Punched
Weekly Update 8/14/2022 to 8/20/2022 #134
This week someone requested a quote as part of my weekly update. That quote relates to having a plan. I will see what I can do, but before that, let me share some of my week serving as mayor of the best smalltown in America.
Several months ago, I was asked to participate in the Paqui Chip Challenge to raise money for Miss Bella as she fights cancer. The plan was for every $250 raised someone else would be added to the list to eat a chip. As often happens though, as they reached the $1500 goal thanks to the help of some Amish friends, the chips were hard to find. After some searching, the decision was made to eat a Carolina Reaper pepper instead. On a beautiful August Tuesday evening, a group met at the Mellencamp mural to finish the event. As we started it was decided that five minutes was the goal. As we progressed a few of the participants decided to go for ten minutes. Even though my tastebuds didn’t recover until Saturday, I can’t say thank you enough to those that participated and helped raise funds for one strong little lady, Miss Bella.
One morning this past week, I sat down with two of our community's newer pastors: Tyler Tolbert from Central Christian and Steven Bruce from Seymour Christian. After catching up on where they were coming from and how they were settling into their new community, Tyler shared how he had been involved with getting Chick-fil-a to come to Columbus. He shared about meeting the CEO and exchanging many phone calls over the years. He also shared that he wants to do a similar grass roots movement here in Seymour. To learn more about his efforts and some details of conversations he has already had, check out "Bring Chick-fil-a to Seymour, Indiana" on Facebook. Thank you, Tyler, for tackling this economic development prospect. I look forward to seeing how it progresses over time.
My most recent department visit was with the Seymour Fire Department. During that visit I had a chance to participate in some hands-on extrication training at their training facility. I shared with them that, as I have no formal training on the topic, please don’t hesitate to correct me and to use it as a training tool for the younger firefighters or for the intern that was joining us that morning. The theme that kept running through the session was that they approached with a plan on what they believed was the best way to accomplish the goal. As often happens though, plans change or must change to reach the end goal. Breaking the glass was possibly the one thing that went according to plan in each scenario. After that we tackled different approaches on how to remove a door or doors and tried a newer method on raising the dash to free a trapped foot. Listening to the shift discuss what they had read in a recent article or studied on a Youtube video, you could tell our crews take their career seriously and are always looking at how to improve. That looking to improve was where the plans change part came into play. As they would normally cut the top of the B pillar to peel back a side, someone had seen something about cutting the lower part to keep the door from digging into the ground. This was an on-the-fly change to the plan. As it didn’t work out as expected, they adapted and were successful even if not as or second planned.
This led to the quote that I was requested to use this week. When Mike Tyson was asked by a reporter whether he was worried about Evander Holyfield and his fight plan he answered, “Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.” What I believe our firefighter was trying to say was that they approach with a plan, and when it doesn’t go right or they “get punched in the mouth,” they have to adapt and change it up to accomplish their actions to achieve their goals. Thank you, Seymour Fire Department, for allowing me to learn alongside you as you train to better serve our community.