As I get older, I keep remembering lessons my dad taught me when I was younger. I want to share one with you. My wife and I were at our Las Vegas home last week. When we woke up on Thursday to catch our flight home, my wife wasn’t feeling well and didn’t think it was a good idea to get on a plane.
So, we decided to drive home instead. On the way, we hit snow and ice in Susanville, California. It stayed like that until we were about 3 miles north of Weed. There were trucks stuck everywhere in Weed, but the road was clear by then. Between Weed and the small Weed airport exit, we saw trucks pulled over taking their chains off. Here’s where the lesson comes in.
My dad taught me that if you have work to do, you just do it. Don’t complain, just get it done. Whether that’s tarping a load of lumber or putting on chains, you do it. I was passing trucks driving 55 mph, fully chained up, 30 miles from any snow. They probably thought they’d need the chains again in the mountains, but they were too lazy to take them off. You could hear the chains hitting their trailers. We passed at least 50 chains on the road.
Bottom line: the drivers looked lazy and stupid. My dad was right—just do the work. I never understood why people would worry about it instead of just getting it done. It’s been 12 years since my stepdad (the man who raised me) passed away on January 13th, 2012, but his lessons are with me every day.
-Troy