Communal hearth: how Isaac earned the name “Eisenhower”

My two adult sons live in Portland. I wanted them to come to Central Texas with me, because I believe there’s greater opportunity here than in the Pacific Northwest, but they chose to stay put. I don’t fault them for that.

Eight years ago we were forced to move in a state of economic duress; Portland is beautiful, but the job market had become brutal as the cost of living continued to rise. We issued calls for help and were turned away by those who didn’t want to get dragged down, which is understandable; it’s hard to help someone else as you tread water with the rising waves coming up through your nose.

So we took a final leap of faith, selling the house and spending what little money we had left to land in a region we believed had greater economic opportunity.

I had a hard time leaving my youngest son Isaac, but I couldn’t force him to move; he was 18, but he was still a senior in high school. I could not impose upon his dominion, even though I wanted to, and he decided to stay put and do it on his own.

This was the hardest thing I’ve ever done, but I needed to get my three young daughters somewhere safe so we could avoid homelessness, because that was at stake if we remained in Portland.

I called various members of the family asking if they’d give him a room to sleep, and I was turned away, and so he negotiated to rent a couch in the living room of the apartment where his older brother Ezra was staying, he got a job at an auto parts store, and he graduated high school with honors - a real badass Isaac story.

Graduated with honors? I didn’t even know about that part until later, and he certainly didn’t brag about it, it’s just the thing he did, and here’s why:

Since middle school Isaac had been running with a cohort of retired Italian businessmen who called him “Ike” (short for Eisenhower), and through their mentorship, he learned about old fashioned living.

Let me back up a little and tell how it happened:

When Isaac was in middle school, he walked to the nearby Italian deli every morning at 5:45 and he asked Mark for a job. Mark, the founder, said: no, I can’t hire kids, and Isaac said that’s OK, I’ll help you set up and you can give me a bagel, and after weeks of saying no, Mark eventually said yes.

That’s how Isaac came to work at the deli; the kid doesn’t really know how to give up.

The Italian deli was the preferred meeting place for a cohort of Italian businessmen, and they were charmed when Isaac looked them in the eye and shook their hands, earning him the name Eisenhower, or Ike, for short, as indicated.

There was a garbage man, a finance guy, and a retired businessman with mysterious interests in Latin America - all of them were characters - and there were times when I wondered if he’d wandered into central casting, and through middle school and high school Isaac spent much of his time with these old guys.

But like I said: we were forced to move in a state of economic duress, and were unable to persuade Isaac to come with us, so he moved in with his brother, got a job, and finished high school with honors.

When he got tired of working at O’Rileys, he hit the job market in search of something better, which for him does not always mean “more money,” because Isaac likes to learn on the job.

A couple lived near Isaac: Kurt is an arborist, and he recognized wealth where others only saw waste.

Kurt kept the wood he knew was valuable, accumulating a sizable inventory of rare wood as his wife worked as a project manager for the Forest Service. When she retired, she launched a business that turned the trees that Kurt had retained into tables that people could purchase, and along the way they hired Isaac as a laborer.

Under his own initiative, Isaac instituted an improvement in the finishing process that delivered consistent and reputable results while leaning on his coworkers to curate a sense of pride (or leave), which resulted in improved quality and reduced attrition.

Push comes to shove: and now both Ezra and Isaac are at the management table working with Kurt and Christine to run Tree to Table, the lot of them creating a thriving company.

Wealth: imagine living in a culture where you could earn your way into a leadership position within a boomer-run small business, simply by showing up on time every day?

This, too, is abundance, it’s a halo, it’s a legacy of opportunity that makes the warmth of this place special.

Facing the prospect of homelessness when their father’s household collapsed, my sons embraced the old ways that were taught in our home and among the cohort of elders they chose as their mentors, and found themselves surrounded by opportunity.

There’s a few lessons that are repeating themselves in these stories, if you haven’t noticed.

Watching a village help raise your child changes something inside a parent. But perhaps I shouldn’t have been surprised.

When I was Isaac’s age, I had already learned what could happen when a bunch of kids stopped waiting for someone else to build the village.

Indeed, I would eventually meet his mother in the place we built. Around Portland, that makes Ezra and Isaac Burnside babies.

It took me another generation to understand what we’d actually built.