Death of a Sales Career (or "Retirement Is For Closers")

"The man who makes an appearance in the business world, the man who creates a personal interest, is the man who gets ahead. Be liked and you will never want." – Willy Loman, “Death of a Salesman”

Willy Loman was 63 when he was fired. After 36 years in the sales game, his failures caught up with him.

I am Willy Loman’s age now. But unlike Willy, I am three years removed from that profession. Where Willy at 63 was desperate to re-create his (real or imagined) past glories, I am spending my mornings with a pot of coffee, doing word puzzles in my robe and slippers.

Even though working in sales was the only connection I felt with Willy, it is hard to deny that seeing “Death of a Salesman” didn’t have an impact on my decision to get out before I got old. A bigger influence, however, was the movie “Glengarry Glen Ross.” The character of Shelly Levene, skillfully played on the screen by Jack Lemmon, was something I never wanted to see myself become. His character was once a giant, a star, but had fallen on hard times in his old age and was reduced to begging and even bribing his management for leads.

When “Glengarry Glen Ross” came out, it was divisive among my friends and acquaintances. This is a generalization, obviously, but what I found was that if you were in sales, you loved the film, and if you weren’t, you hated it. I think the people who were not in that world of leads, prospects and high pressure just couldn’t relate to these characters. On the other hand, the corporate sales VP at my last job loved the movie and often showed or referred to the iconic Alec Baldwin speech (“Coffee is for closers!”) in all its uncensored glory.

Like Willy Loman and Shelly Levene, I was in sales for more than three decades. Did I love it? No. Was I good at it? Yes. At least, good enough to have a successful career. No other job would have paid me as much, so I toiled at it for almost my entire working life.

I tried to leave it behind once, working communications for a business organization for a few years. But the income potential of sales pulled me back into it. I didn’t go looking for it, but the opportunity found me. And with two kids approaching college age, an immediate $20,000-plus raise was an offer I couldn’t refuse. Although it sent my stress level through the roof, returning to outside sales was the best financial decision I ever made.

The only way to keep my sanity was to have other interests outside the office. One was community theater. I often joked that I worked in sales to support my theatrical career. To me, being in sales was like Max Bialystock from “The Producers” sleeping with little old ladies to finance his Broadway shows. I sold ads so I could pretend to be Orson Welles.

As a salesperson, I liked to stay in the middle of the pack. If we were a sales team of seven, my goal was to be number three. Why? Because I found that being comfortably in the middle drew the least attention. If you were a high achiever, you received a lot of notice and a lot of pressure to stay there. If you were in the bottom half, you were the subject of relentless prodding to get better or lose your job. When you were in the middle, nobody bothered you. And that’s what I wanted, just to be left alone to do my job.

It's not that I didn’t have pride in achieving or hitting goals. I’d win the occasional sales contest or award. But I didn’t seek it and wasn’t driven by it. I simply wanted to make a decent living and go home.

Outside sales changed a lot during my three-plus decades. I started with a Rolodex and a desk phone, ended with Salesforce and email. Polo shirts eventually became acceptable in a profession that once required a business suit. Where every contract was once signed face-to-face, eventually faxes and later e-sign took over. At the end, I closed deals without ever meeting the prospect in person or even speaking on the phone, an unthinkable possibility when I was a rookie.

So why did I decide to retire at 60? The final straw was seeing the unceremonious dismissal of one of my co-workers. He was only a year from retirement and his sales figures, though a fraction of his past numbers, were not terrible enough to warrant termination.

We were the only company where he had ever worked full-time. He logged 42 years with us, rising to the top with big sales numbers. Although far from a demonstrative braggart – on the contrary, his personal demeanor was calm and gentle - he loved his success, loved his big houses and fast sports cars. He even negotiated a fancy title for his business cards. But the 2008 recession dealt him a blow from which he never recovered.

He had built a huge client base of housing developers. When the Great Recession arrived, half of his annual sales disappeared, never to return. In the blink of an eye, he went from the top of the list to the bottom.

Try as he might, he could never make up for the losses. One problem was that as sales was evolving, he wasn’t. He was old school and too set in his ways to really change. The rules of prospecting and following up were changing, and he couldn’t keep up.

Eventually, he settled in one house and stayed there. The sports cars were replaced by a Prius.

Like Shelly Levene, he was scrambling at the end. Not to the point of doing anything unscrupulous, because that wasn’t what he was about. But he was definitely trying too hard. Prospects can sense when you’re desperate for a sale, and his could tell.

Although his sales were below average and his style was dated, he worked hard and worked honestly. He wasn’t hurting us. There was, in my mind, no reason to not let him work one more year and go out with dignity, even if it meant prodding him out the door at 65 and calling it a retirement.

The sight of this man, once a giant for the company, being sadly walked out the door with his box of possessions, had a stirring effect on my co-workers and I.

For me, that was all I needed to see. I resolved that what happened to him was never going to happen to me. I would leave on my own terms when I was ready. I decided that I couldn’t see myself selling in my 60s, and so age 60 became my goal – to retire from outside sales and walk away.

Fortunately, my wife was on board with the plan. I had done well enough in my career that she hadn’t had to work full-time since our first child was born in 1992. Although part-time, we could get health insurance through her employer.

But the bigger issue was having enough stashed away in investments and retirement funds that we could afford an early exit. Again, we were very fortunate. At some point, we had found an independent fee-based financial advisor whose advice paid immediate dividends, and we had her formulate a plan and investment schedule to make retirement at age 60 a possibility.

The best day of my professional life was early in 2022, when I had my annual budget meeting with my general manager and sales manager.

GM: So what are your goals for this year?

Me: To retire.

(GM and SM laugh. I smile. Then a few seconds of silence.)

GM: Are you serious?

Nine months later, I logged out of Salesforce for the last time.

And a few months after I retired, I had my annual physical. The nurse took my blood pressure, and I expected to hear the usual lecture about how it’s a little high and I might need to go on medication. Instead, I nearly fell out of my chair when she said “120 over 80.” I asked her to repeat that, and she did, adding that it was “normal.” Those were words I hadn’t heard in a very long time, if ever. And I’ve heard them several times since.

Coincidence?

Ruth Joan (Jacobson) Lyke, 2/22/1927 - 10/16/2021

In 1927, Babe Ruth dominated baseball. But we are here to celebrate another babe named Ruth that arrived safely at home that year. A baby Ruth that was born with two strikes against her, and spent much of her life that way, but she never stopped swinging and never struck out.

