A Candy Applish, Sparkly Gold Rolls Royce. © Lee Broom from Leadership, A Love Story.

 

 

“All you have to do is know where you’re going. The answers will come to you of their own accord”.        Earl Nightingale.

“The biggest mistake that you can make is to believe that you are working for somebody else. Job security is gone. The driving force of a career must come from the individual. Remember: Jobs are owned by the company, you own your career!” Earl Nightingale.

“You become what you think about, you will reap what you sow and you must provide service to others.” Earl Nightingale.

 I was in the workroom of Lee Broom Gallery and Framery. It was a beautiful spring day in Scottsdale Arizona; the space shuttle  just been launched, Russia had just decided to implement Daylight Savings Time, and Isuzu had recently become the sixth Japanese automobile manufacturer to begin selling its product line in the United States of America. The stereo was tuned to the classical music station and I was listening to Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto No. 3 in D minor, Op. 30. The recording was of the composer himself at the piano. The year of this recording was 1929, years before the year of my birth, probably at New York City Music Hall. (I am listening as I write, to this same piece as performed by Olga Kern.) As I listened and locked in the last brad in the frame I was building, reaching as I did so for the Kraft paper I had already prepared to be used as a dust cover, I saw through the window, a Candy Appleish, Sparkly Gold  Rolls Royce pulling up to the curb.

Great; this could mean a big sale. I continued working, observing the driver emerging from a beautiful if somewhat vulgar looking almost-a-limo; he walked around to the trunk which appeared to be opening itself, removed a large cardboard box and start toward my front door.  As he approached the showroom I was already holding the door open for my visitor.  He entered the room, moving deliberately toward the 4′ x 8′ glass table which served as a sales counter and also as my desk. The gentleman did not look around at my beautifully designed showroom as did others when entering for the first time. Nor did he hesitate when entering the room; he seemed to have been here before. Today, I was the only staff member on the premises. My two framers were absent without leave.

The music reached its conclusion. I looked at the welcome intruder, listened as he asked what I thought to be a perfectly ridiculous question, “Do you offer senior discounts.” Music returned. It was now my favorite composition of all time, the Rach’s first movement from his second piano concerto, this time being performed by Van Clyburn. Instantly inspired and at the same time recognizing my visitor, I helped him remove the contents of the box ignoring for the moment his question and pausing to admire a Piranesi print .  “I know you. I couldn’t place your face but the minute I heard your voice I knew you.”

“Well”, He dragged it out a bit, watching me as though he were deliberately and easily reading my mind. “So…..tell me please,” the serious look on his face was a mask for an impish side to his personality, that particular trait being suddenly revealed by a bit of a twinkle in one eye or another, “Who am I?”.

“You Sir are Sky King.”

The gravel in my visitor’s deep baritone voice added an unusually comedic air, filling the small show room as he began to laugh, and laugh and laugh. I chuckled as he quieted down and offered me his hand. “Earl Nightingales” he explained.

“Lee Broom.” I accepted his handshake. “I’m very happy to meet you Mister Nightingale.”

“Thank you” he replied. I wish you’d call me Earl. May I call you Lee?”

“You may do that Earl. I apologize for not answering your question about senior discounts. No. I don’t do that. But I’ll tell you what I will do. If you’ll watch the shop for twenty minutes, I’ll go fetch some sandwiches. You can play with samples. Look at artwork. Just make yourself at home. When I return – I assume since it is 11:45 that you haven’t had lunch?” I paused.  “When I return I’ll give you a ten percent discount on all framing and artwork that you might be inclined to buy and I’ll deliver all completed work to your home free of charge. I’ll even install it for free if you will allow me to bring a photographer.”

A big smile lit Earl’s larger than life, face. “Where’s the sandwich shop, Lee?”

“Scottsdale and Shea.”

“Scottsdale and Shea? That’s two blocks from here. I don’t see another car out front. It’ll take twenty minutes just to walk there and back. Another 15 minutes for the food to be prepared. Is your car in the rear of the store?”

“It’s at the garage having the brakes  re-lined.”

“Well, just how did you plan on getting there?”

“I plan to drive your car.” His face now had that same look that I’d interpreted earlier as his ESP face. He reached in his pocket and removed his keys.

“I’m trusting you with my Rolls Royce, Lee.”

