More than Machines
More than Machines
“All right, son. If we ever get into an
accident, just run away as fast as you can.” My seven-year-old eyes widened as
I squeaked out, “Ok, Dad.” Dad was always one to have beat-up cars that he
would fix up to his “good enough” standards. Some of his cars were just
clunkers that he’d keep running for a year or two, but others were cool muscle
cars or antiques. His favorite ride was a 1939 Chevy Sedan Delivery that was
rough, but pretty solid, as he had welded in a new floor and braced up the
fenders. I remember a faint smell of gasoline in the cab because the makeshift
gas cans were bungee corded behind the front seats, and if we were to get into
an accident, gasoline could spill out, thus run run as fast as you can.
Thankfully, that never happened, but it was always in the back of my mind as we
would cruise to auctions, motorcycle hill climbs, or car shows.
The ’39, as it came to be called, was
powered by a true 327 V8 with headers and, of course dual straight pipe exhaust
that would rattle any church’s stained-glass windows. Even though growing up
around old cars was normal for me, I still felt a sense of pride when we’d pull
into a gas station and draw a crowd of onlookers. Old men would gather around
to point and chit-chat with each other, making remarks and asking Dad questions.
One time, we were startled by a younger guy who flew in behind us. “I’ve been
trying to catch you all day!” He explained that he had been following us for
several miles and begged Dad to sell him the ole ’39. Dad kindly told him that
he wasn’t ready to sell, but he did take down the young man’s phone number and
promised to call him if he ever decided to sell it. As a kid, I remember seeing
a little stack of scrap paper in one of his desk drawers with random numbers
scribbled on them. To this day, I don’t know if one of these men bought Dad’s
’39, but I remember crying when I saw it drive down our street with its happy
new owner.
Dad never drank or struggled with any substance
abuse, but his feet would lift off the ground, and he would float toward the
smell of any high-octane-infused exhaust. Our summer weekends were filled with
something car, truck, or motorcycle related. We were regulars at the Del
Shannon Car Show in Coopersville, Michigan; we loved going to the Autorama at
the DeltaPlex in Grand Rapids, and would head to Mt. Garfield in Muskegon to
watch the stretched dirt bikes hit the impossible hillside. If he wasn’t
tinkering in the garage with a car of his own, he was taking me to see what a
car could be. Dad never went to college and was red-blooded and blue collared
through and through. His only experience with a formal setting was when he was
sent to the principal’s office multiple times during his high school days. He
worked hard as a simple factory worker, so instead of teaching me about
literature, history, or economics, he taught me how to swing a hammer, spot
weld, and turn wrenches on an engine.
Most of my school classmates knew the
names of the best NFL players, team stats, and who to watch for in the upcoming
draft, but I knew very little about these things. I would hear my buddies
talking about last night’s game, and I often felt left out because I didn’t
know what sports season we were in and why they were so excited about it.
“We’re talking about basketball, right?” I’d sheepishly ask. “Yes, Rod… are you
serious?” they’d snark back. Now, ask me about the latest offering from Dodge,
why the Corvair was considered dangerous, or what made a Hemi a Hemi, and I
could talk your ear off. For me, cars have become more than a way to just get
from A to B. They are reminders of the time I spent with my father and much of
my childhood. Even though Dad has been gone for years now, it is clear I
inherited his love for the automobile, as I find myself at car shows, putting
mods on my own cars, and I can’t help but crane my neck to see some high-horsepower
monster blast down the road.
When I turned sixteen and started
driving, Dad had a small collection of what I considered cool cars. None of which
were in showroom condition, but they all drove. What a blessing for a teenager
who loved cars! I could look out our living room window and see anything from a
1940 Ford Coupe with a bored-out 350 small block Chevy, a 1975 gull-winged
Bricklin with a powerful 351 Winser, a lifted 1954 Chevy panel truck that Dad
always hated because he was told by the seller that it had a classic 327 V8,
but when the serial numbers were checked it turned out to be the much less
sought after 305, but my favorite was the white 1973 Corvette. The Vette was
“my car” as Dad would let me drive it to school and take it out on the
weekends. I loved driving this Stingray-inspired C3 body style with the classic
5.7-liter V8.
