Lessons Pa Taught Me

My Dad (Pa) taught me many lessons as I was growing up:
o Hard work
o Leadership
o Honesty
o Integrity
And many others

He taught his lessons with authority and by example.
When he said, “Jump!” we all jumped and asked, “How high?” On the way up.

The one lesson that stands out most vividly is the value of hard work.
He taught me this in many ways:
o His example at work (It took four men to replace him when he retired). At his company (Lincoln Income Life Insurance Company) he did the following jobs.
....Treasurer
....Wrote the insurance policies that Lincoln Income sold
....Director of personnel
....Company attorney

(Pa was the classic example of a “workaholic”. Also, he had chores planned for all five of us kids during the week and especially on Saturdays.)

From early on we all had daily chores of making our beds and keeping our rooms straight. He taught us to use ”Hospital Corners" to keep the bed neat.

Pa worked with my brother Bill and me on Saturdays
o Cutting up trees with a cross-cut saw. (He took on one end and Bill and I took turns trying to keep up with him)
o Cleaning out horse barns and spreading the manure on our front yard (1.5 acre) and sowing grass-seed to grow our lawn. (Later it was my job to cut the grass each week with a walk-behind Gravely tractor)
o Planting and taking care of a garden
o Planting the living Christmas trees in the front yard each year by the drive that came into our home (thankfully my brother-in-law, Vernon O'Dell, did most of that work)
o Chopping down weeds on the steep jungle-like hill (with many trees and limestone outcroppings) in the back yard (1.5 acre). It was swarming with mosquitoes and other insects.

Pa arranged for me to get my first manual labor jobs while I was in High School
o First as a house carpenter working for the man that built our home in Ten Broeck (Mr. MacMillan, or “Mr. Mac”). I remember a few tasks I had:
....Move a huge stack of lumber from one place to another about 30 feet away.
....Scrub the excess mortal off brick walls with acid and a wire brush
....Clean out a basement that was filled with maggots
....Finally, after the tough old carpenters were done harassing me, they let me help fame a house.
o I next worked unloading freight cars that had huge bags of powdered chemicals that came into a place called Chemicals and Catalysts, Inc. (I'd come home a different color every night). You couldn't see across the plant floor where the chemicals were being mixed. (This was before days of OSHA).
o The Summer of my Senior year I worked as the Civil Engineer's helper on the thirteen story Lincoln Income office building (designed by Frank Lloyd Wright's architecture firm). It was designed with an elevator core going up to the thirteenth floor where steel trusses were installed. Then each floor underneath was framed out (one floor at a time). When it came time to pour a floor, I would push the concrete buggy (with 1.5 yards of concrete) time after time to fill in and smooth out the floor. It was always an exciting day when the concrete arrived. The men on that job-site were even rougher than the house carpenters. I especially remember a really big black workman named Robert (He always talked about drinking Thunderbird whiskey when he came back to work on Mondays).

I really enjoyed working with all those groups of men. Looking back, I can see how Pa progressively developed me into wanting to work hard at every thing I do. I think he instilled that in all of his children and we will forever be grateful to him.