“Working hard to make a living…”
Dateline: Park Falls, Wisconsin
Preface
Upfront, full disclosure, open book so you know, if you look on the top and the sides of this column you’ll see advertising for St. Croix Rods, they sponsor this column, the money goes to B.A.S.S., not to me, no one from either company has told me what to say, how to say it, or what to write about…if they did I wouldn’t write this story.
I went to St. Croix to see who exactly it was attaching themselves to the words I write, I have that right, I’ll be doing more of these here’s why…I think it’s important that you know, that you see the faces of the people who make the stuff you use.
For almost two decades I covered the NFL, MLB, NHL, NCAA, NBA, Olympics and NASCAR at ESPN Sportscenter and for the show, Outside The Lines. I wrote what I saw, and never once cared what any of the leagues thought, all of whom spent a ton of money with ESPN.
That outlaw approach hasn’t changed, I write it as I see it, B.A.S.S. choses whether to run it or not, that’s how it is, this story is not about fishing rods, but the people who make them.
Now with that out of the way, here we go…
“I learned the value of hard work by working hard.”
~Margaret Mead
The smell of Lava soap, makes me homesick.
Grandpa’s name was Clay, and he worked in dirt all his life.
Clay made the sand molds for toilets that went into fancy homes he was never invited into, he rode the steel that built the corporate headquarters that would buy and sell his life.
His hands were bent, broken and cracked but never hurt enough to stop picking me up under my arms and being a human whirly-gig for a 4 year old.
Every hug came with dust and a story.
I knew of foremen before I could count to four.
I stood once on the yellow plastic kitchen chair to try and reach up and punch the kitchen clock, “just like Grandpa punches his time clock.”
Grandpa fed me and my family and anyone else on the block, “needing three squares.”
Grandpa, and millions like him, built this joint we call, America.
Grandpa was a working stiff, a tough life lived proud.
I have in me the soul of a working stiff.
In my heart I know all I am is a blue collar guy who learned how to type with hands that once smelled of Lava soap.
“…bringing shelter from the rain…”
“Talent is cheaper than table salt. What separates the talented individual from the successful one is a lot of hard work.”
~Stephen King
Park Falls, Wis., there are so many trees here that I have to believe some of them are just in town for the weekend.
Somehow, they’ve managed to air condition the outside here, the evergreens smell nothing like the yellow cutout evergreen that hangs from my truck’s mirror, an eagle, an actual freakin’ BALD EAGLE flies over head.
I’m thinking this surely must be a Park Falls Chamber of Commerce setup and I start to listen closely to see if I can hear a John Mellencamp song in the background.
For God’s sake I hear crickets and an owl.
I’m still learning rural.
I’m here to visit the St. Croix Rod making joint, not so much to learn how they make rods. I’m still learning rods and reels as well so anything mechanical about them would just be gobbledygook to me and not all that interesting, I am here though to meet the working stiffs who make the rods.
You want to really know how something is built introduce yourself to the builders.
Here’s the ground rules for my visit…only one…wear safety goggles…I’m on my own after that I pick out who I want to talk to, go where I want to go, no out of bounds, no PR type following me around, just you know, “…don’t get to much in the way.”
Ho boy.
“…a fathers son left to carry on…”
I sort of join a tour, sort of because I’m not really listening to what the tour guy is saying, I’m just watching the people who make the stuff, make the stuff.
I’ve been to the opera and ballet in Manhattan, can’t say I was real comfortable hob knobbing with the hob nobs. I always felt someone put a “who let him in” sign on my back.
Not that way inside this joint, I have no idea what the people are doing but I sort of fit in as much as someone who looks like me can fit in any where without going through a metal check.
The tour guy takes us down a long hall past a billboard filled with photos of the folks I just passed out on the floor, we round a corner and come into a large breakroom where the tour dude says exactly this, “Oh forgot, this is donut day here, today, once a week we have donut day, dozens and dozens of donuts are brought in for the employees, they get a donut break.”
I swear I’m looking for the must be ever present Chamber of Commerce spies or something so no offense to the tour dude I go up to a table and quietly, sneakily ask, “Is the tour dude lying?” and get out my reporter’s notebook to correctly record this investigative clue.
