Justice for Todd Hoffner; condemnation for Minnesota State University, Mankato

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UPDATE OF MY POST OF JULY 12, 2013: “A GRAVE INJUSTICE.”

The Minneapolis Star Tribune reported today: The Minnesota State University, Mankato, was wrong to dismiss football coach Todd Hoffner after child pornography charges were dropped stemming from nude video images of his young kids on his cellphone, an arbitrator has ruled.

According to Hoffner’s attorney Christopher Madel, the 72-page decision from Gerald E. Wallin says Hoffner should be reinstated because his suspension and firing were not for just cause. The arbitrator ruled that:

• Hoffner should be reinstated to his four-year contract.

• The school should pay back his “improper” 20-day suspension from January 2013.

• If Hoffner accepts a job somewhere else, which he has at Minot State, MSU should pay the difference in pay.

Hoffner’s wife, Melodee, confirmed the ruling Thursday afternoon and said Hoffner’s return to Mankato “is under discussion right now.”

Neither school officials nor Hoffner were immediately available for comment.

Madel said he spoke Wednesday night with Hoffner, whose reaction “was a beautiful mix of shock and gratitude.” The lawyer now hopes Mankato school officials get what Hoffner got: fired.

“I’m hoping that after the powers that be carefully review the decision that they’re going to clean house at Minnesota State University,” Madel said. “Anybody that had any decision-making authority with respect to Todd Hoffner’s employment should resign or be fired.”

He said the arbitrator’s ruling even took issue with the office on the far side of campus the coach was relegated to after the initial charges were filed.

“These people tried to drum up practically anything they could,” he said, calling the ruling “pretty phenomenal.”

Said Hoffner’s wife: “Given the evidence that was put before him, you would hope that this would be the ruling, but you never know.”

I am thrilled for Hoffner and his family. Now those responsible for the horrible decisions made in this case must be held accountable.

My blog of July 12, 2013 is below:

Todd Hoffner was a good football coach. Only a month earlier, Minnesota State University, Mankato had awarded him a new 4-year contract with a raise of more than 15%.

But on August 17, 2012, his life changed: Hoffner had turned a malfunctioning cell phone in to the University for repair. On the phone were two short videos of his three young children as they laughed, danced, frolicked, and played in the nude after baths. In post Jerry Sandusky hysteria, university employees turned the phone over to the police. Hoffner was placed on investigative leave.

Did the University act precipitously or were they prudent to be cautious?

Then bad judgment: a few days later Hoffner was arrested on two felony counts of suspicion of producing and possessing child pornography. Has insanity become normalized, I wondered.

County human-services officials quickly determined that no sexual abuse or maltreatment of Hoffner’s children had occurred. Nothing suspicious was found on his laptop, in his home, or in extensive searches at his earlier places of employment. The County attorney refused to drop the charges.

Last November, Blue Earth County District Judge Krista Jass dismissed the charges against Hoffner for lack of probable cause. She rebuked County prosecutors and her strongly worded order made it clear that the videos were innocent hijinks, not porn.  Thank God for a brave and lucid judge. Will the community hold the county attorney accountable for the actions that did great harm to a decent family? Remember citizens of Mankato, if you don’t stand up for the victims of  power abused, who will stand up for you when you are the victim?

Did the University reinstatement Hoffner as expected? No, administrators gave Hoffner a 20 day suspension apparently for using his university cell phone for personal use. The length of suspension appears excessive to this veteran of 18 years of labor relations experience.

Administrators then removed Hoffner from his position as coach and reassigned him to a non-job administrative position and stuck him away in a closet. Then they fired him without explanation. What motivated the actions of University managers?

Did political enemies in the bureaucracy take advantage of the opportunity to get rid of Hoffner─the successful coach who had just signed a 4-year contract with a big raise? Or, did the culture of the institution drive decision-making?  Protecting the institution from whatever people or situations are perceived to be threats to the image of the institution often becomes paramount in crisis and doing what is right regardless of politics and institutional embarrassment get lost entirely. Did Hoffner have to go because he brought embarrassment to the University? It is never right to punish the victim of injustice for the embarrassment that injustice may cause a big institution.

Or, did the University investigation that came about because of false accusations and an unjust arrest lead to the discovery of new information that on its own justified an immediate termination? We don’t know the answers to these and many other questions because University officials acted in secret behind closed doors and have shared only cold and terse written announcements. No human face speaks for the University, only a lifeless and uncaring bureaucracy.

Hoffner will challenge his firing in arbitration later this summer. If the University comes up with a reason for his discharge aside from the false allegations of peddling porn, it better be a good one. Remember, this is the coach who had just signed a new 4-year contract with a big raise. Any known issues with Hoffner from before that contract was signed are moot after the new contract effectively endorsed Hoffner fully. Will any new issues be legitimate and rise to the level needed to justify his abrupt termination or will they be concocted efforts to justify earlier bad judgments, political assassination, or the dark side of corporate culture? The community should watch with discerning eyes.

(See ESPN interview with Todd Hoffner)

The Humanity of the Rebel

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The love of violence is, to me, the ancient and symbolic gesture of man against the constraints of society. Vicious men can exploit the impulse, but it is a disaster to treat the impulse as vicious. For no society is strong which does not acknowledge the protesting man; and no man is human who does not draw strength from the natural animal.

Jacob Bronowski from The Face of Violence.

I love the insights of Rollo May and I recommend his books to you. Below are some of his thoughts on the rebel in his book, Power and Innocence.

What is the central element that constitutes the human being?

