Paper Boy

Ten years ago this month, I graduated from one of the nation's top business schools and soon thereafter scored a gig with the Gannett Corporation, which publishes daily newspapers in cities nationwide. I didn't land in finance or strategy, nor in marketing or accounting, but squarely in operations - and not as a master of logistics either, but as a paper boy, who seven days a week for the following year rose at 3:00 a.m. to deliver the daily news.
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I may be the only paper boy in the annals of that storied profession to have performed the job in a BMW driven by an MBA. How does a relatively intelligent individual with so much education grow up to be a paper boy? There are no easy answers, but during the years I left Evins Mill to attain my degree, the business suffered severely. This is not to suggest it had flourished under my early stewardship, but the rapscallion we retained to manage the business in my absence drove it further into the ground.
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As the business could ill afford to support me, I cast about for interim sources of income to allow me time to resuscitate its fortunes. I initially toyed with the idea of waiting tables. Though I did after all have some experience in hands-on hospitality, my vanity put the kibosh on this rather sensible approach and drove me to consider more innocuous alternatives, for I cringed at the prospect of groveling before one of my peers.
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When I stumbled upon the paper delivery ad, I knew immediately the job was as perfect as it was pathetic, for what could be more anonymous than flying through the streets before sunrise. If I spent the previous two years mastering such rarefied skills as managing inventory or valuating companies, in less than two hours I internalized the basics of paper delivery, and learned more esoteric aspects of the profession on the job.
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To ensure a paper consistently hit its target for example, I could soon calibrate the strength and trajectory of my toss based on the velocity and torque of my vehicle and conditions on the ground like snow or ice. More than grasping simple technique, I was also reminded of a sobering reality - that around me were scores of people who hitherto were as invisible to me as they lived and worked right beside me, struggling on the fringes just to make ends meet.
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Unlike many of my scrappy colleagues I suspect, my financial situation, while not ideal, was not dire. I may have been cash poor but did possess not insignificant assets against which I could and in the end had to borrow. Catholics might suggest I harbored guilt about this unearned financial cushion and was subconsciously wearing my paper route like a hair shirt. Romantics could say I was acting on some quixotic impulse, tilting at the windmills of my own financial hardship.
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Southern confederates might interpret my route as homage to the lost cause ethos, for in its unrelenting nature, paper delivery carries a heavy whiff of futility. As for futility, the philosopher Camus might explain my job choice in terms of existential angst, rolling my papers each morning just as Sisyphus, that unfortunate figure from Greek mythology, rolled his boulder up a hill - only to watch it roll down again, requiring him to repeat the task for all eternity - and finding life’s meaning therein.
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However one cares to interpret the fact I took this turd of a job, I remain proud of the experience. That I would feel pride should come as no surprise, for at the end of the day, it was pride, more than hair shirts, windmills, lost causes or existential angst, that led me to this humbling opportunity.
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Post Script: I would like to thank that kind family on Kirkland Avenue who left me a Christmas Day tip. And as for the gentleman on Castleman Drive who called my boss every time his paper was a few minutes late, I still recall his silhouette by the bay window as he waited impatiently for his paper - and wish he could now read my extended finger.

An Almighty Application

As many of my Facebook friends can confirm, I am active on-line as much to promote my business as I am to break bread with them. And since most of my “friends” are clients or prospective guests of Evins Mill, I rarely visit polarizing topics like politics and religion. That said, en route to Florida’s Emerald Coast last week, my family passed a church whose marquee announced “You don’t need Facebook to talk to God.”