“I’m trusting you with my shop, Earl.” I suddenly had an idea and told him to hold his thought while I retrieved something from the back room. I returned with a well-worn copy of THE STRANGEST SECRET by Earl Nightingale. “I made some notes in this book. Maybe while I’m gone you’d like to flip through the pages.” That look again. And, then a smile.

“Okay”.

And thus began a friendship with a man who would with no more than a dozen meetings in as many years, be remembered as one of the most stimulating friendships I had ever known. We talked a lot about “Success” over the years. He learned that day, the day he loaned me his Candy Appleish, Sparkly Gold Rolls Royce, the day that I left him with my well-worn copy of his book, The Strangest Secret; he knew that I did not agree with everything that he had written. Whenever I had felt a critique rising to the surface I’d left written evidence in the margins of those thoughts. Some were a bit caustic. I’m not certain why I took a chance like that. I ran the risk of sabotaging a friendship not yet realized and on a more practical note, I needed his business. But, I felt that I knew Earl the minute I let him in my front door. And, as time would demonstrate, my sense of a connection had been accurate. It could be said that the concert pianist playing in the background as Earl and I met, was only a skilled craftsman compared to the Composer who was one with the Universe as he wrote the original composition. One could say that but I believe that would be a  mistake in judgment.

I believe that those who create, especially those who create music are often indeed, One with the Universe, regardless of which role they happen to be playing at the time. I believe that on this particular day that Earl and I were every bit as connected as Van Cliburn to Rachmaninov, on that spring day in 1981. Or was it 1982. (As you can see I have more faith in my connectedness than in my memory.)

When I returned, Earl was visiting with my friend and business neighbor, Herb Drinkwater. It was to Drinkwater Liquor and Cheese that I had gone for sandwiches. Silly me. It was right across the street. Earl was telling Herb about his new home. It was near the crest of Mummy Mountain. It had a fully equipped radio station, a 100 foot mast and he was already doing his radio show every morning from the comfort of his own home.

I was very familiar with the building in which he lived and after he left that day I wondered for a moment what it must be like for him to be earning his living doing the work that he loved. It took only a moment to realize that this is what sparked the flame of recognition between us for it was that drive to live one’s dream that Earl and I shared.

I reached across the table and picked up THE STRANGEST SECRET by Earl Nightingale and opened the cover.  “To my new friend Lee Broom, who loaned me his store and welcomed me to Scottsdale Arizona. Earl Nightingale.”

If you seek to be a Leader, the best you can hope for is to be a Great Follower. If you seek to be a success you already are.    Lee Broom from Leadership. A Love Story.

 

Dave, the whole story.

Post Day One:

Nineteen Hundred Seventy Seven was the beginning of a new and better life for me. I began a recovery program for alcohol abuse; I made friends that year that would be with me for half a lifetime. Some of them I have written about on these pages.

I formed business alliances with Hollywood directors, US Senators, and business people around the globe and I slowly began to see life in a different light. But of all these “happening” earthshaking, bigger than life humans who were coming into my world, perhaps the most important of these at that time was a man named Dave.

Five years before my first and only meeting with Dave, he weighed 175 pounds and stood exactly 72 inches tall. The day I met him he was 27 inches shorter. Diabetes had redesigned his body. He was now 45 inches tall and slightly overweight. He told me he weighed 155 pounds.

Business was slow that morning, which was unusual for this very popular do it yourself picture frame shop. It was April, the weather was wonderful and people were out and about. Someone would be in soon with an armload of pictures to frame. I was at my desk looking out at Scottsdale Road when suddenly coming into view was this very short man with practically no legs at all walking along slowly but deliberately, his body rocking from left to right and back again, moving at a predictable gait with a predictable rhythm. And then he stopped. He removed the two plastic, one gallon milk bottles that were hanging from each side of his neck via a bungee like strap (we hadn’t yet learned to con people into buying bottled water, nor did we have bungee cords as such) and placed them on the ground before him. His body did not require him to bend. The ground was as close to him as a dining room table would be to me. He removed his wide-brimmed straw hat, then slowly and methodically removed the lid from one of the bottles and raised it to his lips. When sated he placed his thumb over the lid and sprinkled some of the precious fluid on his head and face.