It is the capacity to sense injustice and take a stand against it in the form of I-will-be-destroyed-rather-than-submit. It is a rudimentary anger, a capacity to muster all one’s power and assert it against what one experiences as unfair. However it may be confounded or covered up or counterfeited, this elemental capacity to fight against injustice remains the distinguishing characteristic of human beings. It is, in short, the capacity to rebel.

In the present day, when multitudes of people are caught in anxiety and helplessness, they tend psychologically to freeze up and to cast out of the city walls whoever would disturb their pretended peace. Ironically, it is during just those periods of transition when they most need the replenishing that the rebel can give them that people have the greatest block in listening to him.

The rebel is “one who opposes authority or restraint: one who breaks with established custom or tradition.” His distinguishing characteristic is his perpetual restlessness. He seeks above all an internal change, a change in the attitudes, emotions, and outlook of the people to whom he is devoted. He often seems to be temperamentally unable to accept success and the easy it brings; he kicks against the pricks, and when one frontier is conquered, he soon becomes ill-at-easy and pushes on to the new frontier. He is drawn to the unquiet minds and spirits, for he shares their everlasting inability to accept stultifying controls. No matter how much the rebel gives the appearance of being egocentric or of being on an “ego trip,” this is a delusion; inwardly the authentic rebel is anything but brash.

He rebels for the sake of a vision of life and society which he is convinced is critically important for himself and his fellows. Every act of rebellion tacitly presupposes some value. The rebel does not seek power as an end and has little facility for using it; he tends to share his power. The rebel fights not only for the relief of his fellow men but also for his personal integrity.

The humanity of the rebel lies in the fact that civilization rises from his deeds. The function of the rebel is to shake the fixated mores, and the rigid order of civilization; and this shaking, through painful, is necessary if the society is to be saved from boredom and apathy. Civilization gets its first flower from the rebel.

The rebel insists that his identity be respected; he fights to preserve his intellectual and spiritual integrity against the suppressive demands of his society. He must range himself against the group which represents to him conformism, adjustment, and the death of his own originality and voice.

The rebel rises from the society, criticizes it, and aligns himself with those who are trying to reform it; and all the while he is a member of the very culture he opposes.

The rebel is continually struggling to make the society into a community. In our particular day, the rebel fights the mechanizing bureaucratic trends not because these in themselves are evil, but because they are the paramount modern channels for the dehumanizing of man, the stultifying loss of integrity, and the indignity of man.

For the rebel does what the rest of us would like to do but don’t dare. Through his rebellion the rebel saves us. Civilization needs the rebel.

I salute the rebels in our organizations, institutions, and communities for they are the energy of renewal and growth.

Do What You Love and Do It-Now

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Debbie Millman:

If you imagine less, less will be what you undoubtedly deserve. Do what you love, and don’t stop until you get what you love. Work as hard as you can, imagine immensities, don’t compromise, and don’t waste time. Start now. Not 20 years from now, not two weeks from now. Now.

A Record Flood

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We are Norwegian, German, stubborn and fighters. This is our place, and we’ll stay here.  – Steve Carbno, disaster coordinator for the Salvation Army

The fall of 2008 brought record rainfall to Fargo/Moorhead. December had more snow than any month in history. Worried about spring floods, I added more flood insurance. Throughout the winter, I watched the weather daily: Would it snow, might it melt some, what were the flood predictions? I went on a 3-week photo trip out West. I checked the weather back home every day.

As March began, the National Weather Service predicted a flood crest in the mid to high 30-foot range. Dennis Walacker — who was the mayor of Fargo, North Dakota, and had been public works director in 1997, and who was credited with saving Fargo from the flood that year — thought the crest would be lower. Our home would be safe to almost 39 feet.

The flood came early, fast, and big.

We began to sandbag on March 20, 2009. Melanie was born and raised in this region, and her mother and eight of her brothers and sisters lived in the area. They had children and some of their children had children. They turned out in force to help. Many came back day after day. Melanie’s mom, sisters, friends, and co-workers took over the kitchen. Workers were well fed.

Melanie was a good friend to many, and those friends turned out en masse. Her professional colleagues were tremendous in their help and concern. We had members of the girls’ volleyball team from North Dakota State University and a high school wrestling team help out. Helpers included bankers, coaches, teachers, builders, farmers, attorneys, scientists, garbage men, federal agents, retired folks, and the students. Without the students — from grade school through college — Fargo/Moorhead would have been lost to the flood.

Three days later, we had filled approximately 20,000 bags with 35 pounds of sand each. As many as 150 people worked at once. It was an amazing example of self-organization — the chaos of people coming together for a common purpose came to order and did so quickly. People did what they could, leaders emerged and leadership shifted naturally, creativity took over, and rules took a back seat. Skid steers tore around our yard carrying filled sand bags. It broke Melanie’s heart to see her yard and landscaping torn up, but survival becomes the sole priority in a crisis. We worked in rain, snow, and mud. People cared, and fought to protect their property and that of their friends and neighbors. Laughter filled the air, and we felt a powerful sense of purpose and community. I’ve never been part of such an expenditure of energy before; people working together was a magnificent sight to see.

Each day the predicted crest got larger. Over a few weeks, it went from 34 feet to 42-43 feet. During the days we sandbagged, the crest prediction rose a foot or more each day. Every time we thought we were finished, we had to dig a little deeper within ourselves and pile the bags higher. We were exhausted, but our core group of men and women would not stop. We thought we were done when our dike protected our home to 40 feet. Overnight it snowed 7 inches. The flood and snow scenes were surreal. Climbing over the plastic-covered dike was a slippery venture.

