ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Kerry Patterson is author of three bestselling books, Influencer, Crucial Conversations, and Crucial Confrontations.
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When Old Man Hubback pulled up to my grandfather’s grocery store it always caused quite a stir. Cars pulled over so people could take a gander. Dogs yelped themselves silly. And kids came running from every corner. The fact that the German immigrant looked like a homeless version of Santa Clause would have been enough to catch some people’s attention, but that wasn’t his drawing card. When Mr. Hubback traveled from his home a mile away to Noonan’s Grocery, he hooked up his horse to a hay wagon and clip-clopped his way down the lane. This took place in the early 50s, and that made him the last person in Bellingham to travel by means of a one-horse-power vehicle. That’s what caught everyone’s attention.

The boys who came running to catch a glimpse also had something else they wanted to witness. The stoic German would climb down from the wagon, walk through the front door of Granddad’s grocery store, walk straight to the counter, and slap down a dime. Without a word Grandpa would march to the back of the cooler and fetch an ice-cold bottle of Coke.

Hubback would grab the icy bottle in his massive hand, take it to the wall that sported the bottle opener, and pop off the lid. Then he’d whip the Coke bottle to his lips, tilt it and his head back, and in an act repeatedly attempted and failed by every boy in the room, Hubback would down the icy, burning liquid in three or four gulps—without so much as a single pause, belch, tear, or gasp for air. Then, to the cheering of little boys, Hubback would smack the empty bottle down on the counter, turn on the heel of his boot, and head back home. Most of the boys would remain behind and speak in reverent tones about the old man’s gift.

As the crowd dispersed, for me the encounter was far from over. When the old German climbed on his wagon, I’d often try to sneak onto the back where I would hide in a pile of loose hay. If he didn’t spot me, I’d get a free ride home on a horse-drawn wagon.

Hubback had a different plan. He didn’t like kids climbing on his wagon and he let them know by twisting on his perch and turning his bull whip on anyone who had the temerity to invade his space.

On this particular day as Hubback pulled away with me perched on the back of his wagon, I quickly slid under a pile of fresh-cut hay. I had made it onto the vehicle undetected. Eventually I ventured out far enough from underneath the hay to dangle my legs off the back and enjoy the slow clip-clopping as we meandered down the dirt road that led toward my home.

I should have known better than to expose myself, because it wasn’t long until a stray dog charged up the road, barking at the horse and Mr. Hubback turned to give the mongrel a taste of his whip. Seeing me sitting there on his precious wagon, unharmed and with a stupid grin on my face, Hubback immediately changed targets by re-cocking his arm to give me a sharp smack.

But then fate intervened. Before Mr. Hubback could whip me we both heard a strange shout emanating from somewhere up the road. In unison we turned our attention to the ruckus. It was Maxine, a middle-aged lady who lived nearby. Maxine not only marched to the beat of a different drummer, she marched to the beat of a wildly insane drummer. Whenever she walked up the road, she tilted forward as if struggling against a hurricane-force wind and would peer ahead until she saw another human being coming her way. Then, no matter the distance, Maxine would start shouting a garbled monologue that only she could understand.

Realizing that the chatter was just Maxine, Mr. Hubback smiled at me with a sardonic grin and raised his right arm to give me a thrashing. But I was saved once again. This time it was the sound of “Buggy Baker” bouncing down the bumpy road in her old war-surplus jeep. Ms. Baker had earned the appellation of “Buggy” because she was a high school biology teacher who loved bugs and acted, well, sort of buggy. For one, she drove an open jeep—not common for a woman in her fifties in the fifties. Two, she was always accompanied in her jeep by Billy, who was not only her best friend, but, as his name might suggest, was also a goat. On this day as Buggy bounced down the road in her jeep, so did Billy. The poor creature could hardly stay on his assigned perch on the back bench because Ms. Baker was driving far too fast for a road that was more pot hole than path.

As Mr. Hubback and I paused to watch, it became clear that Buggy’s intention was to pass the wagon at a dangerous clip.

Just as Buggy began to hurl past us, Maxine (still yammering) drew close enough to stand in the path of the careening jeep, so Buggy was forced to slam on the brakes to avoid a horrible disaster. As she stomped on the brake pedal, the jeep hit a huge pothole and nearly flipped bumper-over-steering-wheel. This convulsive action pitched poor Billy into the front passenger seat, legs splayed forward where he ended up sitting there in the distinctly human pose of someone riding shotgun.

