The Principle – Actions that emphasize family first reward more than family.

Who doesn’t crave recognition and rewards? Quig was certainly not immune from those cravings. As a District Ranger in the Forest Service, the pathway to promotion and higher recognition was well established and certainly understood.

Kanosh, Utah Ranger District was small by today’s standards. Budget cuts, increasing communications options, and increased administrative pressures have resulted in consolidations among National Forests and Ranger Districts. A small district in the 1960’s might have a GS-11 District Ranger and 3-6 staff. While being a District Ranger carried with it some recognition and authority, after 10 years in place the lure of promotion, greater influence, and a welcome change pressed Quig to apply for other jobs.

I recall the day he announced that he had accepted a job on the Sawtooth National Forest in Idaho as Range Staff Officer – a promotion. There is little doubt that his superiors had exercised influence in getting him this offer. The announcement of this “opportunity” was made at the dinner table. My two older sisters looked like they had been shot. Both were in high school and were taken completely by surprise.

A few of the quotes I recall include: “Are we going to vote?” “Do I get any say in this?” “This will ruin my life!” “Why do we have to move?”

I don’t recall much coming from the boys. Perhaps that was because we were too young to realize what was happening. Or maybe we couldn’t get into the conversation with the way my older sisters were carrying on.

Quig remained calm but was obviously not expecting this reaction. He kept an eye on body language – especially of Audrey, his wife – and attempted to moderate the discussion as he had done so many times before. I cannot recount all the discussions nor actions that took place, but the outcome was announced the next morning at the breakfast table. Quig would place family first and turn down the promotion and move.

I never heard Quig say he regretted this decision. It was years later that I better understood the politics and ramifications of this choice. It wasn’t until I had personally worked for the Forest Service for a decade, that I learned his supervisor had told him by turning down this promotion he would never be promoted nor advanced beyond District Ranger. Even though the Kanosh and Fillmore Ranger Districts were combined while Quig was the District Ranger, it wasn’t until he retired that the combined District was reclassified as a GS-12. Quig retired as a GS-11 and the Ranger who replaced him was a GS-12.

I am not convinced that the family would have fallen apart or some dire consequences might have befallen us if Quig had accepted the promotion. What I am convinced is that this decision exemplifies how Quig treated his family. He did not complain nor carry on about this type of choice – it was just him.

Big decisions of this type stand out as a rather dramatic demonstration of family first, but that was more the icing on the cake than it was the substance of the cake itself. Quig’s every day actions demonstrated that he embraced the principle of family first.

I didn’t understand this until I had children of my own. As their lives got busy and their activities multiplied, I gained new appreciation for Quig and Audrey. It was a very rare day if they did not travel to witness a game, a presentation, or a performance of one of their kids - often times that meant dividing up and going different directions. The contrast with some of my friends was clear. A few of them could not recall a time their parents attended an activity that was away from Kanosh or Fillmore. Occasionally I had to beg to get them not to come watch me at an event I thought I might do poorly at. I even recall how disappointed they were to learn that the high school debate team would be traveling but they could not come witness the actual debates.

Q&A’s approach to family first was witnessed by more than the kids. Even as feeble grandparents they were present for events for grandchildren. Whenever school, church, or community events involved family everyone knew Q&A would be there supporting their family.

So with such great lessons before me, am I a shining example of this principle? I don’t think I stand out in any special way against the example of Q&A, but I try. I have many regrets about my chasing the career ladder and witnessing difficult times for my children. I often wonder whether my seeking a PhD or a national assignment was a root cause of later pain for my children and wife. I suspect it is. I can’t fully explain why I seem to be different than Q&A in some regards, but I think the family first principle is one I did not necessarily excel at. That does not mean that I somehow don’t embrace this principle. In fact I am confident it brings the correct balance in life. What I know personally though, is that it is hard to live by in all circumstances.

