The Cocktail Party is Tolerant

A misguided Salt Lake Tribune reporter recently suggested to a local representative of the liberal Coffee Party that the organization might do better in the Beehive State if it changed its name to “The Postum Party” or something similar. The Coffee Partier acknowledged his small group had caved in to local pressure when it provided mostly fruit punch and water at its first meeting.

Although coffee is served almost everywhere in Utah, sipping the stimulating beverage is contrary to the “Word of Wisdom,” and therefore strongly discouraged by the Mormon Church. The usual Cocktail Party refreshments fall into the same category. We cannot expect a surge in Cocktail Party membership in Utah.

On this issue, the Cocktail Party stance is clear and firm. We will not consider name changes that detract from the essence of our mission statement: “To serve the people of the United States by creating an excellent blend of good government and personal freedom.” We assert that “Cocktail Party” strongly reinforces the “blend” concept, and therefore is entirely appropriate for us. We refuse to pander to other viewpoints merely to recruit a few members.

The Cocktail Party, however, is tolerant of all. When attending meetings, you may bring your own bottle, or bottles, of anything you choose. We provide hot water as well as hot air, so you can whip up a nice cup of hot chocolate or an exotic tea if you like. Or, you can mix a hot toddy. It’s your choice entirely.

Cocktail Partiers value individual freedom. We think what people drink is irrelevant to what is in their heads and hearts, unless, of course, they fuzzy up their mental and physical processes with too much of the good stuff.

Sideline Humor

In 1964, I assumed much good humor was to be found in sports.

When my publisher at the Wisconsin Rapids Tribune decreed I would write a weekly column on subjects of my choice, I decided to end each offering with a sports joke. Some national stories were available from a news service we subscribed to. I was sure I could find enough humor in and around local sporting events to fill in any blanks and end my column with a rib-tickler every Wednesday.

I was overly optimistic. Despite efforts by many comics and writers, there really weren’t all that many good sports jokes around. After a couple of months, I dropped the “leave ‘em laughing every Wednesday” strategy for want of material. That dearth of sports witticisms hasn’t changed much in the ensuing 45 years. But on Sunday morning, I think I “heard a good one lately.”

I was telling a dedicated Detroit Lions fan of my intent to root hard for the local favorites that day, for two reasons: (1) my beloved Packers were idle, and (2) the Lions were playing the Vikings. Minnesota would be led by an aged quarterback named Favre, who readers of this blog may know is not one of my favorite guys.

“Didn’t you hear the news this morning?” the Lions’ booster asked. “They’ve renamed the team. From now on, the Lions will be known as the Detroit Possums. It makes sense. They play dead at home, and get killed on the road.”

He said it; I didn’t. The “Possums” played true to form that afternoon. They suffered their 22nd consecutive loss on the road, which ran their record to 40 losses against just 3 wins since the midpoint of the 2007 season.

Even a joke at the Lions’ expense eases the pro football pain around here.

In Grateful Memory

Senior Airman James Hansen, Athens, Michigan. Killed in an explosion, Iraq, September 15, 2010

On a Clear Day

Mike Hathaway, who I worked with in the Forest Service’s Eastern Regional Office before he became Supervisor of the Nicolet National Forest in Wisconsin, recently sent along an entertaining list of fun phrases. The statements were created for Lexophiles, people who are lovers of words. Lexophiles favor wordplay when they try to create a bit of humor.

The phrase that tickled me most was the first one on the list:

“I wondered why the baseball was getting bigger. Then it hit me.”

Another item on the list, although a bit more of a groaner, reminded me of a story:

“When the smog lifts in Los Angeles, U.C.L.A.”

Smog obscures the landscape in several other places out West. I lived in one (Ogden, Utah) and occasionally traveled to another (Missoula, Montana) on Forest Service business.

Missoula was one of my favorite cities to visit. I liked the friendly people who lived there and the generally easy-going ambiance of the small city. However, temperature inversions often could blanket Missoula with thick fog mixed with air pollutants, creating dense soup very much like the more-famous L.A. smog. It happened fairly often.

Jim Blaisdell, an Assistant Station Director when I worked at the Intermountain Research Station, was in considerable demand as a master of ceremonies for special occasions. He had a dry wit and a talent for using it inventively. Blaisdell had worked in Missoula early in his career.

A visitor from Montana to Station Headquarters learned of Blaisdell’s earlier assignment and asked how he had liked living in Missoula. Blaisdell said, “Well, we lived there almost six years. One morning the fog lifted and we found out it was a pretty nice place."

Instant Legality

About four years ago, the genealogy bug bit. My modest response to the itch was to google around a little on the Internet to see if any Klades would turn up in Germany or thereabouts. One did—a resident of Bremerhaven, a principal port city.

That was especially interesting, because family lore held that Grandma and Grandpa Klade both sailed from Bremerhaven to America in the mid-1800s. They did not emigrate together, however. They met and married in Wisconsin.

My German e-mail contact’s husband was a Klade who grew up in Austria. That also was interesting, because no American Klades I knew ever mentioned any Austrian Klades. The wife wrote to me because her husband was not fluent in English. She did very well with the language, and we exchanged many messages before the cyberlink was broken. Her address stopped functioning; I never learned why or was able to reestablish the contact.