Mom was born in an old hotel on Main Street in Edgerton, a temporary home for her family after her father died in a car accident three months before she was born. Her pregnant mother was also in the car, but somehow survived without injury to herself or her unborn child. Mom was christened Ruth Joan Jacobson, with her middle name pronounced Jo-ANN. She never knew – or at least, she couldn't remember - why she was always called by her middle name, or why her middle name was spelled in a way that led to constant mispronunciation.

She was the seventh child of a widow, growing up during the Depression. Let that sink in for a moment and think about the challenges that presented for all of them. Mom often said that Grandma would tell her and her siblings that “you kids have to behave or the county will take you away from me.” That threat was effective because Mom and her siblings knew it was true.

Life wasn't easy, and money was always scarce. Mom recalled a time that a teacher kept her after school, and Mom was afraid she had done something wrong, but instead the teacher took her to the shoe store and bought Mom some winter boots to replace the ragged ones she was wearing. Grandma did the best she could, working multiple jobs and making many sacrifices, and she managed to keep the family together. Grandma was loving but firm. There is a great photo of Mom as a young woman posing for the camera in a two-piece bathing suit, with Grandma in the background scowling. Mom kept a photo of Grandma on her living room wall at Milton Senior Living and joked that Grandma was still watching her to make sure she behaved. The lessons she learned from her mother about persistence, strength, dignity and respect stayed with her for the rest of her life. And stubbornness, too.

Like Babe Ruth, Mom was a lefty, a condition that her elementary school teachers unsuccessfully tried to correct. Her left-handedness lives on in me every time I do things she taught me to do, like deal cards or tie my shoes. It was something I wasn’t even cognizant of until a friend once remarked that I “tie my shoes backward.”

Mom had her own vocabulary, too. For example, until I was in high school, I thought your teeth were surrounded by “gooms.” And she loved practicing the sewing skill she called “embordery.”

Mom could have married almost anybody and improved her financial standing. Instead, she married my dad. The Depression had hit Dad and his parents hard, and they had struggled for years farming on shares after losing their homestead. But what Mom and Dad lacked in their pocketbook, they more than made up for in love.

They were married at the pastor's house in Edgerton, and spent their wedding night near Evansville in a cold, unheated cabin that lacked indoor plumbing. To her last days, Mom still marveled that Grandpa and Grandma Lyke gave them a week off to take a honeymoon because it ended up being the only vacation they ever took during their 37 years of marriage. They took advantage of it, driving into Iowa, Missouri and Illinois and seeing sights like Harry Truman's house, the Lake of the Ozarks, Lincoln's home in Springfield and of course, the Bagnell Dam. The Bagnell Dam normally wouldn't merit inclusion on a list like this, but it is significant because on October 3, 1948, it was the reason Mom had the only beer she ever drank in her life. Mom didn't like heights and was very nervous about going over the dam. So Dad gave her a beer. It worked. Nine months later, my sister Nancy was born. (Just kidding – it was actually 13 months later.)

A few months after that, when they went to celebrate their first Christmas together, they realized they couldn't afford a tree. Then as luck would have it, a truck carrying Christmas trees ran off the road near their farm. Dad was able to pull the driver out of the ditch and get him back on the road. As a thank you, the driver gave Mom and Dad one of his trees. Mom always said it was the nicest tree they ever had. And if you saw any of the trees my Dad picked out after that, you could see how that would be true. After the driver gave them the tree, Mom and Dad went out and bought ornaments, which she continued to use for the rest of her life.

Mom said she never intended to marry a farmer. But once she was on the farm, she was the consummate farm wife. Mom and Dad truly were a team. Every morning for all of those years, you could find her in the milk house scrubbing the milking machines. She took care of the home, raised us kids and took care of the meals. And oh, those meals! My friends loved helping us bale hay, because they knew that the lunch and dinner Mom provided would be delicious and huge. Mom always made the Mount Everest of mashed potato mountains, enough to feed an army, let alone the two or three of us on the hay wagon. My friends would have worked for us for meals alone. And when all of us kids had grown up and left the farm, Mom, even though she had never driven a car and never had a driver's license, learned how to drive tractor so she could help Dad in the hay field. Being new to driving at her age was not without its challenges, however. One day when she was driving the hay baler downhill, she couldn’t get the tractor to stop, and in a panic, simply abandoned ship and jumped off the tractor. Fortunately, Dad was able to catch up to it and bring it to a stop.

As we all grew up and got married, Mom accepted all of our spouses with open arms and an open heart. In her mind, there was no such thing as an in-law. If you married into the family, you were her adopted child. She loved you as much as if she had raised you herself. She emphasized that point every birthday by buying greeting cards that said, “To a great daughter-in-law” and then Xing out the words “in law.”

When Dad passed away, Mom was 58 and at that point in her life, she had never lived alone, not for a single day. She hadn’t worked a job off the farm in decades. Because she was so dependent on Dad, I’m ashamed to say we didn’t have a lot of confidence in her ability to carry on. I remember the four of us huddling up to discuss who was going to have to take in Mom. But she taught us a lesson, that we should never underestimate her.

Faced with her new reality, Mom completely reinvented herself, becoming strong, independent, and confident in her own decisions. Still without a drivers license, she quickly found and bought the perfect house in town, walking distance to church and to all of the stores, and close to two of her sisters. She threw herself into volunteering at church, even taking leadership roles. And she became the toast of her Doty Street neighborhood. Everyone loved Mom, watched over her and cared for her. They brought her their children, their dogs, and even their motorcycles to store in her garage.

Once Mom moved to town, the men came calling. But Mom wanted no part of dating. Dad was her one and only, and it remained that way to the end of her life.

As Mom got older, she learned a lot more about surgery and medical rehab than most of us want to know. Over the last twenty years, she went under the knife several times – a new hip, a new knee, breast cancer. And, characteristic of her, she overcame them all. And she was able to live alone in her beloved little home until she was 94 years old.

When the time finally came earlier this year that she was no longer able to live alone, it wasn’t much different than when she made the snap decision to move into town. She chose Milton Senior Living quickly and firmly. And if you ever visited her in her new home, she would proudly declare to you that moving there was HER DECISION.

And just like on Doty Street, Mom quickly made friends at Senior Living and became everyone’s favorite. She was happy there, and absolutely thrilled when her long-time neighbor Barb moved in across the hall.