I still had my two youngest children at home when the call came asking that I meet with my boss, Jack Ward Thomas. As it turns out he had already been informed he was going to be named as the next Chief of the Forest Service. He had been on assignment under direction from then President Bill Clinton to help solve the Northern Spotted Owl issue in the Northwest. As that assignment was winding down, a new issue was surfacing regarding natural resource issues in the interior Columbia Basin. A new process was about to be launched that would cover portions of seven states and had the potential to help solve some pretty sticky problems. Jack told me he wanted me to lead the science team that was to undertake the scientific assessment of resource conditions in support of potential decisions regarding the management of Federal lands in the interior Columbia Basin.

My ego was stroked. I recall statements about very few could succeed at this, you are trusted by both science and management, you have established the example in leading the Blue Mountains Natural Resources Institute, and on and on. In hind sight I don’t think I followed Quig’s example very well at all. I had discussions with my wife and children but really did not give them much of a voice in the final outcome. I thought duty had called and I was going to treat this like the short term assignment that was promised. To make a long story short, I accepted a nine month assignment to be the Science Integration Team Leader for the Interior Columbia Basin Ecosystem Management Project (ICBEMP). The headquarters for this work was some 90 miles away from our home. I committed to rent an apartment during the week and commute home on the weekends.

I called Kerry, my wife, virtually every night. We talked about how the kids were doing in school and with all their projects – I even helped my son with math over the phone occasionally. The reality of the problem I had created in accepting this assignment did not fully hit me until it was clear the nine month assignment was really going to be more like a 2 or 3 year assignment (in the final analysis the assignment lasted for over 9 years). One evening Kerry explained to me a problem our daughter was having. I said “I will talk with her when I get their on Saturday.” Kerry was very clear “No you won’t. You are a visitor in this house! I will take care of this.”

I decided then and there that I needed to get the family back together again. We moved to be together but that meant uprooting our son during his freshman year in high school. The ICBEMP was threatened every year with closure. There was no ground swell of support to solve the natural resource problems of the Columbia Basin. In fact the entire Department of Agriculture went on furlough one year, in part, because Congress refused to fund the ICBEMP. All this brought out dances I had to do with Governors, Senators, Cabinet Officers, and local politicians. But the uncertainty of it all resulted in my son deciding to take on two years of high school credits so he could graduate at the end of his Junior year for fear he would be transferred again because of my job situation. That was stressful for him and for Kerry.

I learned a lot in those years. I even thought I understood what it meant to put family first. The reality was I did not. I have attempted many sessions of penance for these actions. I suppose only my family can really attest to whether I have successfully lived the principle.

Bottom Line – If you place family first in your life, your influence will be felt and appreciated well beyond your family. Indeed recognitions and rewards will still be yours.

Thomas M. Quigley

We all have individuals in our lives that seem bigger than life – influencing us in ways we can’t understand until time, in fact considerable time, passes. I understand that we are more than the outgrowth of one or two individual’s influence. I suspect we can all point to a few individuals who had the most profound influence on our lives. In my case, the older I get, the more I reflect, the more I realize Quig’s and Audrey’s influence on my life is undeniable.

While Quig and Audrey (Q&A) are not the only ones who influenced my thinking, they are the two that had the most profound influence. I will bring others into the storyline that also shaped my thinking, but I am confident Q&A will ring out loud and clear. I take on the task of documenting Q&A’s and other’s influence for three main reasons. First, I want to create a record of the influence for good that Q&A and others have had on my life. Second, I want my family to have a record of the primary lessons I learned so they can avoid some of the pitfalls and grow with fewer hard knocks than they might otherwise. Third, I see those who are trying to influence others, struggle with which lesson to teach and I see those who are learning struggling with issues that are hard to recognize and pushing back on the learning process. I am hoping these essays can aid them in some small way to sort among life’s lessons to better understand those that matter most.

Most people called them Quig and Audrey, I mostly called them Mom and Dad. The reason I anticipate so much of the focus of these essays to be on the lessons I learned from Quig and Audrey stems from the fact that they walked the talk. I never remember a time when they said “do as I say, not as I do.” Their actions spoke louder than their words, but were fully consistent with the talk. Some of the influence they had on my life was clearly a result of the fact they were my parents, but mostly – and most importantly – because they were Quig and Audrey. They taught life’s lessons to everyone they knew, not just their kids, and there were six of them.

