Grandeur from rude nature

For the past week Sarah and I have had a young woman living with us, testing the outdoor life by working on the Plow Creek farm. Mandy, a young woman who grew up in a Chicago suburb, gets up at dawn to join several other folks who grow, harvest, and market berries and vegetables.

This morning Mandy asked me where Labor Day came from. “I think it was started by unions to honor workers,” I said.

A little research revealed this gem: “Some records show that Peter J. McGuire, general secretary of the Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners and a cofounder of the American Federation of Labor, was first in suggesting a day to honor those ‘who from rude nature have delved and carved all the grandeur we behold.’” The first Labor Day was celebrated on Tuesday, September 5, 1882, in New York City.

I grew up among farmers and who carved grandeur from rude nature. Even though I became disabled in my late teens and moved from the working man world to the white collar world, I am still shaped by growing up among people who worked for a living.

As I’ve been working with a web designer to build a new Evergreen Leaders website, I’ve often thought of my father building a new barn in the early 1960s. Almost all of our neighboring farmers decided they couldn’t make a go of it and moved away from their farms to work in factories.

In today’s post on Labor Day, Seth Godin contrasts the hard physical work of manual labor with the hard work of today–taking risks. My father knew how to do both, work eighteen hour days physically and take the risk of building what at the time was the most advanced dairy barn in Minnesota. Godin describes perfectly the risk he took:

• Today, working hard is about taking apparent risk. Not a crazy risk like betting the entire company on an untested product. No, an apparent risk: something that the competition (and your coworkers) believe is unsafe but that you realize is far more conservative than sticking with the status quo.

Dad took the risk of building that barn, a risk that made it possible for him to raise ten kids on that farm and still be living on the farm 21 years after he retired. Apparent risk is also a way to create grandeur from rude nature.

Happy birth, dear grandchild (5)

Plans are I won't see and hold Aaliyah until August when Hannah and Donny travel to Illinois. So I look at e-mailed photos. These two are my favorites taken on day two of Aaliyah's life. The next morning I spoke by phone with Hannah Donny before they went went home from the hospital. "“I love it! I love having a baby,” Donny said to me. I look at this photo of dad and daughter and the excitement in Donny's voice comes back. For years before Hannah met Donny I prayed for a good husband for her I about cry with gratitude as I look at this photo--a good man who loves Hannah and Aaliyah.

“She is so precious. We just love looking at her,” Hannah said. And the photo says it as well. Children love to be looked at. One of these year's I'll hear a little girl's voice, "Grandpa, watch me."

The world's only diamond willow headboard maker

When Dad, who lives in northern Minnesota, was 79, a stranger stopped and asked him if there were any diamond willows growing in the area.

Dad didn't know. He had never heard of diamond willows. The man showed Dad some beautiful walking sticks he had made out of diamond willows.

Dad researched diamond willows on the Internet and then went looking for them. He discovered lots of diamond willows near our farm. "I've probably been walking by them since I was five years old and never knew they were there," he says.

Now Dad is 82, a man with his own diamond willow business and website, Foss Diamond Willows, and someone who is having more fun working than ever before. In fact, recently he told me, "Life begins at 80."

While I've been launching Evergreen Leaders, discovering how to create a nonprofit that can help other nonprofits thrive, Dad has been discovering how to create a thriving business.

When the board and I launched Evergreen Leaders we focused on developing leadership workshops for nonprofit staff. Recently we have added strategic planning and fund raising consulting services in addition to the workshops.

Dad began making diamond willow walking sticks and lamps and marketing them at craft shows. But he kept looking for bigger ticket items that he could make from diamond willows.

After he made a diamond willow bed a couple of people suggested that he make diamond willow headboards. When a customer happily paid $500 for a diamond willow headboard, that got Dad's attention.

Now he has created diamond willow headboards for every size of bed. As he's shown them to customers he's dicovered that his customers see the diamond willow headboards as a perfect addition to their lake homes.

I'm proud of my Dad--the world's first maker of diamond willow headboards.

Shall we dance?

This afternoon I suggested Sarah pick up a video and she came home with Shall We Dance? a remake of a Japanese film that stars Richard Gere and Jennifer Lopez. Sarah loves dance but I had my doubts. After all, I don't move well due to my disability...all I could think of was watching a movie that reminded me of my shortcomings as Sarah's man.

At first the movie confirmed my fears as Richard Gere secretly pursues ballroom dancing lessons, unable to reveal that side of himself to his wife. Does Sarah secretly wish she could dance with someone who could move freely?

But then to my astonishment the movie flows into powerfully affirmation Richard Gere's marriage. At one point Peter Gabriel's "The Book of Love" was playing in the background and tears were welling up in my eyes:

The book of love is long and boring...

The book of love has music in it
In fact that's where music comes from
Some of it is just transcendental
Some of it is just really dumb

But I
I love it when you sing to me
And you
You can sing me anything

Sarah, my heart is a ballroom for you. Shall we dance?

The world according to Gordon Foss

I first did this post for Father's Day 2005. I keep adding quotes from my Dad:

When you get to be my age you brag it because you’re still kicking
--at age 82

Mama picked herself out an outfit for the anniversary deal.
--On a trip he and my mother had taken to Thief River Falls, MN in preparation for the 60th wedding anniversary celebration coming up June 25.

The Lord gives you wisdom so you can't believe what you've done.
--On his confidence in working out the technical details as he builds a diamond willow bed frame as part of a craft business he launched at age 80.

You get a lot of compliments and that spruces you up even if you don't make a lot of sales.
--On how he enjoys working at craft shows as part of Foss Diamond Willows.

I love you, Dad.