The curiously embarrassed look on the goat’s face coupled with the fact that he appeared as if he were pretending to be a human being who was casually cruising the countryside was simply too funny for words. As I looked at Old Man Hubback and he looked at Maxine and Maxine looked at Buggy we all grinned widely. Then, in a moment of truce, Hubback sat down his whip, leaned back his head, and let out a howl that was half laugh, half choke. Buggy tittered, Maxine cackled, and I laughed until tears ran down my cheeks. After a full minute of laughter, Buggy shooed Billy to the back, carefully edged her jeep past the wagon, and pulled away. Maxine leaned precariously into the imaginary wind and strode off at full yammer. And, true to form, Hubback grabbed his whip and menacingly aimed it at me again.

That was the end of that. I leaped from Hubback’s wagon and hurried the rest of the way home. Ten minutes later I burst in the front door and excitedly told my mother the story of the shotgun goat and the bull whip. Mom laughed along with me until we were both forced to sit down on the couch to catch our breath.

Then as Mother gathered her composure she exclaimed, “Isn’t it wonderful!”

“Isn’t what wonderful?” I asked.

“Living in this neighborhood!” mother explained. “We have people from all walks of life and that makes this a perfect place to live.”

In my moment of near crisis, Mom chose to focus on the joys of diversity. She loved people of all shapes, looks, beliefs and sizes. She loved to chat with immigrants. When I grew old enough to study biology, Mom took me by Buggy’s enchanted home where I discovered a menagerie filled with mysterious creatures and shiny microscopes. Buggy in turn introduced me to the joy of scientifically exploring the swamp in her backyard.

“To each his own.” That had been Mom’s mantra. Long before the topic of diversity had become popular in HR departments worldwide, Mom knew the joy that came from meeting, associating with, and loving people of every ethnicity, lifestyle, and belief.

No matter the direction of the political winds, mom never broke stride. While it’s true I never actually heard Mother use the word “diversity,” it was what she cherished. When Mr. Hubback grew feeble, it was she who took him soup and sat with him. And when Mom returned to college at age forty to study speech therapy, it was Maxine she took on as her first benefactor.

Mom never changed. Forty-five years later, on the eve of her death, she generously gifted a family of Mexican immigrants several dolls that she had made by hand to adorn her Christmas tree. Mom had invited the new neighbors and their five children into her home for hot chocolate one evening, and when the kids had complimented her on the dolls, she gave them away without a second thought.

Later that night as mom settled into her over-stuffed chair for the very last time to knit wool hats for the children of Bosnia (we found a bag of twenty beautiful hats when we went through her things), I’m sure she smiled deeply as she imagined the joy she would bring to a people she had never met, but whom she had been dutifully studying in her encyclopedia.

“Bosnians!” She had said to me as she knitted hats one day the week before—The Encyclopedia Britannica lying open next to her. “Aren’t they a fascinating bunch!”

Mom made diversity a wonderful thing.

Kerry Patterson Kerrying On

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Kerry Pattersons author of three bestselling books, Influencer, Crucial Conversations, and Crucial Confrontations.

Listen to Kerrying On via MP3

Listen to Kerryin On via iTunes

I’m not sure how old I was when my mom taught me how to find wild mushrooms. I know she held my hand as we walked into the woods that day. I can still feel the warm touch of her delicate fingers. That would put me at around seven years of age. Any older than that I would have stopped holding hands because, according to my older brother, it wasn’t “cool.” What a shame.

It was springtime in Bellingham, Washington and if you knew where and how to search you could find delicious edible mushrooms in the woods behind our home. However, as Mom soon taught me, it took some first-class hunting. (Toadstools were easy to find, but they would kill you.)

After trekking through the woods for nearly an hour Mom eventually dropped five mushrooms into our brown paper bag. I had found one. We eagerly took our bounty home where Mom quickly fried it and popped the tender morsels into an omelet. This ritual went on for a couple of weeks—the two of us searching hand-in-hand and eventually returning with a half dozen or so mushrooms.

Then one Saturday morning my world changed. Driven by some genetic, time-released code hidden deep inside my cells, I sprung to my feet, grabbed a brown paper bag, and went in search of the fungi on my own. I still remember how frightened I was as I walked into the thick, dark woods behind our house. I hadn’t read about the “wild things” that lived there (the book wouldn’t come out for another decade), but I certainly had heard their occasional growls and howls. I had even seen their tracks. Plus my older brother had filled my head with tales of moose, cougars, and bears (Oh my!) that routinely mauled anyone who dared enter their domain. And I was about to enter their domain.

The prospect of being gutted by a beast frightened me right down to my socks, but it wasn’t enough to keep me home. Not that day. My desire to prove my mettle outweighed the fear that normally kept me close to home. It was my time to step up to the table. It was my time to provide for the table. So, I plunged into the darkness, eyes pinned to the forest floor—dead set on bringing home the bacon.

