| Frank Weigle came into my office one morning back in | | | | and I've hated painting ever since. |
| 1985 and asked me to create a report for him that he | | | | Finally one evening I approached my dad to get his |
| could use to demonstrate how the mill had gone down | | | | take on my situation. Dad never got past the second |
| the tubes in just two months. Frank, the superintendent | | | | grade and had to teach himself to read and write but |
| of the former Armco Steel Corporation rolling mill in | | | | that didn't bother me because he was my dad. I |
| Sand Springs, Oklahoma knew I kept detailed | | | | remember that day very well. Dad was sitting in his |
| maintenance and production records and didn't doubt I | | | | favorite chair with the Bible open on his lap studying |
| could do that for him. But what you've asked me to do, | | | | one of the gospels. He placed a finger on the text to |
| what the Will Rogers Toastmaster Club has asked | | | | mark his place and stared up at me over a pair of old |
| me to do, is another matter. Building the profile of an | | | | reading glasses. |
| individual is no easy task; much more so that the | | | | "Well if I was hunting for a job; I would find a place I |
| biography is of your self, and five to seven minutes is | | | | liked, locate the boss and ask him for a job." He said. I |
| not that much time. But still there are some options. | | | | knew my sister worked at the local furniture factory |
| First I could tell you that I was born on a dirt street in | | | | and said she liked it so I got up early the next morning |
| Waldron, Arkansas and that my parents were | | | | and drove up there and asked some of the men |
| divorced before I was ten years old. That the | | | | standing around if anyone had seen the foreman. One |
| Department of Human Services placed my younger | | | | of them pointed across the room to the time clock, |
| brother, two sisters and I in the Bottoms Baptist | | | | "he's over there but I don't know what you would want |
| Orphanage, located a 150 miles to the south in | | | | to see him." He said. |
| Monticello, Arkansas and that I spent the next eight | | | | I followed his line of sight to a man who weighed 250 |
| years of my life down there. Or I could tell you I played | | | | pounds if he weighed an ounce and stood at least |
| right end on the Monticello Hillbillies football team and | | | | six-foot-four. Seeing his size I did a double take and |
| was voted the most courteous person in the tenth | | | | wondered if the worker knew something I needed to |
| grade, that I was the class reporter in the eleventh | | | | know, but went over there anyway and asked the big |
| grade and attended Boys State during the summer | | | | man for a job. That evening I explained to Dad that the |
| between my junior and senior years. That I left the | | | | foreman said he didn't have an opening and asked |
| home at the end of the summer and returned to | | | | Dad what to do next. And just as before Dad marked |
| Waldron to live with my dad and if you opened a 1962 | | | | his place and stared up at me. "Well," he said, "I |
| Waldron Bulldog annual and thumbed through the | | | | wouldn't let that bother me. They all say that. But if you |
| pages to the Who's Who section, you would see that | | | | want that job, I would go back up there tomorrow and |
| the one hundred kids in my senior class selected me | | | | ask him again, show him you really want to work!" So |
| as 'The One Most Likely To Succeed'. | | | | the next day I approached the man of a mountain and |
| That I spent four years in the Navy during the Viet | | | | was met with more of the same. But this time I didn't |
| Nam War and attended college on the GI Bill. That I | | | | have to ask. |
| graduated from the University of Tulsa with an | | | | He told me that he didn't have a job for me. "I told you |
| Electrical Engineering degree and made the National | | | | yesterday I didn't have an opening," he said. "Now go |
| Honor Society, Zeta Nu Chapter of Etta Kappa Nu. | | | | on. Get out of here. I'm busy!" That evening dad and I |
| That I spent most of the next thirty years automating | | | | discussed my job-hunting futures again but this time he |
| production systems in Oklahoma, one of them the | | | | told me something that literally blew me out of the |
| steel mill in Sand Springs, where some of the men | | | | water. He said, "Ben, if you really want that job, go |
| there referred to me as The Body Snatcher because | | | | back up there again tomorrow and I bet he'll hire you." |
| my work eliminated so many jobs. That I've been | | | | Well dad was right. The foreman placed his hands on |
| writing poems and short stories for thirty years and | | | | his hips and looked me up and down and said, "you |
| recently completed my first novel and that I retired this | | | | want to work, huh?" And I said, "Yeah." "Ok, you be up |
| past January. | | | | here tomorrow morning and I'll have something for |
| I could elaborate on any number of these and some | | | | you." The next day the foreman pointed to a large |
| would say my life has been a success. But I didn't | | | | push broom and for the next month I spent eight hours |
| come here to do that. What I did come here to do is | | | | a day sweeping the floors and emptying large trash |
| to share with you one short story; a tiny segment of | | | | boxes; picking up everything from clumps of cotton, |
| my life. | | | | sawdust, scraps of wood, fragments of cloth, all mixed |
| After graduating from high school, I had no thoughts of | | | | with slimy tobacco juice or just plain spit. I was the |
| higher education. My only goal was to find a job and | | | | janitor. Now, looking around this room, I'm sure there |
| start making money, and I did that. I white washed | | | | are those of you that would say, "wow! That's a |
| trees, helped a man underpin an old house, helped build | | | | pretty good speech. But why would he go and ruin it |
| a large concrete block commercial garage and even | | | | by ending it on a negative note?" Well let me see if I |
| entertained the thought of painting for a living. But that | | | | can dispel some of your concerns. |
| thought quickly went awry when I ran out of paint on | | | | I learned a lot those three days and the weeks that |
| one of my first jobs and had to get another batch | | | | followed. First of all, I learned that being a janitor wasn't |
| mixed. That night I dreamed about the difficulties | | | | what I wanted to do and secondly but more important |
| matching the color of one batch of paint with another | | | | I learned that determination and persistence pays! |