Category: Life’s Lessons

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I Give You An Idea!

When I was in the giftware industry, along with two other investors, Molly McGregor and Barbara MacNeil, we purchased the equipment from a bankrupt company in order to gold plate metal. (Sprites and other giftware is a different story) I am not sure exactly how the bankrupt company came into my universe, however, it appeared at a time when gold plating was a valuable asset to Lambda Crystal.

I knew very little about the mechanics of plating anything, however, I understood the chemistry of plating, ions moving to an oppositely charged surface. What I needed was an expert on the mechanics to impart their knowledge to me at minimal cost.

Manifest into my life, an expert in more than just gold plating. I wish I could remember his name. All I know is that he was the grandfather of the owner of a company called Elmira Stove Works. He had developed the production line for gold plating the door fronts for wood burning stoves. He was 83 years old when I met him.

Each week, he would drive from Elmira to Fergus, Ontario, where I had built a new factory for Lambda Crystal on Dixon drive. I repeatedly offered to drive him over, pay for his fuel, reimburse him in any way, and his response stuck with me my entire life.

He finally said to me: If I give you a dollar and you give me a dollar, what do we have? Knowing that I was going to sound stupid no matter what I said, and totally realizing in my soul that I was about to hear a shred of wisdom from a person whom I kinshiply acknowledged as a soul mate, I uttered, “I guess a dollar”. He wisely looked through my eyes, and asked, “Now if I give you an idea, and you give me an idea, now what do we have?”.

I know, profound, eh?

That has stuck with me ever since. It is a lesson in more than humanity, it is universal. Think Universal!

 

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Cutting Losses is Not Losing!

There are times in life that require new direction to be taken. The reasons can vary, however, I suggest that most will condense to not having fun any more. I have heard it said that laughter is one of the first things couples share. It is also one of the first things to disappear in a failing relationship.

It can happen when one person mentally leaves the relationship for myriad, rational reasons. The challenge in our society, which is based on an aging population, is that mores are changing due to longevity of life. To wed forever makes less sense than it did in the past. Once the offspring are out of the nest, the protective responsibilities are complete.

We become redundant at some point and continue living unfulfilled existence because we can no longer really experience all that life has to offer without sharing it with the same person year after year. I reason that it is better to cut the losses of monotony and spread wings to fly in all new directions.

Today, I was in one of my melancholy moods, thinking about what keeps me hanging around this dimension. It occurred to me that I am still having fun. When the day arrives that I am no longer having fun, then I will make a conscious decision to cut my losses and head into the next existence, willingly, and looking for the WOW factor as is said of Stephen Jobs on his transition bed.

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Restoring a 1934 Packard Twin Six

Opportunities will often come right up to your face and scream, I’m here, yet many people for whatever reasons, will miss out on some of the best memorable events.  My Dad gave me that opportunity and I jumped on it.

When I was fourteen years old, my Dad gave me the same proposal that he had given my two older brothers; spend the time restoring the 1934 Packard which had been sitting in the garage for some twenty years and it would be mine for $1.  Dad agreed to invest all the money it would take to restore it. It was my job to invest the time. It was 1962 when I started dismantling the car in the garage.

Now, 1962 was the beginning of the British Invasion.  At the time I was working, underage, at two jobs. I worked as a bowling machine mechanic, which meant being behind the machines, ready to spring into action when a bowling ball or pin became lodged and needed a little push.  For that service, I got to hang out with the real mechanic and learn about machinery.  At the same time, I worked the evening shift pumping gas (yes, in those days, an attendant serviced a car with gas, check the oil and washer fluid, clean the windshield, while smiling the whole time) and repairing flat tires at a Shell station next door to the bowling alley.  That job, my Dad didn’t find out about until I had to call him for help. Point being, that I was busy, even at fourteen.  I needed money to impress the girls, but as usual in my life, I was running out of time to do all the things I wanted to. Every available hour I spent in restoring that car taught me a lifetime of experience.

