Thom Miller Shares How Travel And Service Built His Values

A bottle of Canadian Club sounds like a punchline until it turns into a lifeline on a late night in Marseille. We talk with Thom Miller, a Michigan native and United States Army veteran, about the real decisions that shape a life when there’s no GPS, no smartphone, and no safety net. His memories move from Flint to Lansing’s east side, where a one-income household, a smart and steady mother, and long friendships created a foundation that still holds. 

Thom walks us through school, sports, and the awkward bravery of early dating, then into college choices and a two-month backpacking trip across Europe powered by youth hostels and a Eurail pass. From there, the story shifts into the Vietnam draft era and Army training, including his attempt at Officer Candidate School and why he refused to accept leadership built on humiliation. He explains what it meant to become a drill sergeant who demands effort while still respecting the people in front of him. 

We also get honest about work and consequences: decades in the wholesale flower business driving through Michigan winters, later jobs in electronics sales, a rough lesson in real estate, and the moment he decided to quit alcohol before it controlled him. The thread that ties it together is simple and hard to fake: self-reliance, faith, and a belief that life happens in your head and heart, not inside a screen. 

If you like veteran stories, personal growth conversations, and grounded life advice about discipline, community, and morals, hit play. Subscribe, share this with a friend, and leave a review, then tell us what part of Tom’s story stuck with you most.

Transcript

Welcome And Introducing Tom

SPEAKER_01 0:33

Today is Monday, April 13th. We're talking with Tom Miller, who served in the United States Army. So good morning, Tom.

SPEAKER_00 0:40

Good morning, sir.

SPEAKER_01 0:41

Thank you for taking time out of your day to come talk with me today.

SPEAKER_00 0:43

Well, it's a pleasure.

SPEAKER_01 0:45

Well, great. We'll just dive right in. I'm going to start with a very easy question. When and where were you born?

SPEAKER_00 0:51

I was born in Hurley Hospital, Flint, Michigan, December 24th, 1945, at approximately five o'clock in the morning. So what a Christmas present for my mom.

SPEAKER_01 1:08

Absolutely. Absolutely. I have to ask then, did you get cheated on a birthday and Christmas?

SPEAKER_00 1:17

Somewhat, but my mom was always a person who gave people a birthday party. So even if I had a birthday party on December 24th, Christmas Eve, we had Twinkies for birthday cakes. My mom always had a party for me. I always got something. But you know, being so close and overlapping with Christmas, all your presents got the next day. Right, right. It's just easier that way, right? And here's something else that happened. My brother's birthday is on April 24th. Sometimes my brother would get a few presents on my birthday, and I would get a few presents on his birthday.

SPEAKER_01 2:05

Oh, so they even things out?

SPEAKER_00 2:07

Yes. Okay.

Moving To Lansing And Finding Home

SPEAKER_01 2:08

All right. Now, did you grow up in Flint?

SPEAKER_00 2:13

Yeah, yes, we did till about 1953 or 54. Okay. Then we moved to Lansing. My father was a wholesale flower salesman for a wholesale flower company in Flint. And uh we moved to a little town out west of Lansing called Millet. Just a wide spot in the road. But that's where I went all the way up to fourth grade. Okay. Fourth grade, and I'm only saying these times because I'm aware of them. Uh fourth grade was when we moved into Lansing on a street called Hayford Street on the east side of Lansing. And that's where I attended Foster Avenue School, Patent Gill Junior High School, and Eastern High School.

SPEAKER_01 3:13

Well, interestingly enough, those are the same schools that I went to. Is that so? Yes, I lived on South Foster Street and went to Foster Street School and then went to Pat and Gill and then graduated from Eastern.

SPEAKER_00 3:26

Wow. Yeah. Well, you know, uh Foster School is still there, and occasionally I've gone into it for some reason or another, but not much has changed. No. All the floor, the marble floors are the same, tiling and the walls are the same. I go in there and think about the times I had in different classrooms, and it was really kind of interesting.

Growing Up In A Busy Neighborhood

SPEAKER_01 3:51

Oh, yeah. Well, talk so talk to me a little bit about growing up on Havert Street. Did you have brothers and sisters?

SPEAKER_00 3:58

Yes, I have one brother and two sisters, all younger. My brother is 18 months younger than me. My sister, well, I'm 80 now, she's 75. My older sister and my younger sister is about 70. So, yes, we had one house, two bedrooms, my parents' bed. No, I take that back. Three bedrooms. My parents, the house had my parents' bedroom. The two girls stayed in one bedroom, and my brother and I in another bedroom. We didn't have the uh luxury of having our own bedroom at that time.

SPEAKER_01 4:42

Right.

SPEAKER_00 4:42

So we did grow up on the east side, and on the east side, this was uh the era of baby boomers. There was a lot of kids on our street. Some are still friends, some that lived across the street from me, if you can believe that. I have well, I have friends that are 50 and 60 years being a friendship. That's a long time.

SPEAKER_01 5:11

That is a long time to be able to do it.