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I’ve been fascinated with religious signage for years and even once considered collecting these folksy adages into a book whose clever title would read “Signs from God.” Given my interest in religious marquees, my involvement on Facebook and my unending wrestling match with the Almighty, I took this sign as a sign to comment upon its message – albeit with Abrahamic misgivings.
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To the extent God exists and is listening, the marquee’s plainspoken words seem obvious enough, but the message drove me to consider a counter intuitive notion – that Facebook would in fact serve as an elegant and effective platform for communicating with God, and more than that, for comprehending Him/Her/It. So far as I know though, God has yet to establish a page.
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If so, atheists might cite His on-line absence as just one more indicator, albeit a flimsy one, that He does not exist. Other rationalists might assert that God’s absence tells us nothing about His existence, but only that if He does exist, God must be Aristotelian by nature, a prime mover that spun the web but no longer intercedes with His creation – that is to say, the kind of God many of our founding fathers embraced.
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Some theists might take His absence only to mean that God refuses to forfeit his omnipotence to human constructs, though for most Christians anyway, there is precedence for such surrender – namely on the platform of a cross. If God does eventually create a Facebook page, it would at least, hoaxes aside, verify His existence and establish beyond doubt His intercessory credentials.
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As illuminating as His registration would be, God's subsequent on-line behavior would reveal much more. Were God for instance to issue commands via Facebook with political or military objectives, we might gather that He is akin to the tribal God of the Pentateuch, Joshua and Judges, or even the eschatological God of Ezekiel, Daniel and Revelation – or of present day religious militants and Armageddon enthusiasts.
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If God however used Facebook to draw our attention to social and economic injustice, we might identify Him as the God of the Hebrew prophets and perhaps even Jesus himself – or of many modern day social activists. If God used Facebook rather to highlight our sinfulness and need for salvation by grace or good works, we might accept the vision of God given to us by the likes of St. Paul and St. Augustine.
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However God would or would not reveal Himself, one seminal problem with a Facebook divinity, outside bandwidth, privacy issues and other mundane considerations, is that it would diminish His mystery. And science is doing a fine job of that without God abetting it. And why would He, for one of God’s strongest suits is the mystery of it all - a mystery that has allowed God to be many things to many people over many millennia.
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The mystery of our universe not only grants God a protean quality but also requires for our part a degree of faith in how we choose to understand that universe. Whether we place that faith in faith as a believer does, in reason as many scientists do or in some other elucidating mechanism, absent certain knowledge we can hardly escape having faith in something. Conversely, if we possessed unassailable knowledge of the cosmos, including God, I’m not sure we’d need to have faith in anything.
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If the act of believing then is a by-product of uncertainty, embracing the fragility of our knowledge should foster a spirit of humility. Perhaps such humility, spawned by life's mystery, would inspire a collective respect for our manifold conceptions of God – unless of course those conceptions lead to acts of violence. By the way, I’m not looking for any Kumbaya moment here – just a breath of grace and forbearance.

Howl

Not long after graduating from college, I invited a few high school chums to Evins Mill for a "men's retreat." More than a caddish gathering of twenty-somethings, it was conceived with an elevated purpose in mind - to share with each other our respective life missions and the perennial goals that would naturally flow there from. There would also be a heavy dose of critique and accountability. Heady stuff for sure. And in just a few days, I ship off for the 14th such retreat in as many years.
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The idea for this outing sprouted during one of life's more earnest moments - when horizons were seemingly limitless, and before we made those decisions that would inevitably impose the boundaries born of career, marriage, child-rearing, financial planning and so on. If I wax nostalgically, I do not do so regretfully, as for most of us this is life’s unavoidable trajectory, and I am thankful for my own.
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I'm also appreciative of the confreres with whom I annually discuss life's plans and passages. And if this rarefied notion of goal sharing was born in earnest, these conclaves have been anything but innocent, and remain punctuated by bouts of sophomoric debauchery and witless irresponsibility. None will forget the time we nearly burnt down the vacation home graciously lent to us by a family friend - indeed, it is seared in our memory. But we can laugh about it now - right George?
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In spite of ourselves, we dutifully reserve time for a modicum, if not a muddle, of personal transparency, though I’ve witnessed that such openness increasingly dwells as much on our past as on our future - and is now as reflective as it is ambitious. With more miles behind us, this shift in gears makes sense, as does another shift - our visions for the future are now marked as much by aspirations as they are by metrics. Perhaps some of us, humbled or tempered by time, are hedging our bets.
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That such testimony is routinely shared with and by alcohol-impaired minds undoubtedly renders the exchange less crisp, but openness, such as it is, might not percolate at all without bourbon’s succor - for alas, the shadow of the strong and reticent man looms large even for the most self-possessed among us. Sober or otherwise, in these late night communions we break bread and new ground, even if the following day we couldn't always describe in detail the mountains we just scaled.