Post Day two:

This lone traveler seemed oblivious to the fact that he was surrounded by civilization. He was standing next to the driveway leading into a new shopping center. Only a year or two earlier this center at the northeast corner of Scottsdale Rd. and Shea Blvd. had been a desert with cactus and a lone, leafless, black and white Palo Verde tree which might as well have still been status quo as far as this traveler was concerned.

As local traffic crossed his path to enter and shop, he tended to the task of replacing the lid on his water jug, slung the two bottles back around his neck, covered his head with well-worn straw and checked for something in the pocket of his no longer quite white and much wrinkled dress shirt. Not until these small personal chores had received his thorough attention did he return his focus to the busy, modern world around him. After checking to make sure that the driveway was clear he embarked upon the slow journey meant to accomplish the required efforts to get him safely to the other side. I flinched as a pickup truck lurched to a stop, its bed bouncing up and down in response to the suddenness of foot-on-the-brake-pedal. Other cars piled up behind. The third car in line honked. The man in the pickup left the cab of his truck to hold his hand up to fellow drivers, allowing the traveler the time necessary to reach the other side of the driveway.

When the traffic snarl returned to normal the driver of the Chevy pickup drove to the other end of the shopping center and parked, apparently in anticipation of a repeat performance at the other entrance. A customer entered my store. I busied myself with samples and chatted with the daughter of the owner of The Pink Pony and my workday began. Though I had not yet met him, this customer’s husband would someday become a close friend.

Conclusion:

The event that I described took place around 9:30 am. At noon my curiosity took over; I just had to break away and track this guy down. It didn’t take long; I already had an idea of how far he must have traveled. I had doodled around with a calculator, beginning with the first figure in my head, my daily jogging speed. I worked down from there, eventually deciding that this man with the six-inch legs and no feet, this man who the workers and customers were now calling Shorty, was walking at a rate of three hours per mile. Finding him at just under a mile away, I paused for a moment, did a u-turn and drove back to my workplace. I thought of him from time to time during the day. As I moved around in the workroom I pictured Shorty first as a customer, then as the owner of this business. I tried to imagine him finding a way to climb up on the bar stool to sit at my pub-table-height desk. I pictured him visiting with customers, ignoring his limitations and having fun with the rest of us. And I experienced twinges of guilt for taking my life for granted, an easy life which was growing easier by the day and which less than a year before had been miserable indeed.

At 6:00 pm, I closed the shop to customers and continued to work. We were more than a DYS store; I often took in custom framing orders and tonight I would work late. By eight-o-clock all I could think about was Shorty. I closed the shop, went to a nearby gathering of friends and then left to look for him. After five miles I gave up and returned to my loft at McCormick Ranch, ate the hamburger I had bought at Jack in the Box on the way home, watched a couple of TV shows, laughed at Carson, showered and retired for the evening.

I awoke in the middle of the night, wondering about this fellow for whom I felt a growing kinship and returned to the television. At around three am I called a friend of mine on duty at the Scottsdale Police Department and described my new almost-a-friend and inquired about his safety. No information. I had friends with the volunteer Sherriff’s posse and got a promise from one of them to keep an eye out for him.

The day was a busy one. Working in a do-it-yourself frame shop was an unbelievably fun way of earning a living. Just saying so stirs up a number of great memories involving high interest activities with high interest people. By mid-afternoon I was getting hungry. The shop being ahum with activity stirred me on two occasions that day to call for pizza. One lady, unthinkingly and unnoticed by myself or my employees, managed to carve up a tabletop which was not a work table but for display only. She seemed to think that a sheet of Kraft paper would protect the table from her box knife. I escorted her back to the workroom and covered up the damage.

This time instead of working late, I decide at closing time to go looking for Shorty while the sun was still aloft. By seven PM I had found Shorty-now-Dave moving along at the same predictable gait, singing and having a good time with his short self. I parked up ahead and walked back to introduce myself. He asked what I intended to do with the pillows that I was holding in my hand. I answered by offering one to Dave and placed the other on the ground and sat myself upon it. Dave did the same and we talked. I was uncomfortable in the heat. Noticing the perspiration on my face Dave asked if there was a restaurant nearby. I said yes. He said he would buy dinner and asked if I would bring him back to this very spot when we were through visiting. I thanked him for his offer and said sure, that sounded like a great idea. We went to the Horny Toad I think it was, in Carefree; or was it Cave Creek? He had beer and burgers I had the Pepsi version.

