Go Play (With Your Kids And Customers)

We’ve had a fun couple of weeks since the last Dealer Report.  We played golf at the fourth annual Jerry Maahs charity golf outing, which benefits the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. What’s not to like about a beautiful day with friends for a good cause?  In addition to Alto-Shaam’s Steve Maahs, Jack Scott, Todd Griffith, Brad Tusing and Julie Deming, we also got to hang out a bit with Steve Don and Eric Boelter, among many others.

Then Jan, Sam (our newly licensed16-year-old), and I jumped in the car and drove out to Charlottesville, Va. to see Jan’s folks. (Emma, our 20-year-old, is already back at the University of Iowa for her third year.) As always, we stopped in Washington, D.C., on the way and visited a couple of museums.

When we got to Charlottesville, we went for a hike in the Blue Ridge, where we almost tripped over a rattlesnake. Sam and I went for drives in the mountains. My father-in-law and I taught Sam to play rummy and poker. Jan and her mom went shopping. We read books, watched baseball and ate wonderful homemade lasagna. Even the 13-hour drive back through the mountains of West Virginia was cool. It was relaxing. It was fun.

I’ve often been accused of working all the time—usually with the implication that I work too much. I don’t see it that way, really. I’m one of those fortunate few who love what I do. Jan says, with only a little sarcasm, that my job is my hobby.

But the golf outing and mini-vacation remind me—and so I’m reminding you—that play is important too. As much as you work, remember to connect with as many customers, friends and family as often as you can.

Robin Ashton

Publisher

rashton@fermag.com “””