Later that day, the National Weather Service — a constant source of frustration — raised the crest prediction by another foot. We went to work yet again. The heartiest among us pulled a boat through the strong current and freezing slush to the dike on the road that led to our home. They then walked through snowdrifts to their pick-up trucks a couple of blocks away. They went in search of filled sandbags, loaded their trucks, and returned. They loaded the sandbags onto sleds, pulled them through the snow and over the dike, and loaded them into the boat, which they pulled through the slush and fleeing voles to the house where they stacked them onto the dike. This work went on from late afternoon until 1:30 a.m. We again thought we were OK.

The next afternoon, they raised the crest prediction again — this time, to 42-43 feet. We were surrounded by water. We went to work again in the late afternoon and followed the same process as the day before. We worked deep into the evening. Suddenly we had sewer backup in our basement. The public works department had shut down the lift station without telling us. Melanie slammed the state-of-the art sewer shut-off down and the backup stopped, but the damage was done. From now on, the toilet would be a bucket outside.

Then the authorities ordered an evacuation of all residents in a huge part of the city. A 43-foot flood would devastate the community. We didn’t know then that they had no authority to “order” an evacuation. They meant well, but they scared us, and we decided to evacuate.

At about 9:00 p.m., it was time to go. Melanie locked the door and climbed over the sandbags. She was the last person out of the house and into the boat. As we left our neighborhood, a plow closed the road behind us.

The next morning, two family members boated to the house. Our dike had held. No water had gotten under the dike, over it, around it, or through it. When they took the dike down many weeks later, the Army Corps of Engineers supervisor said it was one of the best-built dikes he had ever seen.

But a back-up sump pump had failed, and we had 9 to 12 inches of water in our finished basement, along with the sewer backup. We had moved many things of value to the second floor, but there was still a massive amount of accumulated stuff floating around the basement.

The harm was done. A costly finished basement was ruined, and many possessions were contaminated. Our furnace, water heater, and freezer were destroyed. The house smelled of sewage. Carpets on the main floor and top floor were caked with mud from the frantic efforts of a dozen or more volunteers to move our possessions to the top floor. Our yard and landscaping were ruined by the dike-building process. Our road was torn up by sand trucks. Two neighbors lost their homes. Others had water damage worse than us.

Family members spent several nights in the house and watched the dike and pumps. Melanie and I stayed with Melanie’s mother for a week. Our dogs were farmed out to relatives. We adapted by the minute.

A few days after evacuating, we returned home. We parked a few blocks away. We used the sled and walked through snow, water, and mud in waders and got to the dike. We climbed over it and got some necessities and put them into garbage bags. We carried them over the slippery dike and onto the sled and pulled it to our car. After two trips, we were exhausted.

Four days after we left, we got another 10 inches of snow — 17 inches in less than a week — along with heavy rains while we sandbagged, a record flood, and blizzard winds. There was a second, maybe even higher, crest on the way. The city looked like an exhausted war zone.

Finally, they rescinded the mandatory evacuation and opened the dike on the road so we could drive to our home. The water had receded across the road. The city inspectors and insurance adjusters began to show up. The birds and wild turkeys returned.

The city declared our home uninhabitable.

Two homes in our neighborhood of 11 houses were destroyed. Three others had water in the basement. The peninsula was a mess from the clay dikes, home dikes, and roads damaged by heavy equipment. The second crest was lower than predicted. The clean-up began.

Fighting the record flood was the easy part.

Our home had 20% damage, according to FEMA. Fighting the flood was an exhilarating, high-energy experience — the best experience of creative chaos I’ve had. Cleaning the mess up afterwards and going to our wounded home and neighborhood were sad, painful, and depressing encounters with death and destruction. We rented a townhome in Fargo while we cleaned up. We would never again live in our home.

The neighborhood looked like a war zone after the flood waters receded: fences down, roads torn up, landscaping destroyed, sandbags stuck in the trees and buried in the ground, homes surrounded by sandbags and then dirt rings after the Army Corps of Engineers took the dikes down. Mud was tracked everywhere for weeks afterward. We cleaned water and sewage from our basement, ripped out wallboard, and threw away truck-loads of possessions accumulated over 15 years.

We entered a neutral zone of uncertainty and not knowing about our lives. About half of our neighbors wanted to stay, and began to explore ways to make their homes safer by elevating them, or building a clay dike or a concrete wall. The rest wanted to leave. For us, four floods in 12 years were enough. For others, this record flood was the first time they were threatened and once was enough. As one neighbor said about our once safe neighborhood, “Maybe nature doesn’t want us here anymore.” Melanie and I vowed to turn this disaster into an opportunity for transformation.

I knew that a neutral zone (the place between endings and beginnings) wasn’t just a place of confusion and uncertainty. The neutral zone can also be a condition for creativity if we can live with the discomfort and anxiety for a time.

Often people go into submission after a disaster and let others decide their destiny. We would not go quietly into compliance and submission to the bureaucracies and to those who re-victimize victims. We would assert ourselves, ask questions, and push back on bureaucratic pronouncements. We would attend every meeting held, and we would tell our story and express our opinions to anyone who would listen. We wanted to influence the chaos around us and shape our own future.

Part of me enjoyed the challenges of the flood’s aftermath. Another part of me felt scared of entering into new and bureaucratic domains. We fought for what we believed was right with insurance companies. I sent letters to the politicians and did what I could. I attended every City Council meeting for months after the flood and asked questions and told our story to the mayor, city manager, council members, and city engineer every chance we got. We found them to be good and caring people, willing to listen.