When we arrived at the restaurant I discovered that Dave wasn’t overweight at all. muscular, yes. His shirt was several sizes too large. When he removed it before climbing with his massive forearms into the booth, I saw that he had yet another garment with many pockets and beneath that was a foam rubber pad wrapped around his torso. This was his bed. Beneath that was a smelly tee-shirt. We talked for hours.

Dave and I were almost exactly the same age. He had not only survived the ravages of arrested necrosis but had lived through an automobile accident which took the lives of his wife and children. He was practicing what he referred to as short hikes. He wanted to see the world and he wanted to do it by using what was left of himself to propel his body hither and yon. He and I had been in Germany at the same time; he had re-enlisted and served in Viet Nam. He was interested in art but did not consider himself an artist. He loved to sing songs and had developed songwriting skills as he moved about. You are describing yourself as an artist, I said. he frowned a small frown and sang a song he had written that very day.

I did not get overly personal with my questions but spoke instead of my problems with alcohol and about fear. In time, my friend  started talking about his own fears, eventually getting around to the subject of Love. He had lost many friends in Asia. He had lost his legs to diabetes. Though he adjusted quite well said Dave, to the ravages of war and disease, he had to be hospitalized for nearly a year when he lost his family. He spoke of service to the community at large and seemed very interested when I bridged that same subject. He asked lots of questions when I spoke of alcoholism. i was puzzled about how he got as far as he had; my calculations for the second day weren’t even close. He slid down on the floor and using his fists against the floor demonstrated that he had four limbs with which to move about. He could move faster than I. I understood now about his leather gloves. “But when I checked your progress yesterday at noon you had gone less than a mile in nearly three hours.”
“I went to lunch” he said, “with one of your neighbors.”

I returned him to the location where I had found him and drove home but not until he  had answered the question of why he had made the life choice described to me by him as we had munched over desert an hour earlier at the Horny Toad.

“I get to see a part of the world most people don’t even know exists”, said Dave. When I look down at the desert floor I see a whole different world of bugs and small critters. Rabbits aren’t afraid of me, Mice scamper about as though I’m not even there. And people like yourself stop to talk.”

“But what about goals?” I asked. “Don’t you set any kind of goals for yourself?”

“Everyone has a vision of where they are going “ said Dave. “have you ever known anyone claim to get there? Focusing on the goal can keep me from enjoying the life I am living. I just want to keep moving.“

I was disappointed but only for a moment. I realized that with all the spiritual experiences coming my way in the short time that I’d been sober that somehow I felt as though this guy was some kind of angel dropped down out of the sky. In fact he was just an ordinary man, who lived a few blocks from my workplace. He had no great message, nothing I could race around town and share with the world. And then thirty-five years later as I sat at my computer wondering what to write about, I remembered Dave.

Somewhere today there may still be an old man with six-inch legs walking along the side of a road. If you see him, stop and ask if his name is Dave. Tell him that Lee said “Hi”. Invite him to dinner and send me the bill.

From: Leadership. A Love Story. 
By Lee Broom.

Dave, part two.

“……………………….He slowly and methodically removed the lid from one of the bottles and raised it to his lips. When sated he placed his thumb over the lid and sprinkled some of the precious fluid on his head and face.

More tomorrow.”

continued from July 19, 2012.

This lone traveler seemed oblivious to the fact that he was surrounded by civilization. He was standing next to the driveway to a new shopping center. Only a year or two earlier this center at the northeast corner of Scottsdale Rd. and Shea Blvd. had been a desert with cactus and a lone, leafless, black and white Palo Verde tree which might as well have still been there as far as this traveler was concerned.

As local traffic crossed his path to enter and shop he tended to the task of replacing the lid on his water jug, slung the two bottles back around his neck, checked for something in the pocket of his no longer quite white and much wrinkled dress shirt. Not until these small personal chores had received his thorough attention did he return his focus to the busy, modern world around him. After checking to make sure that the driveway was clear he embarked upon the slow journey meant to accomplish the required efforts to get him safely to the other side. I flinched as a pickup truck lurched to a stop, its bed bouncing up and down in response to the suddenness of feet-on-the-brakes. Other cars piled up behind. The third car in line honked. The man in the pickup left the cab of his truck to hold his hand up to fellow drivers, allowing the traveler the time necessary to reach the other side of the driveway.

