Hard-Earned Lessons about Hard Decisions

Recently, I made a hard decision.

I opted to push back self-publication of the small business history, Bucky’s: Stories and Recollections from 50 Years in Business, by three months. Now, instead of coming out in June, the book will make its debut in September.

I agonized over this decision for many months. I lost sleep over it. If I am painfully honest, I cried over it. Part of me felt like I wouldn’t be sticking to my word if I botched a deadline. Part of me felt like a failure for not meeting the initial deadline.

Copyright 2010, Kate Meadows, Omaha, NE

Until I realized something: the deadline was a date I had set, a deadline I had been feverishly working toward, a deadline I hadn’t even concretely communicated to many people who had pre-ordered the book.

All of the pressure to get this project done by a certain time was self-imposed. Who but me would challenge my integrity if I pushed back the project? Who but me would think I was a failure?

Then, another realization struck me. I could have the book finished by June, if I really wanted to.

It would just be a mediocre book. I would have to cut corners, strike content, fly through the photo layout and just hope I put images in the right place and that they looked okay.

Where then, I asked myself, would be the integrity?

What’s more, the entire reason for pushing the project back rested on this reality: I had received so much content for the book – so many memories and stories, photos and newspaper clippings – from people who wanted to contribute that I simply couldn’t keep up with it all as it poured in.

This is to say that, when I set out to piece together 50 years of stories and recollections of a small-town business and reached out to the business’ customers and people in the local community for help, the response was overwhelming. The project itself morphed into something more monumental and wonderful than I ever could have anticipated.

Turns out, when you ask for stories and recollections about Bucky’s Outdoors in Pinedale, Wyoming, people have a lot to say.

Failure? No. Simply a remarkable story in the making.

C Hope Clark, writer and editor of the newsletter www.fundsforwriters.com, recently shared this knock-out quote by William James: “When once a decision is reached, dismiss absolutely all responsibility and care about the outcome.”

In other words, make a decision and move on, going forward confidently in the path you have chosen without looking back or second-guessing.

When I finally made the decision to push back the book’s publication, I felt a weight lift off my shoulders. My work felt lighter and freer, more manageable and more joyful. I haven’t looked back since, because I know that by pursuing my work in this lighter spirit, the outcome will be knock-out beautiful – a product that, I hope, will bowl readers over.

For more on this project, visit www.buckysstory.com.

Have you agonized over any difficult decisions lately? What was the outcome? If you haven’t yet reached an outcome, what can you do to be proactive about moving forward?

The Shocking Truth About Customer Service

As I wrap up work on a full length small business history, Bucky’s: Stories and Recollections from 50 Years in Business, which chronicles the life of a small engine repair and retail shop in western Wyoming, one truth keeps coming back to me:

It’s about how this small business was founded and staked its success on customer service.

Customer service.

Blah, blah. Do you, like me, roll your eyes when you see that term? It has become so cliched, so overused, in today’s corporate society.

But when I hear “customer service” in relation to Bucky’s, I understand it differently, because I have so often seen it in action.

The 11 p.m. snowmobile delivery to a private residence on Christmas Eve.

Opening the back shop during off hours so a team of snowmobilers can have access to parts and a workspace to fix a broken-down machine.

Mid-morning coffee breaks that are open to people in the community.

This is the kind of customer service that is always focused on giving more than getting.

And you know what? In the case of Bucky’s, it has reaped rewards a thousand-fold.

People keep coming back to this little store on Lincoln Street in Pinedale, WY, because they know there is always something good in store for them. They know the people there think outside of themselves, think beyond making a buck or two.

They know the people who work at Bucky’s are truly in tune with what a customer needs.

Small business owner (or entrepreneur) or not, your life can be like that. It’s about turning the focus outward, rather than keeping it inward. It’s about putting yourself in other people’s shoes, anticipating their needs, asking (even if not directly), “How can I serve you today?”

If you read the history, Bucky’s: Stories and Recollections from 50 Years in Business, you might get tired of hearing about customer service, the countless ways employees at that shop have stepped up to treat someone like more than just a customer.

But it’s all in there because these are the memories and stories straight from the customers’ own experiences.

Turns out when someone serves you and truly meets your needs, you want to shout it from a mountaintop. Turns out that in this crazed world wrought with a “what’s-in-it-for-me” attitude, there are still people who care about you.