I was the envy of my classmates (and some
of the teachers) when I’d roll into school with one of Dad’s cool cars. I would
pop the hood for some of the boys who wanted to see the engine and give the
girls rides around the block. The kids at school were surprised my father would
allow me to drive his cars, but I had a close relationship with my father, and I
never gave him a reason not to trust me. Probably part of my firstborn personality
is that I was a rule follower, or at least keeping up that impression was very
important to me. I would break mild rules here and there, but I always had some
elaborate cover story ready to go just in case mom caught wind that I was up to
something. When I grew into my teenage years, following the rules became more
important to me as I realized teenager-style rule breaking came with
teenager-style consequences. So, I stayed on the straight and narrow most of
the time.
After school, it was common to find me in
the driveway scrubbing down one of the cars with lots of soap suds or polishing
the chrome rims. There were times when I would make the engine scream, but I
never abused our cars or took corners too fast. Dad and I worked side by side
on the cars. If one needed an oil change or new spark plugs, we’d work at it
together, and it seemed like we had joint ownership over the cars. Whenever Dad
was looking to sell or trade one of the cars, usually for some other car project,
he’d ask my opinion first, even though he wasn’t obligated, but I think he
wanted me to feel like I was part of his team.
Not only would Dad teach me about the cars
themselves, but also the men behind them. He would quiz me on models, engine
types, and performance stats, and their makers. As my school friends were
growing up knowing the names of NBA and NFL players, I heard about auto
industry giants like the Dodge brothers, Louis Chevrolet, Walter Chrysler, Enzo
Ferrari, and, of course, Henry Ford. Lesser known albeit just as interesting
names like John DeLorean, the Duesenberg brothers, and Preston Tucker were
commonplace chatter around the dinner table. All these men and their cars had
amazing stories of dreaming big, overcoming failures, and pushing toward victories,
but the name that came around the most was that of Henry Ford. Not because Dad
preferred Ford cars, but because he found his life story fascinating.
Each US state has its own uniqueness and
reputation. Florida has its beautiful beaches, overly tanned retired people,
and amusement parks. Go to Texas and you’ll find real-life cowboys, lots of cows,
and live music on every city street. You can enjoy a lobster roll and hike
through the towering pine forests of Maine, but if you grew up in Michigan, you
don’t have to travel far to be wowed by what the Great Peninsula has to offer.
Many Michiganders look forward to going “up north” for the weekend, swimming off
the sandy beaches, or driving across the impressive Might Mac. As a kid, you’d
learn about the Edmund Fitzgerald, our vast logging industry, the impressive state
capitol building, and the birth of the automobile industry out of Detroit.
Even though the automobile was not
invented in Detroit, the city could be called the industry’s surrogate mother. From
the start, Detroit was and still is the biggest and most populated city in the
state. It even served as the state’s capital city for almost twenty years
before it was moved to Lansing. In the late 1800s, the city was bustling, and
business always attracts more business. By the early 1900s, Henry Ford began to
make his mark in this growing city. So much so, the city has been nicknamed
“The Motor City,” as the nation’s automobile industry was born here. Today, when
you hear the phrase “American muscle,” you’re hearing about Detroit. Not only
Ford, but many other would-be auto giants set up shop here. The “Big 3,” Ford,
Chevy, and Dodge, still live and breathe in the rigid grey city.
As a testament to the automobile industry,
nestled between open fields and tall trees, you’ll find the Henry Ford Museum. This
impressive museum is filled with beautiful cars from the past and present,
historic aircrafts, and iconic items such as the presidential limousine JFK was
assassinated, the bus in which Rosa Parks made civil rights history, and the very
theater chair Abraham Lincoln sat when he was shot by John Wilkes Booth. I was
taken aback when I saw the swaths of blood marks that still stain the faded red
upholstery. You can also see “Edison’s last breath” in the museum’s Greenfield
Village. When Thomas Edison was dying, many open glass vials were placed around
the room. When he passed, they were all sealed, capturing his “last breath,” and
Edison’s son, Charles, gave one of the vials to Henry Ford as a memento, as he
and Edison were close friends.
Dad took me to the Ford Museum when I was
a boy, and for him, this was more than just a tourist stop, because to him, cars
were the conduit for life lessons. We would walk and occasionally stop at one
of the dazzling show vehicles. He would tell me about Ford’s very first “car,”
the Quadricycle that he built when he was only 32 in a shed behind his house.
We’d stop at the Tucker Torpedo, and I’d hear about the man who went up against
the Big 3 and lost, not without a fight, mind you. We would wipe the drool from
our chins as we gazed upon the Serial Number One 1965 Mustang. The 1931 Bugatti
Royal gave us a glimpse into the world of wealth and “old money,” which our lower-middle-class
family only saw in the movies. What inspired us the most was the race cars.