Quig grew up in the small southern Utah town of Moab. His father was a Forest Ranger in the days when they really did ride the range on horseback as the only person to administer uses for the district. That task now is accomplished by a staff that numbers in the dozens. It also meant that Quig was without a father at home most of the time. Quig really did not have the luxury of a father role model to influence his values and goals. For the most part Quig was left in the care of his grandmother and step-grandfather.

Quig’s mother was a kind and generous person who suffered from epilepsy in the days before medicine that could reduce the seizures. These episodes worsened to the point that Quig, as a pre-teen, had to take responsibility for his mother’s safety – protecting her from injury at night by restraining her during seizures. Quig lost his mother to cancer when he was only 10. Quig’s only sibling, a sister, died of typhoid fever when he was just 5 years old. So at age 10 he was left in the care of his grandmother and step-grandfather. To complicate matters even more, his father fell victim to alcoholism following the deaths of his wife and daughter. He never really filled the role of father again.

To make a long story short, Quig’s early years were marked with tragic events, few personal victories, and the absence of the usual cast of characters that mold a young man.

Audrey, also a product of southern Utah, grew up in St. George. Her summers were spent living on a ranch near the Mountain Meadows, where her father ran cattle. She was strongly grounded in family values, influenced by religious upbringing and a long list of pioneers. She had an innate sense of the value of education and devoted much of her life to teaching in public schools. Her background strongly contrasted with that of Quig’s. They shared a common commitment to sacrificing for school. Neither Quig nor Audrey had the resources to attend college without working to finance their way through school. In Audrey’s case this meant working as a housekeeper. In Quig’s case it meant working at the school tree nursery during the day and singing at a local restaurant in the evening for his supper. Audrey learned homemaking skills early in life and honed them with a major in college of home economics.

Audrey’s parents were always there for her. Whenever she needed them they were there. She spent as much time riding horses as any of her brothers. Grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, and distant relatives were always a significant part of Audrey’s life. She developed a keen sense of the value of family relationships through the large network of family members in St. George.

In the chapters that follow, you will have glimpses into the make-up of Q&A as well as some of the events that shaped their values, goals, and views of life. Lest you assume you will only hear the stories of Q&A, I also intend to include stories of others who have shaped my sense of what matters most in life. I also intend to provide some examples of why and how these principles play out in other’s lives. Lastly I intend to provide a simple summary that highlights the potential application of the principle today.

I begin with the premise that we are all learning and we are all teaching. It matters not whether you are young or old. I’ve learned some grand lessons from my grandchildren at the same time I hope I am teaching them some lessons as well. Whether your desire is to hone your list of principles to teach, compare the principles you feel best characterize what matters most in life, or search for some tidbits that might be helpful, I encourage your comments. I am certainly open to learning more.

Thomas M. Quigley

Why would someone start an adventure like StoriesThatLift.com in the first place?

I have had this idea growing for a long time.  I was confident there were really good stories out there that will help lift people up and at the same time entertain. You find that occasional book that does that for you, you hear that occasional presentation that makes you say “wow”, and then you watch people do great things but rarely do you find it documented where others can read or hear it. This is especially true for the concept of hearing or reading it for free. So the idea of starting a website that would be dedicated to finding and publishing stories that lift and entertain became possible after I retired from my first career. With 500 fewer employees to supervise, I was no longer asking “You did what?” or “What were you thinking?” I was able to focus some energy on understanding the web enough to venture into the fray.

The first thing I had to do was ensure I had a decent contracting assignment as a day job to finance a night venture. It took over a year of consulting to get to the point I felt I could get the consulting work done in 40 to 50 hours per week, allowing another 15 or 30 hours per week for the website.