  • When dismantling something, keep the parts separate and label everything you can, because memory, alone, will not work in reassembly. The four bolts that held the front bumper on were all machined individually, which meant the same looking bolt would only thread in one spot.
  • Patience is vital. Letting bolt-release sit for days, returning each day to only apply more breaker juice.  Shearing off the head of a bolt that is threaded into an engine head block, made of solid aluminum, is not an easy, inexpensive repair job.  Thanks, Dad, for loving me…oh, and yes, also for the time I ignored the oil indicator light on the 1955 Chrysler Imperial and the engine seized at the side of the road, and you paid for the towing and the new engine as long as I put it in. And, oh yeah, my first car accident when I didn’t know what you meant by “pump the brakes on wet pavement”.
  • Some people are as thick as a brick. Dad had the Chrysler dealership in Akron complete the repainting of the exterior.  The guy that started stripping the old paint used a lye-based paint remover. He mishandled the material twice, putting him in the hospital, twice, with third-degree burns from the paint remover. The next guy took a sander to it and left marks that took hours to remove.  These were their best specialist painters. They finished applying 16 coats of undercoat, hand sanded between each coat, followed by 12 coats of lacquer that made the most incredibly deep shine. Come to think of it, I think Dad paid $800 and that was overpayment due to the hours the two guys racked up.
  • When something is right, you will know. The frosty spring Saturday morning that Dad and I drove to where the mechanics were prepared to start the engine for the first time in over 20 years.  Two old guys (about three days younger than dirt) had laid on their backs under the Packard, grinding the crankshaft, by hand, because in that engine, the crankshaft could not be removed for servicing.  It was a Norman Rockwell illustration right out of Saturday Evening Post or Esquire Magazine, this old wooden garage, tucked back under some trees, in what had been the repair shop area of Akron some fifty years prior. It was a frosty, yet somehow foggy spring morning.  My Dad insisted on stopping on the way into town at a small store to purchase two lead pencils.  He did not explain until we got to the garage their purpose. Imagine four old guys and my Dad, all proudly looking at this beautifully restored gem from a bygone era, and they gave me the privilege of starting it up. It was then that Dad stood the pencils upright, on the top of the radiator to balance vicariously while I, first, turn the key, and then push the start button on the dash.  I remember so vividly pushing the button and not hearing any engine noise. I was watching Dad, who was watching the pencils – they did not move at all, indicating the engine had been tuned perfectly.  I got out and could hear the hum of that 12 cylinder engine as it just purred into life resurrected.  Dad stood there with the biggest shit eaten grin as he just stared at that engine, along with the mechanics as they all pointed and smiled.  It was a fine day.
  • I think it was the following Saturday that Dad and I went to the auto registry office in Akron and he signed over the ownership to me for the mandatory $1 required as the minimum sale amount for a vehicle. I was sixteen and it had taken me two years to complete the total restoration of a 1934 Packard, Twin Six.  I had completely dismantled it and put it back together and it worked!
  • I can remember many a time when Pop was not home, John and our friends would push the Packard out of the garage and stand on the running boards, pretending that we were Al Capone gangsters. We would take turns pretending we were driving. What childhood fun!
  • I kept that heirloom until a guy walked up my driveway in Columbus, Ohio and offered me enough money to start my trek to Canada that summer of 1973 – but that’s another story, kids.
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Pick Up The Rope of the Universe

It came to me in a dream some 10+ years ago. I entered a completely white room with no windows or doors.  As I entered, the opening behind me closed, leaving me in a totally white void space.  Suddenly I noticed a rope hanging from the side. It appeared white also, and about the size used in junior high to climb to the ceiling in gym class, except it was attached by a metal plate to the white wall in front of me.

I picked it up and started pulling on it, as tho by pulling I could escape this white room. After a short while, it occurred to me that I was accomplishing nothing and still in the white room. So I dropped the rope!  As soon as I did, the white room disappeared and I was free.  Ever since that dream, I have tried to remind myself to “just drop the rope”.

\r\n\r\n

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Figuring Out What Life Is All About

I think as we grow older; which by the way is not for the faint of heart, we begin to reflect more.  I guess partly because we have more to reflect upon.  Does that take away from forward thinking?  I think more about recording the past in some way, in order to keep from losing it.

I remember in my younger years, I just wanted to forget the past and focus on the future, which for me, was to work more hours, in order to amass more material goods.

I have become a business owner, starting out young.  I remember as early as eight years old.  I read on the back page of a comic book that I could purchase all-occasion cards from a company in White Plains, NY, and sell them to my friends, relatives, and neighbors.  All I had to do was come up with the seed money – I’m thinking $20.  I’m not remembering what I did to earn it, but earn it I did – mowing and raking lawns, and delivering papers, probably.

My best friend, and next door neighbor, Marc Ciriello, had a paper route and I helped him deliver.  He earned $30 a week!  Holy crap, that was a lot.  Because he was a year older, he sold his route to me.  I was in the delivery business even then.

I also caddied at the Fairlawn Golf and Country Club, and occasionally at the Firestone Golf and Country Club (a PGA course).