Leave it to men to invent something so revolutionary as the horseless carriage,
just to shout at another driver, “I bet mine can go faster than yours!” and
automobile racing was born. Through the need to go faster and harder beyond
what was thought to be possible, to Dad, these were not lessons about
automobiles, but of how to become a man. My father used the history of the
automobile to pave life lessons and the very direction of my future.
Sadly, my father never had the opportunity
to see me or my son race on the round dirt track in Alaska. He died just 2
months before our first race, but I know how he would have loved it! He would
have grinned ear to ear watching his fifteen-year-old grandson win class
champion and rookie of the year in his mini-modified Toyota. He would have
cheered as my black and white Ford Crown Victoria Police Interceptor took third
in class our first year. The following year, my son and I switched places, and
he took third in class and I took the championship. Oh, how my father would
have loved to see us whip the corners, hear the engines roar, and give us hugs
and high-fives after each race. I know he would have been part of our pit crew,
looking over the motors, handing us our helmets, and telling us to go get ‘em.
Dad never saw us race, but when I was a
kid, we went to many races to watch the amazing machines fly around corners or
burn down the quarter mile. The US 131 Motorsports Park is the best place
around to see the fastest machines humans can build. When I was a boy, this
drag strip was pretty rough, and the worn-down fences allowed you to get too
close to the drag cars when they would scream at the green light. Today, the
track has been modernized and updated, and this means the biggest and fastest
cars in the world come to compete. When a Top Fuel Dragster rips off the
starting line, exposing you to over 10,000 horsepower, and reaching speeds well
over 300 miles per hour in under 4 seconds, you think the sky is falling. I
wanted to hide under the bleachers the first time I saw these insane machines explode
down the track. Dad would laugh and yell, “Good night! What a rush!”
The Ford Motor Company is not immune to
the need to prove their prowess on and off the racetrack. Back in the 1960s,
Ford was in their prime and had become the world’s model automobile producer.
So much so that they were in talks with Enzo Ferrari to buy out the Italian sports
car company, but Ferrari refused to give up control of the racing department
and backed out of the deal late in negotiations. Ford’s CEO and the late Henry
Ford’s grandson was embarrassed and infuriated by the sudden backing out of the
deal. So, Ford demanded that his top engineers produced him a supercar that
could beat Ferrari in his own game, a 24-hour supercar race called the Le Mans.
With the help of famed race and muscle car designer Carroll Shelby, the Ford GT40
was born. This monstrous mid-engined car took sweet revenge on Ferrari as it
didn’t win the Le Mans just once, but four years in a row. This removed any
doubt that the family car company with humble beginnings was still yelling out,
“Mine can go faster than yours!”
From racecars, freight trucks, to family
wagons, so much innovation came from the direction of Henry Ford and the Ford
Motor Company. Even though he did not invent the automobile or the internal
combustion engine, he revolutionized the auto industry and the world’s manufacturing
through his offering of the Model T and the later upgraded Model A. To ensure
the company could keep up with demand, Ford perfected the moving assembly line
production process. Instead of workers buzzing back and forth around a
stationary vehicle, putting on part after part, he made the vehicle come to the
workers. A Model T frame was placed on a moving conveyor belt and would pass by
a long line of stationary workers who were only responsible for one or two
parts. After passing by all the assembly line workers, the frame would end its
journey as a fully assembled car, ready to be delivered to the anxious buyer. Many
other factories quickly adopted this new moving assembly line process, whether
they were building cars, furniture, or refrigerators.
Henry Ford was a problem solver, and a lot
of trial and error comes with that territory. Taking Ford’s advice, my father
taught me not to let failure stop me. “There’s always a solution, Rod,” he’d
say. Ford was known for sharing the concept of “honest failures.” Honest
failures are mistakes risk-takers make when they are giving life their all. If
you ever attempt anything new or challenging in your life, you are bound to
make mistakes along the way. These mistakes are honest if they are not
consequences of manipulation or lethargy. Honest mistakes are bound to happen while
a person is giving life their all and genuinely trying to reach their goals. Dishonest
mistakes, like cutting corners, lying, or stealing, should be avoided at all
costs, while honest mistakes, like facing unforeseen obstacles, having a
misunderstanding, or being let down by someone or something out of your
control, can be cashed in as valuable life lessons.
Honest or not, successful people don’t
like to make any mistakes, but they really hate to make the same mistake twice.
They don’t like to waste their time, energy, or money, especially more than
once. A few years ago, I befriended a millionaire who built, sold, and rented
houses and condos. He was not what you might think a millionaire is like, as he
didn’t drive a nice car or wear white linen dress shirts. Most of the time, he’d
be in ripped-up jeans, he’d smell of fuel oil or fresh cut lumber, and a pair
of worn leather gloves would be hanging out of his back pocket.
