Turning Point

 Leroy started working at Shank Door on March 5, 1973. He was the third employee. The second one soon quit and moved down South. That left Leroy and Ira Mast working for the owner, Ralph Shank. Ralph operated the business out of his home. In 1974, he built a garage next to the house. This was the warehouse.

On Leroy's first day, Ralph took him to a job and told him to watch while he installs a door. He slapped it up and then said, "Now  you do the next one," and left. That was Leroy's training. Today, an installer has at least six weeks of training working with another installer.

A few years later, Ralph sold the business to Ira Mast. He lived on the farm next to Ralph and was married to Ralph's niece. The business grew and Ira built a larger warehouse on the farm. On October 22, 1982, the warehouse caught fire and was completely destroyed. Help poured in to clean up and rebuild. The new enlarged warehouse was finished in two months, at the end of December.

The business kept growing and later the chicken house behind the warehouse was attached to it. More additions were added later. Today, the company has eighty employees.

Leroy installed garage doors and openers for 22 years. In the beginning, he had his own truck and paid his own gas. There were no paid vacations or holidays, company tools or ladders, medical insurance, uniforms, cell phones, retirement plans, or company trucks. These benefits were added gradually as the company grew. 

There was not enough work at home to keep our boys busy in the summer, so Leroy took them along to work as they grew old enough to help. It was good for them to work with their father and they learned to help themselves with tools.

Leroy got his first cell phone in 2003. It was a Nextel which also had a two-way. All the years he had been on the road installing, there was no way to reach him. This was a problem especially when we were expecting a new baby. Fortunately, the babies never decided to come while he was at work. The company phones kept being upgraded until he had a smartphone.

 

Leroy was 51 in the spring of 1995. Installing was becoming too heavy work for him and he had trouble with his shoulder. Ira told him he could work in the warehouse. No one was keeping order in there and it was becoming a problem. He agreed and was a warehouse worker and go-fer for another 26 years. He got his first company truck in 1995.

Every day was different as a warehouse worker. Leroy waited on customers at the counter, put things away, burned trash, picked up and delivered things, repaired tools, recycled materials, and other small things that kept order in the warehouse. 

He drove his first company truck until February 2016 when someone crossed the road and hit him head-on. The truck was demolished and the company bought him a brand new 2016 model.

Leroy has been considering retiring "at the end of the year" for several years. But when the end of the year came, he kept on going. After more than forty years, it was not going to work very well to quit suddenly. In 2020, he cut back to three days per week and worked from Tuesday through Thursday. That gave him four-day weekends. As the end of the year approached he again debated whether or not he would retire. He decided he would stretch it out a few more months until March 5, 2021, so he can say he worked at Shank Door 48 years.

Yesterday he was honored at the regular monthly company meeting/breakfast and received a nice retirement gift. This 5 ft. poster displayed pictures from his 48 years with the company. Also on display were some of his old work orders, canceled paychecks from the 70s, and some of the old hand tools he used in the early years.

The garage door business is up and down, literally and figuratively, as it fluctuates with the economy. Some of the early years were a struggle but things improved as the company grew and it provided us with a comfortable living. We are grateful the company provided work he could do when installing got to be too heavy and they kept him on as long as he wanted to work.

At the age of 77, he has earned his retirement. He is leaving with a sense of satisfaction in seeing two of our sons carry on with the company. Daryl does service work and Gene is in management.

It's going to be an adjustment for us to begin this stage of life as retirees. Leroy plans to do some volunteer work at CAM. He has been doing more to help me around the house as my back and hip are reducing my capability. It will be good for him to learn to help himself a little more in this department. It is hard to believe we have come to this turning point in life. Who would have thought 48 years could pass so quickly! God has been faithful through all these years and He will carry us through whatever the future holds.

Sycophant

    I set a goal to read the entire Martyrs' Mirror this year. It's a huge book and slow going but I'm learning some things. This morning I came across a word that was new to me--sycophant. Any guesses what that means? Or maybe you already know. Either way, here is the context in which it was used.

  "Samson was also a Scotchman by descent, and an elder and companion of said Clement. He and Sydonius, Bishop in Bavaria, and others of like purpose and belief, were as one heart and soul, to oppose with the Word of God, Boniface, the papal legate, who proposed to oppress the people with manifold superstitions and burdens. This, not only Samson, but also Sydonius and the others boldly did. They taught with word and pen, that the apostolical embassy (as it was called) of Bishop Boniface bore a closer resemblance to paganism or antichristendom, than to christendom. and that he had deformed rather than reformed, France and Germany. Again, that he was a sycophant and flatterer of the pope of Rome, to whom he had not only bound, but completely sold himself, as a sworn slave."

  I consulted the dictionary for the definition of sycophant.  "A person who tries to please someone in order to gain a personal advantage." Synonyms were--yes-man and slang words including boot licker and brown noser. So a sycophant is an insincere self-seeking person. 

   This poem was published in Wetmore’s 1898 anthology Fables for the Frivolous. 

The Sycophantic Fox and the Gullible Raven

by Guy Wetmore Carryl

A raven sat upon a tree,

      And not a word he spoke, for

His beak contained a piece of Brie,

      Or, maybe, it was Roquefort:

            We’ll make it any kind you please—

            At all events, it was a cheese.

Beneath the tree’s umbrageous limb

      A hungry fox sat smiling;

He saw the raven watching him,

      And spoke in words beguiling.

            “J’admire,” said he, “ton beau plumage.”

            (The which was simply persiflage.)

Two things there are, no doubt you know,

      To which a fox is used:

A rooster that is bound to crow,

      A crow that’s bound to roost,

            And whichsoever he espies

            He tells the most unblushing lies.

“Sweet fowl,” he said, “I understand

      You’re more than merely natty,

I hear you sing to beat the band

      And Adelina Patti.

            Pray render with your liquid tongue

            A bit from Götterdämmerung.”

This subtle speech was aimed to please

      The crow, and it succeeded:

He thought no bird in all the trees

      Could sing as well as he did.

            In flattery completely doused,

            He gave the “Jewel Song” from Faust.

But gravitation’s law, of course,

      As Isaac Newton showed it,

Exerted on the cheese its force,

      And elsewhere soon bestowed it.

            In fact, there is no need to tell

            What happened when to earth it fell.

I blush to add that when the bird

      Took in the situation

He said one brief, emphatic word,

      Unfit for publication.

            The fox was greatly startled, but

            He only sighed and answered “Tut.”

The Moral is: A fox is bound

      To be a shameless sinner.

And also: When the cheese comes round

      You know it’s after dinner.

            But (what is only known to few)

            The fox is after dinner, too.