The reason I was so driven by money was instilled in me by my Dad who made it so painful for me to ask for money.   Mostly I had to earn it by cleaning the mortar off of recycled bricks that he wanted to use on the outside of the house.  He paid me a penny a brick.  I remember having to be taken to the hospital because a chip of mortar embedded itself into my eye when I put a hammer to chisel.

So when I asked my Dad for money, he would take out this enormous ledger book and open it.  Imagine this old, crusty, gray, monstrous book, making a creaking sound as it opened, like a basement door, opening upon a black abyss in a horror movie.  Then, slowly, carefully, accurately, he would write, Jim, 1 dollar.  How painful is that?  It drove me to earn and never ask him for money.

Consequently, it led to me working for money, and more of it.  I worked at a bowling alley at 12 years old, fixing and removing lodged bowling pins in the machines.  Then at thirteen, I took on a second job at the filling station next door to the bowling alley.  My Dad said I was too young to be responsible for closing the station at midnight on the weekends, but I did it anyway.

I became an assistant janitor at a Catholic 1-8 grade school – age 14.  I did that until I was 17, while at the same time washing dishes in restaurants and other jobs.  Then, I lied about my age and got a job at St. Thomas Hospital in Akron, OH, as an orderly.  My best friend, Marc had become an orderly and I wanted to be like him, plus the work was interesting, and it was helping people.  It paid, $1.21 an hour, and that included uplift for working evenings while attending high school.

I was one of the few that owned their own car in high school.  The problem was that I had to work; Monday, Wednesday, Friday to pay for the car.  Then I had to work Tuesday and Thursday to buy gas for the car.  Then I had to work Saturday and Sunday to have money when I got to where I was going.  So what did I have to say when my friends said; let’s go out Friday night?  I can’t, I have to……go to work.

It took years for me to hear the words my father repeatedly told me; son, get your money situation over early in life, so you can then figure out what life is really supposed to be about.

The money situation is still not to my liking, but I have definitely figured out that life is not about work!

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India

When I was in sixth grade, age 12, I created two drawings that were selected to adorn the school walls during parents night – when parents came to meet the teachers and discuss how their child was progressing.

One of the colored drawings was of a Northwest Mounted Policeman on a house. The other was of the Taj Mahal. Interesting that I came to live in Canada for most of my adult life, and traveled to India for two and a half months to develop an Amway business.

My travel to India began when I sponsored my good friend Pankaj Chand into the Amway business in Canada. It must have been in the summer of 1995. He was referred by a nurse who worked at St. Mary’s Hospital in Kitchener, ON. We hit it off immediately. Pankaj, and later his wife Rose, and son Arun have been in my life since, much to my blessings.

In a quip, I mentioned to Pankaj that India would someday be open for Amway development. He stated that when it did he would go there to develop business in his country of heritage. Without so much as a thought of what it would entail, I said, “Well, if you go, I will go as well”.

The date of Amway opening business in India became a reality in May 1998. Pankaj, Rajeev, and I traveled to India to prepare for the opening in March 1998.

scan0196

Rajeev and wife to be, Suzy at Toronto airport getting ready to board our first flight leg to London. Rajeev and Suzy had recently returned from Disney World. I had asked Rajeev to purchase three Micky Mouse hats to bring with us on our travels, which he did. When we arrived at Heathrow in London, we were required to disembark, clear customs and board a second plane to India. While standing in line to access the second plane, I ask Rajeev for the hats and the three of us placed them on our heads. As the line approached the security check, the officer could be seen stamping passport documents and then look up to peer at the three of us in line. We were in suits and everyone else was adorned with India garb. We stood out beyond comparison. As we finally reached the guard, he stamped our passports, then could not contain himself any longer. He burst out with, “What are you doing with those hats?”. Being as we were in England, my plan had gone completely noticed as I calmly remarked, “We are the three Mousketeers. traveling to India”. Although he saw the humor, he had to contain his amusement as he just shook his head and said please pass.

Nothing in my previous travels throughout S. America and Mexico could have prepared me for what became my India excursion. Upon arrival in Delhi, Pankaj and I booked a hotel, while Rajeev went to stay with relatives in the area. Here is a picture from our hotel room the first morning.scan0197 Pankaj did his best to help me acclimate to the sights, sounds, cultures, and extreme time change in the first couple of days before we went in separate directions across the country.