We expressed our fears of future floods with our elected state and federal officials. I visited the disaster center three times to try to get answer to my questions from FEMA and SBA officials. The front-line people were awesome: caring and compassionate. The bureaucracy — excessive process and slow to act — exhausted us, numbed our minds, and extended our patience to the breaking point. The rules, language, processes, procedures, and regulations were complicated and hard to understand. It would take about 1½ years to work through all the issues and bring the flood follow-up to a conclusion.

Our home was put in a project for buyouts. I asked the city engineer what motivated putting our home in this proposed FEMA project. He replied, “Because it makes sense.” That’s what responses to disasters need more of: what makes sense.

From time in the neutral zone, new visions form if we will live with uncertainty for a time.

Just before the flood, a job opened up in Minneapolis (225 miles southeast of us) that Melanie was interested in. The flood was traumatic for both of us but more so for Melanie, who had built the home and raised her three children there. She lost many possessions in the flood that held meaning for her. For her the beautiful home died the day the water came in. She did not want to return. She decided to go forward with her job application. Like everything at this time of our lives, the job process moved slowly.

We imagined and thought through different scenarios for what might happen with the job and our home. In our hearts, we most wanted to go to Minneapolis. My two daughters and five grandchildren lived there. I also looked forward to renewing old friendships from decades of earlier life in the Twin Cities. Two of Melanie’s three children would be living in Minneapolis that fall. The job would be a professional advancement and a challenge Melanie would enjoy. She would get to use talents and skills honed over a 30-year career.

We envisioned new adventures in our upcoming lives as empty-nesters and grew more and more excited. We decided that if Melanie got the job, we would go regardless of the fate of our home.

Suddenly things began to happen: Melanie was offered the job and compensation was negotiated and agreed upon quickly. Within 72 hours we had rented a beautiful home 15 minutes from her new workplace. Melanie gave her notice in Fargo and began work in Minneapolis 10 days later. We moved our possessions a month after that. The city purchased our home for a fair price a few months later. A year later, we purchased a new home. Melanie thrived in her new job.

The natural disaster created the conditions for us to renew our lives. We refused to be victims. Despite the difficulties, we felt alive as we grieved our losses. We grew as people. And, in the midst of a contentious time in America, we experienced the deep goodness and decency of the people around us. We will be forever grateful to them for the help they gave us.

Excerpted from: Learning to Live: Essays on Life & Leadership

The Dignity and Art-Science of Making Mistakes

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Daniel Dennett on making mistakes:

The chief trick to making good mistakes is not to hide them — especially not from yourself. Instead of turning away in denial when you make a mistake, you should become a connoisseur of your own mistakes, turning them over in your mind as if they were works of art, which in a way they are. … The trick is to take advantage of the particular details of the mess you’ve made, so that your next attempt will be informed by it and not just another blind stab in the dark.

We have all heard the forlorn refrain “Well, it seemed like a good idea at the time!” This phrase has come to stand for the rueful reflection of an idiot, a sign of stupidity, but in fact we should appreciate it as a pillar of wisdom. Any being, any agent, who can truly say, “Well, it seemed like a good idea at the time!” is standing on the threshold of brilliance.

In fact,  one of the hallmarks of our intelligence is our ability to remember our previous thinking and reflect on, learn from it, use it to construct future thinking. Reminding us to beware our culture’s deep-seeded fear of being wrong, he advocates for celebrating the “ignorance” that produced the mistake in the first place:

So when you make a mistake, you should learn to take a deep breath, grit your teeth, and then examine your own recollections of the mistake as ruthlessly and as dispassionately as you can manage. It’s not easy. The natural human reaction to making a mistake is embarrassment and anger (we are never angrier than when we are angry at ourselves), and you have to work hard to overcome these emotional reactions. Try to acquire the weird practice of savoring your mistakes, delighting in uncovering the strange quirks that led you astray. Then, once you have sucked out all the goodness to be gained from having made them, you can cheerfully set them behind you, and go on to the next big opportunity. But that is not enough: you should actively seek out opportunities to make grand mistakes, just so you can then recover from them.

Scoop

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My dad, Scoop, lives at the Minnesota Masonic Home in Bloomington, Minnesota. He is 87½ years old, his hands shake, he uses a wheelchair, and he doesn’t hear well. He also has a sharp mind and clear and curious brown eyes. He stays engaged with the world around him through books, television, and newspapers. Right now he is busy learning to send and receive email on his MailStation machine. He types with the eraser end of a pencil. The administrator of the Masonic Home talked to him recently and wants to publish one of the three manuscripts Scoop wrote in the last several years.

Scoop dresses neatly every day and charms his guests with nursing home jokes and quick compliments. His room is organized and interesting. Photos of kids, grandchildren, and great grandchildren line the walls along with my photos of Africa. He has his books, tapes, radio, and remote controls near his motorized recliner. Six feet tall and 200 pounds, his grip is firm. Harriet, my mom and his wife of 63 years, died two years ago. Harriet died a slow and difficult death, and it was a hard time. That’s when I got to know dad.

Scoop spent 28 years in St. Cloud, Minnesota as the circulation district manager for the Minneapolis Star Tribune newspaper before he and Harriet moved to Minneapolis after he was promoted. He believes in doing his best, and he worked hard to serve the newspaper’s customers and the young people he supervised.