Another task was to convince my wife that late nights working on the web would be an ok venture. I usually try to spend much of the evening with her, but when she heads to bed, I head for the computer.

The next thing was to get some help. Kami, my daughter, was keen to help with reviewing submitted stories and keep the interactions with authors moving forward. This lifted a substantial workload from me so I could focus on figuring out how to build a website. I am only barely versed in being a webmaster, but I have learned a great deal as we have moved along.  Someday maybe it will become even nicer.

I started out as the voice for stories - and most of the stories were of my writing.  As more stories were submitted we moved many of the original stories to a separate webpage that remains accessible but is mostly there for the curious to see how it all began. Anyone interested in hearing these initial stories can access them at tmqstories.storiesthatlift.com.  Now we rely less on my voice.

At an early stage I got an interesting email from Jamie Moore saying he say a craigslist ad that was seeking great stories for a new website. He wanted to know more about it. I found his website TheJamieMoore.com. Quickly Kami and I agreed we wanted to get him involved.  After a few interactions he agreed to join us.  We are so impressed by his talent. In addition to producing the children’s stories with character voices, music, and sound effects, we are looking to get him to narrate the other stories.  He has to make a living and at this stage we can’t pay for his work on the site. As a result he too is burning the midnight oil to contribute his talent to the StoriesThatLift.com.

I knew we needed an artist.  I danced with several potential artists, but they were mostly not in a position where they could speculate with us that the site would be successful.  I was concerned that most of the artists were focused on putting too much time and energy into the artwork for the site.  It seemed to me that we needed sketches rather than “finished” pieces.  So I set out to locate someone who might be close to us in Utah that did great sketches.  I ran across Adam Murray’s website and immediately sought him out.  After a few iterations he agreed to come on board to help us with the artwork for the site.  He has been great to work with.

In our new lifestyle - that is retired from one job and consulting out of a home office - we decided to avoid the coldest and snowiest months of Utah’s climate.  As a result we live in a condo in St. George, Utah’s Dixie, for most of the winter.  While in St. George, I made contact with a few of the Storyteller’s of southern Utah.  One such find was Adele Tolley Wilson.  Adele had recently retired from a career as a school teacher and was excited about getting involved with us on the website.  Adele has been learning how to record her stories and getting better all the time. Her style is different than that of Jamie Moore’s, but we get a lot of feedback that kids just love to hear her voice telling stories.  We let her carry the weight of being the Grandmotherly voice on the site.  In addition to the classic fairy tales, Adele has added some excerpts from a few of  her books. She wrote books especially for learning by kids. They are popular in the schools and at home where Mom’s and Dad’s spend some time with their kids learning.

That is mostly where we came from and how we got here.  I continue to subsidize the website.  We are now in the process of putting some of the more popular stories into a series of booklets and audio CDs called Grandpa’s Storybook Collection.  It is our hope that these will become popular gifts and someday get me out of the business of subsidizing the StoriesThatLift.com.

If you have ideas you want to contribute to the site, we welcome your comments.

Today I am launching a series of essays that highlight what I think matters most in life. Someday it may become a book, but for now I am content to document, at least in initial form, the principles that motivate my thinking, actions, and perceptions. I do this for three primary reasons: 1- I expect it to be therapeutic to some degree as I attempt to validate important drivers in my life; 2- I have children and grandchildren that I am still attempting to help with life’s greatest challenges; and, 3- I am looking to learn if others share this same set of principles or do they see it differently.

I intend to add occasionally to the essays. I welcome feedback from any and all.

Thomas M. Quigley

Friday is one of my wife’s volleyball days.  She meets a group of friends for 2 to 3 hours of recreational volleyball. She has enjoyed this sport for years and is not yet ready to give it up.  Last Friday one of the women in her group told her a most amazing story.

One of the women on her team was getting the kids ready to leave the house for a meeting when the doorbell rang.  A man introduced himself and said he had just run out of gas down the road from her house.  He asked if there was anyway she might have some lawnmower gasoline that he could borrow to get to a service station.  She was in a hurry and said “I’ll open the garage door.  There is a can of gas against the wall go ahead and use it then simply return the can.”  With that she closed the door and did not even think about the gas can until she returned home.

