During his college years, Rogers spent a summer in an
Idaho logging camp.
At one point, the superintendent had to leave for a few
days and put Rogers in charge.
"What if the men refuse to follow my orders?"
Rogers asked. He thought of Tony, an
immigrant worker who grumbled and growled all day, giving the other men a hard
time.
"Fire them," the superintendent said. Then, as if reading Rogers' mind, he added,
"I suppose you think you are going to fire Tony if you get the
chance. I'd feel badly about that. I have been logging for 40 years. Tony is the most reliable worker I've ever
had. I know he is a grouch and that he
hates everybody and everything. But he
comes in first and leaves last.
There has not been an accident for eight years on the
hill where he works."
Rogers took over the next day. He went to Tony and spoke to him. "Tony, do you know I'm in charge here
today?"
Tony grunted.
"I was going to fire you the first time we tangled,
but I want you to know I'm not," he told Tony, adding what the
superintendent had said.
When he finished, Tony dropped the shovelful of sand he
had held and tears streamed down his face.
"Why he no tell me dat eight years ago?"
That day Tony worked harder than ever before -- and he
smiled! He later said to Rogers, "I
told Maria you first foreman in deese country who ever say, 'Good work, Tony,'
and it make Maria feel like Christmas."
Rogers went back to school after that summer.
Twelve years later he met Tony again. Tony was superintendent for railroad
construction for one of the largest logging companies in the West. Rogers asked him how he came to California
and happened to have such success.
Tony replied, "If it not be for the one minute you
talk to me back in Idaho, I keel somebody someday. One minute, she change my whole life."
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