THE GREAT STREET CAR RACE

On a recent trip back to Colorado, we stayed with our son and his beautiful little family. The trip's purpose was generally to attend grandchildren's birthday celebrations, and to allow Ingrid to visit her mom in the nursing home. It was also 118 degrees here in AZ.

The trip provided several memories I hope to blog about, but the choice for today is the street car race we witnessed. I guess you could say the thing was our fault in the first place, since we got the grandkids these little electric cars over the last couple Christmases. I say "little" but that is a bit of a misnomer. Two of these things fill up one bay of PJ's garage. This is the first year that both of them have been in full use, as Colt was a little young to really handle one by himself until this year.

Chloe got hers first, an adorable pink Cadillac Escalade complete with working radio, four wheel drive, and a horn. I remember Karin and Jenn helped assemble it in my shop. This was a several hour process that involved about 400 decals that had to be precisely placed. Colt's came at Christmas last year: a blue pickup with mag wheels, working doors, and also all kinds of car racing decals. Oh, I almost forgot the "four on the floor" gear shift. 

Anyway, the kids live on one of those idyllic cul de sacs with great neighbors, many of whom have kids of similar ages, most of whom also possess some kind of electric vehicle. It was one of those perfect summer eves; you know, when the routine rain shower has cooled everything down and moved on and all the moms have declared it safe to play outside. Either that or they just can't stand having all the kids stuck inside any longer. 

We went out and sat in lawn chairs to witness the proceedings. It was almost dusk, and Suki, the 87 year old grandmother of the kids across the street pulled up in her car and parked what seemed to be a safe distance down the street. She got out and slowly ambled up the walk to take her normal seat in a lawn chair inside their garage. I've never heard her say anything but she seems to control her grandkids by mind waves or something. Meanwhile, traffic cones were being placed, ice teas refilled, garage doors opening to allow all the dads to drag out their respective vehicles. 

As usual, Karen was working in her yard while Jeff supervised from a seat on the front porch. Their kid, Alex, was the oldest of the neighborhood and functioned as a kind of referee and master of ceremonies. He really is a great kid, and looks out after all the little ones. 

The warmup laps started. Each of these little cars has hard plastic wheels that are hollow to make them sound loud like a drum. The effect of driving them on asphalt is a roar that must surely rival any NASCAR event. The warmup was a little disorganized at first, since several drivers were traveling in opposite directions around the cul de sac, hollering at each other as they passed that the other guy was going in the wrong direction. At some considerable personal risk, Alex somehow got in the middle and got them all going in the same direction, and the race was on, although there was no official starting flag or anything like that. 

The fireworks started on the first turn when Carter decided to run Brock into the wall (curb), having achieved an inside position.
The collision forced him to lose just a little speed and Chloe leapt into the lead by deftly avoiding the crash and whizzing by on the infield. Colt was closely following his big sister about 12 inches off her rear bumper. They made a couple more laps and by then Brock was back in the field, bound for vengeance! By now, there was lots of screaming (from both kids and grown ups) on top of the thunderous noise of the wheels. 

It was getting a little darker, and the one thing all the racers lacked was headlights. However, each racer was wearing a glow-in-the-dark device cleverly supplied by Kelly, who explained to me that she routinely made the kids wear them so she could see where they were in the dark around the neighborhood. The effect was pretty surreal.   

On about the 93rd lap, Colt suddenly turned into the infield, nearly taking Alex out by surprise. In an effort to recover from the skid, he whipped the wheel too far the other way and stuck his foot in the carburetor to get back on the track. Low and behold, now he was going the wrong way! This did not seem to faze the other racers at all....in fact, they deftly got out of the way as he whizzed in between them. Then, however, they all decided he needed to know he was going the wrong way, so they simultaneously slid into U-turns and began chasing Colt! It was so smooth, it reminded me of some of those internet videos where all the fish in a school suddenly turn in the same direction at once. Of course, this was much more noisy.

So there they all were, Colt in the lead, and all the rest bearing down on him, screaming at the top of their lungs to be heard over the roar of the wheels. Perhaps never having been in this position of leading before, Colt seemed interested in watching what everybody else was doing behind him, craning his head around to better hear what they were all yelling.

At that instant, 

time.....seemed......to......slow...................downnnnnn......