SPEAKER_00 5:12

Most cars don't last that long. That's true. That's true. So uh, yes, the east side was peppered with kids. Resurrection, of course, the the Catholics had big families, right? Um so we had four in our family. My dad worked as a wholesale flower salesman on the east side. My mom was a stay-at-home mom. She she never had a driver's license. She never never had a job, except the profession of motherhood, one of the oldest professions. Yeah. And uh she was a good mother. She uh, well, she she was smart. She graduated valedictorian in her in her high school class. So yeah, she's she studied and she was smart. But that runs in the genes in the family that the Cobb family from my mom's side. My dad's side was the Miller family, of course. And my mom was a smart person, a hardworking person, a person that could improvise in a lot of ways. Uh, she took care of the home. She was a great mother. All you could say was that she was not a professional, aside from being a professional mother. Uh we all loved her. She lived to be 88. She walked because she didn't have a driver's license. Right. She walked, and that contributed to her longevity. Now, a kind of interesting little story there. My mother would walk from Grand River Avenue down to Michigan Avenue, and she walked every place. But one of the high school driver's ed teacher knew my parents. And when he saw my mom walking up the road, he'd make the driver's ed car pull over and pick her up and take her over. Oh, that's nice. So, yeah, it was nice. She might have an armload of groceries, so that was really handy. Yeah, yeah, that's terrific. But yes, we grew up, and our family was quite uh comparable to a lot of families on the east side. Three or four kids in the family, one income. You know, nowadays people would say, oh, we we couldn't get by on one income. It has to be two incomes. But women like to work too, and I respect that. But you can get by on one one income. If you're if you do it right. Right. You know, if you eat at home, you cook at home, you my mom was a good person. She was a good person to make things. She made quite a bit of our clothes. She would make them out of used fabrics that she would pick up a thrift store. So yeah, you can get by on one income. It doesn't seem like it nowadays, but you can't.

SPEAKER_01 8:38

It's entirely possible. Yes. Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 8:41

It's more difficult. But we always got along and we always did pretty well.

SPEAKER_02 8:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:47

We had a we had a boat, and the my dad, my dad had a bought a boat. He had a station wagon and a pickup. Um but we learned to water ski. We used the boat. My dad would take us, take us fishing on the boat. We would go out to Lake Muskegon all the way across the state, or someplace nearby in the state. And uh we would water ski. The family would, it was all family deal. We were a tight-knit family, and we were a very tight-knit surrounding family. My cousins, my cousins and I are still close friends. My my cousin God from in the summertime, us four kids would go to Clarkston, Michigan, and stay down there for a week or so, come back to Lansing, their kids would come back with us, and then we'd go to Flushing, Michigan. And so we got around, and our family is tight-knit because we were just always together. We did things together. Families did things together. Right. Extended family as well. Yes, exactly. Yeah. And uh that's a little contrary to the way it is nowadays because people tend to move across the country, all locations around California, Arizona, Texas, Florida, East Coast. So so we're gonna have a family reunion this year, and I hope we get as many people as we can. But the point is we tend to spread out across the country because we feel we need to do that for a job, for the money. And sometimes that's true.

SPEAKER_02 10:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:51

Um, but uh our families get so spread out that we have a hard time having a family reunion. It's a hard time for people to come in from Phoenix, especially if we bring in a dish to pass.

SPEAKER_01 11:08

Right, right. That's hard to do.

SPEAKER_00 11:10

Redwood City, California. We just we get dis disentangled, and it's really kind of too bad.

SPEAKER_02 11:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:19

Because the nuclear family is a very crucial point of our society. Right. You know, we we h we need that uh connection amongst our family members, and it's important. Yeah. I've I had I've had opportunities in my employment years where I could have gone to Minneapolis, I could have gone to Kansas City for a job, but I did not. I chose not to. Because my reasoning was I wanted to see my nephews and nieces grow up. I didn't want to be that guy that comes around at Christmas time only or once once a week out of the year. Right. I wanted to see my nephew play basketball in high school and college. Those things are important, they make the connection. I didn't have any children myself, but I bought lots of pairs of shoes for people. Right. Basketball shoes, whatever was in style for my nieces, yada yada yada, all that. You know, I wanted to be connected with them. I didn't want to be that strange uncle that comes around once a year.

School Sports And Learning Confidence

SPEAKER_01 12:43

Right. Well, I I could understand that. Let's let's back up a little bit though. I'd like to talk about school. So, how was school for you? And did you play sports? Did you have favorite subjects?

SPEAKER_00 12:55

Yes, I did. In high school, well, I was always a pretty good student because my mother stressed that. She was a good student, she stressed us, and she helped us a lot with our studies. In many cases, if I had to write a theme for high school, for high school, she would sit down with me and we would do it together. And she had a great vocabulary, she was she was smart, that's all there is to it. But she was smart because they studied, they valued education. My grandfather on my mother's side was a student at Michigan State, but he was a piano tuner. He did things not like the hardworking farmers that lived in the thumb area of Michigan. He did things that were more artistic. So they were poor. They were dirt poor. Not poor like today, but dirt poor, where you canned everything you ate in the winter. And you made made do with just about everything. You improvised with everything. So anyway, going back to my uh yes, I I went to uh Foster Avenue School, fourth, fifth, and sixth grade, then went to Pat Gill Junior High School, and I played junior high school football and when I went on to Eastern High School on the East Side on Jerome Street, Jeremy, Pennsylvania, I I would uh play football there, played sports, studied because I was never w what you call a brilliant person. I was a person who had to study to make it. I was in the National Honor Society in high school, but I had to study to do that.

SPEAKER_01 15:05

Right.

SPEAKER_00 15:06

I wasn't something that I I wasn't a rocket scientist or a brain surgeon, you know. So uh from that standpoint, uh I went through Eastern High School. My first date ever was with a girl on the east side. My two buddies said, Hey, Tom, that's I thought they were pretty cool guys. Uh-huh. Tom, let's get a date and go to the high school dance. Oh man, I'm just too, I'm too, you know, I don't I don't think I could do it. But I finally mustered enough confidence to get a date with a gal by the name of Sue Ann Shallow and lived three or four blocks away. Uh-huh. I was the only one that night that had a date. I I thought they were cool. They were already set up. Right. So I mustered all my confidence, invited Sue Ann Shallow, and it turned out to be a lot of fun at the high school dance, the Saka.