The day we arrived, I went to the American Express office to obtain some local currency. As the teller handed me my cash, he said, “Happy Birthday!”. I was dumb founded. How could he know it was my birthday, so I asked him. He flatly stated, that is the day your American Express card expires. The look on my face must have given away my chagrin. He said, you do have your replacement with you do you not? I had to confess that in the chaos of preparation, I had not opened the mail that contained my replacement card. What followed was a testament to perseverance and guts on my part. I had to get a new card issued through Delhi, New York, and Toronto. The challenge was that because of the method to have it replaced, every time I used it for airfare, hotels, etc, it would be declined and American Express had to be called to verify that it was me using it and then they would authorize it’s used to the person making the charge. Now realize how a hotel employee in India would react when I would be checking out of the hotel, and say, now when you put this through, it will be declined, but don’t panic. We are doing to call this toll free number and they will authorize its use. Where upon they would call, while being extremely suspicious of me and this scheme. It always seemed to get to the same person at American Express, Rajeev (another one, of which there are a lot), who would ask to speak to me. I would swoon, Rajeev!, and he would say, Mr. Frank, so good to hear from you again, please pass the phone back to the attendant, whereupon, he would authorize the cards to use. This happened for twenty-five airline flights and more hotels than I remember, across ten of the twenty-five states in India. Needless to say, Rajeev and I became good friends by the time I left India.

Here are a few reflective notes that I made on the way back from India.

Transcribed notes made during and after two and a half months in India, developing an Amway business.

India #1 word – flexibility Don’t look left, right – stay focused, no comparisons with anybody, 25 flights, 10/25 states visited. Pay the price, $10,000, over 2 months away from wife and family Drive 1 hr to get an initial kit. Went with a mission. 1-Create plan showers in depth, not show plan, 2-Create urgency – looking for business owners while I’m here.

You’re so blessed here in N. America, air, water. People here are same as there – everybody wants tomorrow to be better than today and their family to be looked after –  here the quiet desperation is exactly the same – just less obvious -they think they are OK   – in India, they can’t try to fool you as much – just know they all want to come to N. America

The people are desperately looking for leadership. That is why they question you and give objections. When they question, the game starts. Handle objections in Plan:4 shifts in thinking. Mkt vs. Elect. Dist.Product pricing. Next step is your house, or come back here

Unsung heroes – Molly at home. When a string is taught, when one end moves the other end feels it. Molly was in trenches here.

Greg Lalonde – don’t give me (Molly & I) time splits, we are just going all out.

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Having a Child with CF

Life can be surprising. When you think you know what is going on, you don’t. When you think life cannot throw you anymore curve balls, it’s a swing and a miss at bat.

When daughter, Mary, was about a year and a half, she seemed to be holding onto colds longer than other kids. Mary’s mom thought it would be a good idea to have her seen by a physician. I agreed and we went together to the pediatrician. The doctor gave Mary a drug called aminophylline. Since I had been in inhalation therapy for some years, I knew what the results meant.  On the way home from the doctor, I said to Mary’s mom, the only time I have ever seen a child literally throw up mucus after being administered aminophylline was with a diagnosis of Cystic Fibrosis. She started screaming at me that I was a terrible person for even thinking that way. We drove the rest of the way to the cabin in Elora without saying a word.

When we arrived at the cabin, the phone rang immediately. It was the doctor calling. He said that he needed to see us right away about Mary. The next few weeks were a blur as I slept on the hospital floor in Mary’s room. They ran a sweat test that conclusively showed young daughter Mary was born with CF, a genetic disorder passed from both parents. Neither of us had any history of CF in our families.

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The Purpose of Forgiveness

It was 1965, I was seventeen. I had begun working as an orderly at the St. Thomas Hospital in Akron, Ohio. I started working at seventeen and under the age required by law. I was not asked to validate my birthdate when I completed the application and I figured I was in my eighteenth year, which was close enough.

I was living with Mom & Pop at the Merriman Rd house. I was working evenings and nights on a swing shift while going to Firestone High School. I was driving my Plymouth Satalite and dating Sandy Dako.

Pop was complaining about his feet hurting. I had seen patients in the hospital soak their sore feet after surgery and suggested we set him in a chair with his feet in a basin of hot water. I remember being on my knees, washing his feet, and thinking how vulnerable he must have felt. I became conscious of a level of understanding and forgiveness for all the pain and suffering he had caused me. I remember thinking, that if I were to meet this person on the street, I would walk on the other side because I would find him so distasteful. While at the same time thinking, he is my father, and in order to let these angry feelings go, all I had to do was make a decision to let go. I felt a profound feeling of release and relief, a sense of freedom, and a lift of pain off my shoulders. It was a serendipitous moment of reflection, resolve, and contentment in one moment of time.

Since that time I have repeatedly read and heard forgiveness is for the benefit of the victim, not the abuser. First the exam and then the lesson.