We failed to establish any links between the American Klades I knew about and the Central European variety. Toward the end of that exploration, I asked about access to documents in Bremerhaven that might provide some details about the early days of my grandfather and grandmother. “Are you sure you want to do that?” my pen pal asked.

She said the local Prince who reigned over the area that now includes Bremerhaven decided to empty as many of his prison cells as possible to save money. He turned robbers, rapists, murderers, and other unsavory characters loose if they would agree to sail to America and never come back. To smooth the way, the Prince provided phony birth certificates and other documents. Many young German men, who violated laws by avoiding military service, joined the jail birds. Often, they used fake identities to get out of Prussia, Bavaria, or other Germanic countries and into the U.S.

“A lot of German-Americans were criminals,” my contact said. “There’s no assurance your relatives weren’t among them.”

We are a nation of all types of immigrants. Slave ships delivered many. Indentured servants stayed once they worked off the costs of their passage. Many fled political or religious persecution or economic deprivation. And, the official stamp on questionable documents at Ellis Island instantly converted many of our ancestors from illegal to legal arrivals.

Perhaps a dash of humility would be in order to temper some of the current intemperate rantings about illegals.

No Words Came

It was the ninth anniversary of 9/11. I was not feeling well. I was late getting out in the rain to properly display my flag to honor 3,000 innocent people killed by a gang of thugs.

I spent some time standing in the drizzle looking at Old Glory dripping raindrops like tears.

I tried to write some memorable words to say how I felt. Nothing came.

I took a photo as the rain let up. It will have to do.

A Total Jerk

Terry Jones is pastor of a 30-member, off-beat Christian church in Florida who intends to burn copies of the Koran on Saturday in remembrance of the 9/11 attacks on the U.S. Jones, who has been called a “dangerous fanatic” by members of a church he founded earlier in Europe, certainly is that. He also is a total jerk.

Of course, our Constitution allows Jones to burn Korans as long as he does it within the context of applicable laws and regulations. Jones has ignored the procedural part of the free-speech freedom. He intends to proceed despite the fact that local authorities rejected his request for a burning permit.

The list of those who have urged Jones to back off is impressive. Sarah Palin called his plan “an unnecessary provocation.” Secretary of State Hillary Clinton deplored the idea, and a member of her department called it “un-American.” General David Petraeus said the book-burning could “endanger our troops and the entire operation in Afghanistan.” The Pope condemned the plan from the Vatican. Other Christian and Jewish religious leaders world-wide have implored Jones to cancel the Koran burning.

Jones, at least at the moment, says he will go ahead anyway. One reason he gives for burning a book 1.5 billion people consider holy is to “honor the souls” of 9/11 victims. Does he include the souls of 59 innocent Muslims killed in the attacks by the jihadists?

Jones says he fully supports our troops, and is distressed that his action may endanger them, although he will go ahead anyway. Do those he supports include the 15,000 Muslims currently serving their country in the U.S. Armed Forces? It seems unlikely this poor excuse for a Christian will find a way to honor and insult those brave men and women at the same time.

Cocktail Party Explodes

Just a month ago, the Great American Cocktail Party was launched right here (“Coffee, Tea, or . . . “ posted 8/5). Membership has quadrupled in the few weeks since the organization unfurled its banner.

And there, folks, you have two examples of what to expect lots of in the weeks ahead as we move toward Election Day in November. Many think we can’t get there fast enough.

The headline is designed to get your attention and compel you to read what promises to be an interesting item. The problem is, it has little to do with the actual story. This sort of sensationalism has been raised to a fine art by reprehensible rags like the National Enquirer, a “junk journalism” publication many of today’s internet authors and radio and television script readers seem to have adopted as their model.

Cocktail Party membership indeed has quadrupled. The deception here is one of omission. Membership was on the low side to begin with.

With a little practice, one could become expert at phony headlining and statistical manipulation. That could earn a lucrative job as a talk show host. And, if the editorial black arts were practiced adroitly with charts and graphs accompanied by raving and ranting, the perpetrator could become a famous television commentator.

Although the body politic may have been under whelmed by formation of the Cocktail Party, a few individuals were whelmed to some extent. Bill Hamilton, who retired as national head of publishing in the U.S. Forest Service, signed on and even suggested a motto for the fledgling party:

“A politician should have a pimp for a brother, so he’d have someone to look up to.”

Hamilton, a stickler for accuracy, was quick to point out that this statement originally chastised editors, not politicians. It appeared in "The Portable Curmudgeon," by Jon Winokur, 1987.

As an ex-editor, I winced upon learning that. However, considering the number of “editors” who love to conjure up sensational headlines and story lines and let all sorts of phony statistical usage and analyses get into print and on the airways, perhaps the slap was deserved.

They Also Suggested

The recent (7/22) post, “Let Me Suggest,” an uncomplimentary review of the Geezer’s experiences with suggestion systems, brought a flurry of reports from retired U.S. Forest Service folks about their unsatisfying encounters with the organization’s system.