When the traffic snarl returned to normal the driver of the Chevy pickup drove to the other end of the shopping center and parked, apparently in anticipation of a repeat performance at the other entrance. A customer entered my store. I busied myself with samples and chatted with the daughter of the owner of The Pink Pony and my workday began. Though I had not yet met him, this customer’s husband would someday become a close friend. The Frame Factory and the life that centered around it would become a headful of memories.

More tomorrow.

 

Dave.

Nineteen Hundred Seventy Seven was the beginning of a new and better life for me. I began a recovery program for alcohol abuse; I made friends that year that would be with me for half a lifetime. Some of them I have written about on these pages.

I formed business alliances with Hollywood directors, US Senators, and business people around the globe and I slowly began to see life in a different light. But of all these “happening” earthshaking, bigger than life humans who were coming into my life, perhaps the most important of these at that time was a man named Dave.

Five years before my first and only meeting with Dave, he weighed 175 pounds and stood exactly 72 inches tall. The day I met him he was 27 inches shorter. Diabetes had redesigned his body. He was now 45 inches tall and slightly overweight. He told me he weighed 155 pounds.

Business was slow that morning, which was unusual for this very popular do it yourself picture frame shop. It was April, the weather was wonderful and people were out and about. Someone would be in soon with an armload of pictures. I was at my desk looking out at Scottsdale Road when suddenly coming into view was this very short man with practically no legs at all walking along slowly but deliberately, his body rocking from left to right and back again, moving at a predictable gait with a predictable rhythm. And then he stopped. He removed the two plastic, one gallon milk bottles that were hanging from each side of his neck via a bungee like strap (we hadn’t yet learned to con people into buying bottled water) and placed them on the ground before him. His body did not require him to bend. The ground was as close to him as a dining room table would be to me. He slowly and methodically removed the lid from one of the bottles and raised it to his lips. When sated he placed his thumb over the lid and sprinkled some of the precious fluid on his head and face.

More tomorrow.

Remembering the Importance of Reading the Newspaper (before it’s too late.)

Remembering the Importance of Reading the Newspaper (before it’s too late.)

I learned to develop and improve my reading skills, which had been acquired by using the logic of the phonetic tools shared with me by my mother, by reading the newspaper.

I was four years old and keen on learning; I started each day before breakfast with the back page of the Daily Oklahoman and again before supper with the Oklahoma City Times. This is where I found single frame cartoons that filled the same role as the blogs of today. “They’ll do it Everytime” mentioned the things that irritate us. Another frame contained politically motivated ideas that were well beyond my ken. My interest in the back page would lead me to the editorial page for more cartoons and more still with The Funnies.

Here I met Nancy, The Katzenjammer Kids and the very attractive Blondie with her lazy, always late-to-work husband, Dagwood and their family who are with me still. This backdoor entry to the newspaper began as a practical solution to problems unique to my size. My arm-spread was at least a foot shy of making the paper possible to hold, so I laid it out on the couch. My reasons for laying the news face down have long since escaped me but the experience was one which I eagerly repeated for another two years scuffing my knees on the floor as I read, until I told Mother that I was getting too old for wearing short pants.

When I was in the first grade my head-start with early reading skills made me a natural for teaching a newly arrived German lad, the English language as spoken by one his own age. Classroom scuttlebutt soon made me aware that a reporter and a photographer as well as an interpreter representing the newly formed United Nations were here from The Daily Oklahoman to interview me and my tutee whose name is no longer with me. As Herr Kind spoke of leaving his war-torn country and his hopes and fears of making America his new home, I realized that he and I would be teaching each other. Failing to understand what he was saying, I focused instead on the reporter, the interpreter and now and then, the photographer. With each flash and the thud of the ejected bulb I would attempt to analyze the motive for each picture taken.

It was on that day that I learned the basics of gathering reliable information, the value of taking good notes and the importance of illustrative photography

It was on the following day that I learned to begin my early morning “read” by beginning with

the FRONT PAGE.

From: Not Now, Maybe Later. By Lee Broom.

Accept The Love and Pass it on.

True Love expects nothing in return.

Of myself I know nothing about doing anything without expecting something, some small reward, perhaps a very large reward, an imagined reward, which accompanies everything that I do, even if I’m not aware of it at the time. I know this is so because if you fail to treat me in the same “loving” way that I treat you I become upset and afraid, perhaps even physically ill.