SPEAKER_02 16:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:11

And uh so with that being said, and I uh when I go to uh high school, high school class reunions, I still see Sue Ann and I tell her, hey, you were my first date ever. I was so shy. I wouldn't say shit if I had a mouthful. Right. You know. So but I I overcame that. Well, good. And uh I never got married, but hey, I've had a lot of dates. I'm not gay or anything. Yeah, yeah. So with that being said, but she, you know, it was so it was uh and I went to the junior high school prom, uh Paula Carney, I went to the senior high school prom, uh, Bonnie Sue Carlson's, and my dad was in the flower business, so he always made sure I had a nice cassage to take to these girls. Right. Right. So you I was never I was never a skirt chaser in high school. Since that time, I've improved my technique.

SPEAKER_01 17:25

So you've chased a few skirts since uh yeah. Well we'll get into that.

SPEAKER_00 17:29

You can't seem to stop. I don't know why. So you uh so you at any rate, uh I went went to Eastern High School, uh-huh, was in the National Honor Society, took college prep courses. I loved the I loved the language of French, and I had a great French teacher in high school. He had polio, so he was all messed up physically. Right. But he was a great French teacher. When you came into his classroom, you spoke and thought in French, which I liked. Yeah. Yeah. That that uh that education in French carried me when I when I took off and went to Europe, backpack trip to Europe, I spent some time in France, Paris, Marseille, all over.

SPEAKER_01 18:26

So did you so did you go to Europe then right after graduation?

SPEAKER_00 18:30

Right after college graduation.

SPEAKER_01 18:32

Okay, so you so you graduated high school in 1963 then? 64. 64. And then where did you go to college?

College Choices And Studying Accounting

SPEAKER_00 18:41

Well, I did some my my cousins and I, which I said were we're close and tight-knit. We went to Dade Junior College in Miami. Okay. Took a year down there, that was a fun time. Living in a southern climate was nice. But then I came back. I wanted to I wanted to ski. So I came back to Michigan and went to Ferris State College, State College and University now. Right. But uh I I somehow or another got my head into accounting at Dean Junior College. For what reason, I don't know. So I came back to Ferris, but in the meantime, right after high school, I went to LCC. Okay. And worked at a wholesale flower company here in Lansing. My uncle owned it, my dad managed it. I uh it was a place where all the family members passed through there.

SPEAKER_01 19:51

Everybody worked there at one time or another.

SPEAKER_00 19:53

Everybody had a job. That was a nice thing about it. We always had a job. So at any rate, I applied to Ferris, and yes, I was accepted at Ferris. I went into their accounting program. There again, I don't know what my big attraction was for accounting, maybe business, but accounting does give you uh integral knowledge of business. If you know the comings and goings of money and business, you're pretty you know that you know the heartbeat of it.

SPEAKER_01 20:27

Right.

SPEAKER_00 20:29

So, so then I went to college at Ferris. Buddy and I from high school shared a cabin out on the north side of Big Rapids, and we had a lot of fun, probably a lot more than we should have.

SPEAKER_01 20:45

Right.

SPEAKER_00 20:46

But I skied, I was able to go skiing a lot. Um I went up north a lot. I liked the proximity of Big Rapid, and I still do. I have a cousin who lives up there. But at any rate, when I graduated, this was a time when people took off and went traveling in Europe. So I bought myself an aluminum backpack, worked in the flower business, rolled up a paying crawl, took off for Europe, got on a charter flight out of MSU, flew into Germany, had a good pair of hiking boots, started walking, and hitchhiking.

SPEAKER_02 21:33

Uh-huh.

Backpacking Europe On Your Own

SPEAKER_00 21:33

In training, I had a URail pass. Now with a Urail pass, you can just walk up and get on a train and you show it to the conductor. Bam, you were you had a place to sleep overnight if you needed it. But I was also in a youth hostel. Youth hosteling in Europe. It's a not exactly all for kids, although it does, it does, it is for kids. A cheap place to stay and get a shower for the night.

SPEAKER_02 22:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:08

But people Europeans travel by youth hosteling quite a bit. It's an inexpensive way to stay, you know. Stay for five bucks a night. That's pretty cheap. That is. Get a place to stay in a shower, that's pretty good. So how long did you stay in Europe? Two months. Okay. Did you wear out those ways I I stayed As long as I could, because when you go into the workforce, you become employed, unless you're a teacher, you don't get two months of time off in a row. That's true. And teachers have a good situation. My sister's a teacher, Spanish teacher. But she, she, she's a Spanish teacher. But when I went to Europe, I just, I was like a wandering Jew. I had all my worldly possessions on my back, including a 35 millimeter camera and a fifth of Canadian club whiskey, which came in handy on one event. But it just and when you do a trip like that, and you're on your own, you're independent, you come back a different person. Uh-huh. You have you have been you've you've you've gone into the world. And when I was traveling in Europe, there was no calling mom and dad and saying, hey dad, I need a hundred bucks. No. Everything you had, you had with you. Right. And you had to deal with life as it was. Not as you wished it was.

SPEAKER_01 23:54

Right. There were no uh there were no cell phones and no uh no ATMs. No. Yeah. No.

SPEAKER_00 24:00

What you know, think about the cell phone. What did we do before the age of cell phone? How did we live without it? Yeah. Nowadays, and I'm dependent like this, but the younger people are even more dependent. Without the cell phone, they're like a lost soul.

SPEAKER_01 24:22

You're right, right.

SPEAKER_00 24:23

They need the you and I I would have to say if I forget my cell phone in the morning, and it makes me nervous and anxious. Oh my gosh, who've called me? Right. What do I need to do? Blah, blah, blah.

SPEAKER_01 24:37

You know? We've been well trained. Yes. Yes, we have.

SPEAKER_00 24:43

And uh how did we ever live without him?

SPEAKER_01 24:51

I know that we did because I didn't have a cell phone as a kid. I I know we lived just fine without him, uh, but we've come dependent upon him. So so uh when did you when did you return from Europe then?

