The Little Guy

First posted January 24,2009

This past week I visited a small furniture store downtown. I didn't even know anything about the store until a friend told me the business might be for sale.

This place was the real deal; a family owned, little guy, furniture store. The kind of pre-big box, good old days, Main Street kind of place your grandfather may have worked when he was young.

I was met at the door by the son of the original proprietor, now in his 70's, and still working the showroom floor. This guy was old school like no other. I don't think he uttered a single sentence without a hard sell at the end. Also there in the store was his daughter, who currently owns and runs the business side of things. These were wonderful, chatty, lovable, people. I liked them immediately.

They talked about the old days, about business and furniture, and, of course, about the state of the economy. I mostly listened.

After a few minutes the daughter jumped up and pointed to a big, framed copy of an old black and white photo. It showed a tiny corner furniture store with two adults standing in front, a toddler standing beside them. "See that little guy there? That's my dad here." She proudly pointed at her father, sitting on the barstool next to me. What a legacy. Now, after 90 years, they are willing to entertain offers and sell it all.

After a while, I stood up to go and the old salesman asked if I wanted a tour. "I absolutely want a tour," I said.

The big box stores have a lot to offer: fancy web sites, big sales campaigns, huge showrooms, and walls of flashing television sets. Not to mention dozens and dozens of nicely dressed, smooth talking sales people. But what they don't have, they will never have.

Some days I have a million things to do before the day ends. This day was no exception. But here, for an hour or so, I enjoyed a piece of history, some good company, and being sold wing chairs and end tables by a 75 year old man.

Time for a Jog

"ARE WE HAVING FUN YET?!"

Today my oldest daughter and I were out for a walk when an older man slowly jogged passed us from behind. Actually, slowly doesn’t even begin to describe his rate of speed; he passed us at an unbelievably, excruciatingly, incredibly slow snail’s pace. And yet, he was indeed jogging.

As we walked casually along, he passed us about two blocks from our home. After another block he turned right at the corner only about ten steps before we turned toward our house in the opposite direction. In the time we were together I watched him shuffle-jog along, tired, breathing heavily, and moving barely faster than we were.

I’m not saying I’m all that great as a jogger, in fact, it’s a rare and special occasion that gets me moving faster than a normal walking pace. Nor am I saying that he was such a bad jogger. Actually I was quite impressed that he just kept on going, heavily trudging step after difficult step along, when obviously it was a tiring and, I assume, a frustrating experience for him every step of the way.

I know how hard it is to get out there and jog down the road and I admire anyone who has what it takes to get out there and do it. When I was young, through my middle school and Jr. High years, I did a lot of jogging. But I never loved it.

In Jr. High my best friend and jogging partner started to develop knee problems. His doctor told him that riding bikes would be a better option for him. From that moment on, jogging was history. Together Shane and I fell in love with cycling and put thousands of miles on our bikes together.

I did actually run a marathon after that, but only because I got talked into it by an extremely persuasive Aunt. And even then, I trained on my bike as much as possible. Those 26.2 miles were the last for me. Something about several hours of torture under the hot July sun helped me finally decide my jogging years were over.

Enter stage right, my wonderful wife, Nancy, who has recently decided she wants to run a 5k. Once she gets it in her mind to do something, it generally happens. This is a good thing. The other part is that she’s asked me to run it with her. She’s working along steadily toward her goal and regularly improving her personal speed and distance records. I, on the other hand, have been out on the road one time this year.

So, today, I watched this guy, easily 20 to 25 years older than me, slowly, slowly jogging along at about the same speed I walk when I’m headed somewhere by myself. But he was most definitely jogging. He was doing it, one step after another, after another, after another.

I’m not going to say, if he can do it, I can do it. Of course I can do it. It’s not about doing it. It’s more about getting it done. But, for sure a guy like this, with so much determination, so much will power, and so much discipline to keep his legs going, even when he isn’t really going anywhere, is clearly an inspiration to anyone with something difficult to do looming down the road.

How about you? What inspires you to give your best?

