Wise Men and Other Stories Read Free Page B

table was already set, and she served up bacon, eggs, pancakes, syrup, sausage, homemade biscuits, gravy, hash browns, toast, butter, jam, coffee, milk, and fresh-squeezed orange juice. It was a feast fit for kings, let alone bumbling college students.
    It was obvious that Rick’s grandparents were not wealthy people, yet they held nothing back. It was only after we repeatedly insisted that we couldn’t eat another bite that Rick’s grandmother finally sat down to rest.
    I’ve never forgotten that meal. I realized at the time that it was being prepared out of a grandmother’s unwavering love for her grandson. I just happened to be in the right place at the right time to share in it.
    I think of that meal every year at Thanksgiving because I learned that the key ingredient to the best meals is not something you find in a cookbook or a recipe. No, the key ingredient comes from somewhere else. It comes from the heart of the person preparing the meal.
    When the chef brings unwavering love to the table, every meal is a feast.

 
Christmas at the Carl Sandburg Mall
     
    December 1977. Galesburg, Illinois. I wasn’t doing very well in college. The academic affairs committee suggested that I take some time off. At first I declined their offer, but they politely informed me that if I didn’t take some time off voluntarily, they would make the decision for me. All of a sudden, a little time off didn’t sound so bad. I soon found myself looking for a job at the Carl Sandburg Mall, out near the freeway bypass on the north edge of town.
    The Carl Sandburg Mall. What would he say if he were alive today? (The fog comes/on little cat feet./It sits looking over the Carl Sandburg Mall/shudders in revulsion/and then moves on.)
    I applied at nearly every store in the Carl Sandburg Mall before Jim Jurinak, the manager at the Shoe Inn, a division of the giant Shoe Corporation of America, called me in for an interview. “You could manage your own store if you catch on quick,” he told me. I told him I was interested—my career options were limited at the time—and he hired me on the spot.
    Selling shoes is not the worst job in the world. Especially at Christmas. People are buying gifts. They pick out a style, tell you a size, and if you have it in stock, they buy it.
    The unpleasant part was that the Shoe Corporation of America insisted that a certain percentage of each employee’s sales be in accessories—shoe polish, socks, purses, etc. Apparently, shoe companies make more money on polish and socks and purses than they do on shoes—which makes you wonder why they don’t dispense with the shoes altogether and just open up a sock and polish store.
    Anyway, it turned out that I was not very good at selling polish and socks and purses. My career in shoe sales was soon in jeopardy. Eventually, Ted, the district sales manager from Peoria, came up to evaluate my performance for himself.
    He visited on a busy Saturday morning. Jim Jurinak and Ted went out to a bench in the Carl Sandburg Mall to talk. Things got busy. I kept waiting for the two ace salesmen to come in and help, but they never left their bench. I ended up waiting on all the customers. Later, when Ted left and Jim Jurinak returned to the store, I asked him why they hadn’t come in to help me.
    “We wanted to see how you would handle a rush,” said Jim Jurinak.
    “How did I do?” I asked.
    “Well,” said Jim, “some people just aren’t cut out for the shoe game.”
    It can now be told that I never actually had any interest in the shoe game or in managing my own shoe store. But I couldn’t quite tell Jim Jurinak that back then. I wish I could have. It would have saved us both a lot of trouble. Instead, I expressed my heartfelt desire to succeed at shoe sales (at least until I could get back in school), and Jim Jurinak had pity: he agreed to teach me the intricacies of the shoe game.
    I held that job for almost a year. During that time, I watched Jim Jurinak closely.