Newspaper circulation work is demanding. A new product is distributed daily (in those days, two products a day) and it is a daily challenge to keep the distribution network together, and to serve thousands of customers. He was away from his family many early mornings, weekends, and evenings as he worked to provide for his four children and help others in need — customers and newspaper carriers. After a 42-year career with the newspaper, Scoop and Harriet moved to Fountain Hills, Arizona for a 15-year retirement before moving to the Masonic Home.

He believes in service and often said he gained his college education through his involvement in the community. He led most groups in St. Cloud including the high school PTA, city council, church council, junior and senior Chamber of Commerce, and the local Chicago Cubs minor league baseball team. This work took him away from his family often. We wished he’d been home more. But he attended almost all of our school activities and events, and he was there for us when we needed him.

Scoop taught us to be responsible. I was especially free-spirited and got into a fair amount of trouble in high school. Once, on a beautiful spring day in my sophomore year, I decided to skip school with a friend. At noon we walked down a street far from home on our way to meet friends for lunch at a gas station. Scoop drove by, stopped, and directed me into the car.

I said, “We can go home and you can write me an excuse, and I can go back to school after lunch.”

Scoop said, “No, you will go to the principal’s office right now.”

He knew I would be marked down one grade in each class I had missed. I never skipped school again and rarely missed a college class. Dad was, as he liked to say, fair but firm.

When I was cut from the basketball team for violations of team rules the night before the district tournament began, dad, who loves sports and felt proud of me, was deeply disappointed.

He said, “Our family will go to the game together.”

And we did. I learned to face my mistakes head-on. Dad never hit, he never yelled, he never played games as he held me accountable and made me be responsible for my behavior. He refused to enable anyone to behave in destructive or irresponsible ways. Many years later, I would get in trouble with alcohol. Scoop again told me the truth, arranged for treatment, and, perhaps, saved my life. Dad wasn’t always appreciated for his courage and commitment to do the right thing. But those lessons served me and my free spirit well in my life.

Scoop is an independent man. He learned his independence as a child who grew up in a large family during the depression. He paid his bills on time, worked for what he got in life, lived on his own from a young age, and handled his own problems. He sticks by his kids always but doesn’t overindulge them or do their growing up for them, because he knows they have to learn to handle life for themselves. He stays connected to his children but lets them live their own lives, as he lives his own life, and does not meddle or use them to meet his own needs. His adult children struggled at times, as most do, and he remained calm and steady. He suffered for them and bore the pain his children brought him privately. As his children went through life, he was always there for them, even when he did not agree with their choices and even when they disappointed him.

Dad is resilient. He learned his resilience as a young polio victim who spent three summers at the Shriners hospital in Minneapolis, Minnesota. His mother took him to the hospital, left him (she had a house full of kids back home to take care of), and he spent months alone. He learned to handle life’s difficulties on his own. He keeps his feelings to himself, handles his losses by himself, and has a can-do attitude about life. He especially does not want to burden his children with his difficult feelings and problems.

Scoop and Harriet came from German and Scandinavian families and lived lives of moderation. They were private and faced life’s challenges with determination. They did not show their emotions to others, they did not complain, and their kids never saw anger expressed in front of them. Considerate and thoughtful, they had scores of friends everywhere they lived. Never hugged as a child, Scoop was not demonstrative emotionally.

Mom began to move toward death in January of 2000. Arthritis hurt her terribly, she had great difficulty walking, and her memory and ability to think began to deteriorate. She could no longer do the things she loved to do. Scoop was with her each and every moment and adapted his life and routines as she deteriorated. I believe Harriet decided, at a deep level, to die to this world and did the only thing she could to bring the end about — she quit eating.

The medical community tried to fix her, the family, of course, tried to fix her, and Harriet, in her quiet and dignified way, just did what she wanted. She could never tell anyone she wanted to die; she probably could not acknowledge her wishes to herself consciously. That’s my theory; I might be wrong.

Finally, after many months, everyone agreed to make Harriet comfortable and allow nature to take its course. Family gathered around her for weeks and sat with her, read to her, and talked to her.

I sat many days and held her hand. I wished I knew this quiet woman better. A loving, gracious, and beautiful woman, she always deferred to Scoop and kept her thoughts to herself. I just accepted the context of our relationship as life went by. As I sat with her, I regretted not working harder to know her better and deeper. As she lost weight, her appearance changed. I saw only her wonderful soul. Near the end, many of us encouraged her to let go. Her work was done. Dad would be fine. We would be okay. She could move on through death’s door. And finally she did.

I spent much time with dad during mom’s final months, during the funeral process, and in the months after. I watched dad’s heart break as he gradually accepted that his wife would die. I watched him struggle with feeling helpless and out of control. I saw his agony on her last day. He could not bear to see Harriet labor so hard with life. He directed the funeral plans. The obituary appeared in the newspaper as he wrote it. The minister read the notes about Harriet’s life as dad wrote them. He made all the arrangements. He could handle things if he stayed busy and controlled what he could control.

We buried mom the day after the funeral service. The May morning was cold, rainy, and windy. I shivered and joined dad in the car to keep warm. He was shaken. Tears welled in our eyes. We were to say goodbye to wife and mother in a few moments. My heart swelled with love for my dad. I knew then how much he loved my mother, how much he loved me, and, at that moment, in my 54th year and in his 85th year, our hearts connected. I told him how proud I was of him for how he had handled things. I told him I loved him. He choked out, “I love you too.”  My mother, who loved her family, would have been happy.