*In what way have you been touched recently by an act of service?

Signature Scent (A Story of the Family Business)

With the small business history, Bucky’s: Stories and Recollections from 50 Years in Business soon to be published, I share today one of the knock-out stories that will appear in the book. This memory is shared by my dad, who reluctantly joined the family business full time after graduating college in 1975, seeing no other choice. The business, Bucky’s Repair, operated a hide and fur business on the side as a way of diversifying business and adding income. Here, a glimpse into my grandfather’s crazy notions as a self-taught wildlife expert and businessman, and just how far one family would go to earn a buck.

“Coyote prices had gone way up, and Dad had perfected what he thought was the all-time best coyote scent. It took him a year to get it just right: a potion of rotten fish, ground up beaver glands and other juices. He buried this stuff for one year to let it age, and age it did. When we dug up the scent and opened it, we could not stand to be within a block of the stuff.

Dad used eye droppers to divide the potion into small vials, dispensing one drop at a time. In the fall, he set out a large coyote trap line. He was very excited to go for the first follow-up run to see how the potion worked.

Well, it worked extremely well: His traps were full of badgers. It seemed his potion was exactly what badgers craved. Dad had a dilemma. How could he catch coyotes if badgers kept getting into his traps?

Being ever so creative Dad thought he would trap badgers that fall, to get them out of circulation. But it would be silly to just trap them and kill them, since badger fur could net him some money. The problem was that badgers don’t get prime until March. He had to figure out a way to keep them until March, when their fur would be prime and worth a sale. His solution was to trap beaver and use the beaver carcasses for badger food. Doing this, he figured he could keep the badgers alive until they grew prime.

That fall, thanks to his signature coyote scent, we ended up with 29 badgers in three pens out behind the shop. Dad made the pens himself, with wire and hog rings and two-by-four legs and frames. The badgers fought like crazy, day and night. They were very snarly, with deep-throated growls, very vicious sounding. We had never given a thought to the possibility of their fighting, until we put them in the cages together. With all of the fighting going on, we knew we had to call the local vet; now we were dealing with a bunch of badger wounds. Once a week, the local veterinarian, Glenn Millard, came to the shop to doctor the wounded animals. Dr. Millard would apply antibiotics from a distance with a swab on a stick.

Once, the chief of police, Win Farnsworth, came by to inspect the place. He was a former FBI agent from Texas who had come to Sublette County and hired us to take him on a bear hunt. He had fallen in love with the country, gave up his FBI job and moved to Pinedale. Now as Chief of Police, he had received reports that cock fights were taking place behind Bucky’s. When we showed him what we had, he was relieved we weren’t having cock fights. He said he would be happy to report there were no cock fight going on at Bucky’s. That was that.

By mid-January, the beaver meat ran out. We had no choice but to shoot the badgers, skin them, and work the fur up to be sold. They brought an average price of $10.00 each, which was very low. A good, prime pelt in March would have brought us $30-$35.  But the price of beaver had gone way up, so Dad made out good, anyway. He didn’t use the potion any more. He didn’t need it. We were all beyond glad, as none of us could stand to ride in Dad’s truck that fall.

For more about the project, or to pre-order a book, visit www.buckysstory.com.

 

The (Un?)Truth about Regional Stereotypes

Every time I return to my home state, Wyoming, I am knocked over by the forceful shock of how much I miss it. The ash blue-grey mountains that show themselves from a safe distance at first along Highway 191 and then loom larger and larger the closer we get to my hometown of Pinedale. The way the mountains stretch toward the sky in all their towering majesty, encasing a rugged landscape in which brittle sagebrush and dark green pine produce scents that, in every season, can knock you off your feet. The way spring rushes in with fury, as if waiting for the slightest permission of the hard winters, and icy runoff rushes down the mountain slopes with threatening force.

Sawtooth Mountains, Wyoming.

I miss the unspoken pride that comes with being tough, a toughness that comes with living in a place where harsh winters mean people gather firewood and build fires in wood stoves and rise before the sun to shovel sidewalks, feed cows, perhaps even make a 100-mile trek to the nearest Wal Mart.

I miss all of that. And yet, as proud as I am to assert I am from that place, to say I grew up there, I have never felt entirely comfortable or worthy to claim the tough spirit that is required to make a life there.