Coming Back To Work And Michigan Pride

SPEAKER_00 25:04

I returned from Europe in the early 70s, and I can't remember exactly what the time what year it was. And uh returned from Europe, I had a degree in accounting, and I practiced some accounting with a cousin up in St. John. Uh-huh. Agricultural accounting. He was a well, one of my issues with accounting was I never had a bookkeeping class in high school. So debits and credits I wasn't aware of that much.

SPEAKER_01 25:47

It's very confusing stuff. Huh? It can be very confusing.

SPEAKER_00 25:51

Yes, yeah, it can. And and being an accountant, you have to have a lot of knowledge about business, all the laws that pertain to it, all the uh all the ways that things are done. So I I really didn't have that. I wasn't prepared for that. I wish I had been. Um because then I might have been an accountant. But I was sucked back into the family business of wholesale flower selling. I did my years of, I did about I did about 20 years selling in Grand Rapids. This was with a refrigerated truck about the size of a school bus. We carried a load of flowers around to flower shops, and we sold flowers to flower shops. That was our that was our function.

SPEAKER_01 26:43

Right.

SPEAKER_00 26:43

And uh so that's what I did for 20 years. And then when that company dissolved, my uncle's company dissolved, I went to work for a company in Flint, Denver Wholesale. And I drove a semi, I I I sold flowers in the Saginaw Bay City area. Then I drove a semi loaded with flowers up into the northern climbs of southern peninsula, Michigan. And believe me, there was a lot of blizzards up there. Still is great ski country.

SPEAKER_02 27:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:26

But uh, yeah, that was I drove a semi up there. And I have to tell you, that was mind expanding too. Driving all over northern Michigan, I am pretty familiar with northern Michigan. I love it. I love Michigan. Yeah. Even though I traveled to Europe, I probably would never do another trip to Europe because there's so many things to see in Michigan.

SPEAKER_01 27:53

Well, our states are very big. Our states are the size of countries, yeah. You know, so yeah, there's a lot to see here. Definitely.

SPEAKER_00 28:03

A lot of interesting things from the Sioux Lacks to to Alpina and Potaski and Charleboy and all the way down the Lake Michigan shoreline. It's a beautiful state. Yeah, it is. And personally, I like four seasons. Uh I feel sorry for the people in Arizona and Florida and Texas because they don't know the joy that we experience when spring comes to Michigan. Yeah, flowers start blooming, the grass starts growing.

The Draft And Entering The Army

SPEAKER_01 29:09

Well, and sometimes you get all four seasons in one week. Yes, that's a good one. So that's that's a bonus. So it is so crazy like that. So so tell me what at what point did you uh join the army?

OCS Disillusionment And Drill Sergeant Life

SPEAKER_00 29:23

Well, I was attending LCC when I graduated from Lansing Eastern. Yeah. I was attending, but one, and they were drafting the draft, the military draft was in effect, and I took a light load of classes, and uh my number came up in the draft. Okay. And when you did, I mean, I had friends that went to Canada, and I had friends that were just drafted into the military here. And I went into the military as scared as anybody was. I mean when you when you go into the military, you don't know what's gonna happen. My sisters were at the at the uh point where you go into the military bawling because they thought I was gonna go to Vietnam. Everybody, everybody that went in, it was a real popular thing. When you went in the military, you trained. I was a I had my military MOS was an infantry. I mean, you carry a rifle and you go out in the field and shoot people. But I didn't, I went up to Fort Dex, New Jersey, became infantry trained, and at that time I applied for Officer Candidate School because I had some college. Yeah. And uh so I was accepted. I went back to Fort Knox. I was accepted into the Armor OCS. That means you'd be a tank driver or an armored personnel carrier, something of that nature. I uh washed out of Armor OCS because I didn't believe that the techniques they were using were imperative to create a person to be an officer. The one incident that I had that really turned me off was uh we were we were in the day room and a the wives we were we were in there, we could meet our family. So what brought her husband some cookies and he ate one. Well the TAC officer made him crawl around, low crawl around the day room in front of his wife for eating that cookie. I didn't think that was the kind of something that makes a soldier. Right he was doing what comes natural. But apparently that was not allowed. So I soured on Officer Cannon from that point. Yeah. Um you know military academies are tough, and they try to uh they try to break you down and build you up. But as it turned out, I washed out of OCS and I was in a holding company in Fort Knox. At Fort Knox, they needed some people to be training, training sergeants. So they put me out in a company on Fort Knox, and uh and you're gonna be an assistant to this drill sergeant. But okay, that's fine, I could do that. Um I did it. I was a I was what they call a drill corporal. In other words, you do the job, but you don't get to pay for it.

SPEAKER_01 33:10

Right, you get all the responsibility, but none of the pick.

SPEAKER_00 33:13

All the act you're acting. So at any rate, I did it and I did it, and I was pretty good at it. And so they said, Well, would you like to go to NCO's non-commissioned officer school? I said, sure, I'll learn to be a training sergeant. Yeah. I went to NCO school, learned the techniques of training people, which a lot of those techniques are just basic principles of teaching. And uh I became a drill sergeant. I had a smoky bear hat, all that. Yeah. And and I've I really think I was pretty good at it because I was tough. I did the things that people had to do: physical training, military training, military education. Um, and I did it pretty good. And as it as it went with a lot of drill sergeants that I could observe and see in the in the army, they were they had a power syndrome. They had a power over you. You had a power over the people that came into your training company. Right. Um now, with that being said, I tried to put myself into a position where I respected them. Because a year a week a year before that, I was just a babe in arms coming in the military. And a lot of drill sergeants had this power complex that they they would abuse people. Yeah. I tried not to do that. Whatever they had to do, I tried to do it with them. I tried to get be a good example. And I think I was, because I got certain awards for it. But, you know, you just have to have a respect for people. You have to you have to have a respect for the men that you that to the men that you're training. Right. You don't you don't abuse them, you don't cuss them out, you don't hit them, you don't beat on them. You respect them. So I did that. And I did pretty good at it. And how long, how long did you do that?

