Putting Out Fires

October 13, 2025

Good morning! Happy Feast of Giving Thanks to our friends, neighbors, and family in Canada. Sick and tired of eating pumpkin foods and drinking pumpkin beverages this time of year?

You can now just smell the part all day long, no need to eat or drink anything.

A body scent company called Native has a collection of different donut smells available for your consideration — and presumably to aid in the attraction of new BFFs.

• Do you remember your grandparents’ Ground Cherries?
  • Everyone had them — like rhubarb or crab apples.
  • Those little round succulent orange-ish orbs encased in silk-like cocoons featuring earthy, subtle flavour.
  • Grandmother turned them into jams or pies, and kept a handful still in their husks on the porch table just for grandchildren.
  • Anyway, three different Ground Cherry plants appeared in our yard — volunteers — over the summer months and are now producing abundant fruit.  (Oooops!  It froze!)
• We just ran across this creative accounting euphemism previously unknown to us:  Nonstandard Metric.
• Even in sparsely-populated areas like Wyoming, Eastern Montana, West Texas, and most of Utah, lack of affordable housing is affecting millions of citizens.  (Stwart III, Etc., et al.)
  • You might ask, why is this important?
  • Well, if you have to ask…
  • “Quality, affordable housing is essential for economic mobility but remains unattainable for too many in the United States.”
  • “The housing shortage nearly doubled between 2012 and 2023, climbing to 8.2 million units.  By 2035 the shortage could reach 9.6 million units.”  (Ibid.)
  • Economists forecast the net positive payback on the construction costs would be less than two years relative to strengthening the US’s GDP.  (October 2025 data)
• The schnacking industry might be going through a transformation not unlike the beer industry experienced a decade or two ago.
  • From big national brands to smaller regional and local brands.
  • According to data from Nielsen IQ, Etc., et al., almost all growth in schnacks is happening at the small Mom & Pop places.
  • Customers are attracted to marketing (and experiences) focused on local, organic, home-grown, no preservatives, no sugar, Etc.
  • Perhaps not unlike the Ben & Jerry’s movement decades ago — which then morphed into mainstream, almost…
  • According to the experts, if Kraft-Heinz, General Mills, PepsiCo, Campbell’s (did you know it makes Gold Fish?) and Smucker want to survive, they will need to up their game big-time.
  • Anecdotal test:  Where are your schnack dollars going compared to ten years ago?
  • Anecdotal:  Lay’s Potato Chips (PepsiCo) is rebranding and changing its packaging… Apparently people don’t know potatoes are the core ingredient.
• Book:  Marra’s, Mercury Pictures Presents, 
  • The writing is so amazingly and satisfyingly clever you’re tempted to read each sentence twice.
• Putting out fires?
  • Most leaders perceive themselves as excellent communicators, I’ve rarely met one who didn’t think so.
    • Melissa Swift provides this analogy:
    • “Communication is core to the job of fire fighting…
    • Oral communication is essential on two different levels:  Constantly coordinating activity around the situation — 
    • — and reinforcing coworkers’ energy and morale under tough conditions.
    • Everything is spoken out loud and checked on in real time; keeping the team’s spirits up is a core goal, not just a secondary or consequential goal.
    • … we business leaders often consider it a waste of time to narrate our actions — or to coordinate in real time with others.
    • As a result, simple questions like, ‘Who needs to see that deliverable before it goes out the door?’ or
    • ‘Who can make that decision’, all too often slip through the cracks, causing chaos to grow.
    • It’s called ‘working out loud’…  (I witnessed and observed this in excellent fashion this past Saturday.)
    • … overloaded leaders often inject negative energy into critical moments to try to create urgency, leaving already exhausted folks in even-worse shape.
      • Unless someone is about to make a terrible mistake, negatively-tinged feedback in tricky situations just drains the group’s energy.”
• With your permission — and patience — here is another snippet from the draft of my book, How Do You Know?
• From the chapter, BE READY:  “I will prepare and some day my chance will come.” (Abraham Lincoln)
  • I wanted to succeed at Scouting so badly I joined a troop in Wabasha — 30 miles down the road — when my local troop folded in the mid-1960s.
  • Once I got my driver’s license at age sixteen, I often traveled to other communities in order to participate in Scouting activities not available to just one kid in a small rural village.
  • Looking back, I know my parents, especially my Dad, sacrificed tremendously in allowing me to participate, even beginning with those rides home late afternoons for Cub Scouts (in serious conflict with essential farm chores).
  • In particular I remember earning the swimming merit badge by traveling once a week for ten weeks in a row to Rochester (32 miles round trip) during the dead of winter.
  • Dad must have really struggled with getting the milking finished, not to mention icy roads and the cost of gas when he never had a dime his entire life.
  • Sadly, I don’t think I offered to help finish the chores beyond cheering (nagging) him on.
  • I recall another time when I had to go to a cultural event in order to earn the music merit badge.
  • My Dad made it possible for me to attend a performance of the Rochester Civic Orchestra at the Mayo Civic Auditorium.
  • He sat with me — two guys fresh from the farm — in the top row of the balcony, the cheapest seats.
  • That concert was really out of my league, perhaps comparable now to if I were to fly to Paris for an evening event at the Louvre.
  • When I was about 14, probably during the third or fourth summer as a camper at Hok-si-la, my not-very-kind Scout mates elected me to the Order of the Arrow, a prestigious campers’ honor society within Scouting.
  • The only way you could become a member was to be chosen by the other Scouts in your troop.
  • I was secretly elated when they chose me because I instantly understood the exciting opportunities that went with this honor.
  • At the same time I knew the empty gesture on their part was mean-spirited because of the arduous initiation that went with the honor.
  • I smiled inwardly and rejoiced for the entire 24 hour ordeal of that initiation and never looked back because it was a significant turning point for my self-esteem.
  • I had tricked and defeated the bullies, and I suspect more than 60 years later they still don’t have a clue. 
  • Membership in the Order of the Arrow launched numerous healthy relationships far beyond my little farm village that had been non-existent throughout my childhood.
  • What was meant as a cruel joke by a gang of small town hoodlums was the final leg of my journey out of rural poverty, and I recognized it – and rejoiced – at the time.
    • “I will prepare and some day my chance will come.”  (Mr. Lincoln)
• (Continued next week, maybe…)