It had dawned on Mom recently that she had lived alone almost as long as she had been married to Dad. She often talked about how much she still thought about him. The last few weeks, she had been repeatedly playing a CD of Dad's favorite music that her granddaughter Kelly had made for her. She said that when she listened to it, she would talk to the picture of Dad that she kept on her dresser, and she swore the picture would smile at her. Perhaps she wasn’t imagining it. Perhaps they were conspiring for their impending reunion.

Not long after Dad died, granddaughter Jenny wrote a poem that referred to Dad as the “brightest star in the sky.” It was a visual that we all embraced and hung on to, and one that Mom cherished every time she observed the night sky.

When Mom moved off the farm to Edgerton all those years ago, she put an envelope on her dresser that was labeled “My Funeral Arrangements.” She was determined to make it as easy as possible for us when her time came. The envelope sat there for decades, and from what we saw when we opened it last week, she had added to the envelope and revised the pages several times over the years. With each great-grandchild that got added to the list, her handwriting got a little shakier. There were two versions of the poem that’s printed in the bulletin, each clipped from a newspaper so long ago the paper had turned a dirty brown. There was a thank you note she had written to us in 1996, thanking us for indulging a “silly old lady” who wanted to go on a sleigh ride. There were instructions about what she wanted to wear in the casket, what to put in the obituary, who to give donations to, what songs she wanted in this service and a bevy of other details.

But the thing that stood out was a personal note addressed to her “seven kids.” In it, she expressed, one last time, her love and devotion to all of us, and to reassure us that she was in a good place. “Do not grieve,” she wrote. “I am finally with my love again whom I have missed so very much.”

Mom came back from that two-strike count she faced all her life, and hit a walk-off home run. And presumably, she and Dad are in Heaven’s locker room right now, celebrating their victory. And maybe even having her second beer.

Saturday Morning, Appalachia

 

It's sunrise in the countryside of central Ohio. The light peeks over the trees and into the window of our upstairs rental unit, softly illuminating the room with a glow that gently wakes us to the new day.

Morning frost covers the lawn, highlighting the cross-hatched mowing pattern that looks infinitely more interesting than anything I've attempted in my own yard.

A fenced field abuts the driveway, and four long-maned ponies are already frolicking, playing like children expending pent-up energy after a long day in a school room.

Fog sits atop the trees in the distance, but where the sun has reached the trees nearer to us, the gold, red and green colors of their leaves are astonishingly bright. A fox, sleek and nimble, darts into the yard and quickly passes through on its way to the woods on the other side of our unit.

Over in the field, the playful ponies are now being pursued by a herd of goats, running to join the party. Behind them, a contrast in speed and movement, two cows lumber down the fenceline, in no hurry to see what all of the fuss is about.

My insatiable need for morning coffee consumes me, so I make a small pot, pour myself a cup and then return to the view from my window. The animal party has quieted down and the frost is disappearing except in the shadow of a lone tree in the yard. All of the leaves, already an amazing show of color, somehow seem impossibly brighter as the sun continues its upward journey.

A hint of fog still is visible further off on the horizon, on the high hills that call out and issue an invitation. “Come. See what's here. It's a Saturday in central Ohio on the edge of the Great Appalachian Valley, and you need to explore.”

Indeed, I will heed its call.

There's Still No Place: Writing A Play Doesn’t Make Homelessness Go Away

The Cave Lady.

That’s what the locals in Eau Claire called Maude Phillips. Her story contributes an odd and interesting chapter to the local folklore. Using the pen name Violet Leigh, she was an eccentric poet whose scorecard included two involuntary stays in the insane asylum, five children, one patient husband, and too many admitted affairs to count, including one with a local minister that led to a court case and bankruptcy. Her financial situation became so dire that she rounded up her family and took up residence in a cave along the Eau Claire River in 1917. The authorities tried for months to get her to leave, but did not succeed until they had her committed for the second time to the state mental hospital in Mendota. Her curious life has been the subject of articles, books and even a play.

When I was told this story by a shop clerk in Eau Claire and heard that the cave was walking distance from my vacation rental, I was determined to see it for myself. Not a tourist attraction you can find on a map, I had to do some digging to find out exactly where it was and how to reach it. 

My excitement at locating the former underground home of the crazy Cave Lady was immediately dashed, however, when I saw that a tent was set up in the cave, accompanied by a bicycle and various bags of possessions. Like it had been so many years ago, but with considerably less notoriety, the cave was once again a residence. I silently retreated, embarrassed and somewhat ashamed. What was a lark to see a bit of local history turned into a shocking revelation. Nothing had changed in a century, yet so much had changed in a century. The authorities were in no rush to evict this cave dweller, nor will his name be the subject of essays, books or plays in 2120. He is not a celebrity now, nor will he become a local legend. 

Two years ago, I set out to write a play about homelessness for a community outreach project at the Janesville Performing Arts Center. To research the topic, I did the things well-meaning volunteers do: spend time with the men at the GIFTS homeless shelter, go on the overnight Rock County homeless count, interview non-profit leaders about the services they provide. It was a real learning experience, and it opened my eyes to a lot of the issues the homeless face, as well as the wide variety of experiences that lead them there and the obstacles to escaping it.

For a while, I felt pretty good about what I accomplished with the play, titled “There’s No Place.” Then, for the most part, I just went back to my old life. Some artists say experiences like this change their lives. And it would be incorrect to say that I don’t view the plight of the homeless differently now. But it didn’t really affect my behavior going forward.

One of the scenes in the play featured a character living in a tent under a downtown bridge. He had a job, and he even had a car he drove to work and parked on a side street at night. The situation was based on a combination of experiences I heard about on the night of the homeless count. I created not only the character, but I imagined a specific area of downtown Janesville where he might be found living. I had gone to Beloit the night of the count, so my supposition about the Janesville location was pure conjecture.

Then this summer, while riding my bicycle on the city trail, I nearly fell off my bike when I spotted a tent at the base of the railroad bridge just west of the Monterey Bridge on Center Avenue. This was almost exactly the place I had pictured in my mind. Way off to the back of the empty parking lot next door, a beater car sat, seemingly parked as far from street view as possible. The similarities to what I had created shocked me.

