Blog

"Son, always pay your bills on time" was a favorite admonishment frequently uttered by my illustrious Father. But while operating a small retail business here in Sarasota my Dad unknowingly, actually taught me the art of "deadline motivation", by example.

Checks sent to suppliers had to be post-marked by the 10th of the month in order to get a 2% discount. The saving grace was the daily 5:17 Seaboard Railroad train to Tampa. Back in the 1930s and 1940s the trains had a mail clerk on board who shared the baggage car. There was even a mail drop slot on the sides of the car clearly labeled U.S. Mail. My job was to carefully carry and make sure those envelopes got on that train!

One day while I was feeding envelopes into that slot, and the train starting to roll, a man ran up to me and said, "At the post office they have a local slot and an outbound slot. Which is this?" I couldn't resist. So, I told him that maybe the local slot was on the other side of the car. With an unrepeatable oath that I was too young to understand, he shoved his local mail into the slot as the train pulled out of the station. But not to worry. As you and I know, the mail must go through, his just had to make a round-trip to Tampa and back. Life was/is good.