Malcolm Furniss, entomologist and Project Leader, Intermountain Research Station, said he remembered the system as “Mickey Mouse.” He recalled receiving three $25 suggestion awards over a lengthy career, but said the ideas were so insignificant he can’t remember what they were. Furniss also recalled an associate getting an award for suggesting that employees should save paper clips.

Al Groncki, State and Private Forestry in the California Region, said he devised a form to make it easy for those considering retirement to analyze their financial situation. The calculations could be complex. His suggestion was adopted for national use. Why are we not surprised to learn the award was for $25? Groncki said he doubts today the form or references to it could be found within the Forest Service. Years ago, Groncki used the form to help out in an important personnel matter, so he thinks the government got its $25 worth.

At higher levels, sound suggestions could be ignored. Larry Lassen, who served as Station Director at the Southern and Intermountain Research Stations, said in his latter years with the Forest Service he frequently suggested that national meetings of Regional Foresters and Station and State and Private Forestry Area Directors (RF&Ds) should be less frequent, could have substantially shorter agendas, and ought to involve fewer individuals.

During Lassen’s career, the RF&D group numbered 20. Various others were invited to give presentations or just sit in for a while. I was drafted to help provide support for one RF&D meeting in Salt Lake City. Four of us devoted nearly two full days to routine support, and the number of individuals in the meeting room was 30 or more most of the time.

Of his frequent suggestions during critiques that the meetings be scaled down, Lassen says, “Alas, it seemed that the number of meetings increased and the number of non-RF&Ds increased.”

Tom Harlan, long-time Public Affairs Officer who retired as an Assistant Director in the national office, gets my vote for the best story. Harlan began by offering the opinion that employee suggestion awards “have to be in the most dysfunctional category of the public sector.”

Harlan recalled an incident from his early days in the 1960s at the Rogue River National Forest in Oregon:

"An employee got tired of having mops and brooms and other cleaning equipment thrown all over the broom closet. So he filed an employee suggestion that hooks be installed on the wall so the implements could be hung from them (he got a cash award for the idea).


"About a year later, the same employee made a suggestion that the hooks be removed from the walls because people kept gouging their heads on them. So the hooks were removed, and the employee received another cash award."

“How’s that for a great system?” Harlan asks.

How, indeed?

My blog post ventured into the private sector with some criticism of suggestion arrangements at Borgess Medical Center in Kalamazoo. The result was a prompt phone call from a gentleman in Customer Service at the hospital who had read the post. He apologized for the original failure of hospital staff to call me, and solicited my ideas about the suggestion system.

The phone call was a very nice response to my complaint. I was especially pleased that no mention of $25 was made.

Two Dumbs Don’t Make a Smart

Just because you can open your mouth doesn’t mean you should. Often, that's not smart. Just because you can erect a building where a whole lot of people don’t want it doesn’t mean you should. Usually, that's not smart.

Our President is an excellent speaker, but once in a while it appears his mouth starts working before the idea is fully developed. Such was the case that added fuel to The Great Mosque Controversy.

Barack Obama could have stayed out of the whole matter, which would have been smart. Instead, he uttered a basic truth one day—that we have religious freedom in the United States and we should defend it—and qualified the statement the next day—he was not going to make a value judgment about whether or not religious freedom should be exercised by building a mosque in downtown New York City near the 9/11 attack site.

Taken out of context as I’ve just done, the two statements seem harmless. But the context is that a significant number (20 percent or so) of Americans believe two falsehoods about Obama. They think he was not born in the U.S. (he was born in the State of Hawaii) and that he is a Muslim (he was baptized by a United Church of Christ minister more than 20 years ago, and regularly reads the Bible). Despite the truth of the matters, anything Obama says or does to reinforce either of those unfounded beliefs damages him and his political associates.

The rest of the context is that a very large number of Americans are suspicious about Muslim beliefs and intentions. After all, that was not a group of Seventh Day Adventists who launched attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Those are not roving bands of Baptists killing our young men and women in Iraq and Afghanistan.

American Muslims could best counteract the distrust by assuming activist roles in the fight against terrorists and speaking out against them at every opportunity. That would demonstrate their good intentions to their fellow Americans. Building a mosque near the 9/11 site would have the opposite effect. The intent certainly is not to exacerbate Judeo-Christian ill will. The reality is it would do just that, and the mere idea already has done so.

It seems fair to say American Muslims can expect more sympathy and tolerance from a government controlled by Democrats than one dominated by Republicans. The New York Muslim group shot themselves in the foot with the mosque proposal. They handed the right wingers in the GOP in issue they will use to their advantage in November election campaigns. The mosque issue will help energize GOP activists, and give party candidates some votes from independents they might otherwise not have received.

Although he was morally and ethically correct with his first statement and sensible with the second, Obama hurt his party’s chances in the Congressional elections by elevating the discussion to center stage when he chose to make presidential comments about the issue in the manner he did.

Dumb and dumb.

A Record Run

We’ve reached the “dog days of summer,” which is bad enough in itself, but for thousands of young male bodies this is a horrible time. Boys (and a few girls) across the land who fancy themselves as football players are about at the midpoint of preseason practices.