SPEAKER_01 35:31

One year, eleven months, and ten days. But who's counting, right? Yes, exactly. So you were you were in the you were in the army for then a two years, basically? Two years, yeah. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 35:46

All right. But in the army, if your college began if your college began within 90 days of your ETS, you could get out within that 90-day period. So two cousins and I and a friend from Flint went to Miami and went to Dade Junior College. Okay. And lived down to my in Miami, which was a lot of fun. I mean, I did a lot of stuff down there. Went to Key West, went to the Bahamas, chased women, all that.

SPEAKER_01 36:23

Yeah. So okay, so that's how you ended up in in Florida then. Yes. Okay, and then you you came back to Michigan, went to Ferris, and then worked.

SPEAKER_00 36:33

My cousin and I came back to Michigan. Yeah. He went to Michigan State, stayed with a stayed with our cousin out at East Lansing, but I moved to Big Rapids. And I actually I really like Big Rapids. Yeah. Big town, small town. Still is a nice small town. And I was close to the ski hills in which I did a lot of skiing.

SPEAKER_02 36:59

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_00 37:00

It was cross-country and downhill, alpine skiing. And uh, so yes. Then when I graduated from Paris, I went to Europe.

SPEAKER_01 37:13

Right.

SPEAKER_00 37:14

I rolled up a bankroll working, went to Europe, came back, and hooked up at my uncle's flower company.

SPEAKER_01 37:23

Right. And you were there for 20 years?

SPEAKER_00 37:26

20 years. Wow. In Grand Rapids. Yeah. I spent another eight years or so selling in Saginaw, Bay City. And as I w as it turned out, I drove a semi up into Europe uh for the northern parts of the Lower Peninsula, which was a very good experience. Hard, hard work.

SPEAKER_02 37:49

Yeah.

Career Turns And Quitting Alcohol

SPEAKER_00 37:50

But the money was pretty good. I bought a sailboat and I got into sailing. And I love sailing. I'd like to have another sailboat, but I don't have it right now. But you know, I'm a person who is not gonna sit around and sit around someplace and die. I'm gonna keep I'm gonna get up and keep moving and doing things. Yeah. Following my dreams. Yeah. Well, when the company that I was terminated from a company in Flint, I quit. I there are very few people that I cannot get along with, but this is the manager that was always on my ass for one reason or another, and we couldn't get along.

SPEAKER_02 38:43

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_00 38:45

So I departed on my own volition. Um there again, he just died recently. He had a heart attack, but he was a heavy smoker and a heavy drinker. I did some of that too, but not heavy.

SPEAKER_03 39:04

Right.

SPEAKER_00 39:04

Um in early on in my life, I smoked some cigarettes, but I was able to overcome it, thankfully. And I overcame, I abused alcohol, I admit it. That's why I quit it. I I did not want to turn into an alcoholic, dependent on alcohol. And uh so I was able to quit it nowadays. I'll have a drink, occasional drink, a glass of wine, a beer, maybe a cocktail. Um, but I don't drink. You you could say that I don't drink. Uh-huh. Um, and I'm thankful for that, because I have abused alcohol, put myself in really dangerous situations, and I just quit. Period. Thankfully, I could quit. Some people can't do that.

SPEAKER_02 39:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 39:57

Um, too bad for too bad for them. I feel sorry for people who've abused alcohol and can't control it because they cannot sit down with a friend and have a beer or a drink and let it let it let that be all there is. I have one friend that I I took care of in the business. And uh he he could not find the stop button. He couldn't quit. When he started drinking, he got fallen down drunk.

SPEAKER_02 40:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 40:32

And that's too bad.

SPEAKER_01 40:37

Right. Right.

SPEAKER_00 40:38

And uh so with that being said, he's still a friend. I talk to him all the time. Um, but he I don't think he realizes how big a person I was. I helped I helped him keep his job. I took him to work, I I preached to him about the downfalls of alcohol, which I wasn't a very good example.

SPEAKER_01 41:04

Right.

SPEAKER_00 41:05

But at any rate, uh, I was able to overcome that possibility. When a person gets hooked into drugs or alcohol, it's a sad case. Yeah. That got that one completely broke. They gambled, was online gambling on your phone. They did cocaine, they did marijuana, which marijuana is legal. Maybe it's good, maybe it's bad. I did myself, but I quit that too. Um it's sad to see somebody go broke, and I I would tell them that cocaine is gonna steal your money, it's gonna steal your energy, and it's eventually gonna steal your life.

SPEAKER_01 41:59

Right.

SPEAKER_00 42:00

And so consequently, I hope they have gotten that picture because you know when you go broke at 25 or 30, that's a rough, that's a rough pill to swallow. It is. When mom and dad don't want to support you anymore, and you don't have anything, you might have to go down and live at the city rescue mission. That's not very cool.

SPEAKER_01 42:24

No, that's that's very difficult. Yes, very difficult life.

SPEAKER_00 42:28

It's very difficult for a family to observe that sort of thing happening.

SPEAKER_01 42:33

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 42:34

The ones you loved are now on the skins in life.

Selling Electronics And Learning Retail

SPEAKER_01 42:41

So so talk to me a little bit about when you you I want to go back to when you left your job in Flint. So how old were you when you when you quit that job?

SPEAKER_00 42:51

In Flint? Yeah, when you I was probably about 45. Okay, and so what did you do after that? Then I went into I needed a job. I I needed to work. So I went to work for Circuit City. Uh-huh. It's a company that sells uh appliances and electronics.