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And if these wayward retreats do not exactly measure up to my original vision, it's all for the better, for the vision was as pompous as it was well meaning - and would surely render such weekends a grinding slog. As it is, they have evolved into a rich tradition that I think all of us to varying degrees anticipate and relish. Even if I don't frequently see most of these jackasses, I take comfort in their ritualized company.
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And to the loved ones whom we leave behind this weekend, should you witness a faint red glow on the horizon, you'll know we burnt the house down this year - and not just figuratively. If on the other hand you are awakened late one evening by haunting bellows from distant woods, do not be alarmed for your safety or our own - as wolves are not the only creatures who would howl at the moon.

Humbug

A guest not long ago commented that she felt awkward and confused at check-out when confronted with the gratuity line on her credit card receipt - and recommended we clarify the Inn’s tipping protocol ahead of time. Though she left a tip at her table as well as in her room, she felt compelled to ante up yet again, not wanting to appear like Scrooge.
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This was an observation after my own heart, for it was delivered not in passive-aggressive wrapping but in a constructive spirit, sealed with a solution. The remark also illuminated a core principle of what we hope the Evins Mill experience would be - which is to say, free from uncertainty. We wish for guests to depart more rejuvenated than when they arrived - and view ambiguity as an energy-sapping agent.
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Furthermore, I’ve been grousing about gratuity for years, as the practice has in my estimation been abused, proliferating from an intensely service-oriented field to arenas where it is ill-construed. Why am I expected to tip a bellhop or barber? Why not throw in the store clerk as well? And speaking of clerks, what’s with that tip jar, behind which some punk just poured you a $5 cuppa joe?
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Tipping at a restaurant is of course a different matter, for in most instances servers are paid far less than minimum wage and depend on gratuity for their economic well-being. But it is precisely this reliance that prompts me to harbor misgivings even here – as tipping foists upon the patron a judicial role in the waiter's livelihood. And assigning responsibility for grade of service can be challenging.
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If the service is deplorable, is my server simply inept and undeserving - or did a colleague fail to show, requiring him to cover twice as many tables. If my server strikes me as gruff, maybe she’s in the wrong profession and unworthy - or maybe we simply have disparate notions of how chummy a server and patron should be. I’m uncertain - and that’s the point.
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In some instances, the restaurant may bear primary responsibility. In trying to cut labor costs, perhaps it scheduled too few servers. Maybe its hiring and training systems are not up to snuff. Surely it will suffer as a result, but so too might a capable server who was not responsible for these failures. Again, I’m uncertain - and again, that's the problem.
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I’m eager to compensate good service - or assign accountability for otherwise if I could fairly do so. But as illustrated above, one can't always, and I wonder if patrons and employees alike would be better served if we jettison tipping altogether and simply reward organizations that attract able servers with robust wages. That was actually the model at Evins Mill for years, though over time employees asked me to incorporate gratuity.
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Fearing it would tread on my precious principle, I resisted at first but eventually acquiesced, for some felt quite strongly about the matter. I also began to appreciate that some guests take pleasure in tipping. And though I didn't perceive its benefit to me at the time, and while I continue to compensate our waitstaff at well above minimum wage, tipping does alleviate payroll inflation.
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Despite my ambivalence and granted my bias, I am inclined to believe that if anyone deserves a fiscal pat on the back, it is the folks who work at Evins Mill. And judging from the tips our guests left them in 2009, I am not alone in this sentiment and am genuinely delighted for my staff - all of whom are most grateful for the generosity. Of this if nothing else, I am absolutely certain.

Mama's Boy

Even as I publish this post, my mother is at Evins Mill replacing the Inn's Fall decor with a Christmas motif. Two months from now, she'll adorn the property with hearts for Valentines Day, then pastel colors for spring, followed by a patriotic theme for summer - after which the cycle repeats itself. She’s performed this ritual exquisitely and free of charge since 1994 - and a good thing too, as God knows I wouldn't pay someone to do it, or what the place would look like were I decorating it.

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I suspect the only pleasure my mother derives from this routine is knowing that she's helping me. If true, this inkling would elucidate a seminal feature of our relationship - that is to say, her giving and my receiving. One ambit of this give-and-take involves food, for even as a grown man, I still receive from my mother periodic caches of pimento cheese, egg salad and a bevy of other homemade delights, including meatless chili to accommodate my new found vegetarianism.

