Back Yard

In the time that Sara and I have been married, we've lived in several different cities and towns in four states.  Although there are no universals, I can say that one thing I've run into time and time again - and it never fails to amaze me - is that people don't recognize the things that are in their own back yards.  One of the first times I noticed this was on a trip to San Francisco.  First, you had to look long and hard to find someone there that considered themselves a "native" but when you did and you asked about the local sights, they hadn't been there. They had not been to Alcatraz, or out to Napa Valley, or in some cases even down to Fisherman's Wharf.  I remembered thinking it was amazing that they would have missed these things, but chalked it up to being a "California" thing.

Time passed and we landed in Dallas.  Although we were only there for a short period of time, I knew there was a lot that should be seen and experienced.  And in the middle of it all, there was the Grassy Knoll and The School Book Depository.  These locations were at the center of a moment in time that compared to few.  Twice in my life I remembered school being interrupted for something happening in the world.  One was the assassination of Kennedy and the other was the moon landing.  Now, here I was, at  the place where the Kennedy assassination happened. I wanted to learn as much as possible and take in as much of the feeling that I could about it.  In the time we were there, we went to this area two or three times with company from out of town and with people that were from Dallas. I was always amazed that the people who lived in Dallas had never been there before.  They meant to, but they had just never gotten it done.  They didn't recognize the importance of things right in their own backyard.  Well, maybe it was a California and Texas thing.

After Dallas, we worked our way back through Kansas City and home to Iowa.  We've been here about six years now.  And lo and behold, I found out that we are the same way here. I actually live the same way. When we were moving so much it seemed like we should check things out in these other places, but now that we settled back in to Iowa, I know that there are things here we are missing.

We have yet to go to the new High Trestle Bridge up in the Boone area.  I've been talking about going there for five years already and done nothing more than that.  It is not like it's too far, it is just that we haven't gotten to it.  We haven't been to the State Capital since coming home ... or the State Historical Museum.  All of these are worth the time that it would take to take in the venue.  We did in fact visit the Art Museum when Karen and Jaye were here because we knew that they would enjoy it, but that was the push that finally motivated us.

On top of the things that those of us who live here haven't been to see, it's really interesting the manner that we think about the things that are in the state.  For example, we have a great number of really quality educational institutions, even beyond Drake University.  Yet when you talk to Iowans, they often have a tendency to minimize or dismiss the local institutions as not being of the same quality that you find outside the state.  It just isn't true.  We have quality undergraduate degrees and graduate programs in law, medicine, engineering, and veterinary science that will line up against anyone in the nation.

Finally, while we are talking about this kind of thing, and I know I have mentioned it in the past, we have one of the finest State Fairs in the nation. Good food, great exhibits and if you have never been to "East Side Night," you have truly missed something. 

We need to be aware of all of the things that exist right in our own backyard.  We need to recognize and appreciate all of them.

Career

While wandering around Evernote today, I came across this note from my mother.  It was one of the multitude of little sayings that she kept stuck around in her life, and out of all of those that I disposed of when we cleaned out her house, I actually kept this one.  I guess that when I ran across it when cleaning, it meant something to me and today once again, it truly spoke to me in its own simple way.  It aligned with the thing that my father had always told me about work and career.  He said that he would rather have me be a good ditch digger than a rotten attorney.  At this point, I see how my parents came together and worked together to build a life, all summed up on this little piece of paper and a few words.

Over all of the years that I have worked in various industries and jobs, I know that I have been challenged, not only by my friends, but also at times by myself to answer the question:  "What do you want to be when you grow up?"  I'm sure many of us in this generation have been challenged with these words and I'm equally sure that there have been times that we aren't able to answer this question. 

And this note from the past comes to me today and it all seems to be so much clearer.  It isn't about saying that you will be the best neurosurgeon in the world, although it might be.  It is more about saying that I will be the best that I can be at whatever I am doing ... period. Maybe it is about being the best pastry chef, or artist, or curler.  It need not be something that the world can identify, it is only important that you can identify it. 

I think of Jack.  Jack came to work for me in a lumberyard in Des Moines in 1985-1986.  He'd never worked anywhere before and was challenged intellectually.  I remember that I struggled with teaching him that there was always something to do and that standing around watching others work was not what I needed from him.  After a couple of months, we had figured out that he was the best "sweeper" in the place.  He would start at the beginning of a shift and would clean and sweep continuously until it was time to go home.  He became a great employee.

Then came the day he came in to tell me that he had a chance for a different job.  There had been a position with the West Des Moines schools for a sanitary engineer.  He found out about the job and told them he would be interested and they offered the position to him.  But he needed to tell me that he was going to go somewhere else.  I thought that he was going to have a heart attack.  For me of course, there was only one thing to do, offer him my best wishes and good luck.  That was the right thing to do.  And now, as I think about it, Jack was headed off into his career.  Not a career that a lot of people would think about that way, but one that Jack absolutely would.  I even remember, as he tried to tell me about the job saying, "Oh Jack, you are going to be a Sanitary Engineer", and him explaining to me that I was wrong ... he was going to be a janitor.

The number of years that have passed and the fact that he was a little older than I, tell me that he has probably retired at this point. Unless I miss my bet, he probably retired from the West Des Moines School district as a janitor.  Good for him. 

Sometimes we all get caught up in the terms that the world uses to describe who we are or what we do.  Maybe it is important for all of us to ask ourselves if we are happy, challenged, and comfortable in our job.  Does that make it a career rather than a job?  I'm not sure.  You will each have to think about that.

I have a bunch of examples in my life of people that were very important to me, employed in ways the world would have considered a job, but they considered a career.  My grandfather worked for Keokuk County for close to twenty years - hauling rock and pushing snow in the winter.  I know he considered that a career, not just a job.

Well, I am going to close for the week, just a little more satisfied in the way that I look at what I have done.  There are others that do what I do better, but I am pretty good at it.  It is my career, and it has certainly been a lifeboat for me over the years.  I will bet that there are some of you that feel the same way.

Have a nice weekend.