When she drove in the driveway she noticed the garage door was open.  Then she remembered about the gas can and the stranger requesting help.  She looked around to discover that the lawn had been mowed and edged, the gas can was full of gas and in its usual resting place against the garage wall.  She was both surprised and shocked.

It seems the stranger had taken it upon himself to more than repay the gasoline he used.

Do you think that act of kindness would happen in your community?

We have modified the page that shows all our stories. We label that page now “Story Library.”  The page now shows which of the stories have their associated audio version available.  As you will note not all our stories are available in audio form as yet.

As you might guess there is considerable work associated with creating the audio story.  We are committed to add new audio stories each week - at least one per week.  One story per week will be placed on the podcast feed.  If you subscribe to the podcast you will be getting at least one new story per week.

We review each story that is submitted to us in well under our advertised response of 1 to 2 months.  We enjoy reviewing stories and appreciate those of you who are sharing your stories with us.

tomq

I had a conversation this week wherein I learned of a short story publisher who gets over 8,000 manuscripts sent to them each year. Their acceptance rate is about 0.3 to 0.4 percent, or about 24 to 30 manuscripts. At the present time we are well above that acceptance rate, but getting all the artwork, story scripting and audio production work done is not a simple task. We may need to slow down on our acceptance rate if we get too far behind.

You might not be surprised at the variety of manuscripts we receive for consideration on StoriesThatLift, but I am. We have some stories that arrive in great shape - essentially ready to be placed on the web. On the other hand, we get a few stories that are, shall we say, in need of considerable help. But, where does one reach for help in writing short stories? And what should one know about writing that will improve the audio story or MP3 file that gets created from the story?

The web is loaded with junk advice and some very good advice. My intent here is simply to point a writer to some sites that are helpful in writing compelling stories. One method of improving your story writing is to link up with other writers who take the time to offer advice and feedback on written materials. One such site is Absolute Write, http://www.absolutewrite.com/. Here you will find forums, markets, and even classes for writers. Many of those on the site are new to the whole writing scene, but there are plenty of veterans to offer advice and encouragement.
Another site is www.writing.com. On this site you will also find forums, classes, and markets discussed. You will also have an opportunity to review other writer’s work and submit your own writing for critique by others.

There are also local writer’s and storyteller’s groups that hold meetings, publish newsletters, and sponsor workshops. They are especially kind to new writers looking to break into the published writer’s and storytelling’s arena. The real advantage of joining and participating in the local groups is the face-to-face contacts and personal interactions that grow from the local groups. There are so many groups that I won’t attempt to list any specifically. These local groups will invariably include a seasoned writer who finds great pleasure in helping other writers succeed.

One very simple piece of advice is to locate and follow the submission guidelines. Our guidelines are located at http://www.storiesthatlift.com/STL-routines/submitstories.htm.

One other piece of advice that is as common as any other advice is to keep writing. If you get discouraged after a rejection or you judge your own work as not ready for prime time, don’t give up. Keep putting words together, seek advice, read other’s writings, and write, write, write. We hope to be seeking great stories for a long time.

tomq

We think the classic fairy tales are fantastic. But we wonder what ever happened to these colorful characters. We really want to know. So we have challenged writers to reveal to us their short stories that shed light on exactly what did happen after the fairy tale ends. We are looking for short stories 500 to 1,500 words in length to help us understand another interesting chapter in the lives of those classic fairy tale characters. Send us your rendition.

We will be providing short entries in the Blog updating you on news related to the story world. You can send us comments to our entries. Primarily because we are a family oriented site, we want all our content to pass the child-safe tests we hold ourselves to. For that reason we will monitor comments to keep them child-safe.

We welcome your comments and hope to learn from you what you like and don’t like about StoriesThatLift.com in particular and the whole story world in general.

Please keep the world entertained and moving in a positive direction - lifted up.

tomq