We would eat lunch together or go fishing
and talk about life, relationships, and money. Sometimes I would help him work
on a building project or a repair that was called in by a tenant. Once in a
while, I’d hear him holler something like, “You’ve got to be kidding me! Not
again!” Thinking he just lost thousands in some ill-fated stock purchase, I’d
ask, “What’s happened?” “Oh, I have to redo this wiring.” Wiring? This was a
small mistake that cost him maybe five dollars and twenty minutes of his time,
but he didn’t see it that way. To him, his time and energy was very valuable,
and he had been struggling with installing a new fuse box with one mistake
after another. I’d see him put down his toolbox, put his hand on his hip, and
walk around outside for a few minutes to cool off. Even millionaires need to
give themselves timeouts once in a while.
It's been said that people only see your
successes but are blind to your struggles. For much of the 20th
Century, the Ford Motor Company was the top-selling car manufacturer in the United
States and at times, the world. Ford’s main competitor was Chevrolet, as they
would dance back and forth for the number one spot, but Ford did not start out
being the successful giant. Henry Ford faced many challenges and setbacks as he
chased his dream of making an affordable car for the common working man. “A car
for the great multitude” was Ford’s motto with his first mass-produced Model T.
Ford took the automobile, which up to that point were large, ornate, and could
only be afforded by the wealthy, and made them smaller, simpler, and
affordable. Henry Ford said, “(My cars) will be so low in price that no man
making a good salary will be unable to own one.”
Ford’s dream did not come without much
cost and hardship. His first two car companies ended in bankruptcy as the
Detroit Electric Car Company and Henry Ford Company went belly up. Seeking to
meet the high demand for rubber in his car production, Ford opened
“Fordlandia,” a rubber plantation in Brazil. This innovative and progressive
initiative was met with various setbacks and unforeseen hardships. Building any
kind of production operation is hard enough, but doing so in a foreign country,
with odd weather patterns, strange pests, and an unfamiliar local culture, proved
to be too much for the grand plan. After much investment and struggles,
Fordlandia was abandoned, and what remained was sold to the Brazilian
government for a fraction of the cost.
Another one of Ford’s missteps was the
Edsel car line of the late 50s. To further compete with Chevrolet and the Dodge
Brothers, Ford began a line of family-based sedans and station wagons bearing
the name of his son, Edsel. There were big dreams attached to this car line as
Ford hoped to complete his domination of the American market, but these cars
were poorly received as they were seen as low quality, ugly, and overhyped.
Ford was trying to draw young families away from the competition, but ended up
turning them away instead. The Edsel line ended up losing the Ford Motor
Company $250 million in 1960, which would be the equivalent of $2.7 billion by
today’s standards. The Edsel has been deemed “the wrong car at the wrong time,”
and caused many Ford supporters to begin to question if their fearless leader
was losing touch with the American people, and many investors began to pull
away from the Ford Motor Company. Would Ford fade into American history as
something that once was? Would he be added to the list of failed companies? Would
the great innovator innovate once again?
I have seen many people give up on a
dream, abandon a goal, or say the dreaded words, “I can’t,” after facing
adversity or a failure. Honest failures are simply opportunities to learn,
grow, and improve. Failure is a great teacher as it acts like guardrails that keep
us on the right road. When we go the wrong way and bump into a rail, we say,
“Oops, don’t want to go that way again,” and we correct our course. Sometimes a
failure is just a little bump, and we can quickly correct our direction, or
sometimes the failures are more costly and we may need to take some time to
repair or recover what was damaged. Either way, the failure taught us a
valuable lesson, and the more damaging a failure, the stronger the lesson. A
wise person will seek redirection in all missteps and learn to change their
ways. This way, a fuse box only needs to be rewired once, instead of every
other fuse box for the rest of your life.
Thankfully, we don’t have to experience
all these failures personally. We have lots of opportunities to witness and
learn about the failures of others so we may avoid the same misfortune. Henry
Ford had plenty of other car manufacturers he could learn from. Studebaker was
producing hand-built automobiles long before Ford began his journey. Oldsmobile
and Packard started out strong in the beginning of the 20th Century,
but are now permanently closed. If Ford wasn’t picking the brain of his mentor,
Thomas Edison, he was watching the successes and failures of those around him.
He wanted to learn as much as possible to avoid the failures of others.
