JANUARY 15, 2024 – Early one evening I was making my way through a neighborhood when I came upon two couples sitting on folding chairs at the head of a driveway but not far from the street. I’d enjoyed a degree of success that day and was feeling more upbeat than usual. I called out …
THE SALES JOB: CHAPTER FOURTEEN – “A Mix of Success and Self-Doubt”
JANUARY 14, 2024 – Despite the fear of failure that always accompanied me—sometimes out of sight in the shadows, sometimes writ large upon the door slammed in rejection—now and again I surprised myself. Three weeks into the sales job, I hit a gold vein in an otherwise desultory sales territory. I felt as though I’d …
THE SALES JOB: CHAPTER THIRTEEN – “Watermelons in the Street”
JANUARY 13, 2024 – Early in the afternoon two hot days later, I turned down another old retail section of town not far from where I’d found the Chinese shop. Except all the action, as it were, wasn’t inside a mom and pop store but in the street—curb to curb—in front of a furniture store …
THE SALES JOB: CHAPTER TWELVE – “My Mandarin Moment”
JANUARY 12, 2024 – The human brain has a way of softening, diluting, and covering up past miseries. In the context of the sales job, for example, I remember the fact of my afflictions—psychological and physical—but the memories of them don’t cause me current pain. Take the wicked sore throat I had the second week …
THE SALES JOB: CHAPTER ELEVEN – “Dog Chaining”
JANUARY 11, 2024 – Each day brought memorable encounters with the people of Buffalo. Going door-to-door, you meet all kinds of people—happy, sad, smart, dumb, kind, mean, guileful, guileless, short-tempered, tall-tale-tellers, people mad at the world and folks at whom the world is mad—and once you’re invited to cross the threshold, you see all kinds …
THE SALES JOB: CHAPTER TEN – “Face to Race”
JANUARY 10, 2024 – During my sheltered life leading up to the sales job, I’d had little interaction with Black America. What encounters I did have with Blacks were either superficial or not at all instructive. At the superficial end, when I was in kindergarten our family took a road trip to Florida via the …
THE SALES JOB: CHAPTER NINE – “Finding My Stride”
JANUARY 9, 2024 – My running and skiing marathon phase was still a few years ahead of me, but by 1974 I’d run and skied my share of long distances. The salient features of these sports is that even when you’re on a team, you’re always on your own. You sink or swim alone. The …
THE SALES JOB: CHAPTER EIGHT – “Hitting the Ground Running”
JANUARY 8, 2024 – No element of the Southwestern sales formula was a mere suggestion. The daily start time, the evening finish time, the daily door-knocking quota, the get-yourself-across-the-threshold quota, the give-your-pitch quota, the closing quota, the closing procedure, the weeks-end letter to your booster back home, and the weeks-end report you turned into your …
THE SALES JOB: CHAPTER SEVEN – “Living Quarters”
JANUARY 7, 2023 – When I first heard the Southwestern method of finding summer living quarters, I was dubious. As the hours grew on that cold rainy miserable Saturday in Buffalo, I decided the approach to finding housing was nothing short of hare-brained. Yet in the end, it proved to be effective. And who was …
THE SALES JOB: CHAPTER SIX – “Buffalo or Bust”
JANUARY 6, 2024 – Late Friday of training week, the sales managers gathered their minions to inform us of our assigned territories. Curious about the Deep South I was secretly hoping—despite full knowledge that the summer climate would be unbearable—that we’d get assigned to some Godforsaken part of Alabama. Since I’d taken a swan dive …
THE SALES JOB: CHAPTER FIVE – “PMA”
JANUARY 5, 2024 – The week of sales training was about 25% actual sales training and 75% attitude adjustment. The sales part was intense, well-organized, and highly disciplined. It had to be, since the only way Southwestern sold product was by a bunch of callow college students pounding the pavement—and pounding doors along the way. …
THE SALES JOB: CHAPTER FOUR – “Nashville”
JANUARY 4, 2024 – After final exams at the end of spring semester, I parked myself for a week at my sister’s house in Jamaica Plain, just outside of Boston. It would be my last stretch of freedom, I assumed, until summer’s end. If everything worked out as planned, after the sales job I’d return …
THE SALES JOB: CHAPTER THREE – “Fred and Learning the Pitch”
JANUARY 3, 2024 – Soon I received the congratulatory word that I was officially a member of Keith Ronck’s Southwestern sales team for the summer of ’74. My friend Mike would serve as my mentor, and in both capacities he called me to gush with enthusiast support. “Act enthusiastic, you become enthusiastic,” he said, leading …
