A TRIBUTE TO SAM SPALDING, ONE OF THE HEROES OF MY YOUTH

A TRIBUTE TO SAM SPALDING, ONE OF THE HEROES OF MY YOUTH

James R. Fisher, Jr., Ph.D.

© May 1, 2011

ELAINE SPALDING SIMPSON WRITES:

Dear Dr. Fisher, My cousin was kind enough to send me a copy of your book, "In the Shadow of the Courthouse" so that I might read about Clinton, IA and about my father, Sam Spalding. I want to let you know how much I enjoyed your book and especially the chapter regarding my father.  Your description of him and his hissing laugh brought him back to life for me.  I also thought you might be interested in knowing that he understood the age problem first hand. My father's family was originally from Kentucky.  They lost a great deal after the stock market crash so decided to Clinton because a cousin had told my grandfather he could find work.  My grandfather found some handyman work then eventually got on with the railroad but that wasn't very stable either.  There were eight children in the family so times were rough.  My grandmother heard that there was a job opening at Tittle Brothers Meat market so she lied about my father's age and pulled him out of his sophomore year in high school to go to work and support the family.  He worked there a couple of years and A&P approached him to be a butcher in their Moline, IL store. After returning from the war he was offered the position as store manager in Clinton.  He said the position terrified him because he didn't have education and never ran anything, but he decided to take it under the condition that if he didn't like it he could go back to being a butcher.  As the years went on he became the star manager of the Chicago division.  As a family we moved around a lot as he opened all the new stores and went to failing stores to boost them up. He had been considered for a division management position but because he hadn't graduated from high school he was taken off the list. However, in the late 1970's he predicted that A&P was going down.  He commented that management was not listening to the store managers as to their customers wants and needs and the people calling the shots had never worked in a store and understood the day to day business.  After 40+ years he decided retire.  To acknowledge his years of service A&P sent him a certificate with his last name spelled wrong.  However, the employees of the local stores that he had managed in the Quad Cities area all got together and gave him a wonderful party complete with a gold watch.  He said that party was better than anything A&P could have ever done. My father raised three successful children. He taught us the value of people, integrity and hard work.  Two of us have managed businesses and in stressful situations would often think, "How would Dad have handled this?"  Sometimes we'd laugh, because how Dad would have handled things would now be politically incorrect and he'd be sued. Please excuse my rattling on but I did want to thank you for the memories.  It was a wonderful book. Best regards, Elaine Spalding Simpson

*     *     *

DR. FISHER RESPONDS:

Dear Elaine Spalding Simpson,

Thank you for your nice note.

Your father was one of my favorite people while growing up in Clinton, Iowa.  I had no idea that we shared a lower class socio-economic family background as I have always looked up to him as a man of substance, grace, sagacity and caring. 

Nor did I think that he was aware that I lied about my age when I came to him for a job at the A&P where he was manager when I was fourteen saying I was sixteen.  I thought I got away with it because I was already six-one and thought I deported myself as older.

You can imagine my shock when he was a sponsor of a classmate of mine at my Confirmation at St. Patrick’s School, blowing my cover.  I was so red with embarrassment that I shunned acknowledging him at the ceremony, thinking I would surely be fired the next time I showed up for work, but he never mentioned the Confirmation. 

Those caring eyes of his should have told me he knew I needed the job for my family.

I wrote IN THE SHADOW OF THE COURTHOUSE (2003) to capture a moment in my lifetime when adults acted like adults, when older boys and girls looked after those younger than they were. 

Much attention is given in this book about baseball activities over at the courthouse where Gussie Witt, Jack Dunmore and Lyle Sawyer, all while in high school, looked after us as coaches, counselors and friends. 

This included Dean Burridge, a St. Pat’s grad, during his junior and senior at Clinton High, where he was first-team all-state in football and basketball.  I’ve often wondered how he found time to coach us at St. Patrick’s in basketball. 

All five starters on coach Burridge’s St. Patrick’s team, a team never defeated, were starters at Clinton High in basketball during some or most of their high school years.

St. Pat’s Bobby Witt made first-team all-state his senior year in basketball.  He, like Dean Burridge, was a starter from his sophomore year, on.

I mention this here, Elaine, because the book profiles individuals who made the times so momentous, and no one for me more than your father, Sam Spalding.

It pleases me that you have had a chance to read this book, and to see the tribute to your father.  I share these missives and emails with my email address book, and on my blog (www.fisherofideas.com) for reason.  I have had a wonderful life because of the people mentioned here.

Nothing illustrates what I am saying better than the incident in the book involving your father.  For readers not acquainted with the book, I will attempt to capsulate that experience now.

*     *     *

My family never owned an automobile in all my growing up years.  In fact, I never learned how to drive until I was a junior in college.  When I was fourteen and working for Sam Spalding at the A&P, he asked John David and me to wash his brand new automobile that he had just purchased to make it ready for his forty mile trip home to Rock Island from Clinton. 