Since that discovery, my eyes seem to be opened and my radar turned back on. I once again notice the sleeping bags trying to hide from view, the people wandering downtown carrying all of their possessions, the men in dirty clothes sitting alone on benches staring into space. It’s like when you buy a certain car, you suddenly see that model everywhere you look. So it is with me now and the homeless.

Eau Claire has many similarities to what Janesville is in the process of becoming, with a revitalized downtown focused on its rivers with murals, public art, paved trails and pedestrian bridges. In fact, one almost feels like downtown Eau Claire is a template for the ARISE program. But like Janesville, your visit downtown will show you that here, too, homelessness still exists. 

Like the sleeping bags you find along the paved trails between Mercy Hospital and Riverside Park, the homeless in Eau Claire seem to gravitate to the river. A woman we had seen sleeping under a tree next to the bike trail later startled the entire neighborhood with a screaming fit that was loud enough to hear through closed windows from our rental a half-block away. She sat under the tree, raging at an unknown someone or something, her arms waving and her voice screeching. This went on for almost 45 minutes, earning lots of stares from nearby pedestrians and shop employees. Finally, my wife called the police to ask them to check on her welfare. We watched from our window as an officer engaged her for less than a minute. He left, and then she left. And for the rest of the week, as I walked or biked past the tree where she had been, I couldn’t help but wonder where she went and what happened to her. What was her story? What was she yelling about? Where did she go? Did the officer know her? Did he simply tell her to calm down and leave? 

A fleeting thought went through my mind while she was having her episode, to go down and talk to her. But ultimately, fear of what she might do overcame me. Was she dangerous? Would she make me the object of her rage? I felt impotent, watching this play out but not having the courage to see if all she needed was a caring human being to engage her in conversation.

When all was said and done, “There’s No Place” did what it was intended to do. Expertly directed and acted, it spurred some community conversation and brought awareness to the different aspects of the homeless problem. But now, two years later, new thoughts consume me. Did it all make any real difference? Did a single homeless person benefit because someone who saw the play took action?

And why didn’t it change me?

Messing With Bessie

(Published in the Janesville Messenger, 3-27-2016)

Don't mess with Bessie.

That message comes through loud and clear from certain locals whenever Janesville's iconic cow gets adorned with anything from high heels to pink spots to Mexican headwear.

So I imagine a segment of the population is none too pleased about the recent announcement that Bessie is transitioning from a Guernsey to a Holstein. Apparently cows,

"Pic-Cow-So"

 unlike leopards, can change their spots.

I certainly understand the reasoning behind the change. After all, when you think of cows, especially Wisconsin cows, the image that usually comes to mind is that of a black-and-white Holstein. At the Wisconsin-themed gift shops, you'll find everything from T-shirts to mailboxes adorned in Holstein colors. And no less an expert than “Far Side” cartoonist Gary Larson chose the Holstein as his representative dairy cow in hundreds of strips.

Not that there is anything wrong with Guernseys. I'm sure they are perfectly fine cows. But do these reddish-orange bovines make you think “Wisconsin”? Personally, having grown up on a dairy farm where we exclusively milked Holsteins, I like the impending change.

But this reflection of the local zeitgeist is about more than just aesthetics. Making Bessie a Holstein could truly be a cash cow for Janesville. The change in appearance should stimulate lagging merchandise sales. “New” Bessie T-shirts, postcards, photos andother items will likely be solid moo-vers. Consider Bessie's new look the equivalent of a sports team adding alternate jerseys. It's no accident that the Packers occasionally wear blue, and Brewers jerseys come in every color from gold to blue to red. A new look equals new sales, a fact not lost on city fathers.

To that end, “Bessie's Milk House” will be constructed in a section of the parking lot next to Bessie. The small gift stand will feature the aforementioned Bessie items as well as other related goods like Cow Pie candies.

Although the benefits to Bessie's Holsteinism are many, it is acknowledged that not everyone will be happy about the change. Artist Harry Breederman of Chicago was ultimately chosen to do the work on Bessie after local artists were offered the job – and turned it down. One Rock County artist told me that she believed the backlash would kill her career here. “I wouldn't touch Bessie with a 10-foot brush,” she said. Others apparently felt likewise.

Breederman, however, seems a perfect choice for the job. Renowned for “bold” projects in the Windy City, Bessie will not be his first Holstein. To celebrate Illinois Farm Progress Days in 2004, Breederman temporarily transformed the Picasso in Chicago's Daley Plaza into an abstract version of Bessie-To-Be. He dubbed his work - wait for it - “Pic-Cow-So.”

The mixed reviews that project generated may serve as ample preparation for what Breederman might hear once work begins on Bessie, depending on how outraged art lovers express themselves as opposed to outraged agriculturalists.

Whether it's a new bypass around Milton or the closing of the General Motors plant, change is often hard to swallow. But with time, wounds heal and we move on. Rock County residents are a sturdy lot, and while we may get our bibs in a bunch for a brief spell, I suspect that the new black-and-white Bessie will be warmly embraced. Excitement will be in the air on the day of her grand unveiling, when the city council and the local chamber ambassadors pose for a photo in front of Bessie and unfurl a banner that reads:

“April Fool.”

The Jeffris' Final Act

(From the Janesville Messenger, 12-27-2015) 

In a book or play, the denouement is described as the final outcome of the story, generally occurring after the climax of the plot.

That definition can be applied to the recent demolition of the old Jeffris Theater in downtown Janesville. Its fate was sealed nearly a decade earlier when much of it was taken down, leaving the facade and not much else. But the march toward its ultimate demise began 32 years ago with a devastating fire. That was followed by carving the building into multiple screens, and eventually abandonment, years of decay and destruction.

By the time of my childhood, the Jeffris was already a faded rose, no longer the “luxurious” showcase described in its 1924 grand opening advertising. I recall shabby, threadbare carpet in the lobby and wear and tear throughout the building. But I also remember the stairs leading to the balcony providing a clue to the theater's former grandeur.

The Jeffris was cavernous, with 1,500 seats. Unlike today's screen-on-the-wall cinemas, the Jeffris had a stage and curtains, a reminder of its history of live entertainment. Rather than being an ignored part of its past, the curtains were still drawn and closed at the beginning and end of movies.

As a lover of good motion pictures and ornate old theaters, it was painful to have a front-row seat for the beginning of the end of the Jeffris on March 27, 1983.

