Yesterday’s blog started with a tongue in cheek illusion as to the importance of my blogging abilities and me. That got me to thinking about how many of us are very hung-up on ourselves, and our importance to the world. It’s amazing how many people feel they are indispensable to their boss, their friends, or their country. I hadn’t thought about the country angle until just now, but can you imagine how many people are in Washington at this very minute that think they are essential to the success of the USA?

Well, the sad fact is, every one of us can, and will be replaced, or done without at some point in our lives. We don’t like to think about it, but even families continue to live and succeed after a mom or dad passes away. Is it easy? No, but it happens. As a teenager my dad used to remind me every now and then that when it came to work, anybody can be replaced. February of this year marked the tenth anniversary of my leaving Fourway Ginning Association, after being the managing partner for nineteen years. Guess what? The gin is still there, and still doing business. My good friend and partner Lee Billings took over after I left, and I expect has done a better job than I ever did.

I used to run Fourway with the attitude that I could not be replaced. I felt like the partners would have a difficult time without me. People who meet me now look at my bucket hat, nametag, or book, and say, “GRUMPY, there’s no way you could be Grumpy!”  I get a kick out of that because for most of the nineteen years I ran Fourway Gin that’s exactly what I was, and you can ask anyone who knew me and they will confirm it for you.

For two or three years I had an office assistant named Sheila. Now, Sheila was a smart, girl with what appeared to be, not much sense. You know what I mean? I swear when that girl walked by you could hear bells ringing because she was dingy. I told her one time that the mistake she had just made was so obvious that she should have seen the light come on. Her response? “Well Kent the lights did come on, they just wudn’t nobody home.” I love that girl. She was fun to have around the office. She got along well with the farmers, and she made a mean chicken gumbo every once in a while.

Sheila asked me one time, “Kent since Angie brings her little boy to the office sometimes can I bring my birds?”

“WHAT!”

“Well I didn’t think it would hurt to ask, they’re really nice birds.”

Sheila didn’t get to bring her birds to the office, but that incident did earn her a cute nickname, Parakeet. Once I called her that it stuck, and all the farmers took to calling her that as well.

The thing is Parakeet helped to open my eyes as to the way I came across to folks most of the time. She was heading over to Seminole one day, so I asked her to drop by the cleaners and pick up some Levi’s I had had cleaned. She brought them to me without saying a word. But the next day as I sat there in my usual grumpy mood biting the head off anyone who might be dumb enough to come in contact with me, Parakeet came over and began rubbing my leg. Then she looked at me and said, “No wonder you’re always in such a bad mood, those jeans are so tight and stiff I’d be in a bad mood too.”

You know folks, she had a point, maybe not about the well-starched jeans, but about the uptight way I was living. I think I was a little to hung up on my importance to the world, and it was having an adverse effect on me. It wasn’t long after that that I bought my first pair of Dockers. I even came up with a speech title, From Briefs and Jeans to Boxers and Dockers. Even though I’ve never come up with the actual speech those words have stuck with me for quite a while, and they help remind me to lighten up when I get to feeling that things should go exactly the way I want them. Thanks Parakeet, I’ll love you forever, and my friends thank you too.  

Till next time,

Grump