I watched Scoop adapt and go on with life. He moved to a new room, he began new projects, he got up and dressed up each day, and he traveled to visit children in California and Maryland. I went to live in Colorado, and we talked weekly. He clipped articles from the newspaper and sent them to me.

I live a few hours away now and visit dad when I am in Minneapolis. I call him weekly and we exchange emails. Expressing emotions is still hard for dad, but he is more open than ever before. I know he is lonely. He misses mom and isn’t afraid to cry when he talks about her.

I feel close to my dad. I like that. I know he loves me. I know he is proud of me. I can see pride in his eyes and hear it in his voice. I am grateful for what we have today. I understand the context of his life. I see what he gave me in my life, and I love him for that. He provided, he protected, and he modeled the values that served me well in life. That is how he loved. Scoop is a good person, a loving father, and a kind man — he always was all of those things.

I like to think about my dad and my life with him now that I have lived a life of my own, made my own mistakes, had my own successes, struggled with my own children, and am slightly less self-absorbed than in my younger, more self-righteous years. My vision of what could be is clearer, my understanding of how we are formed deeper, and my heart is more compassionate for imperfection than in younger years. I have a better idea of what love is and I am better able to carry my share of the relationship responsibility that grown up children must assume if they are to mature as people.

My dad was not perfect — no parents are, and no children are. He was not a mind-reader — we need to ask for what we need and express our hearts to those we love. He had his own challenges in life. He met life head on and overcame himself, the physical handicaps of polio, and life’s trials. Today dad thinks about and prepares for his own death. He doesn’t want to be a burden to anyone. Everything is taken care of. Recently he asked me if I would write his obituary for him. I felt moved and sad; I don’t want him to leave just yet.

I’ve had more material things in my life than dad had in his. I’ve had more career experiences and more formal education. But, deep down, I know that this everyday hero is a better man than I am. He remains my model for living and a beacon for who I can become.

Excerpted from: Learning to Live: Essays on Life & Leadership

Fulfillment Comes from Struggle

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And yet fulfilling work doesn’t come from the path of least resistance. Viktor Frankl’s famous treatise on the meaning of life:

What man actually needs is not some tension-less state but rather the striving and struggling for some goal worthy of him.

Walter: We Salute You

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I think this is the greatest generation any society has ever produced. At a time in their lives when their days should have been filled with the rewards of starting careers and families, their nights filled with love and innocent adventure, this generation was fighting for survival ─ theirs and the world’s.  —  Tom Brokaw

The flag-draped coffin rested before us as we walked into the small Lutheran church in rural northwestern Minnesota.

I looked at 93-year-old Walter Scheffler. I thought of the man I had known — not well — for the past four years. Walter was a quiet man with bright eyes and a big smile. Since the death of Violet, his wife of 53 years, in 2002, Walter continued to live on the farm — active and engaged — until he was 91 years old.

I noticed a blue cord on Walter’s right arm as I thought about his life.

Walter lived close to the land: born on the family farm, he attended a one-room school and nurtured the earth for a lifetime; he tilled the soil and fed his family and the world.

Walter wove his daily routines of work, family, church, leisure, and community together to form an interconnected life of wholeness and balance. He intertwined his days with the land, the weather, and the seasons. He worked the fertile earth, fished the blue lakes, and hunted the deep forests of Minnesota. He lived his life in a dynamic and symbiotic relationship with people, animals, and nature. Birth, growth, and death were accepted as part of the natural cycle of a spiritual life. Meaning and purpose came naturally.

Life on the farm was interrupted from 1941-45 when Walter served his country in World War II. An army infantryman, he was a rifleman in California; the Aleutian Islands; Kodiak, Alaska; Germany; the Ardennes Mountains; and Central Europe. He experienced and then lived with the horrors of war. He was a good soldier — courageous and honorable.

I looked at Walter a final time and whispered “God bless you.” We sat with family at the back of the church. The church hushed and the dozen or so honorary pallbearers marched to the front pews. These veterans — some old, some middle-aged, from wars long ago and far away — represented the grandeur of the human spirit. Their time as a generation was coming to an end; their work was almost done. I felt a deep respect for their nobility and steadfastness to one of their own.

A young man rose and walked to the lectern. He stood tall and spoke from his heart:

The Lord God has created all people for a purpose. We are created in His image to glorify and honor Him. We have the capacity to love and to hate, to hurt and to rejoice. We have it in us to be whatever we put our minds too.

However, throughout history there have been times where men were defined by their actions within the era in which they lived. In my heart, I believe that men were still defined in the context of our heavenly father.

That being said let me speak of a certain era where men were defined by their actions. Their heart and their character were expressions of the man that God had shaped and called them to be. WWII was such an era.

For the first time in our history, the Selective Service was put into action. Halfway through the war the age of service was dropped from 21 to 18. Our brave fathers, husbands, sons, and friends were called to fight in a foreign land against a tyrant that cared nothing for God, His people, or His creation.

Against a tyrant that was bent on world domination, these are men [who] fought for what they knew to be right. Men who lived and fought for the honor and character that was instilled into their life.

Grandpa was such a man. If you spent enough time with him you may have been privileged to hear one of his countless stories from his time overseas during WWII. He was one of millions of brave soldiers that the United States called into service.

They didn’t ask to be a part of this war, but their country called them and they responded with honor and character. They rallied to the greater good, shed their blood, gave their lives, and defended our freedoms from tyranny.

Grandpa served in a time when the gallant distinction of infantry, and what they bring to a battlefield, was not fully honored.