Just the thought of this late-summer punishment nearly six decades after my last gut-wrenching pushup on a hot, humid August day is sufficient to take most of the fun out of one of my current better days. An old (very) song advised “You Gotta Be a Football Hero” to “get along with the beautiful girls.” Well folks. the goal is worthwhile, but the price is too high.

I went out for the football team at Tomahawk High School as a freshman because it was the thing to do. For me, it probably wasn’t the thing to do. I liked the games, but I hated those practice drills.

Facilities at our small northern Wisconsin school hardly matched student enthusiasm for athletics. Our tiny, overcrowded locker room was upstairs from the school boiler room. When a lot of sweat from a lot of over-worked bodies and steam from the even smaller communal shower permeated the locker room, the boiler room might have been the better place. Football practices and games were conducted at Pride Park, six long blocks from where we suited up in front of our lockers.

Pride Park was named for a person, not as an endorsement of the quality of the facilities. When we went there for summer football practices, the restrooms were locked. Relieving a full kidney, throbbing bowel, or unsettled stomach required a run to the woods behind the decrepit baseball grandstand. When you got to Pride Park in football regalia, you were six long blocks from civilization.

In my freshman year, a benevolent coach, Ed Kidde, let us walk those six blocks to and from practices. Unfortunately for the slackers among us, Otis Mehlberg, a fitness fanatic, took over a year later. He required us to run the six blocks. Upon arriving at the practice field, we ran a couple of laps around the perimeter of the field, did a couple of hundred yards of wind sprints, had a calisthenics session, and then started practice. It was brutal.

A few over-enthusiastic team leaders actually sprinted for most of the six blocks in a macho contest. The rest of us dogged it as much as we could. We hid behind trees to avoid coaches’ eyes. Or, we jogged when we spotted the coaches nearby (they drove in Mehlberg’s personal car, yelling at any slackers they spotted), and then lapsed into a brisk walk, or a slow one if we could get away with it.

The sprinters posted some impressive times, but a plodder set the standard for the six-block trip. A big tackle, Bill (Gunny) Sachs, covered the distance in record time. Sachs was a good athlete, who also was a very nice guy. He got the high school-practice field sprint title in a way he didn’t deserve.

Our manager, Jack (Doc Swab) Hanson, dispensed few medications, but he was known to occasionally rub on some Atomic Balm (also known as red hot) to loosen taut, aching muscles. On the day Gunny Sachs set the speed record, someone rubbed a bit of balm into his jock strap before he put it on.

We noticed Sachs twitching around and performing strange gyrations when the team assembled at the practice field before starting the usual lap runs. He finally went over to Mehlberg, urgently whispered something into the coach’s ear, and tore out of the practice area in the direction of the high school. With the shower room as the goal, we were sure Sachs covered that six blocks faster than any runner before or since.

We blamed the prank on Gene Schreiber, not necessarily because he was the culprit. We automatically blamed anything like that on Schreiber. Usually, he was guilty. Schreiber once showed up in the boys’ locker room wearing a pair of girl’s gym shorts he somehow liberated from the locker room next door.

Were I to counsel teenage males nowadays on how to “get along with the beautiful girls,” I would tell them to forget about striving to be a football hero. A better idea would be to buy a guitar and try to make it as a rock star.

Sorry, Brent

Darn, he proved me wrong. Brett Farve showed up in Minnesota yesterday, and today threw a pass in practice. Thus, he kept more faith with his Vikings teammates than I thought he would. He showed up two weeks before I said he would. I apologize for my error in judgment.

Fave said this will be his last season, maybe. The prima donna of football ought to apologize for his unending, childish waffling.

A New Brand?

His own agent recently called old number 4, Brett Favre, a “Drama Queen.” Wonder if they’ll put it on the back of his jersey when he shows up just in time to suit up for the Vikings’ opener against the New Orleans Saints on September 9?

One teammate said it would be “fair” to the alternate quarterback and other members of the squad if Favre would declare his intentions to play or not play this season at least a few weeks before the first game. Wanta bet he’ll do that?

There’s no fair in Favre.

Internet Garbage

Cal Samra is a former Associated Press reporter and a reporter and columnist for the Ann Arbor News. For the past 25 years, he and his wife have published The Joyful Noiseletter, a delightful compilation of humor and wisdom used in sermons and church bulletins by Christian leaders of all denominations.

Samra is not a fan of internet “news.” In a speech at a recent conference on “Newspapers in Crisis,” he deplored “the explosion of misinformation and slander on the Internet and the ‘hit-man mentality’ of so many journalists and bloggers.” He said, “The Internet is a haven for hatemongers, fearmongers, and rumormongers whose pronouncements are equivalent to road rage.”

Geez, I hope he wasn’t including this humble blogger among the miscreants. But I can comment on his commentary with one word—Amen. As in real life, a few strong dashes of common sense and common courtesy applied to what is written and sent over the Internet would make cyberspace a better place to visit.

I resolve in the future to challenge every falsehood forwarded to our e-mailbox (most are of the political variety). If that costs me a few friends, so be it.

Coffee, Tea, or . . .

The right mix for the U.S.A.

Extremists want their position, and only theirs, to prevail on political issues. If the often-expressed definition of politics as “the art of compromise” is correct, they have no chance of being satisfied with any government action, or lack thereof, based on laws enacted by our elected representatives. Frustration is inevitable.