Clark

Don’t Look Down

Tonight my 17 month old boy climbed up onto our tallest chair. It’s the same chair I used at his age, when I sat to eat at my grandparents’ dining room table. It was my favorite chair at their house until long after someone younger came along and needed it worse than me. The seat is almost as tall my son and still he just climbed right up and sat down as if it was no challenge at all.

Much to Nancy’s chagrin, he got this climbing ability from his daddy. My mom tells a story of coming out of her Mother-in-law’s house, into the backyard, and finding her three year old son, thirty feet up in the big pecan tree. She said she freaked. And then, feigning control, called for me to come down. She says she watched in horror as I haphazardly searched for branches to hang onto or stand on. Finally, she had to just turn away because watching was too terrifying for her.

Watching my own young son atop the tall chair, I started thinking about a youth activity I went to a long time ago. We were on a Pioneer reenactment trek through the dry, desolate dirt roads of southwestern Wyoming. After a long morning of walking, we stopped for lunch near some cliffs and I went off to do some exploring.

A few friends tagged along, which was always a sure recipe for disaster. My mom, who ended up with four sons of her own, is still fond of the saying, “One boy, one brain. Two boys, half a brain.” It sounds Native American to me. I love proverbs like this. I think if there was a third line it would say, “Three boys, no brain.”

Well, one thing led to another and my friends and I went from exploring, to climbing rocks, to climbing boulders, to free-climbing sheer cliffs thirty or forty feet high. No one got seriously hurt but we did find ourselves in a few extremely precarious situations. I remember knowing I was in trouble when I realized the only way down from the ledge I was on was to jump across a twenty foot deep, six foot wide crack in the cliff. My landing spot was a six foot by six foot rounded stone platform a few feet below me. Well, I lived to tell about the experience and also I learned a ton about not being a dork.

Since then I’ve thought a little about climbing: climbing cliffs, climbing ladders, climbing out of deep, dark, scary, snake-filled pits, etc. Climbing can be very fun and is normally pretty easy. You look for handholds in front of you and above your head. Then you reach up and grab them. Toe holds are also easy to find because they are right in front of you. All you have to do is lift your leg and set your foot on something solid. Then you stand on it. Up you go, steady and sure.

When climbing – or I should say, while you are climbing – you won’t have any trouble; it’s when you stop climbing that you run into problems. Stopping is bad. Let me repeat, stopping is bad. But, if that isn’t enough for you, and what you really need is some significant, double-black-diamond-difficulty, take a good long look at down at the bottom. Oh, yah, now you’re asking for some serious trouble.

Of course when you’re climbing a tree, or a cliff, or a big chair, eventually your mom is going to see you and make you get down. That’s just the way it is, get used to it. But, if you’re climbing something less physical, more mental, or more financial, or more emotional, or more spiritual, etc., something where up is the constant goal and down is not a known outcome, then don’t stop – just keep climbing. And more than that, the most important rule of climbing, the rule that will almost always secure your success and get you to the top is, always, always, always keep looking up.

How about you? What obstacle do you currently find yourself climbing?

Clark

el Bed

I used to have a blog. I liked it too. It's name was elBed.com. When I first bought the name, it was going to be a spin-off of a furniture business I had at the time.  Then it evolved into a furniture blog intended to make me appear as some sort of furniture industry expert (haha).

Then, after a while, I decided I wanted to write about more than just recliner chairs, dining sets, mattresses and furniture expos. So I converted el Bed to a blog about whatever I felt like blogging about that day. I linked the odd name and the new subject matter with a Genoese quote that says, "It is better to wear out one's shoes than one's sheets." I know it was a stretch, but hey, I already had the blog up and running so I went with it.

But, alas, el Bed costs me too much money in maintenance and upkeep fees so I have decided to let it go. It's time to get cheap and go for a blog I can afford. Free, my favorite four letter word.

Before I completely shut el bed down, I have a few posts and photos worth moving over. So, for a while, I'm going to mix the new with the old, making note of original post dates as applicable and/or appropriate.

Let me know if you have any questions or concerns. If you have neither, that's okay, I'd still love to hear from you.

Clark