“Nope,” is all he said, oh, but then added, “Have yerself one.”
I did, have one, or three, and took the time out to take a fake selfie with the group partaking in donut day at St. Croix.
By the way check out that dude in the white tee shirt standing at the end of the group shot, that is exactly the look I get on my face when anyone stands between me and a donut.
Just saying.
“…blue denim in his vein…”
“Excellence is to do a common thing in an uncommon way.”
~Booker T. Washington
Once the tour was over I stopped pretending I was listening and doubled back to go talk to some of the folks I tried not to get in the way of.
First working stiff up, the woman who wears these shoes.
Meet Lori Theis, her job is to squeeze on the Tidemaster Green coating on the rod and from watching it is a ballet of movement, “that took me a good couple of weeks to get right, it has to be the same speed for every rod going in and out…”
Lori is from Park Falls, Wis., married, “…be 21 years this Friday…” has two kids, an “empty-nester now,” a “big hockey fan, love the Chicago Bears and the Wisconsin Badgers.”
As for her gig here, “I really have to focus, you have to walk at a constant speed with a constant angle so you can feel the paint…”
I remember thinking as I watched her that she is in a sword fight, the rod her sword, the tiny hole and the paint her opponent, “…you know every paint feels different.”
I just look at Lori and smile, my Grandpa used to tell me he knew how a toilet would turn out by the quality of the sand in the mold it was poured into, Gramps and Lori would get along just fine.
“…he believes in God and Elvis…”
Meet Charlie Bolton, from Phillips, Wis., been here doing this gig for 10 years now, “every single rod that goes through the place goes through my hands.”
Charlie has been married to his wife, Jennifer for 42 years, a great-grandparent of his “homesteaded” land here back in the 1800s. Charlie is a muskie angler who loves the Los Angeles/California/Oakland Raiders, graduated from the University of Wisconsin with a degree in teaching.
“I was a runner in college, love to watch anything to do with track and field, coach track and field.”
That explains a lot, I watched Charlie work, stood behind him for several minutes before he was even aware I was there, only a track and field guy can “…feel if the blank is off by a thousand of an inch, if it is I throw it away, start again.”
Charlie explained what it is he does and how he does it, I understood none of it, wrote it all down, still don’t know what he was talking about. I’ve always felt that if you made “blanks” you actually made nothing at all.
Not true with Charlie, “I’m on my third million of these now, make about 250-thousand a year, you just have to be careful, you have to be spot on the integrity of the rod depends on it.”
Then, “Whenever I’m out fishing and I see someone with one of our rods I just watch, watch how the rod works, know that if it is less than 10 years old it passed through my hands, I just watch the guy with the rod, my rod, makes me smile to know I done it right.”
“…he’s a simple man…”
“The secret of joy in work is contained in one word – excellence. To know how to do something well is to enjoy it.”
~Pearl S. Buck
“Why you taking my picture?”
Meet Justina Edward, been here six years, from Chicago who somehow loves the Packers.
Justina is a “winder,” she’s the one who puts the string around the rod eyes and I’m taking her “picture” because her hands are moving so fast and she is tying so fast, six eyes to a rod, and she is looking at me and not one wind of the string goes out of place.
“How do you do that?”
“Do what?”
“That…wind…how long does it take you to do a rod?”
“10 maybe 15 minutes if someone is talking to me.”
I’m thinking I might in fact be that “someone.”
“Wow, I can’t even tie my shoes, wow at you.”
And suddenly her whole face is a smile, and with the smile comes…pride.
“You want to see something I did that is pretty cool?”
I do, and Justina gets up and walks over to a work bench and from the side of it pulls out a rod and shows it to me.
“See this design? I did this.”
I take a quick look at it but look up and watch Justina as she looks at it, she is talking, not directly to me, but is looking at her design, rolling the rod through her hands as she says, “I went to a show in Chicago, a rod building show to see how they did stuff like this, I love to make the designs more and more intricate, at home I practice, practice, you need patience, need a lot of that, practice, practice.”