Lately, the frustration seems more intense than usual. We have a motley collection of right-wing nuts in the Tea Party and other fringe groups getting a lot of media attention. We have an equally motley group of left-wing nuts mucking about with something called the Coffee Party.

What’s new? Our present radical parties both claim they are not parties at all. The Tea Party crowd steadfastly refuses to propose its own candidates or develop a coherent platform. It seeks to exercise clout by vehemently opposing anyone who is “not conservative enough,” whatever that is, or who supports “big government,” whatever that means.

Tea Party adherents have spewed hate, waved obscene signs, and even advocated violence in a few cases, at rallies across the land. Not everyone has engaged in this sort of reprehensible conduct, but many did. The trouble with right-wing extremists is that too many of them are mean and selfish people. Many are woefully uninformed concerning the things they keep howling about.

Unhappy with what they viewed as excessive media coverage of Tea Party activities, two radical liberals formed the opposition Coffee Party in January. It quickly ballooned into more than 200,000 Facebook members by the end of April, and millions visit its web pages. Adherents have held one round of local meetings and are planning a national convention.

Coffee Party leaders say one of their goals is to restore civility in political discourse. That’s a laudable, but tall, order. America seldom has experienced a lot of civil political discourse, although most agree there has been even less civility than usual lately. Some practice runs may be needed. At an early Coffee Party meeting, several attendees hissed and booed various statements that mentioned conservatives. Surely, this was not a demonstration of civility.

True to the common perception of way-out liberals, the Coffee Party intends to employ a vague process of “collective deliberation” to arrive at a decision (they don’t say what problems are being addressed!), and then implement the decision, whatever that means. Vague nonsense such as this is why left-wing extremists are such a small minority in our country. The trouble with left-wing extremists is that too many of them are wildly impractical, and often the upper-crust among them exudes an abrasive arrogance. They are as out of tune with mainstream Americans as the arch-conservatives on the other end of the spectrum.

It is interesting that the Coffee Partiers banded together because the Tea Partiers were getting too much ink and air time. That remains true. One hardly hears or sees much about the Coffee Party and their ideas, or lack thereof, in the media. We hear a lot about the Tea Party. Whatever happened to the “liberal media” invented by and complained about by far-right wingers for years?

What does the advent of the radical “parties” tell us? It appears a fair number of Americans are dissatisfied with the performance of both traditional political parties. The role of political parties is to define positions and produce slates of worthy candidates who will support the positions. A lot of people believe Republicans and Democrats have done a poor job of that lately. So, what should we do?

We should form a new party that better reflects core American values and fearlessly uses analytical approaches to solving our many problems. I propose we do that without delay. The American Cocktail Party’s goal will be to “serve the people of the United States by creating an excellent blend of good government and personal freedom.”

I would volunteer to be the party’s first presidential candidate, but I’m wary of taking on such heavy responsibility. I wouldn’t vote for myself. As a fully mature adult, I might need to take a nap when the red phone rang, and that would not be good. I will, however, respond to what is expected to be a huge groundswell of interest by serving as party chairman.

Unlike me, the Cocktail Party will be constantly on the alert. After all, it always is meeting time somewhere. Unlike the Tea and Coffee parties, the Cocktail Party will not be automatically against anything, and we will shoot straight arrows rather than warm fuzzies at problems.

The party will encourage grass-roots participation up to a point. The problems are obvious, so Cocktail partiers will save a lot of time by leaving it up to the chairman (me) to describe the issues. Anyone may propose problem solutions; however, the party platform will be developed by a small committee. The planks will be specific, not a bunch of generalities. The Cocktail Party will back candidates who sign statements pledging support for at least 90 percent of the actions recommended by the party. Voters will actually know what they are voting for!

Leaders of the American Cocktail Party will consider all ideas, but scant attention will be paid to gutter-sniping from the extreme left or right. Instead, Cocktail partiers will march straight down the middle, advancing Old Glory as the standard of a nation steadily moving forward. We may stagger slightly at times, but we shall never fall or retreat.

What do you think? Want to sign up? The party starts at 5 p.m. everywhere.

Profile, Please

It would be pretty easy to avoid racial profiling, a big concern with the controversial Arizona immigration law, which was mostly put on hold yesterday by a federal judge.

Local cops simply could ask everyone who is stopped on suspicion of a law violation if he or she is in the U.S. legally.

Asking a single question shouldn’t be much of an impact on the officers’ time. It would be sort of like asking to see a driver’s license during a traffic stop.

Unfortunately, because few Americans carry proof of legal residency, this nondiscriminatory policy could result in the arrest of most of the population. That, of course, would have an impact on the gendarmes’ time. Because most of our workforce would be in jail, we would have to invite a whole lot of guest workers to cross our borders and build and staff a huge number of holding cells.

And where would those who were convicted be deported to? And, as many do now, would the new wave of guest workers become illegal by staying in the country after their legal work time expired?

These are important questions all should ponder.

