The Noticer Returns Read online

  Deep within us, however, no matter how much men protest, we are truly in awe. A quick glance at my wife during the handshaking part of the introduction and I knew that Polly liked Christy and Kelli instantly. Especially Christy.

  We took our seats with Christy in the middle chair. Polly was to her right and Kelli to her left. Bart and I sat on each end of the tiny row beside our respective wives. While Jones was arranging himself cross-legged on the pier deck, Bart caught my attention. With a quizzical expression on his face, he patted his chair and held up five fingers. I nodded, seeing he had now noticed what I had spotted earlier. There were five people attending class that evening and exactly five chairs set in advance, one for each.

  “Ladies,” Jones said to Polly and Christy, “I believe a brief introduction is in order. Please, would you do us the honor?”

  The two looked at each other and laughed. “Well, I’m Christy Haynes,” she said. “I’ll go first. I live in Orange Beach. My husband is a minister. I am a photographer, and we have two boys and a little girl.”

  I looked more closely at this new arrival from our hometown. Following my wife’s lead, I liked her immediately. She appeared to be of Italian descent (or Greek, maybe?) and owned a mischievous smile that matched her personality. That bright disposition, I suspected, went a long way with her family . . . and everyone else with whom she came in contact.

  My wife said, “I’m Polly Andrews”—she half-turned to Christy—“and we live in Orange Beach too.” Again speaking to the group, she grinned, patted me on the leg, and said, “I am his keeper.” That made everyone laugh, and Polly finished with comments about the ages of our two boys.

  Jones smiled and slapped his hands. Rubbing them together briskly, he began. “Christy, Polly . . . as you know, this is our second meeting. Last week we decided that in order for all of us to agree upon a consistent way of parenting—a standard—we must first identify and then agree upon the ultimate results we wish to see in our children when they become adults.

  “For instance, if you, Christy, desire financial independence for your children, but Kelli cares only that they know how to exist by panhandling for food, the operating procedure for each parent to achieve that result would be different. In other words, there would be no standard. Christy and Kelli would then exist, as most of today’s society does, as two parents who had agreed to disagree.

  “Without specific results as a target—results that are agreed upon in advance—most parents simply yield to ‘doing the best we can,’ which is not a standard. That lack of a specific objective yields less than satisfactory results. Do you understand?”

  Christy, Polly, and the rest of us indicated that yes, we understood. “Good. Kelli, do you have the list we made last week?” She held it up, prompting Jones to ask, “Will you read it for us, please?”

  Kelli called out the list slowly as we all scribbled down our own copies. There were twenty results on that list. The week before, Kelli, Bart, and I had agreed upon each of them.

  They were:

  1. To be divinely guided

  2. To possess great wisdom, understanding, and common sense

  3. To have a grateful spirit

  4. To have a joyful spirit

  5. To be financially astute

  6. To be responsible

  7. To be a person of good morals

  8. To be loyal

  9. To have a great and abiding faith

  10. To have good manners

  11. To be humble

  12. To be hardworking

  13. To be confident

  14. To be honest

  15. To be healthy and physically fit

  16. To have great friends

  17. To have a respect for authority

  18. To have a servant’s heart

  19. To be a creative thinker

  20. To accept the role of a leader, effectively demonstrating and guiding others to the results listed above

  Jones waited for us to finish writing and said, “Any questions? Before we move forward, examine them closely. Remember, if one intends to create an agreed-upon standard by which children should be raised, the end result you are after must be thoroughly explored. Only the end result you desire will reveal what must be done in the present—a standard operating procedure—in order to reach that specific result in the future.”

  The old man waited as we examined the list. After a time he instructed us to look at number seven, which we did. There were no comments at all, prompting Jones to remark, “‘To be a person of good morals’ is a bit ambiguous, don’t you think? I believe we need to be more specific. There are results you can place on this list that will cover ‘morals’ more efficiently than the actual word. In addition, they encompass much firmer ground than mere ‘good morals’ could ever hope to accomplish as a target.”

  Jones was patient, but when he saw that our tiny group was not closing in on the answer, he gave it to us. “Why don’t we try integrity and character?” he asked. “And list them separately.”

  Looking up from his notes, Bart asked, “Separately? Aren’t integrity and character virtually the same things?”

  “What do you think?” Jones asked us. “Integrity and character? Are they really different words for the same thing?”

  After a bit of hesitation, looking to each other for support, we agreed. Were integrity and character the same? Yes, they were. Practically identical. I had already begun to erase integrity from my list when Jones said, “No. Neither is the same. Both words have entirely different meanings. In order for you to adequately instill integrity and character, it would behoove each of you to know exactly what that difference is.”

  I was used to this kind of thing with Jones. I had seen him excavate hearts and minds that few had ever been able to reach. The old man could dig deep, rooting out the garbage of misconceptions or flat-out bad thinking . . . and do it faster than most folks recognized it being done.