For me, that Sunday morning started out much like any other over the previous year and a half. A journalism major at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, I was working a part-time job at WCLO/WJVL Radio writing and delivering the weekend newscasts. While other college students were sleeping off their Saturday night misadventures, I was making 5 a.m. visits to the law enforcement agencies, checking the blotters for any items worthy enough to write up for the morning newscasts.

Weekends were often slow for local news, which was just fine for a kid trying to learn his craft. But the Janesville Police Department had a scoop for me: the Jeffris was on fire. I remember not being overly impressed with that information at first, maybe because I was still in the process of waking up. One glance down Milwaukee Street, however, shook the cobwebs from my brain; I had a big story to cover.

As a raw rookie and the only one on duty, handling this developing story while doing the newscasts on both stations kept me hopping. Eventually, the narrative took a tragic turn when a body, asphyxiated by the smoke, was found in the adjoining Monterey Hotel.

It was a rarity on a Sunday morning when the telephone in the newsroom rang. But it started ringing off the hook. WTMJ from Milwaukee called, asking me to provide audio for them. Gulp. I still broke into a sweat when the “On Air” light came on in the WCLO studio in little old Janesville. Now I was recording a news story for a Milwaukee station? It took me two takes, and the second was less than perfect, but I wasn't going to make the poor big city producer sit through another one. The Associated Press picked up the story, too, sending it over the teletype to radio stations statewide with my name on it.

The Jeffris fire was my first big on-the-job test. I passed, but any satisfaction I felt was always tempered by the realization that if a downtown landmark doesn't burn and a hotel resident doesn't die, it's just another Sunday that I filled out a time card.

With the Jeffris' final exit, all of the local movie screens that existed when I was young have now vanished. It joins the Myers, the Hi-Way 26 Outdoor and the Mid-City Outdoor as cinematic ghosts.

But the loss of the others isn't as meaningful to me as the Jeffris. As downtown redevelopment begins to take hold in Janesville, I think of that 1983 fire and wonder “what if.”

A Life of Leisure

(From the Janesville Messenger, 11-29-2015)

They exist.

Like the name of Lord Voldemort, they are not to be spoken of aloud in my house. But every so often, they show themselves. Their appearance fills me with unspeakable horror. Others are thrown into convulsive fits.

Of laughter.

They are...the Leisure Suit Photos.

These horrible prints exist to prove that I was the epitome of the awkward adolescent. The baby blue leisure suit was, incomprehensibly, my wardrobe of choice for major events in my 8^th grade year. Thus, the amazing Technicolor nightmare-coat is captured for posterity in photographs of my church confirmation and my class trip to the nation's capitol. My round baby face, bowl haircut and wire-rimmed glasses accentuate a look that can best be described as Androgynous Math Team Captain. But the topper, so to speak, was my attempt to complete the stunning hipness of the leisure suit by donning a newsboy cap adorned with Schlitz logos. I am not making this up. You will have to trust me because you will never, ever see those photos.

My only consolation is that I wasn't the only one suckered into the leisure suit fad during that time period. But I can't count that as an anomaly. My particular brand of fashion cluelessness knew no bounds. In fact, the only reason I ever stopped wearing flare pants was when the stores stopped selling them.

Fortunately, other photos of me from four decades ago are a little less embarrassing. And they provide interesting snapshots, if you will, about what was popular in culture at the time.

For example, one unearthed picture shows me sitting in my bedroom chatting on a CB radio. Like so many others, I jumped with both feet into the CB fad, mesmerized by the world of truckers and the excitement of the song “Convoy.” My handle was “The Flying Camel,” a nickname given to me thanks to my ineptitude on the basketball court. Sometimes you might as well just embrace the truth.

In retrospect, CB was an electronic forerunner of Facebook. Like Facebook, your conversations and proclamations were out there for the world to hear, and often laced with too much information. And as adults have stolen Facebook from the college kids, the wave of non-truckers ended up hijacking CB from the truckers (for a while, anyway).

This is not to say that I was a complete slave to every fad that came along. Pet rock? Never owned one. Mood ring? Ditto. Disco music? Ugh. It made me want to run rather than dance, though neither option was a pretty sight.

But the old photos do reveal the other fad I was involved in - beer can collecting. Stacked against my wood-paneled bedroom wall, a pyramid of rusty tin and shiny aluminum rose up like a shrine. Besides the obvious brands and cans, there were the collectibles that everyone wanted. The Schmidt cans with all of the outdoor scenes. The Steel City can with the Pittsburgh Steelers team photo. The Olde Frothingslosh can with the plus-size bathing beauty.

Serious collectors like me, however, had to go the extra step. If you wanted the old, rare cans, you needed to get your hands dirty. So the teenage me hopped on his bicycle and rummaged through dumps looking for old beer cans.

There were several little private dumps in my rural neighborhood, pieces of property where I was technically trespassing. Without the aid of gloves or cleaning supplies (yuck), I picked through piles of old cans like an archaeologist clearing away the soil to reveal the ancient layers of rock below. Whether it was a Pabst from the age before pull tabs, or an early version of Lite, or even a much-prized “cone top” can, I rarely came away empty-handed.

These newly rescued prizes needed to look as wonderful as possible. So I removed the rust by dipping the beer cans in a solution of oxalic acid, a compound you could get at the local drug store. Yes, I even turned beer can collecting into a junior high science experiment.

Doesn't that sound exactly like something a geek in a leisure suit would do?

Return of the Farm Boys

(Published in the Janesville Messenger, Beloit Shopping News and Walworth County Sunday, 10-5-2015)

The memories came flooding back as my brother and I examined the 65-year-old Allis-Chalmers WD farm tractor on display at the Rock River Thresheree.

It had been a long time since I had seen one of those, but everything was just as I remembered from the pair of WDs we used on our farm. The choke and the starter underneath the steering column. The hand crank on the front. The toolbox attached to the inside of the left fender, which served as a perfect seat for a young passenger.

One thing not present that I vividly recalled was the smell of my dad's tractor. The steering wheel contained an aroma that is difficult to describe, almost like a combination of burnt rubber and oil. And suddenly, that odor from 35 years ago was fresh in my mind.

People are surprised when they find out that my childhood was spent on a dairy farm. My life since high school certainly doesn't reflect that background. Advertising sales, writing and community theater are a far cry from driving manure spreaders and carrying milk pails. Neckties were rarely worn with green seed corn caps.