I have never felt that I completely fit with that region of the country.

I have lived outside of Wyoming for ten years now, moving from state to state first because of college, then because of marriage, then because of a job’s demands.

Joshua Tree National Park, California. Copyright 2011 Kate Meadows

I have lived in Minnesota, Indiana, Kansas, Nebraska and California.

I have studied regions, heard the stereotypes, tried to fit in.

And I think, when it comes right down to it, I much better fit the stereotype of a Midwestern girl than a rough-and-tumble mountain girl.

The niceness, the easygoing way of making friends, the dozens of smaller communities sandwiched between spaced-apart cities that each have their own identity: Minneapolis, Kansas City, Omaha. Peacoats and casseroles and frequent small group get-togethers.

Indian Caves State Park, Nebraska. Copyright 2009, Bryan Meadows

Or am I trying too hard to classify?

Because dang, as much as I love all of those things, I still miss the jagged mountain peaks and the tough winters and the smell of cows.

What do you think? Do you feel a certain sense of belonging to any particular region of the country? Do you notice differences, give in to regional stereotypes, set yourself apart from others based on what state you live or grew up in?

Or is it all a wash? Are we all just people, trying to find our way in a world that is growing more diverse every day?

Where, if anywhere, do you fit?

*PS – Check out the “Events” paged for some new listings!

The Bucky’s Book Project

Last April, I spent a week in my hometown, Pinedale, Wyoming, helping my dad organize photo albums and memorabilia for his business’ 50^thanniversary open house. The business, which began in 1961 as a small engine repair shop and has since evolved into one of the most successful Polaris dealerships and recreational vehicle retailers in the country, had endured a wild rollercoaster of ups and downs, successes and failures. I knew this, but as I worked with photos on a folding table set up in the retail showroom, an entirely deeper, more meaningful picture began to take shape before my eyes.

copyright 2012, Kate Meadows

Here were photos of my short, chubby grandfather, grinning next to a horde of fresh beaver skins. (He and my dad trapped animals in the mountains and sold hides and furs to stay afloat in the early days.) Here was my dad, still with his moustache and young, serious face, standing on a mountain top with my mom and the snowmobiles with which they had climbed to that scenery. Here was my dad in a hospital bed, his leg in traction after a snowmobile wreck on a drag race track nearly killed him. And there I was, in the crooked notch of a mountain pass, my hair gauzy and flat from the helmet I’d been wearing, the champion of yet another mountain thanks to my dad’s patient prodding.

Stories were beginning to emerge as I pieced photos together. Some of the stories I knew – or was even a part of – but many stories I didn’t know. Customers walked into the shop for oil, belts, snowmobile repairs, snow boots – and saw me at work at my little makeshift station. They paid me many visits.

photo courtesy of John Linn

“I remember that,” they would begin, or, “I recognize that mountain.” And more stories would tumble out.

I realized then that I was sitting on a goldmine.

A goldmine of a history yet to be preserved, of stories so hair-raising, ridiculous, tear-jerking and triumphant that to lose them … well, would be one of the biggest shames of small-town history.

I realized something very quickly: I was the one to ensure that these memories, this history, was somehow preserved. Soon my dad would be selling the business – the business that had been in the family for 50 years. I was no mechanic. Talking repairs and small engine parts were not and never would be me. The business would be leaving the family.

This, I realized, could be my contribution to keeping the legacy alive.

copyright Kate Meadows, 2012

I am a cautious person with most things in life, weighing every decision with painful analysis before I make any move.

With this, I jumped in without thinking twice. I snatched my dad’s extensive list of customers. I wrote letters. I made phone calls. I set up a Web site. I booked interviews.

I set the ball rolling on what would be one of the most important projects of my life.

Bucky’s: Stories and Memories from 50 Years in Business is the history – that compilation of stories and memories that customers, friends and family members have shared with me – that resulted. It will be published in June. It is my free-fall into the world of storytelling and history preserving, my way of giving back to the place and people that constituted my family’s bread and butter as I was growing up.

More information on the project, as well as a link to order a copy of the book, is at www.buckysstory.com.

And now? I hope this is only the beginning of carving out my niche as a writer. Soon I will be hosting a FREE “Telling Your Life Stories” workshop in Orange County, CA (where I now live). My hope is to help people dig up and share their own life stories, with audiences who would give their eye-teeth to hear them.