  That’s what he did. Every day and all the time. I remember once when a lady asked Jones what kind of work he did, he told her he was an Inclinational Archaeologist. When she asked what that was, he said he specialized in “the excavation of thoughts by which living subjects were inclined to do great things.” She had no clue what he meant, of course, but I did. Jones’s conversations were designed to reveal a pattern of decisions that eventually unearthed one’s very thinking.

  Polly looked at me for reassurance. All good? she wanted to know. I gave her a little smile and nod. As I looked at the faces of the others, I could see that they were concentrating intently. Bart had his arms crossed, but not in a closed-off way. His expression was one of interest and expectation, as if he was enjoying a mystery on television.

  “Integrity. To have integrity,” Jones began, “is to be trustworthy and reliable, capable of performing the task for which it was created. A bank can have integrity. A bridge or a fire escape can have integrity. A person can have integrity too. That person is trustworthy, reliable, and capable of performing the tasks for which he was created. He is capable of performing those tasks.

  “Morality is different. Morality can be exhibited by a person who is not doing what is wrong.” Jones paused to be sure we were following closely. “A moral person does not lie or steal. But a person can be moral by doing nothing. One can stay in bed all day and remain moral.

  “Now,” Jones said, scooting closer to us, “while morality is not doing what is wrong, character is actively doing what is right. For instance, a person who sees a wrong being done but does not participate in that activity is still a moral person. He did nothing wrong. But to speak up, rather than turn away from an injustice, requires character. Therefore, without the spine to do what is right, it is possible to be a moral person with weak character.

  “This, of course, leads us to the logical conclusion that a person without morals cannot be a person of character. Why? For the simple reason that it is impossible to do what is right while doing what is wrong. Therefore, it stands that a
person who cheats at golf or on a spouse, a person who misleads or steals, is not and cannot be a person of character.

  “Is character an important quality for your child to develop? Yes, if you want the best for your child. Yes, if you expect the other results on your list to manifest themselves to the highest levels.

  “You see, my friends, true character is that rare quality able to raise mere, mortal man from ordinary circumstance to greatness. A person of integrity, trustworthy and reliable, is prepared and capable of performing the task for which he was created, but it takes character to speak up, step out, and perform that task.”

  Our small group was in a good place. We were mentally locked into the old man as he continued to make connections that, while they were fairly simple and obviously true, we had never read about or heard explained in that way. As we listened, and in my case furiously wrote down everything he said, Jones remained on the pier deck in front of us, sitting cross-legged and comfortable.

  “I think your list is good,” Jones said at one point. “Twenty-one is a good number, but how does a parent cover that much ground? At some level everyone understands that good parenting is just life coaching at a high and very critical level.

  “Most parents try to impress upon their children that where they end up in life has something to do with the decisions they make. Easy examples would be the decisions made about where a person receives an education or how much of an education . . . or what kind of an education . . . or if they get an education at all.

  “There are decisions about who to marry and when to get married or whether to get married.

  “Folks make decisions about money and saving and debt. Where to live? Rent? Buy? There are decisions about whether or not to borrow money. And how much to borrow, as much as is needed or as much as one can get? If one doesn’t have the money now, should a purchase be made at all? There are decisions about monthly payments and what should be paid down. Does a person expect to make payments for ten years? Never? Forever? What about credit cards?”

  Jones stood up and walked slowly in front of us as he thought out loud. “A big one? A little one? You have to make the decision now, today. Why not two and both of them medium-sized? Fast or slow? Tomorrow the facts will have changed, so what will it be? How much? Red or white? Now? Later? New? Used? How used? There are many decisions to make, and every one of them moves a person to a slightly different position on life’s chessboard.”

  The old man stopped pacing and faced us. “For most people there is no percentage of time and effort in an adult life that has more effect on every other part of life than what one does for a living. That’s business. Whether one has a job, owns a little store or a big factory, or manages a place for someone else, it’s all business.”

  Jones’s blue eyes narrowed slightly as he deconstructed the puzzle in a way that we could put the pieces to use in our lives. I could see the wheels turning in the old man’s head. “No matter what the business . . . or how one is involved,” Jones said carefully, “do you all agree that the decisions a person makes on a daily basis have great impact on that business and his value to that business?”

  We looked at each other quickly before nodding. That seemed to be an easy yes. We all agreed.

  “So a person’s long-term level of success or failure—as an employee, a manager, or an owner—in any part of business will be greatly determined by the quality and accuracy of his or her decisions. Decisions really matter? Is that what you’re saying?”

  Again, we agreed. Yes. Decisions absolutely do matter. They matter in the short and long term.

  “We’re coming up on an unavoidable connection between business and parenting,” Jones said. “Stay with me here. Every decision you ever made—the best ones and the worst ones—were, at their base, merely a product of your thinking at that time. It is one’s thinking that governs the decisions one makes every day.

  “Decisions about what to do and how to do it become one’s actions.

  “Actions produce results of one kind or another, and those results are seen by everyone.

  “Over time those actions and their results work in tandem to create what we call a reputation . . .”

