Montana Cowboy

I’m just not reading enough lately. One of my hobbies is reading about subjects new to me because it expands my knowledge base and gives new perspectives on the familiar. Oh, and it also gives me ideas for this column. But like I said, I’m not reading much new lately, so a few days ago I got out an old book of mine – one I'd bought twenty years ago – and started skimming through it re-reading small passages. 

Oh Boy! I’d forgotten how much I enjoyed it. The book is titled “Hell, I Was There! – The Adventures of a Montana Cowboy” by the late (1984) Elmer Keith. Elmer’s writing had a big influence on me when I was a kid. He was born just before the turn of the century and was raised in rural Montana and Idaho. This was the time the West was transitioning from a wild frontier into more civilized country, and he was mentored by some legendary characters from that exciting era. His stories of a time that will never be again are fascinating, but what struck me most from the book was the number of hardships he had in his life. 

Whether it was recovering from severe burns in a boarding house fire as a child, having his family’s annual crop stolen by a crooked banker, or making ends meet by running a hand-built plank barge down the Salmon River rapids, he never complained. In fact, he embraced these challenges – even thrived on them. As you read the book, you begin to see these “hardships” actually defined the man, and were constant reinforcements to him of who he was and what he could accomplish. They chipped away the extraneous and revealed and highlighted his true character. Elmer Keith knew who he was and he was going to be that person in spite of what life threw at him – or more likely because of it.

The tie-in here is that at our facility we all have things each day that go our way and many that do not. No business is easy, and ours is no exception. 

But that’s not a problem; that’s our opportunity. 

When we have hard times or hard choices, that’s not the time to wish things were different. That’s the time to move past them on our way to being the best organization in the business. It’s the time to reinforce who we are.

At least that’s how Elmer would see it.