Email Jim at jim.thompson@ipulpmedia.com

My grandfather was killed in a coal mine accident in southwest Indiana in 1930. They buried him on Thanksgiving Day. My dad was the oldest child in the family, 18, and it was the Depression. My Dad took it upon himself to keep the family fed. As Dad told it, in the middle of the winter he took to shooting rabbits with a .22 instead of a shotgun because the .22s were half the price of shotgun shells. Yes, kiddies, the family's "protein" as you like to say today, was wild rabbit.

Towards spring, when the Wabash River, about three miles away, thawed out, Dad decided to make an illegal fish trap to set in the river. He reported that about two weeks later, the game warden came by and said, "Doc (that was dad's nickname), I want you to go down to the river and pull that fish trap out, so I don't have to give you a ticket."

Dad feigned ignorance, "Fish trap, what fish trap?"

Warden replied, "I only know two people that would go to the trouble to make a fish trap as fine as that one--you and your grandfather. And your grandfather has been dead about five years."

Dad could always work with his hands, but he had the personality of a famous presidential candidate. Horrible with people, including his own sons (he died in 2000, and I have yet to shed a tear).

Fast forward to the 1970's. Dad was a prototype model toy maker at Kenner Toys in Cincinnati (there is a series on Netflix called "The Toys that made Us." The first episode is about Kenner's and the first batch of Star Wars toys. About half-way through, there is an old Polaroid picture of the model makers. Dad is the stooped over white-haired old man in that picture).

Still working there in the 1980's and still a perfectionist, the project managers were always trying to take the models away from Dad before, in his opinion, they were finished. Along about 1985 or 1986, he was working on a particular model for a project manager that no one liked. Finally, one afternoon, he stood up, threw the model against the wall, put his coat on and went home. These hand-built models could easily be worth $100,000 in the dollars of those days. He said the other model makers stood and clapped as he walked out.

When he got home, he told my Mother that he was probably going to be fired, arrested, or both.

Phone rings (it was hanging on the wall in the kitchen, not like today). Dad answers.

"Hello?"

"Jimmie (in the ensuing sixty years he had been downgraded from 'Doc' to 'Jimmie'), you OK?" (It was his boss.)

"Yeah, I am fine."

"Now, Jimmie, I know you like to go to Florida to see your relatives. Why don't you take a couple of weeks or more and just go do that. And don't worry, we'll pay you the whole time you are gone. Come back when you want."

Dad starts feeling a little brave. "Thank you. But when I come back I am not going to work for that project manager ever again."

"Oh, don't worry about that, you'll not have to work for him again, I'll personally make sure of that."

And Dad went back in a few weeks. Worked there until he was 78 or 79.

Sometimes quality can be better than necessary.

Be safe and we'll talk next week.

If you would like to dig a little deeper, [click here].

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