SPEAKER_01 43:13

I remember Circuit City.

SPEAKER_00 43:15

Circuit City. Yeah. That was a story about a company who expanded too much too fast. You know? Yeah. There is a certain point of diminishing returns for more stores, doesn't translate into more profits, more headaches, more most of the time. But anyway, it worked work for Circuit City. I learned a lot about appliances, and I learned a lot about electronics, big screen TVs, you know, high-definition TVs. And then they were hiring in a place in Okamus called Big George's. Not computers, but uh TVs. Radios, TVs, and stuff. And so I spent about eight years doing that. I I came into Big George's company here in Lansing, but I commuted into the Big George's company in Ann Arbor, which is a real predominant business in Ann Arbor. Um until the box stores got into electronics and appliances. Big George's a key person in Ann Arbor. If you wanted a washing machine, you went to Big George's.

SPEAKER_02 44:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 44:45

If you wanted a high definition TV, you went to Big George's because the people that worked knew about what they were doing. And photography. Would come in and pick a brain, put pick a person's mind on the information about photography, and then go online and buy the camera. Right. Big George didn't like that.

SPEAKER_01 45:12

Yeah, because this is the late 90s at this point, right? Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 45:17

So I did a lot of commuting to Ann Arbor, which I learned, learned of the town in Ann Arbor, which is a very good town. Very, well, it's kind of like Madison, Wisconsin, University of Wisconsin. Um, a very, well, let's face it, you I don't care what you think about the football team and football Saturday, U of M is a great school. Oh, it's yeah. Yeah. And all the professions, but but Michigan State is too. Uh-huh. Just in a little different fields. So I spent time down there, learned a lot, made some money, and uh then I was terminated from Big George's, and I don't know why, because I was I sold a lot of service plans after the product.

SPEAKER_01 46:19

Right, which is where the money is made. You know, that's where they make their money, isn't it?

SPEAKER_00 46:24

Yes, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 46:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 46:26

Yeah. There's pros and cons to that. But uh if I had a high-tech TV, I would want a service planner. Yeah. Some of the washing machines we sold,$2,000 washing machine. It's a good idea to have a little extra protection on it.

SPEAKER_01 46:47

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 46:48

You know, because they're t they're high-tech. They have sensors, they have all kinds of stuff that you would never imagine. Even your car that you drive, you have all kinds of stuff that you would never imagine. Right. Um, as high-tech as things are nowadays, I think uh continued service plans are not a bad idea.

SPEAKER_02 47:10

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_00 47:11

You know, just roll it into the cost of your product and don't even think about it. Right, right. You know, but you got an extra guarantee. So then then I uh I in the meantime I had bought my parents' house and a couple other houses. And dabbled in real estate, which was not smart for me. Real estate is a bailiwick all of its own. And you should know that before you do something like that, because the money is pretty big.

SPEAKER_03 47:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 47:51

The bigger the bigger the houses, the bigger. And uh I got screwed. I had a big heart, I shouldn't have done it. A woman with her daughter and a couple of grandkids raked me over the coals. I I lost on that deal.

SPEAKER_02 48:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 48:14

And I did everything that I cautioned other people about doing. Unless you are knowledgeable about real estate and being a rental person, you better get knowledgeable because your losses could come pretty big and pretty fast.

SPEAKER_01 48:33

Right. Well, that could be devastating too.

SPEAKER_00 48:36

Yes, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 48:37

So you didn't stay in the real estate business very long, then I take it. Yeah. Well, so what'd you do after that?

SPEAKER_00 48:44

After that, I retired. Okay. And when I retired, I still like the idea of selling flowers. I like flowers for one thing. So I said one day, you know, being the ambitious person that I am. Uh-huh. I said, you know, I think I would still like to sell flowers. So I'm going to get me a cart and I'm going to put a couple pails of flowers in it. And I'm going to go to student housing, student apartments, retirement housing and apartments. And I'm going to go out on the corner over an old town Lansing, have my flower card up there, and sell flowers to people that are walking by for various events, such as a blues festival, jazz festival, whatever, whatever might be up there. Uh, and it was kind of fun, you know. Yeah. Being a street salesman or a street performer, I tell people that if you're proficient in playing a guitar or singing, or playing a piano, and you can get a piano out on the street, go out there and do it and put a can up there, and people will throw a buck or two in there to you. It's fun, it's actually fun because you're interacting with people. Uh-huh. Um, so I I advise people to do that.

SPEAKER_01 50:11

Now, do you still do you still sell flowers?

SPEAKER_00 50:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 50:14

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 50:15

So you're not officially retired, you are you married? I am. I I should have brought some flowers to you. But I I but I only sell them. I've had friends in the flower business that had their own flower shop. And they're floral artists. They know how to put a bouquet together and make it real pretty. Right. Know how to do a wedding, know how to do a funeral, blah, blah, blah. All that. But I like the concept of just selling a handful of flowers to somebody and put them in a vase and enjoy the beauty of the flowers and maybe the smell. Yeah. So that's what I do. I keep it simple, I keep it cheap. I don't have a big capital investment. I have uh I have fun at.

SPEAKER_01 51:06

You know, when I when I was in junior high school, I worked for Bancroft Flower Shop on Michigan Avenue. Is that so? Yeah, so I'm I'm a big fan of flowers.

SPEAKER_00 51:17

So now, did you work for Wayne Bancroft?

