"It matters to me, a whole lot."If sparks could've shot out his eyes-
"How can you say that, seeing as how..."
Then my eyes would've reflected them back-
"I can say it, and I do say it, because..."
"Look you have to slow down a bit, that's all,"
"If that's all, well, shoot let's just
sit down and really slow down..."
"O.K., maybe that was a bit simple,
but you know what I'm saying,
you just haven't thought through
some of these things?" Ah my blue
eyed friend wasn't really wanting to
hear his brown eyed boy come
up with that one.
"Man," and here's where he blew my mind, "I don't
even know what things to think through?" That's
when it occurred to me, "son you may have bitten
off more than you can chew."
The picture is really a pretty funny one, kid sittin'
there with potato, stuffed so full up in his mouth,
that if he could get the milk in there, it wouldn't
help- and he's about to gag, and tears are beginning
painful, and all he wants is a drink,
but he can't spit them out,
and he can't get the drink in?
Darned if you do,
and darned if you don't;
what a spot to be in?
So that bit about size not mattering-
don't buy it, somehow the bigger dudes,
both of us being men shorter than six foot;
big dudes, well, they have those mouths
that seem to be able to hold it all, don't they?
But our boy, he ain' all that big -
so, he's in a real tough spot.
He should have known the food
would be there after the next forkful,
but when you're really hungry?
My long time associate, who became a fairly powerful
politician; knew that the weak link in the whole idea
was that the community had no plan.
"Well, you guys have this as part of the plan, don't you?"
I was asking because it seemed important, after all,
we've all heard, haven't we, that if you don't plan,
then you plan to ...
"No," and he said it with that air that says, "I'm going
to say more..." "We don't have a plan for the next
ten years, in fact, we don't have a plan at all, that
I know of..."
You can imagine that I was perplexed, thinking that
it just made good sense for a community to be
planned? Thinking, like all reasonable people,
that government would have a plan, right?
"So let me get this straight - you have no strategy
for the future, for this community?"
"That's what I'm sayin'" You can imagine my
reaction to that? Or maybe you can't, because
you really don't know enough about me and
what I do, to make such a thought, or about my
associate, and what he is supposed to do; but one
thing you know now, they weren't ready, they
had no plan, now that creates the question,
what might that mean? Why wouldn't they
have such a plan? Be following some course
to the future? Seemed odd to me?
It wasn't going to do me any good to explain to
my associate that there are two problems with
planning, one is long term and one is short
term; because if you have those two together,
the middle tends to work itself out? Or that
the person who taught me how to do planning
was a NASA project director, a Disney project
director, for their theme parks, and had done
numerous other project plans, all of which had
been enormous, and therefore, enormously
detailed. It also wouldn't do much good to
let him know that this far into the life of the
death of the community, it was going to be hard
to find a pulse, much less, establish a steady heartbeat?
None of that would help my associate, what
would you have told him? Here's where I went.
"If you do nothing, what will happen?" Seemed
like a reasonable place to put down a peg? Gonna
put a tent up, might be nice to put that first peg
down, don't you think? I remember when my
step-dad, who used to beat me regularly after
drinking some Whiskey, would take me and
my cousin up to the hills of California, to
"camp." What he meant was you boys all of
seven and eight, go wander around the forest
and maybe get eaten by a bear, me I'm gonna
stay here in the tent and get hosed. So he'd
say- "well where should we set that corner,
it's important to set the corner right, don't you
think?" We'd seen him take about four snorts
on the way up, and while my cousin hadn't seen
him go off on me, he'd seen the year of bruises
showing up, enough to know he didn't want
any of it, his pupils expanded a bit with the
adrenalin, there was this weird understanding;
we'd better answer this one right? "Yes sir,"
we'd done it in unison, who says, the Army
isn't one where fear creates union? Oh yeah,
where you set the peg is important! So there
I was suggesting to my friend that it might be
good to think about where to start, or even if
it was wise to start?
He thought about the question, it wasn't a deep
one, necessarily, but he'd thought about it a good
bit, you could tell. "If we do nothing, things aren't
going to be good around here in a couple of years."
He was starting to look down the road, see, it's
not hard to get folks looking there, it just takes a
few well aimed well timed and well seasoned
questions? And maybe a step-dad who beats you
in your past, sets that up? Something in his odd
blue eyes and set of jaw told me he didn't have
that, which I'd known anyhow, since I'd known
his dad, who was an incredible example of good
dad, a man who could outwork, out sweat and
flat out think most everybody, who went to war
instead of any other options. So my brown haired,
blue eyed buddy was moving his mind down the
highway, a hard place to get people to move
their minds lately; seems folks are getting more and
more short sighted, less and less likely to think
about the future much, and; folks seem more scared
about the future than perhaps I'd ever known?
"So you want to bring me on board to help with
the planning you need to do?"
"No we've got that covered, I need you to do
something else."
Now he had my attention, something else's weren't
my usual.
"I need someone I can trust, someone I've known
long enough to know they won't sell me out."
"Not many of those types around you, are there?"
My observation was so cliche neither of us
really wanted to even bring it into the talk, so why
had I?
"It's not even that, this goes deeper than that?"
"In what way?"
"I'm not certain Chuck, in fact, this whole thing has
only recently become something of a front burner
issue?"
"Issue?"
"Well we've done some things with making life
in our town here, better. Folks are starting to see
some good changes in the quality of the life we
lead." He paused, but not for effect, it seemed he
was going through a list in his mind maybe?
"When we started on this water project, nobody
could see it, but me; and a couple of the the really
hooked in leaders; but we stuck it out, hired the
right people to do the paperwork, got the money,
and now we have a water system coming in that
is truly, remarkable."
"Do tell?"
"And after this last election, folk in the town
seem to be saying that they are looking for some
new ideas."
"Not a single returning member to the council,
you think?"
"Except me."
"Goes without sayin'"
He sat back in the chair, hooked his fingers into
a link on his chest, and nodded affirmatively.
"So when the deal about the airport came up,
I thought, "just makes good sense." After all
we need a new airport, other towns our size,
get them, so it just seemed to make good sense
that if some folks said that they wanted to
have improvements to the existing airport, why
not?"
"Hey, you're talking job to me, remember, you
don't have to explain..."
"Naw, that's not it, you get it, but just like me, it
doesn't seem troublesome, does it?"
"Seems ...right?" Well there it was, my brilliance
and deep analysis of Sun Tzu shining through.
"That is why the call from Justice was so," he
paused briefly, choosing the word, or words, "out
of place."
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