Every grownup in the area started screaming at once: "COLT! COLT! TURN AROUND!!! LOOK OUT!!!" Alex started sprinting after him, but it was too late. KAWHOOMP!!!! He ran square into the front left tire of Suki's car at full speed. He hit it so hard the rear wheels lifted up into the air!

Everybody raced to the scene of the accident to see if everything was ok. PJ naturally won the race, with Kelly close behind. Yeah, he was shook up and a little sore from the steering wheel smashing his chest, but all right apart from being scared everybody was mad at him. (It's apparent to me those things need seat belts). 

At that point, it was mutually decided the evening's activity was over, and we all put things away, went back inside, and had some ice cream to make Colt's chest feel better. I finished the night all the richer for the memories I had gained. What a wonderful life!

LEADERSHIP

Awhile back, my son asked me if I had any "leadership books" left over in my retirement, as he is studying for a promotional exam at work and thought they might be helpful. I happen to believe my son is one of those "natural" leaders; he just hasn't had the need to think about or explain what he does in the context of being a leader. Having recently moved to Arizona and downsizing considerably in the process-if I have any such books, I can't find them.

This is not to say I never had any; I probably read a couple hundred over the span of my career, as well as working with many of the best leadership consultants in the business. I remember when I took my first job and had a hand-me-down desk with a broken leg--a couple of leadership books held up that corner of the desk just fine. As I was trying think how to be of some assistance, it occurred to me that it might be useful to just summarize the philosophy I came to be comfortable with. It's kind of a collection of things I found from one source or another:mostly just observations of different kinds of leaders over the years. I will leave it to others to judge whether I was a successful leader, but I think we were able to do some good things where I worked.

The single most important factor is a positive organizational culture. Leaders create the culture. Employees that feel good about where they work are more committed and creative, they work harder, they provide better customer service, they attract better employees and they stay longer. What does it take to make employees feel good about where they work? The organization has to have a sense of credibility, competence, and compassion. Everybody should display these traits in a consistent fashion. Even if one's higher-ups don't model the best behaviors, one can still instill a good culture in his/her part of the place.

An organization’s credibility flows from the actions of its leaders. People in those positions simply must do what they say they will do, and there must be no hint of unnecessary secrecy,unfairness, or dishonesty. Rules, procedures, etc. are established and well known.  People know what the consequences of an action are supposed to be, and it is reliably carried out. There are no surprises. Something that begets a slap on the wrist in one case should not result in termination in another case, given similar circumstances. Otherwise, people immediately suspect ulterior motives, personal vendettas, etc. and never trust what those leaders have to say again. 

Decisions and policies are explained. Questions are answered in a consistent, respectful fashion. People are willing to accept an autocratic approach in some obviously time sensitive situations, but generally they want to know that their leaders considered options and chose a direction for a set of specific, logical reasons. They may not agree with the various value judgements involved, but at least they will know the process was not arbitrary or aimed at some personal agenda. Never make promises you aren't positive you can keep.

Competence is more than just knowledge and experience of a job. It is the ability to get things done, by communicating well and often. Leadership competence also encompasses a willingness to learn and a sense of judgment. It includes the ability to make a mistake, learn from it, and continually get better. 

It is a very rare person who can be promoted and immediately know exactly what should be done in every situation that might arise in their new position. However, a person will quickly be considered competent if they know when to ask a question and demonstrate willingness to learn. When there isn't time to ask a question, there is an element of "judgement" that obviously varies from place to place. In some places and situations, good judgement calls for weighing potential actions against things like safety or cost. In others, it might be customer satisfaction or political reality. A competent person instinctively knows which factors should be considered in most situations.

Last, but not least, is the trait of compassion. Far too many organizations in the world today obviously value profits or performance statistics over people. Those few places that do demonstrate that they care about their employees are overwhelmed by job applications from the very best and brightest. Sure, pay is a factor, but much more important is the ability to work with someone to help them get better. To be able to make a mistake, learn from it, and go on. An organization that gives people the benefit of the doubt will ultimately get more from its people than it could possibly hope for otherwise.

Another aspect of compassion is simply that of building a bit of a relationship with others. Recognizing what someone else does well, or asking about the family once in a while makes it easier to occasionally deliver bad news. In any event, people want to think their leaders care enough about them to occasionally listen to what they think, and then to respond with a sense of respect and consideration.