It was a life that I have come to appreciate far more now than when it was my daily reality. As the baby of the family, my siblings were all a decade or so older and were out of the house when I was still young. In effect, I was an only child, and a pretty spoiled and bratty one at that.

When my siblings went to school, our neighborhood was still dominated by family farms. By my childhood, things were starting to change. Subdivisions were creeping in, and my closest school friends were not the offspring of farmers. Their lives were different. They took summer vacations and their hardest chores seemed to be picking up their room or drying the dishes. Meanwhile, farm kids were expected to help in the barn and in the fields. Rather than truly understanding the sacrifices my parents made to keep a roof over our head, resentment crept in. I am not proud of my behavior or attitude in those days; it's a regret that haunts me.

So my trip to the Thresheree was more than just a day spent for entertainment. It was a day to reconnect both with my farming past and with my older brother, with whom my ten year gap seems not nearly as long as it used to.

Naturally, the tractors that caught our attention first were the ones similar to those we grew up with: the Allis-Chalmers, the IH 560, the old Farmall. My brother pointed out a John Deere model B my uncle once owned, a 2-cylinder nicknamed the “Johnny Popper” because of its distinctive sound.

We marveled at older, early 20^th Century models that were astonishingly large, resembling steam railroad locomotives more than farm machinery.

Always present in our minds with these beasts, old or new, is the danger factor. We both knew about that all too well. While working in the hay fields with my father one day, he barely escaped serious injury – or possibly death - when his pants leg got caught in the power take off shaft between the tractor and the baler. The machinery ripped off his pants, leaving him straddling the shaft in his underwear, boots, and unbelievably, the belt around his waist. Bolting from the hay wagon to the tractor to kill the ignition was the fastest dash in the history of my life.

That was just one chain in the acres of information my brother and I shared that day. He inquired about my memories and offered his. We compared notes and told stories the other hadn't heard before. It was almost like we grew up on the farm in different eras, like a TV show that changes characters over time. He was Trapper John, I was B.J. Hunnicutt.

Sitting and watching a parade of antique tractors go by, a Simon and Garfunkel lyric came to mind.

“Old friends/sat on their park bench like bookends...”

Giving It Up For Vacation

(Published in the Janesville Messenger, 6-30-2015)

My father was a dairy farmer, the type of one-man operation that has all but disappeared from our area. From the time of his honeymoon to his retirement nearly 37 years later, he averaged one day of vacation a year. Often, his lone day off would be a trip with my uncles to play the ponies at Arlington Park. My mother rarely received even that limited respite from her responsibilities as farmer's wife and its daily regimen of cooking, cleaning and child-rearing. Any leisure time my parents afforded themselves needed to fall between the morning milking and the evening milking. Their bosses were literally bossies; four or five dozen Holsteins who dictated the work schedule.

 

When I think about my parents' lives, it makes me all the more grateful to have a job that allows me to take vacation, and that we have the opportunity to use that time to create family memories. My wife and I and our two college-age children recently made the long drive out west to visit all five of Utah's spectacular national parks.

I've come to think of vacations as more than sight-seeing tours. They have become the mental equivalent of a cleanse, a detox for the soul. Like a Lenten Season Catholic, I give up things. This year's list was longer than usual: work e-mail, Facebook, caffeine, soda and, um, shaving.

 

Shaving aside, these took some determination. Not checking my work e-mail – and doing actual work – can be a challenge for me. The urge is strong to make sure all is going smoothly with the job that finances these trips. I've written proposals from log cabins Up Nort' and responded to ad agency inquiries standing by the Hollywood sign. But the point of this trip was to be present with my family, consumed by nothing except our time together and the amazing works of nature around us.

 

There are ways to break habits, and as Occam's Razor states, the simplest solution is usually the right one. Once upon a time, I had a tendency to spend weekend afternoons woofing down an entire package of Double Stuf Oreos. At some point I realized that, gee, if they aren't in the house, I can't eat them. So I stopped bringing them home from the grocery store. Likewise, to ensure there would be no succumbing to temptation on this trip, the Gmail application was completely removed from my Smartphone. Ditto the Facebook app, as virtual interactions with friends had become habitual to the point of addiction. Once deleted, however, I didn't give either a second thought. Out of sight was truly out of mind.  

 

Foregoing caffeine had the potential to be painful, and by all rights, it should have been. When your usual daily intake is the equivalent of over a full pot of coffee and/or multiple sodas, you should expect a honey of a caffeine-withdrawal headache, but it never came. It feels like I cheated the system, going cold turkey without adverse symptoms.

 

Naturally, once vacation was over, the e-mail app was re-installed. So was Facebook, though I seriously considered deactivating my account and walking away from it for good. Unfortunately, I feel like I can't, because people would either think I unfriended them or died.

 

Not all of the vacation sacrifices were temporary. My eschewance of soda has been completely maintained; good riddance to aspartame and brominated vegetable oil. And I've only had caffeinated coffee during my regular Sunday morning visits with my mother and brother. Not because I find their company to be sleep-inducing, but because it seems wrong to drink decaf out of the Waffle House mug that I keep at my mother's house. Drinking decaf at a Waffle House (or at my mom's, for that matter) would be like eating a veggie burger at Culver's.

 

As for shaving, I met that one halfway. Let's just say this column might need a new photo.

A Head In The Clouds

(Published in the Janesville Messenger, 8-30-2015)

"The sky is an infinite movie to me. I never get tired of looking at what's happening up there.”

-k. d. lang

When this year's Perseid meteor shower was at its peak, my son Rob and I drove to the countryside, away from the lights of the city. Atop a blanket thrown onto his car, we lay on our backs, scanning the heavens. It reminded me of going to a drive-in theater in the days of my youth, but no outdoor screen ever compared to the vast canvas we were viewing. The Milky Way we were enjoying didn't come from the snack bar.

Unlike your typical B-movie fare, there wasn't a lot of action. The only thing resembling drama was when the odd motorist's headlights found us and wondered why two guys were parked on the shoulder looking at the sky. But our patience was rewarded with three bright meteors and a bonus glimpse of the International Space Station when we were alerted via text message that it was coming into view. Another memory came with it, from about 40 years ago, of a night when my father and I watched the skies over our farm to see Skylab orbiting overhead.