Let Me Suggest

I made my first employee suggestion in 1977 at the Forest Products Laboratory (FPL) in Madison, Wisconsin. The unsatisfactory outcome of that experience kept me from making another during my next ten years with the U.S. Forest Service. Last month, as a customer not an employee, I offered up a minor improvement idea at Borgess Medical Center in Kalamazoo.

If my experiences are any indication, little has changed in the management of suggestion systems over the past 33 years. It was inept to a ridiculous extent in all three of my experiences.

At FPL, a photographer, Jim Brooks, and I became good friends. Most of Brooks’ work was running the photo lab. I marveled at the volume of page-size glossy prints of charts and graphs churned out daily for review copies of research reports and other documents. I asked Jim why the research divisions and the publishing section didn’t simply make those copies on the Xerox machine FPL had installed several years earlier. He said that had been brought up a time or two, but nothing ever came of the idea.

One day, everything came together to get me working on my first employee suggestion. The FPL newsletter published a glowing report on the suggestion system, including several examples of substantial cash awards made for the better ideas. As a fairly new, fairly naïve, employee, I was enthused. I asked Brooks if he could come up with numbers for a full year on how many prints the photo lab processed. He could; actually he tallied several years’ production. Within a day or so, a report was circulated showing costs per page of running copies on the Xerox machine. That study was made because FPL was considering installing a half dozen more units, one on each floor of the two main buildings.

I gathered up the info and filled in the necessary form, with Brooks and me as co-suggestors. We showed beyond a doubt that FPL would save at least $2,000 annually making the change, and quality with paper copies was just fine for the purpose. An organizational savings of $2,000 a year, for the foreseeable future, was a fairly hefty sum in an era when my annual salary, about in the middle for those working at FPL, was $9,000.

Within days, we got phone calls from the Director’s Office telling us our suggestion was accepted. The next week Brooks and I were summoned to a meeting spot were all employees in our unit were assembled. FPL Director Herb Fleischer arrived with two checks in hand. Each was for $12.50.

“Well,” I told a disappointed wife Sandy, “Every little bit helps.” I was so ticked off I couldn’t think of anything original to say.

Three weeks later draft reports crossing my desk for editorial signoff still included glossy photo prints of charts and graphs. I cautiously approached my boss, Chief Editor Max Davidson. One of his assistants placed all orders for photo prints and page copies. I asked if there was a time lag between official acceptance of an employee suggestion and putting it into practice.

Davidson, who had attended our little check awarding ceremony, said he never had liked the Xerox copy idea, so he wasn’t going to make any changes.

In 1987, I was working in the Forest Service Regional Office in Milwaukee. The director of administrative services, Roger Thomas, had developed in intense dislike for me, based on reports reaching his ears that I thought several of the people in his staff group ought to take more frequent breaks from their usual activities to do a little work. Unfortunately, the second (and last) employee suggestion during my career involved the administrative services staff.

My interest in paper recycling was high, as it is today, after two years doing information work for the recycling research project at FPL. Our Milwaukee office had collection points for used paper in every staff area. Administrative services people made the rounds at intervals to pick the waste paper up and get it ready for a recycling firm to haul away and process.

As in every Forest Service office I’d been in, employees used and discarded lots of blue-lined writing paper. My suggestion was that clean, unwrinkled, used paper be separated from the other stuff. During slack times in the duplicating section operated by administrative services, blue lines could be printed on the back of the sheets, the sheets padded, and the pads stocked for reuse. In total, the office spent several thousand dollars annually for this type of paper, so annual savings obviously would be half that amount.

My suggestion landed back on my desk pretty quickly. Written across it in large letters was: “REJECTED. Ridiculous! There is no slack time in our duplicating section.”

Sometime later, a small voice on my phone said, “Mr. Klade, I really need to talk to you.” It was a nice young lady who ran an offset press in the duplicating section.

The caller said she had put in a suggestion to print blue lines on the back of selected waste paper for reuse within the office. Printing and padding would be done during slack periods in her section. Her suggestion has been accepted, and she was to get a $500 award for the idea. She had just heard I made the same suggestion about two weeks earlier, and it was rejected.

“I just don’t feel right about this,” she said. “I think we should split the money.”

That was a very honorable proposal by someone who was in one of the lowest pay grades in the organization. “You keep the money,” I said. “I’m just glad we’re going to get a recycling improvement around here.” I also commented that she should be proud of herself for making the phone call.

I worked for the U.S. Forest Service for another decade. In all that time, I never considered for a moment wasting ten minutes writing another employee suggestion.

At Borgess Medical Center, patients can use several communications systems to get help when they need it and to stay in touch with the outside world. Telephones are a must for several needs.

During my stay as a patient, telephone use could have been smoother, saving time and embarrassment for me, and time for busy hospital staffers. The space where most handsets show one’s phone number was blank on mine. Probably no need to put the number there was apparent, because each patient had a bulletin board on the wall directly across from the foot of their bed with a bottom line showing their phone number and room number.

The trouble was, only patients with supernatural powers ala Superman, or those who thought to bring binoculars for their hospital stay, could read the phone number when they were in bed. My long-range vision is excellent, and I couldn’t read that number. In the first day or so of my stay, whenever anyone asked for my phone number I had to do something special and keep them waiting until I could answer that simple question. After that, I wised up and wrote the number on a tissue box kept with all the clutter on my bedside tray. Once in a while, I could fumble around and find the number there.