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Her helping hand extends beyond creature comforts. As if rooting for me at yesteryear's high school wrestling match, she is consistently among the first to applaud these essays. More welcome than this, she - along with my father it should be noted - routinely hosts my young daughter for sleepovers. While both enjoy Ivy's company, my mother seems dually motivated by the reprieve it gives her son from the duties of parenthood. Though her baby boy no longer seeks such aegis, he remains touched by the maternal impulse that compels it.

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Say what I might, perhaps the best vantage point from which to capture the depth of my mother's devotion is found in a book called The Giving Tree, which portrays the relationship between a boy and a tree as they grow older. On one hand, the story illustrates profound generosity, for the tree bestows everything she has to bolster the boy - at first her apples for the scamp to eat, later her limbs for the young man to build a house, then her very trunk for the older man to craft a boat, and finally her stump for the codger to take a load off.

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As it turns out, the story also depicts gross ingratitude, for the grown man not once expresses affection for the tree nor reciprocates her kindnesses - never does he mulch around her base, fertilize her soil or so much as lift a hand for the tree - unless wielding an ax. Indeed, the ingrate only visits when something's in it for him and fails to utter a word of thanks for all he's received. I am guilty of at least one offense, but it is not ingratitude - at least not toward my own giving tree.

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So as I bask in the thankful afterglow of the holiday just celebrated and anticipate my mother's December 1st birthday, perhaps this public encomium will reinforce my hitherto private expressions of appreciation - and serve as a more fitting birthday gift than anything else I could otherwise tender. And as to the above referenced offense, it is shamelessly tugging on heartstrings of mothers everywhere - especially mine own, whom I love very much and for whom I am most grateful. Happy Birthday Mom!

Man Up

I recently hatched this rather elegant idea for a development at Evins Mill, which is a peripheral yet necessary predicate to the subject at hand. To the east of our last guest house on the other side of a wide ravine is a thickly forested ridge top overlooking a deep gorge, Fall Creek and the precipice of Carmack Falls itself. The idea may be as brilliant as the land is beautiful.

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As economic conditions improve, we develop this woodland into lots for the construction and sale of vacation rental homes. Variations of the concept are manifold, but in any scenario owners could partake of all the resort's amenities, as well as the services of its maintenance, grounds and housekeeping staff. Equally compelling, our sales office could effectively rent their homes either in tandem with or independent of its own operations.
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And the Inn - without assuming the unsavory risks of owning the homes - could double its overnight capacity, allowing it to host larger corporate events which it now must routinely decline. In addition to amplifying the Inn's share of the corporate market, the expanded capacity would also augment its food & beverage sales and generate a respectable revenue stream via rental and maintenance agreements.
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Brilliant is too strong a word, for it implies originality - and there's nothing faintly unique about the proposal. Unique or not, the more circumspect might divine boondoggle rather than bonanza - and they would have a compelling case too. The land would be costly to develop and sire only a handful of lots. The added capacity could potentially transform the essence of our business - and alienate a loyal clientele in the process. Oh, and did I mention - I have no idea how to pull any of this off?
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And there's another pesky fly in the ointment - we don't own much of the required acreage - an adjacent farmer does. And a farmer, whose family may have owned the land for generations, can have an ancestral attachment to his soil, refusing to part with a family jewel for any price. Fortuitously, this farmer is willing to sell, and more than that, suggested I acquire more soil than needed - beautiful acreage that would serve as a buffer between his farmland and our development. What a break.

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Not so fast, for most anyone will sell you most anything for a price - and his is a deal-killer. The opening salvo of our negotiations came unexpectedly - kind of like an ambush is unexpected. Standing under a tree in the pouring rain on the land in question - city boy in crisp button down and old timer in crinkled overalls - he asked me my price. To my low-ball offer he gruffly grunted "Oh, no, no, no - we can't talk like that. No sir, can't talk like that."
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His stance is not problematic in and of itself and is a routine feature of this particular dance. The dilemma is my capacity for negotiation, which is negligible at best. I'm analytical rather than aggressive, and given to cooperation rather than cajoling. At peace with my strengths and weaknesses, I do in these "to be or not to be" moments envy those who can bluff and bully - that is to say, mislead and overpower to further their interests.

