This happened a lot, and I’m a salesman were words I began to abhor. I dragged myself back
to my car, driving straight home, rather than to the next prospect. I couldn’t take it another
day, yet I didn’t have the courage to quit.
The next morning as the alarm buzzed its awful buzz, I turned over with a jerk, angrily
reaching for the Off button. That’s when the pain hit me. It felt as if someone had stabbed me
in the back. I couldn’t move another inch without absolute agony.
My wife called our family doctor and handed me the phone. The nurse asked if I could come
into the office. “I don’t think so,”
I winced. “I can’t move. “So believe it or not, the doctor came to my house.
I had a collapsed disc, the doctor said, and it would take eight to twelve weeks to heal, during
which time I was to stay off my feet as much as possible. I would probably have to be placed
in traction. I called my boss and told him. The next day I was fired. “I’m sorry,” Tom allowed,
“but we just can’t keep paying you a draw against future commissions for three months. It
would take you a year to work that off It’s a tough break, but we’re going to have to let you
go.”
“Yeah,” I echoed, “tough break.” I could hardly keep the smile off my face.
I’d been given a legitimate reason for leaving my job! It was a cruel world, but that’s the way
the ball bounces sometimes. That was my worldview, the myth I grew up with. It never
occurred to me that I had created all this; that the “cruel world” was a world of my own
construction. This realization—what some might call self-realization-—came much later.
After only five weeks I found myself feeling much better (surprise, surprise). The doctor said
my recovery was going faster than
expected, and, cautioning against pushing myself, gave me the go-ahead for occasional trips
out of the house. It wasn’t a moment too soon. We were skimping by on my wife’s salary as a
physical therapist, and it was clear that before long I was going to have to find something to
do for a living. But what could I do? There were no jobs in radio to be had, in Baltimore or
back in good old Annapolis. And I’d never done anything else....
Of course, there was that bit of writing for the high-school weekly back in Milwaukee, but
surely that wasn’t credential enough to get a real newspaper job. But again I’m reminded of
how God works as our best friend—supporting us in getting where we say we want to go,
giving us the tools with which to create the experiences that will serve us in moving to greater
and greater awareness, and, ultimately, prepare us to express Who We Really Are.
Taking a gamble, I went to the offices of The Evening Capital. Annapolis’ daily newspaper. I
asked to see Jay Jackson, then managing editor, and—unlike with Larry LaRue—begged him
for a job.
Fortunately, I was not completely unknown to Jay, my days in Annapolis radio having brought
me a bit of notoriety. I told him that I’d lost my job in Baltimore because of my health, let him
know that my wife was pregnant, and said, “Mr. Jackson, the truth is, I need work. Any kind of
work. I’ll wash the floors. Be a copy boy. Anything.”
Jay listened very quietly from behind his desk. When I finished, he said nothing. I imagined
that he was trying to think of how he could get me out of there. Instead, he finally asked, “Do
you know how to write?”