I returned to one of my favorite authors and preachers over the weekend, Peter Gomes. He was the long-term chaplain at Harvard. He has written many books. The one I was re-reading is Strength for the Journey: Biblical Wisdom for Daily Living.
I’m picking up on the title of one of his chapters: Freedom, Choices, and Commitment.
I found myself applying these elements to my life. Briefly:
1. I was afforded freedom first and foremost by my parents. By the education they gave me, by the love they conveyed, and by the expectations they communicated to me that I could achieve just about anything. And they conveyed freedom very importantly by sending me away to Portsmouth Priory in my junior year of high school. This freed me from the parochial atmosphere of the small town in which I grew up (though I didn’t feel it at all as parochial at the time) and the sometimes challenges of our home environment.
2. The world opened for me at Portsmouth Priory in the academic and religious environment I encountered. Going to Portsmouth was a choice which my parents made on my behalf. I followed what they thought I should do without question.I will be forever grateful to them. It involved a great financial sacrifice.
From my time at Portsmouth came some important choices. Some may surprise you.
Going out for the football team was one of the most important. I was challenged by sports in general and by contact sports in particular. I knew I wouldn’t be good at football, but I was determined to try; and I did and I remember it to this day and it led me to a particular friendship with Scott O’Leary, the star half back which I’ll never forget. He taught me how to tackle (sort of!); I helped him in math.
Then came more choices. My commitment to morning matins and evening vespers. My religious faith deepened. My choice to go on to Yale was pure serendipity. I had no greater rationale than that I didn’t think it was quite as book-y as Harvard and less of a “club-like” atmosphere than Princeton.
Approaching Yale, I made some vital choices. First came my decision to try to secure the Naval ROTC scholarship needed for my family's being able to afford my going to Yale. In seeking the Navy scholarship, I faced one of the most important choices in my life. Would I cheat on an eye exam?
You had to have 20/20 uncorrected vision to qualify for a Navy scholarship. My vision had tested 20/30 weeks before the test was scheduled. Should I bother to go up to Boston from Providence to take the test? I decided I would. I went to bed at 5:00 p.m. to get as good a sleep as possible. I wanted my eyes fully rested. Going in to take the test the next day, I walked across the front of the room and there, immediately on my left, was the eye test chart, showing the letters I’d need to read to score 20/20. Would I look at this chart? The question went through my mind. I said “no.” Well, you can tell where the story ends. I went to the back of the room, said a deep prayer, squinted my eyes and, sure enough, I was able to read the 20/20 line.
Having entered Yale, I made what in hindsight were three important choices: to pursue History as my major; to seek a prominent leadership position in the NROTC brigade; and to join the newspaper, where I ultimately became advertising manager.
It is remarkable how in hindsight choices made on the run turn out to have lifelong consequences. Perhaps nothing united them for me as much as the continued quest to learn and to grow.
The choices continued; some of them were givens. Some not. Three years of active duty in the Navy was a given. Taking classes at the University of Penn while I was at the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard--in international business and public speaking--was a choice. At the time I had no idea they would prove so beneficial to my ultimate career.
The most importance choice I ended up making was to defer going to law school and take a job for what I thought would only be a year at Procter & Gamble. I knew P&G was a good company. Little could I have imagined that I had found a home and place where I would spend a 40-year career.
The most important choice in my life came after I had been with P&G for about a year. A friend asked me to go to the Kentucky Derby. It would have been much more likely for me to say “no,” to stay back in Cincinnati, working. Work was my life. But I went on a blind date and I met the woman of my dreams, Francie, who was on a date with another P&Ger. It was May 1964.
I looked at her cautiously. I didn’t want her to know my attention was riveted on her. I knew right then and there this was the woman I wanted to marry. It took me over three years, to September 9th,1967, to make my dream come true.
3. My commitments over the years have flowed directly from the freedom afforded by my parents, the choices I made, many of them serendipity, not knowing how they would connect, and my good fortune in having found three things to which it has been natural and easy to give my all. They are my wife, Francie. The family that we have been blessed to have: four children, their spouses, and ten grandchildren. And Procter & Gamble, a company like no other, embodying the values I hold most dear: the pursuit of truth, the commitment to excellence and growth the respect for others and a commitment always to do the right thing.
There have been other commitments I’ve been fortunate to find my way to, all anchored in the same quest to try to make a contribution to other people and to the world around us. Chief among them have been Every Child Succeeds, the Cincinnati Youth Collaborative, Yale University, and the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center.
In all of this I have drawn strength and direction from my Faith in God.
I hope this essay reveals my good fortune, how my prayers to God have been answered again and again, how I have found myself knowing and supported by individuals who have made my life better than I could have ever imagined it to be--first and foremost, my wife Francie who, as I have often said without a hint of pretense or exaggeration, made it all possible.
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