SPEAKER_01 51:21

No, I worked for Joe and Gina and Gina. Yeah. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 51:26

Yes. Yep. And I knew them. Great people. We we did business. The company I worked for in Lansing, we did business with them all the time. Joe and Gina were, I won't say they were close friends, but we're acquaintances. Yeah. And uh they did a pretty darn good job with Bancroft. They did? Bancroft was a Paramount name in Lansing. Norm Kessel was another one. Yeah. We had quite. Norm Kessel and my dad were buddies. The we would go up to Drummond Island where Norm Kessel owned a fishing cabin shack back on the back part of Drummond Island, which is very, very rudimentary. Um when you talk about two-tracking, you went over the plane to get back to their cabin. Wow. No electricity. The water you drank and cooked with, you went down to Lake Caron and dipped it out of the lake. You had gas lanterns. It was basic, real basic. Yeah. But it was a great time. Norm and my dad, we went up there, we would fish for Northern Pike and Walleye and whatever else we got. My brother and I would go up there. It was a great time. Norm had two sons about the same age as uh my brother and I. Uh-huh. We stayed in this cramp shackle cabin and uh cooked our cooked our dinners on a wood stove. No electricity. Yeah. And at nighttime, if you were happened to be if you got woke up, you might see a deer appearing in the window of the cabin. It was just that wild.

SPEAKER_01 53:21

Yeah. Everybody got along. Nature and and everybody there, right? Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 53:28

So that's and one year we were all up there, but his oldest son, Jim, and I and I still see, I still am cut in contact with him. Uh-huh. They were burning poison ivy, burning brush and poison ivy. And he got in some of the smoke from that poison ivy. They he was in such bad shape. We had to take him back down to Sparrow.

SPEAKER_02 53:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 53:59

Put him in the car, take him down to the hospital. Poison ivy is a bad deal.

SPEAKER_01 54:06

Especially when you breathe the smoke. I don't think people realize that. You can't do that.

SPEAKER_00 54:10

Yeah. And the smoke gets on you, it just encumbers you.

Marseille Trust And The Canadian Club Story

SPEAKER_01 54:14

Yeah, it's uh bad news. Yeah. Um, I want to so I've asked you a lot of questions, but there's one one there's a couple more questions I want to ask you, but I want to go back because you mentioned something, and you got to tell me this story. So you said that when you went backpacking in Europe, you had a bottle of Canadian club, and you said it came in handy.

SPEAKER_00 54:37

Is there a story behind that? Okay, yes, there is. I just told that to a gal at church yesterday at Sunday.

SPEAKER_01 54:44

Well, if you can tell it to a gal at church, it must be a good story.

SPEAKER_00 54:47

Canadian club, which is a pretty good sized bottle of whiskey.

SPEAKER_01 54:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 54:51

I had it, I carried it for quite a while. I carried it for a month or so and never used it. So I'm in Marseille, France one night. Got in there on the train, had my backpack, and uh I bumped and I was looking for the youth hostel. And I bumped into a couple guys, and somehow or another, we got a little conversation going. One spoke only French, the other one was uh was an English person who spoke it, who spoke English, and I said, Well, you know, it's late at night. I I need a place to stay. I said, Well, the youth hostel's over here in another part of town. So I tried to find it, but I couldn't. So I was back downtown again. By and by, I brought I brought came back across these two guys, and uh and we didn't I didn't have a place to stay. It was 10, 11 o'clock at night. So uh they said, Well, look, why don't you come up and stay in our apartment? I I didn't know these guys from Adam. Uh-huh. They could have rolled me and killed me easily. So I said, ah, you you get a kind of an instinct about people.

SPEAKER_01 56:08

Right.

SPEAKER_00 56:08

If they're good, or if they're bad, or if they're dangerous. Which but as when you're out and about cruising the world like I did, you get you get an instinct. And I did a lot of hitchhiking. Hitchhikes is one another one of those things. If you're gonna jump in a car with somebody, you have no idea what that person's gonna be like. You have to make about a five-second judgment of whether it's a good idea or not. So, at any rate, I said, Yeah, okay, I'll stay with you. We went up to their apartment, and uh the one guy had a girlfriend that worked in a place that served pizza, and he she brought a pizza up to the apartment. So I had to spit the Canadian club in my pack that hadn't been cracked yet. Uh-huh. And uh so I brought that out. We all drank some shots of whiskey and had pizza and slept the night. Yeah. And I actually, as I recall, I slept pretty good after all that Canadian club propping. Uh but it was just one of those things that I had, I knew someplace a lot, someplace or another along the way it would come in handy. Uh-huh. And it was actually kind of heavy to carry. So getting rid of it wasn't a big wasn't a bad deal for me. Right. Um, so uh that was what happened to the piss of whiskey.

SPEAKER_01 57:46

What a great story. Huh? I say, what a great story.

SPEAKER_00 57:49

Yeah, and you know, Marseille has a lot of bad people in it. It's on the African coast of Morocco. Uh-huh. And uh a lot of bad people pass through there.

SPEAKER_01 58:05

Well, they get a lot of big ships through there, don't they? And yeah, yeah, so it's you you don't know what you're gonna run into.

SPEAKER_00 58:12

No, it could be anything. Yeah. Just like these guys, they could have. I I had to go by my human nature instinct. Uh-huh. I did not feel I was threatened or didn't feel like they were gonna jump me and rob me. Yeah. Because they were, you know, if a person's pretty friendly and conver conversational and you can get the conversation going, a friendly, a friendly heart comes through. You know. And I guess I had to go by that.

SPEAKER_01 58:48

Yeah. Yeah. Maybe they had a gut instinct that you had some good whiskey with you, too. I say maybe they had a gut instinct that you had some good whiskey.

SPEAKER_00 58:56

Yeah, maybe they did. They probably did.

SPEAKER_01 58:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 59:00

So here's an Americano. I bet he's got something good in the exactly.

Selling Flowers For Connection

SPEAKER_01 59:04

So I, you know, I'm curious, what's next for you? What what do you do? What is your future?

SPEAKER_00 59:09

After I came back, I spent all my time in the wholesale flower business.