I could probably write about this stuff for quite a while longer, but I think it would just be embellishing the basics I've laid out above. Out of all the books I've read, and all the courses I've taken, it pretty much boils down to these three things. In any event, I know a person who has these traits will be thought a much better leader that someone who is missing one of them.

THE BEAT GOES ON!

            I was struggling a bit with the decision concerning my next blog topic recently. It suddenly came to me while I was on the treadmill at the gym listening to “China Grove” by the Doobie Brothers on my smartphone. You may know this tune has a great beat--truly classic rock. Anyway, my earbud cord was stretched a little tight to the phone which was resting on the control panel of the treadmill. I have this unconscious habit of “air drumming” with my hands during certain really good parts, and caught the earbud cord, pulling the phone off the panel. The cord pulled out of the phone which hit the running belt and shot back behind me. I reflexively turned sideways to catch it, lost my footing, did a face plant on the belt and shot right back onto the floor beside it, much to the surprise of all the people on surrounding treadmills. It was kind of a humbling experience.

            You may be wondering what this has to do with a blog topic. Well, I got to thinking about why I was “air drumming” prior to this event, and it reminded me of when I learned to play the drums. Part of my blog goal is to work a little bit on my memoir. They say a memoir should talk about those key moments in your life when something happened and your life was never the same afterward. Turning points they call them. Well, I definitely consider learning to play the drums to have been a turning point.

Not long after starting the fourth grade, they gathered all of us kids in a room and said “Pick an instrument. You are all going to play in a band! Won’t that be fun?” I can’t say that I remember being overcome with joy. They let us try a few different instruments, just to see if anything particularly struck our fancy. Some kids already knew what they wanted to try. I remember contemplating trying to blow on a clarinet after Janice had slobbered all over it and deciding to try a French horn which nobody had yet picked up. I cannot for the life of me remember the music teacher’s name, but she was very encouraging, so I wound up taking it home. The plan was we would get familiar with the instruments and then have an appointment with the music teacher to begin some lessons.

After a couple of days at home, Mom requested that I take the French horn back and try something else. I tried a trumpet, a tuba, a trombone, and maybe a couple other things. Over a period of a few weeks it became clear that I had a mental block of some kind about reading music and a physical inability to hold my lips in the proper shape to blow into any kind of musical mouthpiece. That’s when I was ultimately assigned to the percussion section with all the other losers.

For the rest of that fall, I dutifully met once a week with the music teacher for 30 minutes to learn how to play a drum. It was better than the French horn in that I didn’t have to practice with a real drum, just some rubber pad that was much quieter than the other instruments I had previously looked at. There was a lot to learn: sheet music with all its notations and funny words and symbols, rolls, paradiddles, riffs, rim shots, and rests. I remember struggling quite a bit.

In the new semester after Christmas, we were informed we would join the Horton Grade School Band which was mostly made up of fifth and sixth graders. As lowly fourth graders, we were promptly told to sit back and watch our masters. I learned that playing the snare drum was a real prestigious position to which I would not be entitled for some time, if ever.  Instead, I was relegated to playing the bass drum and sometimes the cymbals.  These were considered simple enough for a lowly fourth grader like myself to manage.  One person was deemed to be so lacking in talent that they got stuck with the triangle.  The upperclassmen were accorded the snare and “tom tom” drums, as well as anything else they chose to play for a particular piece.  Naturally, there was one guy who considered himself to be the second Gene Krupa, and he did whatever he could to make my life miserable. Anyway, the Horton Grade School band practiced together twice a week in preparation for the annual spring concert.  Thinking back on it, I now have tremendous admiration for that music teacher; she clearly had the patience of Jobe or else she wore earplugs or something.

Time went on and we eventually became the upperclass big shots in the Grade School band percussion section. I continued to have weekly lessons with the music teacher, but don’t recall any moments of brilliance. We were always a bit in awe of the Junior High and especially the High School Bands who we were told regularly won various State Band Contests. The true cream de la crème, though, was the Stage Band. This group was comprised of the best of the best, and actually had a “trap” drum set, just like the rock n roll bands had on the Ed Sullivan show. They played really neat music by people like Glen Miller and the Beatles, not a bunch of marches and weird sounding symphonies.