General Washington selected the color blue to distinguish his tough and resolute infantry in the Continental Army from other types of soldiers. General Lafayette chose a light blue color to outfit his American Infantry Corps. For the next 120 years, the official infantry color alternated between blue and white until 1904 when the army officially adopted what we now know as “Infantry Blue.”

In 1951, the army leadership sought to encourage and recognize foot soldiers [who] were bravely fighting intense battles in Korea. They soon adopted the Infantry Blue Cord. This cord would only be worn by fully qualified infantrymen and would announce for all to see that these men would be on the front line when our nation was at war.

I had the honor of serving our great nation as one of those honored and distinguished infantrymen. I was awarded the coveted Infantry Blue Cord. I then served out my time in the military burying our honored dead at Arlington National Cemetery in Washington, DC.

It is with a heavy heart and great honor that my coveted blue cord is now placed on a son, a brother, a husband, a father, a grandfather in recognition of the service he provided, the man he was, the life he lived, the man that God called him to be, and the man that is now enlisted in the heavenly ranks.

I love you Grandpa. Thank you for the brief time I had with you, and all the lives you impacted. I look forward to the day when I will see you again, and stand with you in the ranks of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Some wept openly — others silently — at this young man’s fire, idealism, and reverence for his wife’s grandfather. I looked at a frail old man seated in front of me. Tears wet his face.

We drove as a pilgrimage to the cemetery in the country. We gathered under the canopy that sheltered the coffin of the humble man we honored. The cold wind blew and snowflakes dotted the gray land and forlorn trees prepared by fall for the sleep of winter. We huddled close together and shivered from the frigid breath of nature as tears became ice on our numb cheeks.

The minister gave his final blessing, and we said the Lord’s Prayer together in voices that trembled.

The young man who spoke at the church, a former Army Ranger, folded the American flag — slowly and with precision. He stepped forward and pivoted to face Walter’s son Rodney, flanked by sister Beverly and brother Richard. Walter’s seven grandchildren wept openly at the power and deep dignity of the moment.

The proud infantryman whispered: “Rodney, it is truly an honor and a privilege to be able to present this flag to you in recognition of grandpa’s dedicated and faithful service.” He saluted smart and strong. Rodney, eyes glistening, returned the tribute.

The honor guard of old men stood behind us on the boundary of the cemetery and a cornfield. They pointed the muzzles of their rifles over Walter’s casket and fired a 3-volley salute. A trumpeter blew taps.

Walter returned to the earth he loved:

He was bound to the land from the day of his birth

His roots anchored deep in the fertile earth

Nurtured, sustained, by the soil he grew

And his life, like his furrows, ran straight and true.

In faith, each spring, he planted the seeds

In hope, to reap his family’s needs

With patience, he waited for the harvest to come

To gather the fruits of his labor home,

Ever turning seasons, the years sped past

Til the final harvest came at last.

Then claimed anew by beloved sod

He was gathered home to be with God.

(Final Harvest by Barbara W. Weber)

If we have consciousness after death, I am certain Walter was surprised and honored to the depths of his soul by the love and devotion his durable life of dignity and decency called forth in those who loved him.

At the end of the movie “Saving Private Ryan” an aged Ryan visited the grave of the soldier played by Tom Hanks, who had saved him. Ryan was an average man who worked, raised a family, and lived an everyday life. He knelt at the grave and said with great emotion to his wife: “Tell me I’m a good man. Tell me I’ve led a good life.”

Daughter Beverly answered Ryan’s questions for Walter: “He provided for us, protected us and cared for us. I’m glad God sent him to be our Dad.”

We salute you Walter Scheffler.

Excerpted from Learning to Live: Essays on Life & Leadership

Rules for Success

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British Novelist Amelia E. Barr on success:

Men and women succeed because they take pains to succeed. Industry and patience are almost genius; and successful people are often more distinguished for resolution and perseverance than for unusual gifts. They make determination and unity of purpose supply the place of ability.

Success is the reward of those who “spurn delights and live laborious days.” We learn to do things by doing them. One of the great secrets of success is “pegging away.” No disappointment must discourage, and a run back must often be allowed, in order to take a longer leap forward.

No opposition must be taken to heart. Our enemies often help us more than our friends. Besides, a head-wind is better than no wind. Who ever got anywhere in a dead calm?

A fatal mistake is to imagine that success is some stroke of luck. This world is run with far too tight a rein for luck to interfere. Fortune sells her wares; she never gives them. In some form or other, we pay for her favors; or we go empty away.

We have been told, for centuries, to watch for opportunities, and to strike while the iron is hot. Very good; but I think better of Oliver Cromwell’s amendment — “make the iron hot by striking it.”

Everything good needs time. Don’t do work in a hurry. Go into details; it pays in every way. Time means power for your work. Mediocrity is always in a rush; but whatever is worth doing at all is worth doing with consideration. For genius is nothing more nor less than doing well what anyone can do badly.

Be orderly. Slatternly work is never good work. It is either affectation, or there is some radical defect in the intellect. I would distrust even the spiritual life of one whose methods and work were dirty, untidy, and without clearness and order.

Never be above your profession. I have had many letters from people who wanted all the emoluments and honors of literature, and who yet said, “Literature is the accident of my life; I am a lawyer, or a doctor, or a lady, or a gentleman.” Literature is no accident. She is a mistress who demands the whole heart, the whole intellect, and the whole time of a devotee.

