It is Time to Roll up Your Sleeves:

My father was a well-dressed man. I remember picking dad up at the train station when he would return from New York City. The first thing dad would do was to change from his business suit into what he called his casual outfit. Casual to my father did not mean jeans. In fact I don’t think I ever saw my father wearing jeans. To dad they were always blue jeans, never just jeans. That simple fact gives you a feel for the properness of my father. Yet my father was a workaholic. I can recall many occasions when dad said let’s get to work. Trust me my father did not mean we would be dilly-dallying. When dad worked it was not a flurry of activity. It was a measured assault on whatever task was at hand.

In the fall we would cut fire wood we had gathered from the beach or split logs we had delivered to the house. Whatever the task it would be proceeded by the phrase let’s roll up our sleeves and just do it. Often that was exactly what we would do. We know what we must do to get America back on track. We must use less and produce more. We must do those jobs that we have traditionally said were so undesirable that they should be performed only by workers considered outcasts. Funny thing about my father was he considered all jobs worthy of his best effort. Not a second hand effort. He insisted that if a job was worth doing it was worth doing well.

I was thinking of my father today and his approach to work. Can we as Americans say we always put out our best effort? I rather think not. Somehow we have lost the ability to roll up our sleeves. We leave a task half undone and then wonder why the work does not satisfy us. We start out with the best of intensions but often it seems we do not give it our best effort and the task is not completed well. My father never declared a job done until the tools were oiled and put away and the work area cleaned up. Dad was a person of order. He was not a neat freak but rather felt that if things were orderly then he had completed the job. He took great pride in whatever he did. Every job from painting to wood splitting had to be done to the best of his and my ability. Even today anything less than my best effort leaves me feeling he would admonish me with his ultimate disapproval which was “you can do better than that.” Yes dad America can do better than that too. So let us roll up our sleeves and get to work fixing America. This time let’s do the job well. Let us do it to the best of our ability. Let us make my father proud.