The guy who played drums in the Stage Band was a Senior who, for some reason, hated having to play the drums. He was kind of a rebel and I don’t think he liked the music teacher. Anyway, one day he was not available and I was asked to sit in for him at Stage Band practice. I showed up early so the teacher could try and give me a little private instruction before the others arrived. I still remember the sense of excitement and fear I felt as I eased myself down onto the seat in the middle of the trap set. I had never done this before for real. Now there was a hi-hat, ride and crash cymbals, three tom toms, a bass drum and snare all around me. I was shown a few real basic routines and got to practice a bit. Then everybody else showed up and we started. I remember it was the “A Train”. LOW AND BEHOLD, I COULD DO IT!!!!!!

I wasn’t great, but I could hold a beat and hit a crash cymbal when the band director cued me. I had the time of my life. Afterwards, the teacher asked if I would like to join the Stage Band permanently and Voila! There I was, a sixth grader playing drums with a bunch of Juniors and Seniors. Suddenly, I was a Big Man on Campus. After years of being teased because I wore glasses and was crummy at sports, I was finally COOL (or so I felt).

From then on, I practiced whenever I could. I got pretty good if I do say so myself. One time when I was in the seventh grade, my dad got a phone call asking if I could substitute as a drummer in a band playing out at Edgetown (a local dance hall with questionable reputation). He said yes, and that night was very educational for me. Looking back, some of the things he allowed me to do still amaze me. As a senior, I was selected to play in the Kansas All State Jazz Band; we did a concert with Doc Severinsen (The Tonight Show Band Director) as the conductor. That was a great experience.

Another big thing about playing the drums was the Marching Band. As you may or may not recall, the percussion section is usually playing pretty continually in between songs in order to provide the beat everybody is supposed to be marching to while wearing those funny uniforms that never actually fit anybody. Football season always meant halftime shows, which always meant endless hours of rehearsal after school. By that time, the music teacher was a poor lady named Mrs. Wasserman. I always felt kind of sorry for her, standing up on that step ladder on the edge of the football field in the rain, waving her arms and trying to keep the trombones from running into the clarinets. Band trips were another source of memories; everybody on the bus singing “99 bottles of beer”, flirting with the flute section, etc. On special occasions, there were often parades that had to be marched in. These were sometimes exhausting affairs ending with sore feet and blisters on the hands from the drumsticks.

But the Stage Band was the real highlight. It represented the point in time where I shifted from being a bookworm nobody wanted to hang with to one of the “in crowd”, at least in high school. Then I graduated and went to college.  That’s where I learned another lesson: no matter how good you may be, there will always be somebody better. Upon joining the band at KU, I found myself back playing the cymbals, just like in the fourth grade. There were some really, really good musicians there, and it was the hardest one hour of credit I ever took. Two hours a day during the week and three on Saturday mornings when there wasn’t a home game.  It was still fun in some ways, but I didn’t stay with it.

In later years, I played a little bit in some pickup groups. My sister-in-law Sonja and her brother sang once in awhile as a warmup group for local concerts. More recently, I played with some friends a few years ago at some flea markets and a company Christmas party. As I got older, my drum set seemed to get heavier and grow more pieces. There was definitely a sense of envy for, say, those who had chosen something small and light, like the flute. Hauling all of it around to practices got to be a heck of a lot of work. Finally, I injured my back somehow and quit playing for good. Eventually, I gave my drum set to a nephew (mostly just to irritate his dad) and have not played in a long time now.

One of the things I am interested in about moving to an active adult community is the possibility there will be a group I might be able to join. After all, it felt pretty cool to be one of the “in crowd”, even if it was only in my own head. Maybe it would feel that good again. Until then, “air drumming” on the treadmill is as close as I guess I will get.

MY MOM’S GREATEST GIFT: READING

A few days ago, I learned with some sadness that the Encyclopedia Britannica had announced it would cease its print version after 244 years in business.  The news brought back all kinds of memories of my mother and my early childhood.  I hadn’t really thought much about it in years, but Britannica was a major factor in the shaping of who I turned out to be.  To understand this, you need to know a little bit about my mom.

My mother’s name was Henrietta, which I always thought was kind of cute since my father’s name was Henry.  She was a kind of tall, slender woman with prematurely gray hair.  She had two sisters and a brother and was raised on a farm near Willis, Kansas.  Her folks (my grandparents) were of Scottish – English descent, which was kind of unusual given all of the Norwegian and Swedish immigrants in the area.  Upon graduating from Willis high school, she married my dad and moved to the big city of Horton, Kansas.