It was after WWII when new cars were coming off the assembly line again, and proud owners of these new cars, once delivered, beamed as new fathers.  Sam was no different.

John David liked the radio on while we were washing the car.  He left me to finish up, and told me to turn off the radio.  Not familiar with a car’s dashboard, I didn’t know what button was for the radio, and pushed a button and the car started to roll forward.  We were washing the car behind the A&P just off the parking lot.

As the car rolled, I hit in panic what I thought was the brake, and the car leaped forward like a bullet.  At that same moment, a fruit truck that had delivered its produce was passing as I soared out of the alley and crashed with a considerable bang into the truck resulting in people rushing out of the store to see what had happened. 

One of those rushing out was Clinton’s chief of police who saw it as a possible car jacking.  Crying hysterically, he pulled me out of the car and handcuffed me.  I was too distraught to explain what had happened.

Your father, the store manager, came out of the store now, and saw the terrible damage to the front in of his new automobile, and his worker in handcuffs.  I will never forget what happened next.

Sam told the police chief, a friend of his that I worked for him and that he was sure there was an explanation. 

He didn’t swear, didn’t throw up his arms in anger, didn’t look daggers in my face as if to say, “how could you do this to me,” he simply asked the policeman to take my handcuffs off, and for me, once I stopped crying, to explain what had happened.     

Remarkably, I stopped crying almost immediately in imitation of his calmness, and told him and the policeman what I have said here, including that my family didn’t own an automobile and I had no idea how an automobile worked.

Curiously, to this day, my wife, Beautiful Betty, who I simply call BB, says it is my Irish gives more information than is needed and then that information is not always relevant. 

What I didn’t understand then that I do now is that your father would have had a deductible on his insurance policy, which meant he had to put out hard, earned cash for the damages.  Nor did I understand there might be culpable damages to be considered for the fruit truck or possibly for injuries sustained by the driver of that truck, more hard earned cash.

Your father never contacted my father or our family about this incident.  Nor did he ever hold it against me.  In fact, he never discussed it during the period covered IN THE SHADOW OF THE COURTHOUSE.  It was much later.

*     *     *

The rest of the story regarding Sam Spalding and Jim Fisher has never been recorded.  I thought of writing a sequel to IN THE SHADOW, but decided against it.  I thought it would sound too much like sour grapes, as I commenced to run into a number of negatives at Clinton High in coaches and teachers, in parents and students that contrasted with these halcyon days of grammar school in terms of religion, academics, athletics and personalities. 

In a way, your father and the nuns at St. Patrick’s, the boy coaches at the courthouse and at St. Pat’s protected me from the real world of competition and prejudice, conflict and confrontation which are the normal experiences of life.

The halcyon days returned peculiarly in college where I was judged completely on the bases of merit or my record rather than on my personality and biases.  Your father was part of that return to the calm.

As a senior I was near the top of my academic class, and had received merit scholarships for grades all my academic years, but I was in my fifth year now with no such financial support.  I went by the A&P for a job to stock shelves after hours, as I knew this was a common practice for successful stores, not knowing that your father was the manager.

We immediately recognized each other.  “When can you come to work?” he asked.  I answered after my last period today.  He next asked, “Are you too busy to have a coffee?”  I’m never too busy for that.  “I want you to meet someone.”  So we went to a nearby restaurant for coffee with a man whom I learned was the regional manager.

It was clear your father wanted me to consider working for A&P, when my aim was to work in chemical research or chemical operations.  Sam never asked what my degrees were in. 

No sooner were we seated, and your father turned to me, and said, “Tell my boss what you did to my new car ten years ago.”  Actually, it was seven ago, but I told the story while your father and the regional manager laughed and joked about it. 

My wonder then, as I was already becoming quite perspicacious, was if the regional manager had any idea what a jewel he had in your father as store manager.  Elaine, I never knew that your father had not graduated from high school; never knew this had limited his career.  I knew only that whatever he touched in management turned to gold.  It saddens me to learn this now.

Sam Spalding was one of the most remarkable people I have experienced in life, but I will tell you this.  He was a tough manager, knew who his workers were and who they weren’t, and he could fire somebody on the spot that was loafing, pilfering merchandise, or mishandling customers. 

If you check my website, you will see I’ve written a spate of books on the failure of corporations to appreciate people as persons, or to listen to them as informed voices to ensure stability, continuity and survival. 

I once read a book on A&P in which the author claimed its demise was hastened by having dirty stores.  Sam was a stickler for cleanliness, for clear isles, and for stocking shelves after hours as much as possible to avoid interference with shoppers, little things.

A&P is gone, so is Montgomery Wards, so are many other stores that were once at the cutting edge or with longevities of more than one hundred years.  The answers, as you point out, are always in those doing the day-to-day business.  They experience the problems and witness the trends.  But, alas, we have become what I call a cosmetic society dedicated to cosmetic answers to real problems.

Thank you for sharing, and telling me about your father.  May his soul forever rest in peace.

Be always well,

Jim