My Story 18.2

Religion, your belief in God, and a glorious afterlife, becomes solidly integrated in your personality. It becomes part of you. When I was a kid I looked forward to school. After that my goal was graduation, then a career, marriage, children, retirement, and then.....nothing. For a man with a belief in God, however, the future reaches beyond the grave and is eternal in nature. That is an enormous improvement as compared to those who think that death is the end. How can you treat that lightly?

Consequently, I decided that I would basically stick with what was handed me by my family tradition. That already gives me an identity. Looking around nowadays you see a number of changes, in my opinion, a decline in values. Parent used to teach their children to accept their morals, that is not so much evident anymore. Some of the things I never heard in years gone by: "Are you keeping the baby?" Or: "Do you know who the father is?"

In 1956 I started to work for General Distributors, that later changed to Gendis. It was owned and run by the five well known Cohen Brothers. After a while it became part of my job to purchase the office supplies, from paperclips to adding machines. One sales lady called on me consistently with her products, a little higher priced usually. She came in one day and beamed "I am taking you out for lunch". Where we were going was a "surprise". She took me to a hotel on Ellice were there was entertainment during lunch. Entertainment meaning a stripper! It violated every value I had, but I was perfectly charming about the whole thing. After all, my hostess was a lady, she was Jewish and she was a friend of the Cohen brothers.

At General Distributors I ended up in the Credit Department, and encouraged by my supervisor I took up studies in Credit management. In 1964 I received my diploma and worked several places as Credit Manager. In 1968 I became Credit Manager for Simplot Chemicals in Brandon. I made a field trip with some sales men who were looking for new clients for our company. From a Credit perspective some new accounts were unacceptable, to the chagrin of the sales person. In a small town in Manitoba we had our meeting in the local hotel, the only place in town that served a decent meal. And, you guessed it, a stripper. On another occasion I ended up in a Poker Night, and observed those evils first hand. One guy blew his whole paycheck. I am not judging anybody, that is God's job. I just know know my values, and where I stand. That is the way I chose to live.