The solution to the irritating small problem seemed simple and almost without cost: Remove the paper strips inadequately displaying room and phone numbers on each patient’s bulletin board and replace them with strips printed with legible type. There was plenty of room on the boards for larger strips.

Mindful of my poor record in the suggestion rewards arena, I asked one of the RNs who was in charge of me if she could get a cash award, or at least a complimentary letter in her file, for submitting an improvement idea to Borgess. She didn’t know! Much literature exists on suggestion systems. A cardinal rule is to be sure all employees know about the system, how it works and who is in charge of it.

The nurse thought my idea had merit. She dialed a number. “Do you handle employee suggestions?” she asked. After several minutes of reply, she said, “OK, I’ll call her.” That call also had no immediate positive result. Maybe, my little thought ultimately will translate into an improvement at Borgess for patients and staff alike, but I doubt it.

The Borgess “Patient Guide” asks, “How are we doing? Where can we improve? Would you like a staff member to follow up with you about your comments?”

I dutifully sent a comment (not about the phone number suggestion) to the Customer Relations Department and asked to be contacted about it. That was six weeks ago. I’m still awaiting the response.

In seems reasonable that big organizations would make special efforts to tap the brainpower of experts who use their services. Hospitals get all sorts of professionals as guests. Why don’t they make a little extra effort to identify them and solicit their ideas?

At present, they seem content to just fall into a good idea once in a while. A recent news story reported how acclaimed designer Michael Graves, best known for his work for Target, came up with the ideas for a whole new suite of attractive and functional hospital furniture after a rare disease landed him in a hospital. Graves was said to have observed, “I don’t want to die in here because it’s too ugly.”

Graves took his ideas to Stryker, a leading manufacturer of medical equipment in Portage, Michigan, not far from my home. The result was shown in June at a prestigious furniture show at the Merchandise Mart in Chicago. The furniture was displayed as the Stryker Patient Room Suite. We may assume Graves was rewarded handsomely for his ideas.

Guess you have to think big. One line of type a patient actually could read and other thoughts from a small-time communicator must be just too, well, small-time, to consider, even when the suggestions are freebies.

Just Trust Him

If there were a contest for the least trustworthy people on earth, Afghans would be front-runners for the trophy. They’ve been picking the pockets of visitors to their land for centuries, from assessing outrageous fees on merchant caravans to today’s sophisticated raids on the U.S. Treasury.

President Hamid Karzai, that pillar of integrity, appears to have his eye on a special place in the history of Afghan duplicity. He currently is devoting some of his American-backed energy to one of the great con jobs of all time in his part of the world.

On June 14, someone (Karzai or associates?) motivated General David Petraeus into making major media comments about the “discovery” of $1 trillion in valuable mineral deposits in Afghanistan. Petraeus said the find has “stunning potential.”

A lot of Americans, including me, consider General Petraeus trustworthy. He is viewed by many as a military hero for conceiving and carrying out the troop surge in Iraq. Many believe his leadership was a major force in improving the situation there.

But Petraeus doesn’t wear a geology service ribbon. He got conned. Minerals experts have known for years that valuable deposits are present under Afghan soil. Remoteness, difficult terrain, poor transportation networks, and constant warfare are what prevent their extraction, not a lack of knowledge that they are there. And much has been known about precise locations for a very long time.

Within days of the “discovery’ announcement, Karzai popped up in Tokyo. He told Japanese government officials they would get priority in developing a huge Afghan mineral extraction and processing industry. The reason? Japan has been second only to the U.S. in pumping dollars into Afghanistan—about $5 billion so far. He didn’t say anything about an American priority. The Japanese haven’t contributed lives as we and others have, which tells us something about Karzai’s values.

What message does Karzai’s Tokyo statement send to capitals around the globe? Send cash, or increase your contribution to what already is being extorted, and you’ll move up on the mineral rewards list.

The best Afghanistan position for America to be in is out of there.

Way to Go, Congress

Without all the yowling that accompanied recent changes in our insurance-regulated health care system, which actually don’t qualify as major reform, Congress is well on the way to passing a major reform bill that will have long-lasting beneficial effects for all of us.

Legislation to put controls on Wall Street shenanigans and the high-handed robbery practiced by credit card issuers hardly drew a ripple of interest in the media compared to the hue and cry about health care adjustments. Yet the financial reform measure is much more significant. It undoes a whole lot of ill-advised deregulation dating back to the Reagan years and rampant throughout Clinton’s time in office and both Bush administrations.

Could any members of those administrations actually have believed that bankers and brokers would regulate financial dealings in the interests of our citizens? Ridiculous. It is a government function to establish a financial system and to control it. Period. That’s not socialism, or fascism, or any other kind of ism. It’s just plain common sense.

The financial giants rolled out their big guns and bankrolls and lobbied hard against any return to controls that history showed work, plus a few more to counter creative (read crooked) dealings they thought up in recent years. For once, Congress listened to the American people, not the lobbyists.