In fairly “traditional” fashion, my brother and sister were born, dad worked, mom took care of the house, there were lots of family around, and everybody voted Republican.  I believe she was very intelligent, as graduating from high school was a pretty big thing in that area back then.  My dad, whom I also have come to regard as vcry smart, dropped out before junior high to help support his large family.  Mom was “untraditional” in this way--far as I know, she never drove a car or wrote a check.  The town was small enough that she could walk anywhere she wanted and she depended on dad to handle the money. She also pretended to defer to him on just about everything.

Quite a while later, I came along.  Apparently, I was a little surprise nine months after a family vacation.  My brother and sister were 14 and 10 years older than I, respectively.  By that time, we were living in a little house across the street from the post office and just down the block from the public library.  It was a small two story home with a covered front porch that had a three foot tall crawl space underneath it enclosed by lattice; this was a perfect area for young boys to hide and do their secret stuff. The sidewalk was made of old red bricks that had become uneven and broken in most places with grass coming up in the cracks. The grassy area between the sidewalk and the street was about 15 feet wide and filled with wonderful old oak and elm trees that stretched to the sky. In the back was an old shed my brother used for his woodworking, and a rusted out oil drum by the alley used to burn the trash.

Mom was very shy and introverted.  Although she was active in church, I don’t recall her having a lot of friends that she spent time with.  Mostly it was one relative or another, or one of just a couple of other ladies.  Of course you also have to recognize that we had a helluva lot of relatives in the area. One of her mannerisms that just drove me crazy was the way she put herself down as an excuse for being quiet.  She would often claim that she was not smart enough to join a discussion or just a plain old country girl who didn’t know much. She was quite content to let Dad make most of the decisions and be the social butterfly (more about that elsewhere).

Anyway, I sometimes wonder now whether she was ready for a third child at that stage in her life.  She was already busy with a teenage boy and a preteen girl, a husband active in business and local politics, two sets of older parents, church, and many family interactions. She also did quite a bit of arts and crafts stuff: knitting and sewing different projects, some ceramics, etc. We still have some quilts she made around upstairs.

One big memory: I remember her teaching me to read at a very young age; I may have been just out of diapers. After I had learned enough to get through a short book without too much help, she would then often sit me down and tell me to read and be quiet while she made dinner or something.  At first, this involved children’s books. Then one day I stumbled on her set of the 1936 Encyclopedia Britannica.

I remember being dumbfounded that all the knowledge in the world could be found in that one set of grey hard cover volumes on the bookshelf. Like most little boys of that age, I was interested in dinosaurs, and mom showed me how to look up that subject and to follow related topics elsewhere. From then on I was hooked. I would go from topic to topic, digging into each one as much as I could until something else caught my fancy. Reading about volcanoes led to the idea that there were different kinds of rocks which led to minerals which led to gemstones like diamonds, etc. Different gemstones were associated with astrological signs which had to do with constellations of the stars which led to Greek and Roman mythology. Then I might be distracted by an article about tornadoes which piqued my interest since we had just had a tornado warning the day before. So off I would go learning as much as I could about weather. You get the idea.

I don’t remember that we had a television until a couple years later. Most kids in those days spent most of their time outside playing some kind of ball, cowboys and Indians, War, or something like that. I spent much of my time lying on my stomach on the floor with an encyclopedia volume under my nose. Occasionally, I would have to ask the meaning of a word; Mom would patiently explain it to me and then showed me another wonder: the dictionary. After that she pretty much never had to worry about where I was and I rarely bothered her.

Another big development was my discovery of the public library just down the block from our house. It was one of thousands of such structures across the country originally funded by the Carnegie Foundation decades before. It resembled some ancient Greek temple with lots of big stone steps leading up to the entry door which had something carved in stone above it. I can’t clearly remember if it had stone columns or not, but it might as well have. To me, it represented the repository of all the secrets of history and everything there was to know. One day mom took me in and signed me up for my very own library card.