Even those more obvious feelings may be hidden from me under a veil of self-righteous anger. But in a fleeting moment of clarity I will know that my suffering has nothing at all to do with Love or the lack thereof and that my bowed back or my intestinal distress is a reminder of the disappointing lack of control over my environment which was meant to be assured by the uncanny wisdom of my expectations which tell me that since I am the Center of my Universe, surely everyone else in this world of mine lives by my set of rules.

Do you recognize yourself in these statements? If you do, I congratulate you. And if on the other hand you are one of those rare and fortunate individuals who was never harmed as a child, never scolded and who was treasured as your family’s most precious commodity, I congratulate you also for I know that those who follow in your footsteps are less likely to ever experience the pain which is necessary for so many of us as the first step to Freedom.

Between the lines in the preceding paragraphs is an implied belief that I am potentially at least, a Lover. Really? So, why am I unable to Love at the drop of a hat? Everything we do is said to begin with a decision, even if that decision occurs below the level of awareness. I have decided many times to Love someone. There are times when that decision is directed toward myself. I have never succeeded at this.

But I know Love.

I do.

How?

How can one do ANYTHING without expecting something in return?

The truth of the matter is that in the Natural World one cannot do ANYTHING without expecting something in return. If one did a survey of the general population one would probably find a certain percentage of those surveyed who claim to often do things for others without expectation.

However, if another survey were done of another randomly selected group of people from the general population with questions designed to determine a level of self-awareness below normal, that percentage would probably be about the same as for those who lied to themselves about being unselfish.

So, how do we experience Love?

This seems to be as good a time as any to interrupt this confusing bit of prattle with a story about the two greatest Loves of my life.

a story about the two greatest Loves of my life.

The first such memory was on my second birthday. I know it was before my brother’s birth who is two years younger than I. i was two years old and twelve days before my brother’s birth. The occasion on this twelfth day of June in 1941 was my birthday party. My mother. my father and I were in the back yard of my Great Aunt Sadie’s  and Uncle Dixie’s home. My mother who was in most ways thin and quite beautiful had a large belly and she was rubbing herself on this part of her anatomy. My father and I were playing tag and Father tagged me, grabbed me and threw me high into the sky. My heart pounded with joy as I sucked in air which expelled with a whooshing sound as I landed in Bobby Lee Senior’s hands. I wanted to do this again but instead, Father firmly grabbed my hands and began spinning himself around. As he did so the resulting inertia caused my small body to begin lifting higher and higher till my feet were level with my head.

This was exciting but not nearly as much fun as being thrown into the blue, summer sky. Suddenly there were three family members chattering and chiming in to chirp our own chitty-chat.
Leesy: Higher, Father. Throw me high.
Mother: Stop it Bob, before you hurt him.
Father: Okay, okay, I’ll stop in a minute.

Total trust.
Heart pounding.
Full of Life.
Desire and Joy becoming One.
Absolutely no fear at all.

Twenty years later as I looked at my newborn daughter Dixie, I met the second True Love of my young life. This was not the tainted Love that I felt for her mother. This was exactly the same feeling that I had for my father before the events at Pearl Harbor took him away.

This sudden rush of loving adoration occurred within me as I met my son Bill a year later and baby sister Mary and a later baby sister named Candaice. Those feelings were not confined to those youngsters who shared my DNA; I would share space with five more children with different fathers and mothers before my child raising days were over. I felt this same love for them all. One of my stepdaughters, Stacy died a couple of years ago. Part of me died with her.

So where did the love for these children come from? Why do we often refer to a process called “falling” in Love? I have never met anyone who claimed to be able to turn Love on and off like a light switch.

I and hundreds of others who have learned this lesson “the hard way” know that there are two ways of experiencing undeniable Love. Those who are more spiritually equipped to do so practice and reaffirm a daily habit of accepting Love. Others of us perform Loving acts of kindness. At first we do this with a variety of different expectations but as our thirst for service to those in need becomes a part of our daily life, our love of ourselves begins to appear. Eventually it becomes difficult to distinguish a difference between the Love and respect that we now have for ourselves and that which we have for the rest of humanity. Our motto: “Accept the Love and Pass it on.”

From True Love – Total Knowledge by Lee Broom.

Mr. Lee.