The Perseids aside, this summer has been an amazing one to look at the skies, through fair weather or foul. We've seen double rainbows, incredible lightning shows, and hazy sunsets dimmed by Canadian wildfires. When my wife and I take our regular evening walks, the setting sun always seems to create a new shade of pink, purple or orange shining brightly as we look down the railroad tracks to see the western horizon. And the cloud formations we saw during a stormy evening trip to central Illinois were like something out of a Hubble Telescope photo.

Some Wisconsinites have even been fortunate enough to see the Aurora Borealis this year. I have only seen the Aurora once, but like a major historical event, I will never forget where I was when it happened. Unfortunately, it was in the days before smartphones so I couldn't capture the moment, but the mental picture I took remains clear and unpixelated.

My renewed appreciation for the cosmos may have been spurred several years ago when my son and I camped with the Boy Scouts in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains of New Mexico. In the middle of our first night, I ventured out of our tent to answer nature's call. The number of stars in that crystal clear sky, far from any hint of light pollution, absolutely floored me. It was easy to believe Carl Sagan's assertion that there were billions and billions. After a few moments of standing and staring in amazement, it finally occurred to me that I had better get about my business before a bear or cougar spoiled my stargazing.

That same trip also treated me to the most wondrous sunrise I ever witnessed. Our guide had us get up early and hike to the top of a mesa, where eight of us silently watched the day begin as the miles and miles of New Mexico before us emerged from darkness. I am not ashamed to admit that the beauty of it made me weep.

Funny how in a world filled with just about any amazing thing you can think of, sometimes the simplest pleasures are the most satisfying. We look at our computer screens, we look at our televisions, we look down at our phones. Too often, we forget to look up and see the wonders above us.

In Search Of My Father

(This is the first column I ever published, from a 1996 local magazine called "On The Rock.")

I've been thinking a lot about my father lately. It's been almost 11 years since we lost him now. I was a young man when he died, with 23 years of memories stored up. Yet as time marches further and further from the day we laid him to rest, I worry about forgetting him.

I have children of my own now, children to whom Grandpa Lyke is simply a series of photographs. Children to whom Grandpa Lyke is just a name in the list of “God blesses” at the end of their prayers, though his name carries the special addition, “up in Heaven with the angels and God.” When my kids get older, I want to be able to tell them in meticulous detail all out the grandfather they never knew. I want them to know about his subtle wink, his hearty laugh, his huge hands, and his arms that were constantly scratched and scarred from farm work. I want them to know how he would relax by pitching horseshoes when his work was done. I want them to know how he astounded me by reciting the 1957 Milwaukee Braves lineup from memory twenty years after their heyday. I want them to know how he would take us on long Sunday drives through the countryside, never telling us our destination.

I'll never forget him, obviously. Putting these items down on paper will help ensure that I don't. But for every detail I remember vividly, I wonder about what I've forgotten. For example, his voice. I can no longer remember what his voice sounded like. I am hoping that among the things at my mother's house, I can find a recording of his voice. I have always regretted that he wasn't here on earth to see me evolve from a confused kid just out of college to a proud home-owning father with a suit-and-tie job. That he wasn't here to see his two grandchildren, including the one that bears his name. I can only take solace in the faith that I have, that he does indeed know all of this.

After an unemployed summer spent in pursuit of an advertising job, I finally got the one I wanted early in September of 1985. I called home, ecstatic, and when my dad answered the phone, I filled his ear for 15 minutes about what a great job I had just won. When I finally got around to asking how things were on the homefront, he told me that he had been diagnosed with cancer.

I placed myself firmly in denial. I convinced myself that his surgery was routine, and that within a few weeks, he would be home and all would be back to normal. He knew better. The day before the surgery, my family got together. At the time, we were not a huggy, kissy family. So when I left that Sunday, I started to go as usual, with simply a goodbye and a wave. My dad suddenly came up to me and gave me a huge, long hug. I was surprised, to be sure, but it still didn't faze me that this could be the last time I ever hugged my father. It was.

A little more than a month later, his body unable to recover from the surgery meant to save him, he demanded to be removed from all the medical machinery and brought back home. My family and I spent an agonizing four days in our living room, taking shifts staying up with him and holding his hand, as he fought the sleep from which he knew he would not awaken. Finally, at 1:20 pm on Halloween, surrounded by his entire family, a pastor and a nurse, he finally lost the fight. It was not a Hollywood death. His eyes didn't close, his mouth didn't close, his head didn't flop. He just stopped living. His last words had simply been, “last day.”

I do not want to remember my father by the last month of his life. Those details are far too vivid, surreal and disturbing. I want to remember him by the first 61 years and 5 months of life; the 23 years I knew that preceded that final month. And that's why I am so concerned about forgetting those details.

It's amazing, though, the memories you can pull out of storage when something reminds you. Recently, I was reading my daughter a library book, when one of those vivid reminiscences occurred. The book was written by a farm boy who had witnessed his father get badly injured, and nearly killed, when his clothing got caught in some farm machinery. I did not know what the book, a true story, was about when I started reading. But when I read the story, it hit me hard. When I was a teen, I had witnessed something eerily similar happen to my father. He was climbing up onto a tractor when his pant leg got caught in the spinning mechanism that operated our hay baler. When I heard the commotion and turned around, I saw my dad, pantless, straddling this bar that was spinning at God-knows-how-many rpm. I got the tractor turned off and helped him, painfully aware that I had almost witnessed a tragic accident. Amazingly, his pants were ripped completely off him, but his belt remained around his waist. I can't imagine how much that had to hurt. Despite the pattern of bruises all over his legs, he was incredibly lucky. What if his pants hadn't torn free? What if his legs hadn't been long enough to straddle the bar? Too many farmers have suffered far worse at the hands of their machinery.

I have been interested lately in my dad's childhood, which I knew little about. My aunt recently told me where I could find their childhood home, the farmhouse where my dad was actually born. I'm sure I had seen it before, probably on one of our long Sunday drives, but that would have been when I was a child. Now, as an adult, I was determined to really see it. I was armed with an old township plat book and my aunt's description of the house to pinpoint its location. I didn't know what to expect. I imagined that I might see a neglected old farmhouse on an abandoned farm. To my surprise, the farm was still a working operation and the farmhouse was in great shape. I drove past it slow a few times, trying to imagine his arrival on a spring day in 1924.

As I drove away from that farm, I thought about all of the things I would ask him if he were alive. I hope, as my children grow, they will have both the interest, and the opportunity, to ask me.

I Like Iyke

(From the Janesville Messenger, 5-11-2015)

You might be impressed that 274 people are following me on Twitter. Until you know that 265 of them think I am someone else.

