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Posts Tagged ‘Bucky’s Stories and Recollections from 50 Years in Business’

  1. Book Publication and Birth: A Tale of Two Converging Loves

    September 4, 2012 by katemeadows

    I never meant for it to happen this way.

    I couldn’t have planned it if I tried.

    Indeed, truth is often stranger than fiction.

    Here I am, though, with a new baby and two books being published this month. Yes, two.

    How? I don’t quite know, except that life happens.

    Tough Love: A Wyoming Childhood, published this month by Pronghorn Press, recounts my experience as an only child growing up among the raw and grisly characters in rural western Wyoming. It began in 2008 as a collection of essays for my Master’s thesis in creative nonfiction writing. I knew from the get-go I would go all the way with it, writing the pieces one at a time, piecing them together with a thread of a theme (what does it mean to be tough?), and eventually pursuing publication, sending out query after query until a “yes” finally came.

    The “yes” did come – but, unexpectedly, so did a positive pregnancy test, three days later.

    That “yes,” along with the blue “+” sign on the stick, came while I was knee-deep in work on my family’s small business history. Bucky’s: Stories and Recollections from 50 Years in Business, commemorates the grit and determination of a small-town service, repair and retail shop doing whatever it took to survive off of a quiet western main street. I began the project while Tough Love: A Wyoming Childhood grinded its way through the query mill, back before a pregnancy was even on the horizon. The business history was a grand effort in helping my family carve out its well-deserved legacy. It was to be for me a venture in self-publishing, my intention to learn the ropes of the trade to be better informed and equipped as a writer during this tumultuous time in the publishing industry. I planned to publish the “Bucky’s book,” as it affectionately came to be called, in June 2012.

    Then the nod came for Tough Love: A Wyoming Childhood.

    Then I got pregnant.

    In other words, life happened.

    And here I am, with a baby who was born the end of July, a book of essays to be published on schedule by a traditional publisher, and a self-published small business history that, due to life circumstances, was postponed for release until September – the month of the business’ annual grand open house.

    So we leave next week, traveling from California to Wyoming, where for the better part of the month I will be promoting my work. September will be a crazy month. But I can’t wait.

    I go into it with heart racing and eyes bright with excitement. Here are the moments where the hard, dogged work will be worth it. Finally, I will meet the finished products.  Works of art into which I put my whole self. I will get to talk about this craft I love so much. I get to share words, encourage others to share theirs, and talk about the value of preserving life stories and leaving legacies.

    This is work that I love. I am packing my bags now.

    Please, join me if you can. Click here for a list of events.  Stay tuned for upcoming readings and get-togethers in California. And, if you’re interested in using Tough Love: A Wyoming Childhood as a pick for a book group, ordering copies of either book, or learning more about the crafts of creative nonfiction writing and/or telling your own life story, please get in touch.

    Writing, at its very core, is about communication. If I can reach people, if I can inspire and encourage, only then can I smile and say to myself, “Job well done.”

    Category Books, Bookstores, Creativity, Family, Family History, Home, Life, Life Stories, Motherhood, Parenting, Place, Self Publishing, Small Business History, Writing, Writing Life, Writing Process | Tags: ,,,,,,,,,,,,,, | 2 Comments

  2. Hard-Earned Lessons about Hard Decisions

    May 21, 2012 by katemeadows

    Recently, I made a hard decision.

    I opted to push back self-publication of the small business history, Bucky’s: Stories and Recollections from 50 Years in Business, by three months. Now, instead of coming out in June, the book will make its debut in September.

    I agonized over this decision for many months. I lost sleep over it. If I am painfully honest, I cried over it. Part of me felt like I wouldn’t be sticking to my word if I botched a deadline. Part of me felt like a failure for not meeting the initial deadline.

    Copyright 2010, Kate Meadows, Omaha, NE

    Until I realized something: the deadline was a date I had set, a deadline I had been feverishly working toward, a deadline I hadn’t even concretely communicated to many people who had pre-ordered the book.

    All of the pressure to get this project done by a certain time was self-imposed. Who but me would challenge my integrity if I pushed back the project? Who but me would think I was a failure?

    Then, another realization struck me. I could have the book finished by June, if I really wanted to.

    It would just be a mediocre book. I would have to cut corners, strike content, fly through the photo layout and just hope I put images in the right place and that they looked okay.

    Where then, I asked myself, would be the integrity?

    What’s more, the entire reason for pushing the project back rested on this reality: I had received so much content for the book – so many memories and stories, photos and newspaper clippings – from people who wanted to contribute that I simply couldn’t keep up with it all as it poured in.

    This is to say that, when I set out to piece together 50 years of stories and recollections of a small-town business and reached out to the business’ customers and people in the local community for help, the response was overwhelming. The project itself morphed into something more monumental and wonderful than I ever could have anticipated.

    Turns out, when you ask for stories and recollections about Bucky’s Outdoors in Pinedale, Wyoming, people have a lot to say.

    Failure? No. Simply a remarkable story in the making.

    C Hope Clark, writer and editor of the newsletter www.fundsforwriters.com, recently shared this knock-out quote by William James: “When once a decision is reached, dismiss absolutely all responsibility and care about the outcome.”

    In other words, make a decision and move on, going forward confidently in the path you have chosen without looking back or second-guessing.

    When I finally made the decision to push back the book’s publication, I felt a weight lift off my shoulders. My work felt lighter and freer, more manageable and more joyful. I haven’t looked back since, because I know that by pursuing my work in this lighter spirit, the outcome will be knock-out beautiful – a product that, I hope, will bowl readers over.

    For more on this project, visit www.buckysstory.com.

