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5Always the college professor, my dad had carefully avoided anything he considered too sentimental, so I knew how moved he was to write me that, after having helped educate many young people, he now felt that his best results included his own son. The Reverend Nelson wrote that his decades as a simple, old-fashioned principal had ended with schools undergoing such swift changes that he had retired in self-doubt. I heard more of what I had done wrong than what I did right, he said, adding that my letter had brought him welcome reassurance that his career had been appreciated. A glance at Grandmas familiar handwriting brought back in a flash memories of standing alongside her white rocking chair, watching her settin down some letter to relatives. Character by character, Grandma would slowly accomplish one word, then the next, so that a finished page would consume hours. I wept over the page representing my Grandmas recent hours invested in expressing her loving gratefulness to me - whom she used to diaper! 6Old Behrman was a painter who lived on the ground floor beneath them. He was past sixty and had a long white beard curling down over his chest. Despite looking the part, Behrman was a failure in art. For forty years he had been always about to paint a masterpiece, but had never yet begun it. He earned a little by serving as a model to those young artists who could not pay the price of a professional. He drank gin to excess, and still talked of his coming masterpiece. For the rest he was a fierce little old man, who mocked terribly at softness in any one, and who regarded himself as guard dog to the two young artists in the studio above. Sue found Behrman smelling strongly of gin in his dimly lighted studio below. In one corner was a blank canvas on an easel that had been waiting there for twenty-five years to receive the first line of the masterpiece. She told him of Johnsys fancy, and how she feared she would, indeed, light and fragile as a leaf herself, float away, when her slight hold upon the world grew weaker. Old Behrman, with his red eyes plainly streaming, shouted his contempt for such foolish imaginings. What! he cried. Are there people in the world foolish enough to die because leafs drop off from a vine? I have never heard of such a thing. Why do you allow such silly ideas to come into that head of hers? God! This is not a place in which one so good as Miss Johnsy should lie sick. Some day I will paint a masterpiece, and we shall all go away. Yes. 7.Porter came to Portland when he was 13 after his father, a salesman, was transferred here. He attended a school for the disabled and then Lincoln High School, where he was placed in a class for slow kids. But he wasnt slow. His mind was trapped in a body that didnt work. Speaking was difficult and took time. People were impatient and didnt listen. He felt different - was different - from the kids who rushed about in the halls and planned dances he would never attend. What could his future be? Porter wanted to do something and his mother was certain that he could rise above his limitations. With her encouragement, he applied for a job with the Fuller Brush Co. only to be turned down. He couldnt carry a product briefcase or walk a route, they said. Porter knew he wanted to be a salesman. He began reading help wanted ads in the newspaper. When he saw one for Watkins, a company that sold household products door-to-door, his mother set up a meeting with a representative. The man said no, but Porter wouldnt listen. He just wanted a chance. The man gave in and offered Porter a section of the city that no salesman wanted. It took Porter four false starts before he found the courage to ring the first doorbell. The man who answered told him to go away, a pattern repeated throughout the day. That night Porter read through company literature and discovered the products were guaranteed. He would sell that pledge. He just needed people to listen. If a customer turned him down, Porter kept coming back until they heard him. And he sold. For several years he was Watkins top retail salesman. Now he is the only one of the companys 44,000 salespeople who sells door-to-door.
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