The
food was laid out, coffee was made, tablecloths were spread, and we were ready
to greet our guests. Fifteen minutes before the opening, our greeter went to
the front door to hand out the program flyers. As time passed, we started
looking at each other. We began looking out the windows at the empty parking
lot and checking our phones in case someone was late getting there. No
response, no cars pulled in, no one came to the door. As fifteen minutes past the
start time came and went, we sat down at one of the many tables and realized no
one was going to show up. What a sinking feeling. So much time, energy, and
money went into this event. We were excited to present good, useful parenting
material to struggling families, but no one came.
There
was a quiet moment around our table as the weight of our wasted investment was
silently adding up in our minds. As the heaviness began to fill our hearts, one
of our wise ladies got up and said, “Whelp, I’m hungry and we're not going to
let all this food go to waste!” With some chuckles, we filled our plates with
the fancy cheeses, meats, and fruit. We ate our fill and finished off our meal
with a nice cup of coffee and tea. We didn’t talk much about the event or tried
to speculate our misteps. I think we all understood we would talk about the
event and what caused it to fail, but that wasn’t the time; instead, we enjoyed
each other’s company and then began packing up. Henry Ford would have called this
an honest failure. We put everything we had into the event, and it still
failed. Later that week, our event team had a debriefing meeting, and we
discussed possible reasons folks didn’t come to our seminar, and we talked
about appropriate changes we would make in the future.
As
disappointed as we were, we knew the event did not fail because of laziness or
indifference. We gave it our all, and this was new territory as our center, as
we had never offered a public seminar before. As we debriefed the ill-fated
seminar, we agreed it was a good thing worthy of continued pursuit. We decided
to keep the concept but change our strategy. Instead of asking folks to come to
us at a rented hall, we began pursuing organizations and churches to come to
them. Offering on-site seminars has proven to be a much more effective method
and costs a lot less as we are not renting a hall. We checked off another box
of a lesson we learned.
In
1988, Nike was a rather small sportswear company and newly adopted its “Just Do
It” slogan. Oddly enough, this saying was inspired by the last words of a death
row inmate when he said, “Let’s do it.” Now, when we hear this phrase, we
automatically associate it with Nike shoes and Michael Jordan, but they were
not the first to say and believe in such a life philosophy. As Henry Ford was
building his auto empire, he believed that a person had to move and take action
on their dreams and goals, and couldn’t just wait for things to happen for them.
Henry Ford tells us, “The whole secret of a successful life is to find out what
is one’s destiny, then (just) do it.” If Henry Ford were walking around Detroit
today, I like to think he’d be wearing some sweet Nikes.
Henry
Ford was a dreamer and a goal-setter, but more than that, he was a doer. He was
not one to sit around; he was constantly up and moving. It was a common sight
for floor factory workers to see the “big boss” walking down the assembly line.
Ford was not the kind of boss who would sit up in his glassed-in office looking
down over the factory like a king in a high tower. Rather, he was down with the
workers, asking how things were going, helping where he could, and not being
afraid to get his hands dirty. Ford knew what he had set out to accomplish, and
his employees were the key to reaching that goal. From a young age, he had a
passion for engines and automobiles, and this stayed with him until his death.
Ford knew that passion was not enough; he had to marry this passion with a
commitment to see it through.
When
I was a kid, I loved Dr Seuss books. They were sometimes difficult to read, but
a lot of fun too. I liked the light poetic word choices married to the deep
philosophical meaning. In one of my favorite Dr Seuss books, “Oh, the Places
You’ll Go,” we find a setting that would haunt me to this day: the Waiting
Place. This was a place where well-meaning people go when they get stuck
waiting for life to happen around them, so their goals will be met. It was a
nightmarish scene for me as I would rather fall flat on my face than waste away
in a place of limbo being the victim to the whiles of the world. Sadly, the
waiting place is very real, but it is not out there to enter; it is born inside
the mind. Fear gets the best of people, and they wait and wait and wait for
some external force to give them a handout or a push in the right
direction.
Ford
would have been one to say, “Just do it!” Just dreaming and talking was not
enough for him, nor should it be for us. Dreams go undiscovered, goals go unrealized,
and plans go unfulfilled simply because someone chose not to get up and move.
What idea have you been sitting on? What dream of yours is waiting to take
shape? You have something to offer this world and yourself than only you can
offer. So, I say the same thing to you that Dr Seuss said to me,
“Congratulations! Today is your day. You're off to great places. You’re off and
away… You’re off to great places. Today is your day. Your mountain is waiting.
Go, get on your way!”
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