    Have you agonized over any difficult decisions lately? What was the outcome? If you haven’t yet reached an outcome, what can you do to be proactive about moving forward?

    Category Books, Life Stories, Quotes, Self Publishing, Self-doubt, Small Business History, Writing, Writing Process | Tags: ,,,,,,,,,, | 12 Comments

  3. The Shocking Truth About Customer Service

    May 10, 2012 by katemeadows

    As I wrap up work on a full length small business history, Bucky’s: Stories and Recollections from 50 Years in Business, which chronicles the life of a small engine repair and retail shop in western Wyoming, one truth keeps coming back to me:

    It’s about how this small business was founded and staked its success on customer service.

    Customer service.

    Blah, blah. Do you, like me, roll your eyes when you see that term? It has become so cliched, so overused, in today’s corporate society.

    But when I hear “customer service” in relation to Bucky’s, I understand it differently, because I have so often seen it in action.

    The 11 p.m. snowmobile delivery to a private residence on Christmas Eve.

    Opening the back shop during off hours so a team of snowmobilers can have access to parts and a workspace to fix a broken-down machine.

    Mid-morning coffee breaks that are open to people in the community.

    This is the kind of customer service that is always focused on giving more than getting.

    And you know what? In the case of Bucky’s, it has reaped rewards a thousand-fold.

    People keep coming back to this little store on Lincoln Street in Pinedale, WY, because they know there is always something good in store for them. They know the people there think outside of themselves, think beyond making a buck or two.

    They know the people who work at Bucky’s are truly in tune with what a customer needs.

    Small business owner (or entrepreneur) or not, your life can be like that. It’s about turning the focus outward, rather than keeping it inward. It’s about putting yourself in other people’s shoes, anticipating their needs, asking (even if not directly), “How can I serve you today?”

    If you read the history, Bucky’s: Stories and Recollections from 50 Years in Business, you might get tired of hearing about customer service, the countless ways employees at that shop have stepped up to treat someone like more than just a customer.

    But it’s all in there because these are the memories and stories straight from the customers’ own experiences.

    Turns out when someone serves you and truly meets your needs, you want to shout it from a mountaintop. Turns out that in this crazed world wrought with a “what’s-in-it-for-me” attitude, there are still people who care about you.

    *In what way have you been touched recently by an act of service?

    Category Feel-Good Stories, Life Stories, Place, Writing | Tags: ,,,,,,,,,, | 2 Comments

  4. Signature Scent (A Story of the Family Business)

    April 12, 2012 by katemeadows

    With the small business history, Bucky’s: Stories and Recollections from 50 Years in Business soon to be published, I share today one of the knock-out stories that will appear in the book. This memory is shared by my dad, who reluctantly joined the family business full time after graduating college in 1975, seeing no other choice. The business, Bucky’s Repair, operated a hide and fur business on the side as a way of diversifying business and adding income. Here, a glimpse into my grandfather’s crazy notions as a self-taught wildlife expert and businessman, and just how far one family would go to earn a buck.

    “Coyote prices had gone way up, and Dad had perfected what he thought was the all-time best coyote scent. It took him a year to get it just right: a potion of rotten fish, ground up beaver glands and other juices. He buried this stuff for one year to let it age, and age it did. When we dug up the scent and opened it, we could not stand to be within a block of the stuff.

    Dad used eye droppers to divide the potion into small vials, dispensing one drop at a time. In the fall, he set out a large coyote trap line. He was very excited to go for the first follow-up run to see how the potion worked.

    Well, it worked extremely well: His traps were full of badgers. It seemed his potion was exactly what badgers craved. Dad had a dilemma. How could he catch coyotes if badgers kept getting into his traps?

    Being ever so creative Dad thought he would trap badgers that fall, to get them out of circulation. But it would be silly to just trap them and kill them, since badger fur could net him some money. The problem was that badgers don’t get prime until March. He had to figure out a way to keep them until March, when their fur would be prime and worth a sale. His solution was to trap beaver and use the beaver carcasses for badger food. Doing this, he figured he could keep the badgers alive until they grew prime.

    That fall, thanks to his signature coyote scent, we ended up with 29 badgers in three pens out behind the shop. Dad made the pens himself, with wire and hog rings and two-by-four legs and frames. The badgers fought like crazy, day and night. They were very snarly, with deep-throated growls, very vicious sounding. We had never given a thought to the possibility of their fighting, until we put them in the cages together. With all of the fighting going on, we knew we had to call the local vet; now we were dealing with a bunch of badger wounds. Once a week, the local veterinarian, Glenn Millard, came to the shop to doctor the wounded animals. Dr. Millard would apply antibiotics from a distance with a swab on a stick.

    Once, the chief of police, Win Farnsworth, came by to inspect the place. He was a former FBI agent from Texas who had come to Sublette County and hired us to take him on a bear hunt. He had fallen in love with the country, gave up his FBI job and moved to Pinedale. Now as Chief of Police, he had received reports that cock fights were taking place behind Bucky’s. When we showed him what we had, he was relieved we weren’t having cock fights. He said he would be happy to report there were no cock fight going on at Bucky’s. That was that.

    By mid-January, the beaver meat ran out. We had no choice but to shoot the badgers, skin them, and work the fur up to be sold. They brought an average price of $10.00 each, which was very low. A good, prime pelt in March would have brought us $30-$35.  But the price of beaver had gone way up, so Dad made out good, anyway. He didn’t use the potion any more. He didn’t need it. We were all beyond glad, as none of us could stand to ride in Dad’s truck that fall.

    For more about the project, or to pre-order a book, visit www.buckysstory.com.

     

    Category Family, Life Stories, Outdoors, Place, Writing | Tags: ,,,,,,,,,,, | No Comments