Mud Puddle Days

Creativity has early roots. As children, a mud puddle could keep us girls busy for days.

I guess we got the building notion from our parents. My dad always had a good supply of raw materials around our home: a pile of sand, lumber or pipe. My mom, too, had her makings: fabric, yarn and buttons. Whether I wanted to make a sail boat, a kite or a quilt, we had all the stuff close at hand.

No surprise, then, that my sisters and I took after our parents when we made villages along the shore of the mud puddle lake in our driveway. Mud and sand, sticks, leaves or rocks, whatever we needed was always available.

The plans were free, just pulled from a healthy imagination.

Each of us would have our own property to build on as we chose. Houses, fences, trees – complete with mud-paved roads to connect it all – were easy. We really did play for days, until the puddle dried up.

I took my blue-collar, self-reliant upbringing – the idea of working with your hands and making things – for granted until recent times. It seems I have so many friends who were raised in a different environment. Their parents hired things done. They don’t own any tools, whether it’s a hammer or a sewing machine. They wouldn’t think of making bread from scratch. And now, when faced with having to create new careers, they seem hampered to me.

They have experience earning a paycheck, but making a living seems alien to them. They can’t imagine building a new life down in the basement.

When my dad was let go from his electrician’s job of 28 years (the company went bankrupt), he went into business for himself. My mother soon followed. Times were rough for a while. The first summer, the roof of the new addition to our too-small house – bought before the job change for the three acres and wonderfully huge cabinet shop out back – was clear plastic sheeting. Great for star gazing at night, not so good on a sunny day. My dad didn’t have time to finish that roof until winter made it vital.

My parents built a solid business, starting with the tools they already had, despite the challenges, even fears the town would die. And by the way, and that was in 1974.

Don’t think that the current tough economy is anything new, or that can’t happen again.

We entrepreneurs are using our 21st century tools – a computer, website and Internet access – to create new businesses, watered frequently with a healthy dose of imagination and belief.

These tools are cleaner – and just as much fun – as stirring up some sticky mud for a make-believe mansion by a puddle.