermittent sneezing and coughing that had gone on throughout the day turned into a regular hack attack – a real joy to be around.

I went to bed early that night in a vain attempt to stave off the inevitable: I was going to be sick. The next day, after almost twelve hours of sleep, the chills and fever showed up uninvited to join the coughing, sneezing and runny nose. This made me wonder if perhaps misery does, indeed, love company.

Saturday dragged on like an old horse pulling an over-loaded cart. I don’t know if this is a common casualty of the common cold, but along with my physical strength being attacked when I get sick, I often begin to lose a grip on my mental faculties as well. It may be the fever setting it – or it may be the thinning of the line that defines sanity.

It begins with the irrational thought I may never get better again. In fact, there comes a time when I can’t even imagine it. As I move about the house, I will catch myself standing in one place for several minutes trying to clear my head. The nights are filled with sounds and voices that have no place in reality; simple, meaningless dreams reoccur several times a night and only leave when I am fully awake.

My senses get all goofed up. My sense of humor disappears for a time, as nothing seems remotely funny. Whereas sight, smell and taste are diminished, touch and hearing are heightened so much so that I don’t even need my glasses on to hear properly. Along with a more sensitive sense of touch, I become rather selective when it comes to my choice of facial tissue. In the beginning of the cold cycle I will use a table napkin or a paper towel to wipe my nose, in the end I insist on high quality facial tissue (Kleenex brand) or the convenience of a roll of soft toilet paper for those big jobs and successive sneezing sessions.

I think the common cold must hit professional sports quite hard. For instance, I have noticed with some frequency that a hockey player will leave the ice bleeding from the mouth only to return with the next shift, but two weeks later that same player will miss an entire game with an “undisclosed illness.”  I’m guessing he’s down with a bad cold and they don’t want him infecting the rest of the team.

So the question remains, when is someone well enough to get back in the game and when are they sick enough that they should just stay home? In the first-century they instituted a practice where the public decided. Whenever they saw someone with a runny nose or sneeze more than once in succession they shouted “Unclean” and pelted them with rocks driving them away. Or was that how they dealt with leprosy? On second thought, maybe we should just leave well enough alone.