I can still remember the smell of all the books and the smooth leather tops on the tables. It was one of maybe two buildings in Horton that had air conditioning at that time, and I remember how much pure joy and relief I felt upon entering on one of those hot, sultry Kansas afternoons. Although the library was small by today’s standards, my recollection is of a great maze of freestanding heavy oak shelves nearly reaching the ceiling. Every wall was covered with an expanse of shelves, broken only once in a while by a window. The fancy new fluorescent lighting made every corner bright as day; the floor was covered in some kind of hard tile that reflected and seemed to amplify the very smallest noise or whisper such that it could be heard across the street. The big oak main desk was directly in front of the entry door and was usually occupied by a lady whose chief purpose seemed to be dusting, shushing noisy kids and periodically helping people find books. She was nice enough to teach me the Dewey Decimal system so I wouldn’t have to bother her. Usually though, I would just poke around the shelves and select a few books at random to sit with over by the air conditioner. Most of the time, I had the place to myself.

Here is where I learned there was such a thing as comic books and a newer, different Encyclopedia Britannica. Many of the things I had read in my mother’s 1936 Britannica edition were now remarkably different. The whole discussion of atoms now included references to something called nuclear energy and hydrogen bombs. I had heard some of the old people talking about that, as well as someplace called Russia. A lot of countries had changed names. The Wizard of Oz was a favorite movie and I happily discovered Frank Baum had written several additional books about that world. Tarzan was a popular Saturday afternoon television show and Edgar Rice Burroughs’ books led me to the Time Machine and John Carter of Mars. Huckleberry Finn, Tom Swift, Jules Verne, and many other names rush back to me like a big wave. 

Yes, it is fair to say I became a bookworm. There was so much to learn and I wanted to know it all. I maintained a broad range of interests, although this finally coalesced into more technical and scientific stuff than, say, theater and literature. This had its own set of ramifications for my life, not all of them positive. I eventually grew up, did well in school, and seem to have had a successful career. Many people (such as my wife and a lot of former employees) would describe me as often having a lot of different irons in the fire at once, maybe too many. I am someone who knew a little about a lot of different things, but not really enough about any one thing to be an expert. Therefore, I was kind of a natural chief executive. 

My recollections of work include a lot of organizational initiatives and change efforts. Much of that activity was based on some management theory, or the best practices employed by other utilities, or something else I had read about. Probably my most accurate critics would observe that we tried to do too much at once without actually firmly completing the execution of many of the things we tried before starting something else. That may all be true. Nonetheless, I still think we had one of the cutting-edge organizations and our stats generally supported that characterization.

Now I am retired and doing other things with my time. I am bemused at the number of times I find myself consulting Google or Amazon in order to locate a source of information to read about whatever it is I want to do--whether it’s how to paint with watercolor, apply a particular finish to a furniture project, or play a particular bridge convention. The common thread throughout most of my life’s activity is the act of reading…..a skill my mother made sure I had at a very early age. I know my grandkids are being taught to read, and I am sure they will become highly skilled, but it just won’t be the same for them without that big old Britannica. As fast as everything is moving now, it will probably be better.

About This Blog

My dad ran a gas station for over 40 years in a small farm town named Horton, Kansas.  I worked there every summer starting at age 11 until I left home. The station was kind of a hodgepodge of small buildings that had been connected and added onto over the years.  The newest addition was a small air conditioned area where people came in to pay their bills and maybe purchase some refreshments.  The most prominent feature of this room that I recall was an old fashioned red Coca-Cola pop cooler –the kind where the glass bottles were immersed in about six or 8 inches of ice cold water that continuously circulated through. (This was well before the advent of aluminum cans.)

The majority of our customers were farmers who had come into town on some errand and stopped in to pass some time in the cool air.  The pop cooler was a popular destination especially on hot summer days, and it was not unusual for 5 or 6 men to be hanging around;everyone dressed in their blue denim Sears and Roebuck coveralls, some more worn than others. As a young teenager, one of my jobs was to keep the cooler full, clear away the empty bottles and candy wrappers, and sweep the concrete floor. It seemed like people always tracked in a bunch of dirt, and the smokers never actually hit any of the ashtrays with their ashes, but I got to listen to a lot of different viewpoints.

Some of my fondest memories are of those times when several people gathered 'round the cooler to gossip, complain, and generally share their views of the world. Often, somebody learned something from someone, and more than once I heard people sharing their compassion. In a way, that is the kind of place I would like this blog to be; that is why I chose to name it after the pop cooler in my dad’s gas station.

My goal is to share some memories and thoughts and hopefully meet others who care enough to share as well. My Dad passed away and left very little in the way of things to remember him by. I hope this blog lets my kids and grandkids know a little about him, and me, too. Maybe we will all learn something along the way while we are passing some time.