Of course, the first question you may ask is why on Earth I am on Twitter in the first place. And in all honesty, there is really no good reason, at least not from a personal standpoint.

It all dates back to 2009, the year of my great social media awakening, when I officially became part of the generation that stole Facebook from America's youth. Facebook was fun and even addicting, but Twitter? I didn't see the point.

Then my employer added a new feature to its digital billboards which allowed us to use Twitter to instantly update information on the displays. The primary demonstrator needed to create an account that tied into the billboards, and that fell to me.

In doing so, I unwittingly erred in two ways. One, it was set up like my own account, using my real name. Second, the profile identified me as an actor with a photo in costume as Cogsworth the clock from “Disney's Beauty and the Beast.”

The account served its purpose. The first 100 or so tweets were almost exclusively from trade shows in Janesville and Rockford. At some point in mid-2011, however, I noticed that I actually had followers – a lot of them. Most were women from the African continent, especially Nigeria. Assuming it was a scam of some sort, I ignored them. But similar friend requests, messages and followers started showing up on Facebook, too. After comparing notes with my friends, it appeared that no one else was receiving these African contacts.

Finally, a comment in one of the uninvited messages gave me a clue. A Google search revealed the answer – a Nigerian actor named Jim Iyke. He is a Nollywood (Nigerian Hollywood) sex symbol and bad boy. The confusion with me was obvious.

Apparently, the lower case L in my Twitter name, plus the reference to being an actor, led to my large group of admirers. The profile photo of a dorky white guy dressed as a clock did nothing to dissuade them. Amused by this discovery, I briefly changed my Facebook profile photo to one of Mr. Iyke.

Boy, was THAT a mistake.

A tsunami of messages and friend requests from overseas engulfed my account. It was like the movie “Monty Python's Life of Brian” when poor Brian gets mistaken for the Messiah and can't convince anyone otherwise.

Three times in six months, I tweeted my followers to alert them they had the wrong guy. It didn't work; the fans kept coming. It was time for a new approach.

@jimlyke7 – 7 Jan 2012: I quit movies. I hate Nollywood. Moving to Turkey.

That didn't work. Therefore, another tweet.

@jimlyke7 – 25 Jan 2012: Nollywood is the worst. I am quitting movies. I hate my fans. I am moving to America because I hate Africa.

In retrospect, maybe that wasn't the most mature way to go about it, though it was kind of fun. Subsequent solutions included the hashtag #NotNigerian, highlighting my non-African heritage on my Twitter profile, and adding a big cover photo that practically screamed “I am a goofy Caucasian!” I even went so far as to change my Facebook name to Jim NotTheNigerianActor Lyke.

The message finally seemed to register. Though it doesn't appear that many of my foreign friends have actually un-followed me, the Facebook messages have trickled down to almost none except an occasional “hi plz frnd me.”

The recent Twitter activity to establish my true identity actually led to some real followers. This is turn encouraged me to send a few tweets; just for the novelty of it, I guess. But I'm still not seeing a real need or purpose for a guy like me to use Twitter, other than perhaps as a source of news, sports and weather information.

Or...maybe to promote a certain monthly newspaper column. What do you think, Mr. Editor?

A Role To Dye For

(From the Janesville Messenger, 4-19-2015) 

Being involved in community theater makes you do funny things.

That doesn't always mean presenting comedic lines. Sometimes, what you have to do to prepare for a stage role is the bigger, and stranger, challenge.

For instance, learning how to juggle beer cans. Or how to imitate Julia Child. Or how to talk like a donkey. Or how to waltz - while wearing a bulky clock costume - with someone dressed as a wardrobe. That particular dance ended up being cut from the show, a decision that may have saved lives.

Away from rehearsals, however, my only obvious concession to being cast in a play has been the addition of facial hair. Whenever whiskers sprout, friends and relatives automatically assume there's a play in my future. They are often right. For “Camelot,” it meant growing a full beard that came in so white, it added years to my appearance. As soon as the final audience was gone, so was the beard. To play Cogsworth in “Disney's Beauty and the Beast,” my facial enhancement was a snazzy Frank Zappa moustache and soul patch combo that I was quite fond of.

But for a recent role as a priest in the drama “Doubt,” the director requested two beautification events that are generally avoided by males of the species.

My character was at least a decade younger than my real age and the director thought my graying temples were not right for the role. A request was made to have my hair dyed back to its darker original color.

Chemicals in my hair is not a foreign concept for me. In my late teens, my sister gave me home perms to give me a hip afro, like a Caucasian Billy Preston or a “Hotel California”-era Don Henley. Many years later, I made an ill-fated attempt at dying the aforementioned white beard at home, which ended in a stained-face disaster reminiscent of an Emmett Kelly poster.

The risk of looking like I was fighting middle age was one thing. Growing my fingernails long was nearly a deal-breaker.

My character's long fingernails are mentioned several times in the play's dialogue. There is even a point where he shows off his nails to the audience. Reluctant to use fake nails for fear of them falling off during a performance, the director asked me to grow mine out.

The biggest concern was that, being in sales, long nails would look unprofessional and require explanation. But I dutifully followed instructions and allowed them to progress uncut.

Oh. My.

They were barely half the length they needed to be, and I was already going crazy. Longer nails just felt wrong. There were weird clicking sounds when I typed. Scratching an itch drew blood.

It was time to revisit the fake nail scenario. A nice, if amused, young woman at a beauty supply store helped me pick out some press-on nails. Trying them on for a rehearsal, it became apparent that losing one during a show was not a concern; those suckers weren't going anywhere. The director approved. My real nails could be cut. Oh, joy. Rapture!

Thankfully, one of the females in the cast asked how I was planning on removing the nails. Unbeknownst to me, normal nail polish remover wasn't going to work. She said it would require pure acetone. It might have made for an interesting evening at home if she hadn't mentioned that.

Wearing my winter gloves to disguise my benailed fingers, I made a second trip to the beauty supply store. To my surprise, when you buy pure acetone, you have to show your ID. Apparently, not only does acetone do a great job removing fake nails, but also your faculties; it can be used to produce meth. You can't say this wasn't a learning experience.

As it turned out, a cast illness resulted in the show's cancellation, so having my hair dyed turned out to be in vain. Or at least, that's what some people assume.

Anyone need a bottle of pure acetone?