Preface
Saul was my father. He could have been anyone’s father but, as luck would have it, he was mine.
He taught me things. How to handle tools and build stuff out of wood, to figure out how things worked and how they were made, and not to be afraid to take something apart and fix it. He taught me to pay attention to detail, and to design. I helped him finish the basement of the house where I grew up. When I was little, I would hold up boards, hand him nails, whatever I could do at the time. We even built a boat once, a “runabout” that I used with an old Evinrude outboard on the creeks and river around the town where we lived.
When we worked together in the shop or outside, my father and I would talk, talk about what we were doing, but about all sorts of things. Most of it was ordinary, but every once and a while he would tell me something that sounded different, and I paid special attention to make sure I remembered what he had said. It’s not that they were particularly profound observations, so much as it was that they were useful, and punctuated by the smile he could never entirely suppress. Later, when I was older, I actually wrote them down, and began adding some of my own. What better place to publish them, now and then, than at the Word Feeder. Feel free to add your own as comments.
My father won’t be reading these. It’s been a long time since he and I talked, but he’d be surprised and more than pleased that I remembered. For whatever it’s worth, I’m going to sign them now, collectively, with what I’m told was the one of the first sentences I ever said.
“I your son, Daddy.”
Here goes…
1, 2 and 3. Saul’s First Three Laws of Business and Life
5. Integrity
6. Doubt
7. Timing
10. Time
11. Expectations
12. Housekeeping
More to come.
0 responses so far ↓
There are no comments yet...Kick things off by filling out the form below.