But trust me. I attended that school.
Let me tell you a little about the required classes.
On Sunday mornings it was church and Sunday school. On Sunday nights it was MYF and the evening service. On Wednesday night it was the mid week service. Every summer it was Indian Springs Campmeeting. All required classes.
At night before we went to bed it was family devotional. Required attendance. We all went into Mama and Daddy’s room. Mama read the Bible and we all prayed. You couldn’t request a bye. You were on the spot in that room. If we had company over Mama would come into our room at night to pray with us and for us before we went to bed.
On Saturday’s during school it was work. It didn’t matter what we did on Friday nights - we had to be at work at the store at 8AM on Saturdays. I remember being kinda proud when I heard all the loud cheering on a Friday night during a basketball game. There was no cheering at my house on Saturday morning.
It was get your butt out of the bed – you’re going to be late for work.
We got off at 8PM, so it was not a 9 -5 job. I’ll admit there were times when my brother George and I would rotate Saturdays during the middle of basketball season. But for some reason, I don’t remember a lot of free Saturdays.
During the summer it was work. We worked a minimum of 40 hour work weeks. We begin our career sacking up groceries. Not too difficult. Bread goes on top. Thanks for shopping at Goddard’s Red and White.
Then there was the unloading of grocery trucks. After we unloaded the truck, we had to put the groceries up on the shelves. We had a secret code so we would know the cost on the product. And then we had to figure our mark-up and decide on the selling price. We then had to stamp each item with those ink stampers before we put them on the shelf. When I was in high school and the math teacher started to teach us how to do mark-ups, I smiled. I already know how to do that, thank you very much.
Then we got promoted to the produce department. A little more difficult now. Had to learn to use scales and do a little more math. You had to know the price of potatoes per pound… and beans and peas and grapes and cabbage and all the other produce. Then you had to weigh whatever the customer wanted and come up with a total price. And you had to do that under the pressure of a customer looking over your shoulder to be sure you didn’t fudge.
Then we moved up to the meat department. We learned how to cut up a chicken. We even learned how to break down a side of beef. We used electric saws, and slicers and grinders. Now our job had some danger associated with it. My ring finger on my left hand still looks like a piece of cube steak. And we had to wrap the meat and put a price on it. We were taught how to figure Operating Profit and Margin in the meat market. In fact we were paid based on our Operating Margin. Now we were motivated. Send the part-time help home when we are not busy. Find a cheaper vendor. What kind of price can we put on this and still sell it? We were becoming entrepreneurs.
We later started handling the money. We ran the cash registers. We had to know how to make change. We would have to balance the cash drawers at the end of the day. We had to be sure the amount in the drawer matched the amount the register had rung in. If it came up short, you got asked questions.
Then we finally moved all the way up to the back office. Now we learned about debits and credits and T-Accounts. We learned about accounts payable. We wrote checks to vendors and we could see the balance in the bank. We learned how much money it takes to run a business.
We also learned about the funeral business. I was in the embalming room when I was 13 years old. I was hauling flowers on funerals at the same age. I was assisting my dad as he waited on families in the arrangement conference before I graduated from high school. I learned about grief and pain at an early age and had many actual lessons in how to deal with it. I went out to automobile accidents and helped my dad scrape people off the highway before I was old enough to drive.
My freshmen year in college I became an Emergency Medical Technician It was part of the family business. I was expected to do it. Required courses to graduate.
There were also other lessons. I went to bed at night many times hearing laughter in our house. I knew what it was like to have close friends because my parents had them. They did things together. The friends ate together and they enjoyed each other’s company. Their friends became my friends as I grew older. And their children are like my family even today.
There were also lessons on encouragement. “Bruce, you can do anything you want to do in this life if you just set your mind to it.” “Don’t do it half way. Do it better than anyone else. Get up earlier. Stay later. Work harder.”
I can’t tell you how many times I heard my dad say those things.
Today, I have operational responsibility for businesses doing hundreds of millions in Revenues. I have more on my plate than I ever imagined. And I also speak and motivate corporations, businesses and all kinds of groups throughout the United States.
My boys have asked me more than a few times how I got qualified to do what I do.
I'm not sure if I am qualified.
But I always think of the answer.
I graduated from the Goddard School in Reynolds Georgia.
And I use what I learned there every day of my life.
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