SPEAKER_01 59:12

Yeah, well, I mean, I mean, now that you're uh now that you're done in that in that business, but you're still doing a little bit of selling, yeah. What what do you think your future looks like from here?

SPEAKER_00 59:22

I'd like to build a flower company. Uh-huh. I would like to sell flowers. To me, it's fun. I go into Birchham Hill's retirement place, and I bump into people that come to me frequently. Every time I come in, they buy something. Yeah. Um, I go into the university apartments. Um, of course, everybody's a whole lot younger there. Right. But I bump into this woman that bought a lot of flowers from me, who was a Muslim. And uh can't exactly think of what country. It was a small country in Saudi Arabia. Um, very good person. She was just very friendly. Her major was in physics, so she was smart. Um, she would go back home and be a person probably in the in the government where she was at, uh-huh, and be a scientist, being a physics person. But uh I've I've I've had a lot of good times just being out on the street and interacting with people, and I have never felt that anybody's gonna jump me and rob me and take my bankroll. Right. I've never had that feeling, but I don't flash a lot of cash around either. Right. You have to be smart about that.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:50

Yes, you do.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:51

You don't want to pull out a handful of uh 20s and 50s because there's poor people out there that need money. So you've gotta, and I probably give it away as many flowers as I've sold. Nobody walks away saying, Oh gosh, I'd like some flowers, but I don't have any money. I always tell them, look, I'm gonna give you something. The next time you see me, pay me if you can't. Yeah. And you I'm surprised at how often that happens. A little old lady downtown at the Porter apartment, she ran up a bill with me about 30 or 40 bucks. She was messed up. She was old, she was she was an old person, and she lived the old person's life. Me, I'm an old person, but I don't live the old person's life. I try not to. Anyway, she paid me. And people all the time will come up, and you kind of have to have a face that faith in the goodness of people. Somebody will walk up to me on the street or in a student department or something and say, Oh, here's that five bucks I owe you. I forgot all about it. Right. You know. So I take it. Sometimes I give them an extra flower just for being honest.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:15

But uh, you know, you have you kind of have to have a certain instinct and faith about the goodness of people. There's some bad people out there which you have to kind of avoid. And but there's a lot of good people out there. Right. A lot of people that are honest just because just because of honesty. Not because they have to or they're afraid of going to hell, just because they're honest.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:44

Well, so I I think this is a good point to ask. Um, so we've talked, we've talked about a lot of different things. We've talked about your life and and and all of that. I really that so I really just have one more question to ask you if you're ready. Um, so and that question is for someone who is listening to this a hundred years from now that doesn't know either one of us, um what message would you like to leave them with?

SPEAKER_00 1:03:13

I would say believe in God, know the Ten Commandments and the Golden Rule and practice them, and your life will probably be pretty good if you do that. But believing in God is important. You know, there's nothing physical about believing in God, it's all spiritual. So do that. And I and I have friends that maybe have three or four kids, young kids, in the uh say like the 12 and under age, and I would tell them, I told a couple friends, I said, you know, you have children, and there's a lot of forces at play for children nowadays. Social media, a lot of peer pressure for drugs, a lot of different forces that we never had when we were young. We lived, we played, we had a good time, we ate, we had fun, but we didn't have social media. Right. We didn't have computers. You know, if you you can be addicted to a computer, and you shouldn't be, you should try to avoid it, because life is more than what happened, uh what's happening in that little black box. Right. Life is more than that. People got along just fine, lived happy lives before the age of the computer, which is a good tool for living, for performing your business job, performing the things you want to perform. But but don't become addicted and think life actually happens in there. Life happens here in your head and your heart. So that's my that would be my advice. Know God, believe in God, and that's why I attend church every Sunday. People say, Oh Tom, why do you why do you go to church every Sunday? And I said, Well, first of all, I believe in God. I believe there is a God. And when I go into church, I focus my prayers on what I want my prayers to have happened. And if you do that, it somehow or another, it's easier to do it in church than just any place. And when I leave church, I feel better than when I went in. I have a lot of friends there, I interact with them, I talk to them, but but I stress it to a friend of mine, a couple of friends of mine with children. Take your children to church at least once a month. So they have an idea where our moral fiber comes from. Don't don't lie, don't steal. Why? Because that's what God says. That's what you need to think about. In the Ten Commandments, if you live by the Ten Commandments, which I haven't always done, your life will be better. If you don't covet thy neighbor's wife and your neighbor's husband comes and gets you, it's not gonna be fun. No, he's not gonna show you any mercy. Right. Because a marriage is a covenant with God. If the covenant's a promise in God, if you don't want to be married, nobody's forcing you. Be a playboy. That's what I've been, somewhat on the borderline of it. But uh I I have nothing against marriage, I just haven't done it yet, I haven't run into that. Person that I would like to give everything I have to. I still I'm still trying though. I'm still I'm still chasing.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:11

Yeah, well, you know, I think that helps keep us young sometimes.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:14

Absolutely it does.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:16

Well, Tom, I appreciate you taking time out of your day to come share your story with me.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:20

Well, I appreciate you doing it. And if somebody can uh look it up online and enjoy the conversation that we've had, that would be a good thing.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:32

I I agree with you.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:34

You know, all right. But but the uh paramount thing that I would say, believe in God, know God, read the Bible if you can. The Bible is uh is a rule book for living, but it's also a history book. Um maybe the history's dry, maybe it doesn't apply too much today, but surprisingly it does apply. Especially, like you say, the Ten Commandments, the Golden Rule, treat us as you'd like to be treated. Your life will be pretty good. You may not be living in White Hills Estate, driving a Mercedes, but your life will still be pretty good.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:19

And don't base your happiness on a dollar bill, because you know, don't uh don't hug your money because the money doesn't hug back.