THE SALES JOB: CHAPTER TWO – “Keith and The Fuller Brush Man . . . and Woman”
JANUARY 2, 2024 – In the wake of Mike’s visit I mulled over the whole concept of knocking on doors, selling a one-volume encyclopedia with the heft of the huge Webster’s dictionary on the stand in the reference area of the library. It was too big for Mike to have lugged all the way to …
THE SALES JOB: CHAPTER ONE – “My Friend Mike” (Part II)
DECEMBER 31, 2023 – (Cont.) One and a half years as an undergraduate business major hadn’t changed Mike one iota—except he was no longer wearing his Interlochen uniform. He was still very much “in your face,” and when I introduced him to a few of my college friends, I could tell that they didn’t quite …
THE SALES JOB: CHAPTER ONE – “My Friend Mike”
DECEMBER 30, 2023 – In high school I had a friend named Mike. By general consensus, Mike was a pain in the neck but an endearing one, if that dichotomy can be imagined. His high energy could be mistaken for impulsivity, and he was of strong opinions, intensely conveyed. He took special pleasure in watching …
THE SALES JOB: INTRODUCTION
Blogger’s Note: A new mini-memoir series! DECEMBER 29, 2023 – In searching for a new blog series topic, I dusted the cobwebs off my past to see what material might spring forth from cartons in the attic of my memory. Miraculously, some rich stuff surfaced from a tired old cardboard box labeled (figuratively), “SUMMER JOBS …
THE STORY THAT MADE THEM CRY: CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
NOVEMBER 29, 2023 REMEMBERANCE 505 RICE STREET, ANOKA, MN – APRIL 20, 2011 / BJÖRNHOLM, GRINDSTONE LAKE, NW WI – A WEEK LATER After a year of evenings and weekends clearing out the house, the property was ready for sale. Included was Björn’s house and kennel, overgrown with vegetation but otherwise undisturbed since Dad had …
THE STORY THAT MADE THEM CRY: CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
NOVEMBER 28, 2023 “FULL CIRCLE” CLIFTON TOWNSHIP, WI – MAY 31, 1995 She was named Maia Grace after her great grandmother on Jenny’s side and her grandmother on Garrison’s side. Born on December 29, 1997 in New York City, Jenny and Garrison’s daughter made her Minnesota debut a couple of weeks into January. Her christening, …
THE STORY THAT MADE THEM CRY: CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
NOVEMBER 27, 2023 APHC, LUNCH, DINNER, AND A WEDDING KENNEDY CENTER, WASHINGTON, D.C. – DECEMBER 10, 1994 / DOCKS OYSTER BAR, NYC – SOMETIME IN EARLY 1995/ST. MICHAEL’S EPISCOPAL CHURCH AND LA MIRABELLE, NYC – NOVEMBER 21, 1995 As the sell-out Kennedy Center crowd wound down its enthusiastic applause, the “ON THE AIR” sign on …
THE STORY THAT MADE THEM CRY: CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
NOVEMBER 26, 2023 AT HOME WITH A PRAIRIE COMPANION ANOKA, MN – DECEMBER 10, 1994 On that early Saturday evening, Mother and Dad cut a classic Norman Rockwellian image as they sat in the living room, their ears and eyes focused on the stereo tuner. Along with the rest of the national audience of around …
THE STORY THAT MADE THEM CRY: CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
NOVEMBER 25, 2023 “THE FINAL JOURNEY” ANOKA, MN – JULY 13, 1979/BJÖRNHOLM – GRINDSTONE LAKE, NW WI – JULY 14, 1979 Mother made the arrangements. It had always been that way—Dad making the decisions and Mother carrying them out. But when it came to the actual trip to Doc Andberg, Dad alone assumed the burden. …
THE STORY THAT MADE THEM CRY: CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
NOVEMBER 24, 2023 “LAST LEGS” ANOKA, MN – JULY 9 – 10, 1979 After dinner Dad changed out of his office attire and with a reluctant gait headed back to the kennel. He carried the leash—out of habit, no longer as as a precaution. Ever since I’d trained Björn a dozen years before, he heeled …
THE STORY THAT MADE THEM CRY: CHAPTER TWENTY
NOVEMBER 23, 2023 “THE PORTRAIT” BJÖRNHOLM – AUGUST 1974 The years passed. As my sisters and I pursued our training and educations away from home, our parents continued their old routines, which for Mother included preparing Björn’s daily meal, and for Dad, taking Björn for long daily walks. Every August our parents . . . …
THE STORY THAT MADE THEM CRY: CHAPTER NINETEEN
NOVEMBER 22, 2023 “BJÖRNHOLM” – GRINDSTONE LAKE, NW WISCONSIN – JANUARY 1, 1972 / AUGUST 5, 1972 My arms loaded with firewood, I trudged through the snow from the woodpiles and toward the back steps of the cabin. Millions of stars lit up the heavens above, and the bitter cold of the first day of …