If you’re interested in working with me, let me know. I am preparing here to open big doors.

Home, Part 2

The drive to our small rental house from the LAX Airport was agonizing. Two wrecks within a mile of each other on an early Saturday evening meant the 91 Freeway was stopped up like a nasty plugged drain. Often, Bryan and I have scratched our heads over what causes such utter holdups on the freeways here, with six or seven lanes of traffic and carpool lanes that often don’t move any faster than the other crawlers. We keep coming back to the one truth we can find: Southern California simply has too many people – too many cars – for its roads to handle. So, then, a funnel system takes effect. So many cars on the same road, it’s like trying to go through a funnel to get anywhere.

That’s what happened on the Saturday evening I flew into LAX from Kansas City. A drive home from the airport that usually takes 40 minutes took an hour and 20 minutes. The perpetual stop-and-go motion of the car as it eased its way through the traffic mess threatened an explosive car sickness.

“Are you excited to see Will?” Bryan asked from the driver’s seat, making a stab at conversation.

I nodded. I was, but I was so consumed with trying to not throw up, any other thought in my head then was secondary. That made me feel worse – that I couldn’t me more excited to see my baby just then.

I had thought a lot on the three-hour plane ride to LA about that nagging concept of home. What was it, and where? It felt so off to be flying back to a place I was not the least bit interested in returning, yet at the same time be so ready to see my family who was in that very place. I wanted to come down and scoop up my family and take them away – back to Kansas, Indiana, Wyoming – anywhere but So Cal. I especially felt the pull to Kansas, now that our friends there are having kids. How cool would it be for all of them, just boys now – two-year-old Will and one-year-old Derrick and one-month old Ben – to grow up together? I had met Derrick within two days of his being born. I had held Ben at three weeks. We had been around for these momentous events. When, now, would we see these kids and these families again?

I tried to push those thoughts away. But they didn’t go away easily. With one more now on the way – ours, a second – the desire to be surrounded by people who have been invested in our lives for more than six months is extreme. (Being pregnant could also have had something to do with that nausea I felt in the car on the ride home.) The desire to be close to some aspect of “famlily,” be it our own parents or close friends who we consider family, only continues to grow. Kansas, to me, made perfect sense. It was a good halfway point between grandparents, and still a place that was comfortable, familiar.

That was the other thing. For seven years, Bryan’s and my’s parents have lived in the same state, in the same small town. For seven years, they have lived across Main Street from each other. This year, that is changing, as B’s parents are moving back to their own familiar stomping grounds in southern Indiana. Will’s grandparents will now be three thousand miles apart, which means if we choose to live close to one set of grandparents, we will be that far away from the other set. Kansas. Makes sense.

Except that I don’t control the cards. Neither does Bryan or anyone else in our family. God does. And so our prayer remains: Lead us where You want us to go. Show us Your will for where our home – our permanent home – will eventually be. Sometimes we pray that prayer boldly. Other times it comes out as a mere cry or shout of frustration. But however it comes, that prayer happens a lot around here.

We crave a place to be settled. We crave a house we own, a community in which we can fully and for the long term invest ourselves. We crave people we can call at a moment’s notice to watch kids for an hour, and we crave being around people who are comfortable enough to do the same to us. We crave permanence.

This week – tomorrow, in fact – we will make the 14-hour drive to Pinedale, Wyoming for Christmas. It’s an important year to be there: Bryan’s dad is retiring from the ministry (after which he and his wife will make the three-thousand-mile drive to their new Indiana home), and my dad will turn 60 on Christmas Day. This will be the last year we will celebrate Christmas with all of the grandparents at once. I hope in the worst way to see snow, yes, to even kiss it, and to be knocked over by that take-your-breath-away Wyoming cold, even for just a moment.

I can’t wait to be there. I would leave right now if I could. At the same time, I know the drive back to California will be a tough one. And that is where I will have to put on my big girl panties and face the return – and the Wyoming goodbyes – with a fiercely optimistic spirit.

We will return to Southern California, where Bryan will continue his long hours at a power plant construction site in Long Beach. We are only here for the duration of the project, most likely until May 2013. Then, we will move on. To where? To what?

We don’t know. But until then, we will do our best to bloom where we’re planted.

*What aspects of home do you love the most?