3704 Better Cup Of Coffee
Chicago, June 18 (AP)—John R. Thompson’s belief that he could make a better cup of coffee than one served him here in World’s Fair days started him in the restaurant business that netted him millions as he added to his “one-arm” string, it was recalled today by friends of the late capitalist.
Mr. Thompson died at the Highlands, his Lake Forest estate, after an illness of six years.
Thompson was 28 years old when he came to Chicago from downstate with his bride to visit the Columbian expositon in 1893. After they had seen the fair, the pair wandered into a restaurant on South State street. It wasn’t a pretentious place they selected, nor was the meal particularly delectable, but the coffee was bad, very bad.
“I can make a better cup of coffee than that myself,” said Thompson, according to the story he used to relate.
“Maybe you want to try it,” the proprietor rejoined.
“Maybe I do, and I will,” said Thompson.
“Buy the place and you can,” came the next reply.
Before the young visitor went out he had agreed to purchase it all, lock, stock and barrel and even the mortgage. In that decision was begun a business which last year provided 53,000,000 meals to the patrons in American cities.
3705 Running For Dinner Or For Life
Your success in life depends on your motive. There is an old fable about a dog that boasted of his ability as a runner. One day he chased a rabbit and failed to catch it. The other dogs ridiculed him on account of his previous boasting. His reply was, “You must remember that the rabbit was running for his life, while I was only running for my dinner.” The incentive is all-important.
—King’s Business
3706 Running For Touchdown Or For Life
Boddy Dodd, Georgia Tech’s athletic director, tells of the coach who, with his team leading 7 to 6 in the last minute of play, carefully instructed his quarterback not to pass under any condition. But when the ball was carried within the opponent’s ten-yard line, the quarterback was overcome by temptation. He passed and the ball was intercepted by the rival’s fleetest back, who broke into an open field and raced toward pay dirt. He was speeding past midfield when suddenly, out of nowhere, the quarterback who had passed overtook him and brought him down.
After the game, the losing coach remarked to his barely victorious counterpart, “I’ll never understand how your boy overtook my fastest back.”
“Well, I’ll tell you,” came the reply. “Your back was running for touchdown—my boy was running for his life.”
—Wall Street Journal
3707 The “Desert Fox”
As a boy, Marshall Rommel, later known as “the Desert Fox,” was the laziest and most indolent student in his class. His teachers said he would never amount to anything. One schoolteacher said, “If Rommel ever shows up with a dictation without mistake we’ll hire a band and go off for a day in the country.”
At this the boy promptly sat up and soon turned in a dictation without one single error, showing that he could do it if there was sufficient inducement to spur him to the effort. But when the promised award was not forthcoming he promptly fell back into his old, indolent ways. But later on, fired by ambition to rise above the ranks, he became a bundle of driving energy and one of the ablest military men in the world.
—Evangelistic Illustration
3708 An Invalid Walks
For nine years, as the doctors thought, Mrs. Julia B. Adams had been a hopeless invalid. For six years she had lain in bed, as helpless as an infant, but Monday she walked proudly into Jefferson Market police court and gave evidence that will help to convict the two men who were the unconscious instruments of her restoration.
The excitement of hearing noises in the night, of the house being aroused, of the discovery that house-breakers had removed $800 worth of silver, worked on her feelings so powerfully that she amazed her family by getting out of bed and walking about the house like one of themselves.
—New York Dispatch
3709 Washington’s Fort Nonsense
George Washington was a master of the art of motivation. In 1777 his soldiers faced a cold, bleak winter of inactivity on a mountain near Morristown, New Jersey. Washington noticed signs of restlessness and grumbling. Grim-faced, he told the engineering officers that a fort must be built quickly. He had the sentry guard increased.
Work on the fortifications started on the double. The soldiers snapped out of their lassitude and began guessing when the attack might occur. When spring thaws came, the fort was not quite finished, but the general ordered a move.
“But will we move before the fort is finished?” the chief of engineers asked.
“It has served its purpose,” Washington replied with a twinkle. “The fort was just nonsense, to keep the men busy at something they thought important.”
It was known as Fort Nonsense—though it symbolized the good sense that one leader used to maintain the morale of his people.
—Dorothy Parker
3710 Wanamaker Was Happily Busy
“How do you keep?” asked an old friend, who came to congratulate John Wanamaker upon the sixtieth anniversary of Oak Hall. “Happily busy,” was the answer.
Sixty years of uninterrupted work in one business is no small achievement, whatever may be the degree of success attained. But Wanamaker had started his own business at the age of twenty-three, had developed it into an establishment known throughout the world, and at the age of eighty-three, he was still its head, making ambitious plans for the future.
How had he done it? That is what the old friend wanted to know. “It is all in the two words with which I answered your first question,” said Wanamaker. “Many people are busy because they have to; I’m busy because I want to be. So I am happily busy.”
3711 Difference Between Work and Play
Have you ever thought of the difference between work and play? You use the same muscles to play golf as you do to mow your lawn; you use the same brain power to play bridge as you do to conduct a business; the only difference is the mental attitude. Why is it that work tires you more than play? Again it is the mental attitude, so if you want to make your work easier, make play out of it.
Too many men make work out of golf, and when you do that you have taken the pleasure out of it. It may not be easy, but if you can change the mental attitude toward the things you call work, you can get more out of life. Mark Twain said, “Work is not a concrete thing; it is a mental attitude. Nothing is either work or play but thinking makes it so.”
—Genius at Work
3712 Listening To Opponent’s Pep Talk
In 1924, when Notre Dame went to Princeton, Knute Rockne had such a sore throat that he could not deliver his pre-game oration. In the adjoining room, the Irish could hear Roper exhorting Princeton to fight valiantly and well.
“There’s the best pep talker in the world,” Rockne told his men, nodding to the next room. “Listen to him and win with his fight talk.” They did.
—Maxwell Droke
3713 Cleaning Picnic Grounds
Colley Reserve, a park in Glenelg, Australia, was left looking pretty as a picture after a mammoth kiddies’ picnic. At day’s end, organizers broadcast the news that hidden among all the litter were two marked pieces of rubbish which could be traded in for new bicycles. Never has a picnic ground been cleaned as quickly.
—The News
3714 Clapping For Overtime
At the conclusion of a concert two ushers were applauding harder than anybody else. People seated nearby smiled appreciatively at the two music lovers until one of them stopped applauding and the other one was heard to say, “Keep clapping, you dope. One more encore and we’re on overtime.”
—Bill Sears
3715 Exactly What He Wanted To Do
Carl Hubbs, 81, professor of biology emeritus at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, drew a prolonged ovation when he accepted a 1975 Headliner Award from the San Diego Press Club. “I really don’t know why I’m receiving this,” he said apologetically. “All I’ve ever done in life was exactly what I wanted to do.”
—San Diego Tribune
3716 Epigram On Motivation
• A leader cannot invent motivation, he can only unlock it. When there exists no motivation within a people, no strong leadership is possible.
• Do only what is required of you and remain a slave. Do more than is required and become free.
• It is not in doing what you like, but in liking what you do that is the secret of happiness.
—James Barrie
• Nothing is really work unless you would rather be doing something else.