I loved butchering chickens.
My mother hated it.
And believe it or not, that story helped me sell more than one bathroom.
That is the beginning of this week’s Along the Way.
Years ago, when I sold bathroom remodels, a lot of appointments began with me barely making it through the front door before somebody—usually the husband—said:
“Well, we’re not buying anything today.”
I understood. He wanted to draw a line before the salesman had a chance to start selling.
But before we could discuss buying anything, I needed to see the bathroom. So we would begin walking through the house.
Along the way, I would notice the family pictures, the keepsakes, and all the little pieces of a life collected on the walls.
I might ask how long they had lived there. That would lead to where they lived before—and eventually, where they had grown up.
Then I would listen.
If they had grown up on a farm, I might tell them that I had, too, outside Eldon, Missouri. I might tell them about bottle-feeding calves, taking cattle to the sale barn, or how much I loved butchering chickens—and how much my mother hated the smell.
The chicken story was never exactly the same twice.
Not because I changed what happened. I told it from wherever their memory had carried them. I was answering the story they had trusted me enough to tell.
Somewhere in that exchange, the room would change.
We still had a bathroom to measure and a price to discuss. I was still a salesman who wanted to earn their business.
But we weren’t only a salesman and a customer anymore.
A childhood story had become a kind of old handshake.
This week, while reading How to Win Friends and Influence People, I copied a line from Thurston into my notebook:
“I am grateful because these people come to see me. They make it possible for me to make my living in a very agreeable way. I’m going to give them the very best I possibly can.”
That is not an appeal for sympathy.
It is a standard by which I want you to judge my work.
I am building Five Minutes in America to give you stories that help us recognize ourselves in one another before politics teaches us to be strangers.
Stories that give us a little room to breathe, remember, laugh—and consider what kind of citizens we want to be.
If you become a paid member of The Coffman Chronicle, you will receive early previews of Five Minutes in America before those stories are released to the public.
You will be among the first people invited onto the front porch.
An annual membership is $80—about $1.54 a week.
In return, I intend to live by Thurston’s promise:
To be grateful that you came to see me—and to give you the very best I possibly can.
If you are already a paid member, thank you.
You are helping make this next chapter possible, and your early previews of Five Minutes in America are coming.
I’m Tony Michaels.
Stay free—and I’ll see you along the way.
P.S. If you believe America could use more stories that help us recognize one another, become an annual member today. I’ll meet you on the front porch.