Don’t fail through defects of temper and over-sensitiveness at moments of trial. One of the great helps to success is to be cheerful; to go to work with a full sense of life; to be determined to put hindrances out of the way; to prevail over them and to get the mastery. Above all things else, be cheerful; there is no beatitude for the despairing.

Apparent success may be reached by sheer impudence, in defiance of offensive demerit. But men who get what they are manifestly unfit for, are made to feel what people think of them. Charlatanry may flourish; but when its bay tree is greenest, it is held far lower than genuine effort. The world is just; it may, it does, patronize quacks; but it never puts them on a level with true men.

It is better to have the opportunity of victory, than to be spared the struggle; for success comes but as the result of arduous experience. The foundations of my success were laid before I can well remember; it was after at least forty-five years of conscious labor that I reached the object of my hope. Many a time my head failed me, my hands failed me, my feet failed me, but, thank God, my heart never failed me.

The Moment of My Life

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I see trees of green, red roses too; I see them bloom for me and you. And I think to myself, “What a wonderful world.”   —  Louis Armstrong

August 16, 2003

I’d waited forever …

The cloudless sky was blue and the temperature 92 degrees in Kragnes, Minnesota. A gentle breeze blew through the trees. I looked out from the deck in front of the small chapel. My son and my two brothers and Melanie’s best friend and two daughters stood with me. My friend, the Reverend Doctor Steven Streed, was next to me.

Melanie came down the aisle on the arm of her son. She was beautiful. My heart filled with tears of happiness, and I smiled. Melanie and I would commit our lives to one another in just moments.

I scanned the 150 family and friends and saw my dad with tears in his eyes — Melanie’s mom too. I watched as Melanie and Matt approached us. I thought how my life had changed over the past few years. My journey to this moment had been arduous and its fulfillment was moments away.

I had divorced three and one-half years earlier. The decision was difficult to make at age 54 after a 35-year marriage, and I thought long and hard about the choice. I would divorce with no guarantee that I would ever find the kind of relationship I yearned for. I saw the possibilities for joy and for despair; I was not naive.

I was filled with excitement about new possibilities as I ventured out onto my own. I wanted to marry again, but I also wanted to take the time to make a good transition and to learn more about myself. I also felt sad about the losses in my life and anxious about the unknowns: What would happen to me? What if I had a heart attack in a month? Who would help me? Would I lose the love of my children? Was I crazy to give up financial security? Would I ever find the right person to be my partner in life? I feared ending up old and alone. My mother died shortly after my separation and my mentor — best friend, and colleague — Diane Olson died unexpectedly a few months later.

I moved to the San Juan mountains near Ouray, Colorado to grieve, to fulfill a dream, and to renew myself. I wanted to spend time in the wilderness of my life where I could pause and reflect, ponder, and imagine. I spent 14 months in the San Juan mountains and then moved to Fargo, North Dakota where I had lived for the previous 17 months. Our journeys in life often take us to unexpected places.

The marriage of commitment between Melanie and me was the most significant moment of the rest of my life. For me, the ceremony signified much more than the important ritual and celebration of marriage. This singular moment represented the culmination of an adult lifetime of disillusionments followed by new hope, endings followed by new beginnings, despair followed by deeper authenticity, and confusion followed by illumination.

The faint of heart do not take spiritual journeys. Personal freedom takes us down roads not traveled before. We cannot know ahead of time how our choices will turn out; we can only influence the larger forces of life — we cannot control them. Anyone who says they possess unquestioned faith and a clear and certain path deceives him or herself from the anxiety of choice and the vulnerability of authentic risk.

I chose my personal and professional journey intentionally, as an act of authenticity and spiritual exploration. I often found my quest to be lonely and painful — filled with doubt, vulnerability, and uncertainty as to the rightness of my path. At times, I wondered if I had taken on more than I could handle, which was the only way to find out how much I could handle. I also found my odyssey to be filled with the excitement and aliveness that courageous action can provide. Beneath the anxieties, I always felt a strong confidence. My challenge was to stay true to my vision, values, and purpose despite insecurity and ambiguity. I met the test.

As Melanie came to me on the deck, I thought, “How I love her.” Melanie has the greatest soul I have known. I was astounded when I first got to know her. She had wounds, she had imperfections, she was spontaneous, and she rang true. Her naturalness captured what I tried to articulate when I talked and wrote about authenticity. I soon said to Melanie, “You personify all I am trying to become and you don’t even know of your perfect humanness.”

Her humble origins served her well: She grew up in a family of ten children. She began picking weeds in the bean fields when she was eight years old. At 10 she hauled garbage. As a teenager, she waited on tables in a cafe and cleaned rooms in several motels. Then she worked as an operator for the telephone company. She settled into a large organization and advanced to the top of her profession. She became a great leader.

I took Melanie’s hand on the deck of the chapel. The service was simple: two songs, two spiritual readings, a brief sermon, and prayers. Melanie and I faced one another and read the vows we wrote together. We committed our lives to one another. Soon the service ended and Pastor Streed introduced us as “Mr. and Mrs. Tom Heuerman.” We kissed. The church bell rang, and we walked down the aisle. Louis Armstrong’s voice moved us.

                  I see skies of blue and clouds of white

                  The bright blessed day, the dark sacred night

                  And I think to myself what a wonderful world.

 

                  The colors of the rainbow so pretty in the sky

                  Are also on the faces of people going by

                  I see friends shaking hands saying how do you do

                  They’re really saying I love you.

I never thought such goodness would happen for me. I felt grateful to find love and intimacy at that time of my life when it would have been so easy to accept less.

What a wonderful world.