  Jones paused and then said, “Think about your list of results. That list, were it presented as an inventory of what a person had become—a catalog of one person’s results—would reflect a substantial reputation. But what was the root, the beginning, of that powerful reputation? What had to be established first, long ago, in order that the pieces to life’s puzzle might obediently move into place through the years?”

  “The thinking,” several of us said aloud.

  “Yes, the essence of one’s thinking,” Jones said, “shows up in business. One’s thought process is akin to a single seed, sprouting into a plant, growing for years, and finally bearing its fruit in adulthood. The quality of that fruit—now sweet or bitter—was determined long ago by how the plant was cared for in its early stages of development.

  “This is why parenting our children is so important. Childhood is quite simply the easiest time to shape critical thinking. Many schools today have given themselves over to teaching students what to think. Ironically, that is a perfect example of bad thinking. But, of course, as a society we possess an incredible ability to think logically to wrong—and sometimes dangerous—conclusions.

  “What a person thinks is determined by how a person thinks. This is true whether the conclusion at which a person arrives is accurate, safe, and profitable—or stupid, vicious, and liable to bankrupt the company.

  “Yes . . .” Jones looked up and nodded as if confirming what he was saying to himself. “What a person thinks is absolutely and always determined by how a person thinks. This is why, as parents, you must be on guard against those who would teach your children what to think and why you must be on the front lines of teaching your children how to think.”

  Jones stopped talking and looked at the bay. I tried to see what might have gotten his attention, but it all seemed the same to me. I glanced at my watch and saw that it was eight o’clock. Sure enough, the old man said, “That’s all for this evening.” Turning back to us, he asked, “Next week?”

  “Yes,” we all answered. “Please.”

  Jones smiled. And with that, he nodded, flashed a wave, and was gone.

  Eleven

  Baker Larson climbed the huge, winding staircase, crossed the broad veranda, and rang the doorbell. He had done harder things in his life, but for some reason pushing the button to the right of the massive double doors made his knees weak. This is crazy, he thought as he waited.

  The evening before, Baker had run into the old man again, and this time Sealy had been there too. In reality, the couple hadn’t “run into him” so much as they had walked outside to find the old man standing there as if he were waiting for them. Not having completely moved into their apartment, Baker had no idea how the old man found them, but there he was, leaning against their newly acquired, extremely used car Sealy had helped him pick out the day before.

  Baker had talked to his wife about the old man incessantly since that morning in the wheat field. He had talked to Jones several times and was excited for Sealy to finally meet him. The doubtful expression on her face every time he brought up the subject of Jones bothered him. It was as if she suspected him of making up the whole thing. Because of that, Baker had purposely left out the part about the bird in the old man’s pocket.

  Maybe nobody’s home, Baker thought, hoping for that to be the case despite the forty or so cars jammed into the driveway. Some kind of party, he decided as he rang the doorbell a second time. Well, maybe there are so many folks that they can’t hear the bell. He was grasping at straws and knew it.

  This unannounced visit had been Jones’s idea. Or his plan or whatever it was. In any case, the old man had fixed him with those eyes and said to do this. So here he was.

  Baker knew the guy he was supposed to see. At least, Baker knew of him, but then so did everyone
else around Mobile and Baldwin County. The man owned car dealerships, restaurants, and a real estate company with offices scattered throughout several states. He was financially diversified in a way that was beyond Baker’s ability to fathom.

  Baker looked at the expansive porch and the immaculately groomed front yard. The house itself was enormous. Baker had seen big houses before, but this place was different somehow. It was not flamboyant or pretentious. It was just huge. For some reason he had never really thought about, Baker had always harbored a prejudice or resentment toward people who lived in homes like this, but he had heard nothing but good things about Jack Bailey. Still, Baker was nervous.

  Worst of all, he didn’t know why he was nervous. Maybe because he thought he might be jealous of this man he didn’t even know. Perhaps, Baker thought, he was interrupting a party. Surely all those cars were not owned by the Baileys.

  Baker had never been the anxious type, but he knew that the way he felt lately had a lot to do with his own financial situation. It had not been too long ago that he could have made a long list of reasons why he was broke, but the old man had shifted his thinking with one simple conversation. “If your situation is the fault of anything or anyone else,” Jones had told him, “there is very little hope and absolutely zero power over your own life.

  “Responsibility is about hope and control. And, Baker,” Jones asked, “who doesn’t want hope for a greater future that their choices control? You have been granted free will, son. You just didn’t know it. At this very moment you are beginning a brand-new race. Now is the time for you to seek wisdom like you would look for a lost child or buried treasure. Don’t be like average people. Most folks look for their car keys with more energy than they search for the wisdom that can change their lives.

  “The power wrapped up in the principle of responsibility is unleashed by correct thinking. Consider this statement: ‘I have had some crazy and tragic things happen in my life, and I couldn’t control any of them. But in response to those crazy and tragic things, I have made choices that have taken me down a path to a place I do not like.’