I’ve laid some harsh criticism on our Representatives and Senators of late, but this time they deserve a round of applause. They proved that our system of government can work to serve us.

Keeping the Good Stuff

Otsego, Michigan, and Tomahawk, Wisconsin, have several things in common.

The lynchpin of Otsego’s economy is a paper mill, a reminder of bygone days when mills dotted the Kalamazoo River. When I was growing up in Tomahawk, the paper mill provided most of the desirable jobs, and it still is a major employer. There is a location difference. Otsego’s mill, now a U.S. Gypsum operation, is just a couple of blocks from downtown. Tomahawk’s is a couple of miles outside the city limits.

Otsego (population 3,900) has an unusually wide main street because years ago the city fathers thought the town would grow into a large center of commerce. That never happened. The width of the main drag in Tomahawk (population 3,800) is nearly identical. That’s because the lumber baron who hired an architect to develop the city layout assumed the settlement would eventually hold tens of thousands of residents. That never happened.

Small-town living has its drawbacks. One often cited is that everybody knows everybody else’s business. Another is the lack of diversified shopping opportunities. And a high school band concert is unlikely to satisfy the entertainment needs of some folks the way a night with a symphony orchestra does.

Among my memories of growing up in Tomahawk 60 years ago is that most people didn’t have a lot of money. A few coins, however, went a long way. For a long time, a good-sized ice cream cone cost a nickel. A glass of beer went for a dime, and astute bartenders made sure their customers stayed happy by pouring a free one occasionally. You actually could buy things for a nickel or a dime at the “five and dime store.” Some of those prices prevailed when we made rare visits to the state’s big city, Milwaukee, but a lot of things cost more there.

The retail landscape has changed across America, in big and small cities. The big-box stores and chains have forced many mom-and-pop operations to close. Selections have improved a lot, but convenience and service often have declined, and the changes aren’t always as cost-effective as we tend to think. Occasionally, some of the good things of the past are preserved in small towns.

A few days ago I needed just one finishing nail of a certain size to complete a small project. I couldn’t foresee any future use for that size nail, and didn’t want a box of them adding to the clutter in my already overly extensive collection of miscellaneous hardware. An attempt to find the needed nail in my son’s even bigger collection failed. I was resigned to paying a few dollars for a whole box or package of unwanted nails to get the one I had to have. We must do that nowadays in most big-box hardware stores, and other stores that carry basic household supplies.

I stopped at Bob’s True Value hardware store on the main street of Otsego. I thought I’d get a laugh: “Big deal today. I only need one nail. Can we do that?”

“Sure we can,” said the clerk who had asked about a minute after I entered the store if she could help me. “We have nail bins. Follow me and we’ll look.”

In the lower bin on the far right was a good supply of the perfect finishing nails. I took three, assuming I would louse the project up at least twice before I got it right, as usual. When I asked the cashier what the charge was, she asked, “You got a nickel?”

Looking for a nail was somewhat incidental to my main mission. I was in Otsego on a Tuesday for a haircut. A real barbershop is located right across the street from Bob’s hardware. It even has a barber pole near the entrance. Four barbers, all men, were busy shaping and snipping the locks of a bunch of mature adult men. Business was booming because on weekdays the geezers get a one-dollar discount. Even without it, a haircut there costs $11, not $16 or more as it does in today’s phony barber shops, where the chairs are lightweight metal tubing and the snippers mostly are female.

In the Otsego shop, the talk is of things like football, hockey, guns, fishing, and cars—guy things and big boys’ toys. I firmly believe that is the way God intended barber shops to be, but it’s the only one I’ve found in the past ten years that fits the bill.

The Otsego shop is a good place to feel important in a real barber chair, and the barbers, several of whom are fully mature, are very good at their craft. They’re good in another way.

The senior discount day is supposed to be Wednesday. The first time I forgot and showed up on Thursday, I chuckled about missing my chance to save a buck. The barber told me I had no problem; they give the discount every weekday anyway. Perhaps this is in deference to the geezer customers, some of whom might occasionally have a bit of trouble remembering what day it was when they arrived assisted by their canes and walkers.

By happenstance, wife Sandy and I returned to Otsego the very same day. Judy’s Restaurant is right next door to the barbershop. We had spotted an ad for a lunch special featuring a sandwich we both love and have trouble finding in restaurants. It was our first trip to Judy’s.

Judy’s is not part of a chain, or any other type of arrangement to apply the name to a place you can find anywhere else. It is unique. The restaurant has been in business for 44 years. The real Judy seats patrons, and takes the time for a little chit-chat with them if they want. The place is not elegant, but it was neat, clean, and busy. The décor features historic photos of Otsego scenes and individual pictures of many area natives. The service was excellent during our visit.

Our waitress offered a half-dozen variations in the components of the special. I kept asking, “Is that included?” It was. The portions were more than adequate, but so good I finished everything put before me. I skipped dinner that night.

Costs weren’t bad either. A three-item lunch for two including drinks (mine was accompanied by a pot of coffee left at the table) and tip totaled a whopping $14.00. We checked the complete menu. It had a fair amount of variety and was chock full of down-home items not a whole lot pricier than the daily lunch special. We’ll go back.

In small towns, some things still are the real deal.