Earlham Echo

January 7, 2025

‘Spring cleaning’ is really an ongoing process here at the Echo World Headquarters, mainly because that project always gets postponed from season to season. For example, I did some spring cleaning last year, but it was just a couple weeks ago in December. I didn’t finish, so when I resume—assuming I get to it before June 21—I’m going to claim I’m doing it early in 2025.

The HQ has an attic; the kind of interesting little space that you only find in houses that are at least 100 years old. The attic is adjacent to an upstairs bedroom, and you have to enter it by going through a closet. When you open the small door, duck down, and enter the room, you feel like you’re climbing into an Apollo command module.

When we moved in decades ago, I envisioned turning that space into a mini man cave, filled with my music, sports, and writing tools. That never really happened. As our family grew, we accumulated more and more stuff. When that needed to be stored, the attic served that purpose.

Occasionally we need to go in there to rearrange and purge as necessary, and that’s what I was trying to do the last time I went in. But working in the attic never goes well for me. Even though my intentions are good, the project always turns into an archaeological mission, and it’s inevitable that I find something interesting that I have to study at length. Last month, when I came across a box of my mom and dad’s old stuff, including great old photos, letters, birth certificates, their marriage license, and more fun artifacts, I knew that the constructive part of my day was over.

I had seen most of the items in the box before, but had forgotten I had some of them. One of the gems was a newspaper clipping from the Mexico (MO) Ledger, dated September 14, 1981. The photograph caught my eye first. My dad, along with two other guys, were standing outside on a sunny day holding golf trophies. My dad was smiling—but just a little bit. His mile-wide white collar and Lacoste bucket hat framed his face, which beamed his ubiquitous confidence and steady resolve.

The trophy was for first place in the city golf tournament. Fifty-three-years-old at the time, he shot 75 to take the crown. Not bad. He broke 80 quite a bit, but 75 was probably one of his best rounds that year—and he had done it on the ‘big stage.’

In golf or in life, my dad didn’t mind taking on tough challenges. A child of the Depression, he joined the Navy and ended up a pilot, serving during the Korean War. Afterward, he was hired as a salesman by A.P. Green Refractories, and he worked there for over 30 years. Headquartered in Mexico, MO, A.P. Green was an international company that made ‘fire brick’ and other insulating materials. Brick from Green’s was used to make the first launch pads at Cape Canaveral.

My dad got promoted by the company every couple of years and the family moved to a new city with each job. By the time I was 13, I had lived in five different cities. My mom, older sisters, and brother moved much more than that, living in exotic places like Pittsburgh, Rochester, and Syracuse.

I rustled through some more items in the box and pulled out an envelope I didn’t recognize. Inside was a letter on thin paper that my dad had typed, or dictated, in 1982. I believe his job title at the time was Director of Sales. The letter was a memo to the APG salesforce, addressing some issues the company was having. 

For historical perspective, the United States was experiencing a significant economic downturn in 1982, characterized by several factors, including recession, inflation, high interest rates, industrial decline, a slumping housing market, a volatile stock market, labor unrest, and declining real wages. This period was marked by economic hardship for many, but it also set the stage for the recovery and the long economic expansion that followed in the mid to late 1980s.

My dad titled his memo, ‘Who’s responsible?’ and it went like this:

During recent weeks I have visited several of the major industrial cities of America and talked with most of our major steel customers. My impressions are that there is little optimism in that area of our marketplace; in fact, I have been surprised at the depth of their depression.

We almost always spent some time during my visits discussing who is responsible for the dilemma in which we find ourselves. We usually settled on Reaganomics, labor unions, poor management, poor productivity, the Japanese or the Germans or whoever, and finally, all of the above.

There were others mentioned, but these were the most common, and all of us were participants in one or two of them.

Most of us either can’t remember or were not seriously affected by the Great Depression, but the consensus is that the current conditions are the worst since then. In our recovery from that Depression, we have enjoyed a continuous increase in our standard of living. This has included better working conditions, shorter working hours resulting in a tremendous amount of leisure time, and many other improvements too numerous to mention. The price we have paid for all of this includes double digit inflation, inefficiency, waste, and pollution, all of which have resulted in making us noncompetitive in the world marketplace.

My conclusion is that we are responsible for our problems. Perhaps it’s time we accepted responsibility for their solutions. If your question is, “What can I do?” remember our troubles began when we settled for less than our best, rationalized that it wasn’t that important or someone else could do it, or it was out of our control. We did not accept our responsibility.

Why don’t we start by being responsible for: our attitude—keep it positive. Our jobs—we know what they are, so don’t let anything or anyone keep us from fulfilling that responsibility.

If we are going to wait for World War III or someone else to solve our problems, the worst may be yet to come.

My dad wrote this, so of course I was moved by it, but the prescience of the letter and its relativity to modern times struck me. Swap out the words ‘Reaganomics’ and ‘Japanese or the Germans’ with ‘Bidenomics’ and ‘Chinese,’ and the letter sounds like it could have been written yesterday.

The letter’s predominant theme of personal responsibility, the idea that individuals are accountable for their own actions, choices, and well-being, is certainly still relevant, too. No one is alone in this world, and everyone needs help at some point—advice or a recommendation from a parent, a trusted mentor, or a friend, or maybe even a loan—but we all have the power within us to accomplish whatever we want in life. Negative external factors can be powerful, but they can be overcome with self-discipline, resilience, and courage. That’s a difficult process, but folks looking for ‘easy’ run out of things to do pretty quickly.

I feel like I’ve always tried to apply my dad’s philosophy to my everyday life, but I’m going to double down this year—in regard to my golf game. No more excuses for bad play. My aching back, the wind, course conditions, the sun in my eyes. None of those matter. Time to get good. But I’m going to have to play more. A lot more. It’s my personal responsibility.