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And something tells me that little I learned in business school will help me as I haggle with this plainspoken and weather worn farmer. If in a few years you start receiving solicitations regarding "Ridge Top Estates" or "Chalets at Evins Mill," you'll know I manned up and negotiated with nerve and cunning. Silence will likely mean failure - and on a very personal level. So wish me luck or give me counsel, for after all, I need some land I'd like to sell you.

Vegetarian

As I hope most guests of Evins Mill would agree, cuisine is nuclear to the experience of staying at the Inn. And since we serve from a limited menu, we take great pains to uncover special dietary needs, or SDNs, which fall into three distinct categories: personal preference - "I don't like...", medical necessity - "I'm allergic to...", and principled choice - “I won’t eat...."

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After diabetics, vegetarians constitute the most common SDN group and occupy a singular place in our pantheon of SDNs, for in most cases their requests seem driven not so much by preference or need as by studied decision. Initially I recorded such requests with bewilderment or rolled eyes. Why would anyone voluntarily forgo such delicacies as bacon or a choice steak?
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Until twelve years ago, I hadn't a clue, for through my early adulthood, I knew of no one who would shun a succulent slab of flesh. Consequently, I associated vegetarians with a mélange of not entirely fair stereotypes – bohemian, tree-hugging, free-thinking, pot-smoking, yoga-loving beatniks. You get it - the kind of stereotype born of ignorance or fear that one can easily drape over anything foreign or threatening.
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Then in 1997 I met, promptly fell in love with and eventually married one of these nuts. Eden lived up to a few of the stereotypes, prompting endless references among friends to Dharma & Greg, the 90s sitcom about a traditionalist and his “new age” wife. While Eden dispelled more vegetarian cliches than she confirmed, it was only a matter of time before my carnivorous background collided with her plant-based diet.
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Our first argument was sparked when she refused to taste my shrimp etouffee. So irked, I insisted all the more. The more I inveighed, the more she pushed back. Needless to say, I didn't get lucky that night. If she were allergic to shellfish, that would have been one thing, but she rejected my offer on principle. And there is something about a principle when it comes to our ingestion, akin to matters of politics and religion, that elicits from many, myself included at the time, a visceral reaction.
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Maybe it’s how a wine lover might feel at a party she’s hosting when serving her cherished Pinot Noir - and a guest refuses on grounds he doesn’t drink. If the guest simply doesn’t like the taste of alcoholic beverages, it’s copacetic, but if the refrain is predicated on moral principle, drinkers may feel a twinge of judgment, which may be one reason I was so incensed by my date. As an aside, I would have rejected the host’s kind offer too - and in the next breath requested a G&T.
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But back on point. I’m not the only one who gave Eden a hard time. Over the years, I’ve watched many others poke and prod her vegetarianism, and not from a genuinely curious place either but with veiled derision. Whatever the provenance of these jibes, my own dim view of vegetarians was naturally attenuated by the mere fact I was married to one – turns out we have more pressing issues about which to disagree.
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Five years ago my views softened further after reading a book titled Eat, Drink and Be Healthy penned by a Harvard nutrionist, which makes a compelling case, backed by mounds of scientific evidence, that our bodies are better served by abstaining from most flesh. My discomfort with vegetarians wilted further as I read article after article about the gross inefficiencies of generating one unit of protein through raising an animal compared to growing a bean or nut - and the concomitant havoc these inefficiencies wreck on the environment.
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Along the way I read other books, including one titled Fast Food Nation, graphically describing the food processing industry, which actually made me sympathetic to the vegetarian perspective – though not so much to become one yet. Then last month, I had occasion to watch video footage of the same industry in action - the piece de resistance as it were, inspiring me to give vegetarianism a try.

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I should stress to our clientele that when it comes to matters of business, I am if nothing else a pragmatist and would never steer our culinary juggernaut in a vegetarian direction unless the market asked for it, which is to say, not in my lifetime – it is my livelihood after all. But to our vegetarian and vegan guests, you are in empathetic hands regarding our own SDN, which based on the evidence at hand seems as much a logical choice as a special need.
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And to friends confounded by my new gastric status - as I originally was with Eden's, I appreciate your dubiety as much as I am nonplussed by it, for I am growing as pragmatic about my body as I am about my business - G&Ts aside. If the decision behooves not only my health but also the environment and other creatures populating the planet, then all the better. Peace out.