When I was fifteen I was the same quiet kid that I’d been all my life. When I was sixteen the Bobbettes recorded a song called Mr. Lee. My life hasn’t been the same since.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xi-qUhGHm2A

 

MEADOWLARK HILL (I’ve got my love to keep me warm)

 

That one lone tree on Meadowlark Hill; The song its tenants sang

The laugh and coo of newborn tots, reflecting yin and yang

The memories are distorted, the silence now a roar.

I left; here’s what they told me; return some day for more

More is what I needed; more became Amor.

Emotion came to greet me, My heart began to soar

Amor became commitment, commitment to the Source

The Source became the Doorway revealing an Inner Force

One day I’ll want to visit; pay respects to Meadowlark Hill

And mingle with the Tenants as through open beaks they trill

And remind me of the joy I found, That day on Meadowlark Hill.

Happiness Anyone? Over Here Please.

 “The happiest of people don’t necessarily
have the best of everything;
they just make the most of everything they have.”

These words were the final affirmation summing up a number of wise sounding observations posted to a traveling email that found its way to my desk today. These same words left my mother’s lips nearly every day of my young life as though to make sure that I never forgot. Rescued by my great Aunt Sadie Hannah Marie Oakes Broom and her husband Horace Dixie Broom from abandonment in a day nursery by a mentally ill, alcoholic nightclub singer known on stage those days as Esther Mae Gettings, I would indeed never forget. Today is the best day of my life. Knowing it makes it so.

From Farm to Market: the Transformation of a Boy Into a Man

When I was beginning to learn about the world, my parents were my greatest asset. I enjoyed sitting on their laps, listening to their answers to the question (actually a command) ”tell me about when you were little”.

Father usually spoke of entrepreneurial ideas: long before school, even before learning to write, which I was indeed doing though somewhat clumsily before reaching kindergarten, I understood the concepts of adding and multiplication. Division and subtraction would come later. Mother on the other hand spoke of her brothers and mother and father. And, from her I was given the motivation to discover the arts. It was mother who encouraged me to go out into the garden and draw what I saw. I went through a lot of tablets before I could draw an iris. Coloring the pictures would come later with division and subtraction.

Father took me on great field trips to sites of industry; the cotton docks for the auctions, the dairies, the loading docks, farms and warehouses, retail stores. By age five I knew how the milk got to market and was able to draw a Holstein, a Guernsey and a Jersey and even to write about the differences in their milk supply, two producing a richer, creamier milk (the Guernsey and the Jersey), the Holstein producing greater quantity. Mother framed one of my cows and hung it in the living room. When my children came along twenty some years later, they enjoyed the same treatment; there was no refrigerator gallery at our house.

But it was my first and second grade teachers who gave me what may have been my most important lessons in how to learn. Neither of these teachers was big on the idea of memorization. Mrs. Kays taught us phonics. In other words after the very first day we were teaching ourselves. I had a little bit of a head start because with mother’s help I was already reading though not very well.

The following year Mrs. Douglass taught us and tested us on geography. Though I was the most accomplished reader in the class, I was also the only kid to flunk the exam. I was a very sad child as I trudged my way home that evening. Mother took one look at me and led me to the family library, sat me down to the table with milk and cookies and a stack of books, a set that had just arrived by Mistletoe Express called Lands and Peoples..I sat there and nibbled on cookies and read, and nibbled and read, crumbs all over the table and myself and didn’t stop until mother came in with an Atlas. The next Day Mrs. Douglass read the essay I had written with a little help from Mother and got an A for having done so.

After school Mrs. Douglas had me stay for a short visit. She showed me a way to study unknown to me. She stacked five geography books in front of me and asked me to flip through the pages and choose what I thought would be the best book for making a book report. I chose the one with all the maps, the Atlas. She then had me look in the back of each book and tell me what I saw. I discovered an index and in some cases, bibliographies.

In the following week I learned a principle which would someday make the owners of Google very wealthy. I used one book on my subject of choice. I’d check the table of contents with questions already written down, I’d write down a keyword or two and after reading what the book had to say on that subject, turn to the indexes of the other books and eventually to the bibliographies.

What I discovered was that ideas were worth having when they made sense. Ideas that resulted from research, from drawing with paper and pen from real life and eventually seeing illustrated in famous paintings and written about by the people whose names were on the faces of my first deck of cards called Authors, would stay with me for the rest of my life.