It was hard work finding mushrooms that day. The woods were wet from an overnight rain; the underbrush scratched my arms, burrs stuck to my pant legs and socks, and stinger nettles rubbed against my exposed neck and ankles—leaving behind tiny mountain ranges of welts. All the while, the mushrooms hid. They were masters of camouflage. With no effort whatsoever, they magically disappeared into the forest floor—nature’s Waldos—perfectly blending into the background.

After over an hour of fungi-less searching, and just before I trudged home in utter defeat, I eventually stumbled into a small grove that offered the first mushroom of the day. As I bent down to gather it up, there next to it I saw another—and then another. Startled by the find, I jumped to my feet, gave my eyes a second to adjust to the diminished light, and there, peeking their heads through the loam and leaves, I spotted dozens of edible delights. I’ll never forget that glorious moment. I had stumbled on the mother lode of mushrooms. I would return home the victor.

I soon gathered up every single fungal gem and dashed home with my brown paper bag filled to the top. (These were the honeycomb variety of mushroom and as such, easy to spot—so I wasn’t running the risk of bringing home deadly toadstools.) Mom beamed with delight when she saw what I was carrying. My brother gave me an enthusiastic thumbs-up. Dad slapped me on the back, carefully inspected my bounty, washed it, and fried the lot in butter. Then the four of us sat down at the family table and feasted on a delicious breakfast that I, a seven-year-old boy, had hunted and gathered all by myself.

Some kids go through a formal rite of passage into manhood. They do it at church or during a tribal ceremony or maybe even at home when Dad tosses them the keys to the car or their first laptop computer. Not with me. I was only seven that day I brought home the mushrooms—about half the age most people think it takes to spring into manhood. But for me, I’m pretty sure I made part of the leap right then and there. After all, as everyone could plainly see, I was now a member of the select group of people that helped feed our family.

And feed our family I did. From mushroom gathering I soon graduated to berry picking, clam digging, and fishing. We were dirt poor during my childhood years, but we always ate well. Imagine a dinner comprised of wild mushrooms, butter clams, trout, and hot blackberry pie. It’s the kind of fare they serve at a fancy restaurant nowadays. We Pattersons ate such stuff because it was free and, more often than not, I had brought it home.

I hadn’t thought about this part of my life until last week when two of my granddaughters invited me to a fashion show. At age nine, the two of them had taken a sewing class from one of our neighbors and now they were going to model the blouse and skirt each of them had made. They had picked the patterns, selected the material, and after hours of work and meticulous care had sewn an outfit that they’d soon be wearing to school.

As each granddaughter paraded around the church auditorium cum runway, I nearly burst with pride. Imagine that, making their own clothes—and only in the second grade! Later that evening as we talked, each child stood confidently wrapped in clothes of her own making. As I looked closely into their eyes I could tell that both girls had changed. I had seen them perform ballet, gymnastics, cheer leading, piano, violin—you name it—they had taken the lessons and performed at the recitals. But this was different. They were different.

Most lessons are about improving yourself, performing, and then taking a bow. And while I believe in such personal training and the skills, confidence, and discipline it develops, it’s not the same as producing something the family can use. It’s not the same as adding to the country’s gross national product. It’s not the same as picking mushrooms or sewing your own clothes. Do that, and you’re part of the group that feeds and clothes your family. Do that, and you change.

I suddenly saw the value of teaching children and grandchildren (while they’re still young) ways to help feed and clothe the family as well as how to care for the home. Perhaps you think I’m grasping at straws, but I think the difference between performing and providing, although subtle, is substantial. Praising a kid for taking three minutes to draw a crayon picture is one thing. Praising a child for bringing home the bacon is something both memorable and worth shouting about.

And now for the organizational take away. Within companies we often put people through training and other educational experiences that help them improve in some way. But we don’t always teach what it takes to “put food on the table.” That’s because we don’t take the time to identify and teach skills that can make a difference to the bottom line. We’re driven by catalogues and what’s currently popular or even what’s politically safe more than we’re driven by our actual needs. Besides, it’s hard to discover what you really need. It can take real research. You have to talk about problems. And that can be awkward.

In a similar vein, we only rarely teach complex interpersonal skills (skills that can affect the bottom line) because it can be difficult. People don’t follow rote paths. You have to be prepared for all kinds of different responses, and who wants to do that? We don’t practice until we’re competent and confident because that can be repetitive and require touchy feedback. In short, we frequently avoid the nettles, burrs, and bears (Oh my!) and do what’s easy and comfortable instead. We walk to where it’s safe, light, and comfortable, not where we need to go to find the mushrooms. Then, of course, we come home un-scraped, un-prickled, un-stung, and empty handed.

But that’s okay. Because in today’s world we’re likely to get a high-five and a rowdy cheer—just for trying.

I, on the other hand, want the mushrooms.

Kerry Patterson Kerrying On