I have never since that moment picked up a fishing rod and not remembered the look on Justina’s face as she rolled her design through her fingers, never picked up a fishing rod of any kind and not run my fingers over the string that holds the eyes on… “practice, practice…”
“…with a heart of gold…”
Meet Tom Robinson, from Park Falls, been in this gig 18 years, 12 of those years “I drilled the cork handles for the rod.”
Tom’s been married, “now 29 years to my wife, Talei, she teaches sewing. In my off time I do woodworking and fix sewing machines. I’m one of the few sewing machine repairmen around.”
In fact in 35 years at this reporting gig Tom is now the first sewing machine repair dude that I have ever met. “In fact I’m the only sewing machine repairman left that makes house calls.”
I, um, have nothing to say to that.
I dig this Tom guy, “I also play Santa Clause…”
Yep, got that, “…but not the normal Santa Clause I’m the dark maroon English Trench Coat Santa, in fact from Dec. 1 through the 25 I wear that outfit to work here everyday.”
Yep, got that too.
“In the 12 years that I drilled, I drilled 1.2 million cork handles, did something like 500-600 a day, every single rod that went through here, you know what, when I watch fishing shows I watch to see the handle on the fishing rod, me and my son sit there watching and we both yell out…that’s our cork…in a weird sort of way I feel that my hands had something to do in making that TV show, in helping that angler catch fish.”
“…in a complicated land…”
“A man is relieved and happy when he has put his heart into his work and done his best.”
~Ralph Waldo Emerson
I saved the tour dude, for last.
Meet Ken Boness, “born less than a mile from this facility.”
For 15 years Ken worked in customer service here, before that, “I was a teacher, also a logger working the heavy equipment, I write for a logging magazine still.”
Ken retired from this gig, he’s 71, been married to his wife, Barb for 45 years, “Yep, Ken and Barbie.”
“I retired but came back, I love to talk, love to meet people, I answer every question with a story.”
You can tour this place, they told me the details of how and when the tours are, but I forgot, it may be on their website, not sure, but call them up and find out the particulars, make sure Ken is your tour guide.
Ken, like me, doesn’t fish much, but he knows everyone who works here and what they do, if you understand anything mechanical it will be like a Disney ride for you, if you are like me and you understand nothing mechanical except 1960s MoPar, ask a question, relish the story that comes with it.
I’ve been on tours of lots of places, as a TV reporter in California I went to a plant and learned how to get the red stuff into olives, went to another plant and learned how to get the apple sauce in the right part of the TV dinner tray, learned one weekend how to get the brown stuff inside the Peanut Butter Cup.
I was hidden in working stiff factory clothes, when the tour came by I felt like the zoo animals behind the glass.
Ken is the greatest tour dude I have ever been around.
Everyone on the floor is equal, everyone is a friend, everyone is a neighbor.
Workplace respect, imagine that, not something news crews show up for.
“…oh he’s a…”
I hope to be able to visit more places like this, hope if you own one or run a joint in the fishing industry that you invite me in.
I look at it as a tour for Grandpa, a tour of respect for all of you out there who build the gig we get to work in.
It ain’t about the product, it’s about the people who make the product.
My aim with all this is to show you the face behind what you use to catch fish, I’m telling you it makes a difference, it makes it personal, it brings us all closer.
Believe not what you hear on the tube, what you read in the broadsheets, people who make things out here in America do care, I’ve met tons of them.
If you take nothing from this at all, please take this…there is still pride out here in what we do, you need not dig too far.
There are still people who will run into the flames to save you, and ask nothing in return.
There are still people who will stay after the late bus to help you in math, and ask nothing in return.
There are still people who look at what they made, and smile with pride.
Naysayers will complain and moan, wallow in the negativity.
But there will also be those who wear Santa clothes to work, who know the feel of paint, and those who will roll pride through their fingers.
And it is those who will build and rebuild the place.
As our grandparents and parents, once did.
Thanks Grandpa.
“…working class man.”
Working Class Man
Jimmy Barnes
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“Don’t bother just to be better than your contemporaries or predecessors. Try to be better than yourself.”
~William Faulkner