Grip your community like a baseball

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the interconnective energy of rural America.
I don’t even really know why except that I’m getting older and my opinions are getting more defined. I spend early mornings reading and creating ideas for stories or for grants and then the heart of the day is spent acting on those thoughts.
When I’m in transit I tend to think about where I’m at in life and, unfortunately, not on whether I came to a full stop at 24th Street, or saw that cop sitting in the church parking lot.
On a recent trip back from Keokuk I got bogged down in thought about how really connected we all are.
I even created an analogy in my head about a baseball. It’s comprised of this stitched leather cover that’s kinda pretty and functional for those working with it.
Then inside is a big ball of heavy yarn that wraps around itself with each strand touching a lot, but not all, of the other strands. And all that yarn is wrapped around a rubber core and then a round piece of cork at the center.
The cork, in my crazy mind, is the inanimate name of your community. The rubber, to me anyway, is city government that’s in place to serve as a layer of protection of the municipal entity itself. Then we have yarn that is wrapped thousands and thousands of times around the ball, with each circumnavigation touching many, but not all, of the others.
This to me represents the active human parts of the community to include its population, businesses, social groups, utilities, schools, media, etc. The cowhide is literally the gripping point. It’s what holds everything else together - what we can all hold onto as the community.
And just like any great baseball team everyone needs to know what they can do with the baseball at any given time – when they decide to play. Even the best of teams make mistakes with the ball and so it is with every strong community.
But what makes up most of the ball is the interconnected yarn. It creates the mass of the ball and a loose thread compromises the integrity of the ball. So, it could follow that loose threads in a community threaten a similar philosophical unraveling. Of course, it would require a plane of perfection for any community to not have any compromises, but the ones that play ball as a team progress faster than the others.
Fort Madison is far from perfect. And when we admit that, we can start to see the progress that’s required to get everyone on the same page. One of the first things we need to admit is that we’re a suffering workforce – a small unraveling. And that, in all likelihood, isn’t specific to Fort Madison. Work ethic has faded. People don’t want to work today as hard as we used to. And in hand with that is pride. We don’t have sufficient pride in our work as we used to… as a whole.
That’s a real good place to start.
Workers have historically had grievances with their employers, and back in the day, employers valued their workforce over everything else. Now, it’s becoming apparent, that capitalism has shifted its emphasis from value of people to value of technology. What can we create to reduce the need for manual workforce… in other words - automation. One could argue that work ethic has ramped up the need for automation. One could also argue that the shift of work ethic could be laid at the feet of capitalism itself.
But if employees went back to the mindset of being a value to their employer there may be a chance to restart this current trend. And if employers refocus on people rather than machines it becomes part of the restart. We need to make our employers our priority while we’re on the job – when we are getting paid. A lot of employers hire under the mantra ‘hire for attitude, train for skill’. That means they wanted you first and they’re willing to invest in you to help their company. Repay that investment when you’re on the clock. Don’t phone it in. Pick up a piece of litter on the way in. That was always part of my daily routine when I worked on site. Try to pick up something on the way in. It sets your mindset for the day. I’m here for them – because they pay me to be here. If, and it’s a big if - I’m not an idiot,  you find a way to again make the employer the priority while on the clock, you might gain their attention again. And then they need to recognize that sea change and adjust accordingly.
Employers may then have motivation to invest in people again as a priority over how they can increase profit margins by decreasing labor. That may be one personal thing we can do to energize a community.
Another thing I’ve been thinking about is investing in information. There is an undeniable return on investment in being informed. This goes beyond your opinion of information, but actual information e.g. where do your tax dollars go?; what are the performance markers of your school?; which company is building out your Internet service?; does the market support a higher asking price for your home? 
Being informed makes us stronger citizens and provides resources within our community. Companies such as grocers, large retailers, and even utilities, have a vested interest in making sure their customers are informed. It’s an ROI (Return on Investment) that leads to more purchases that, for example, reduce energy consumption, promote better eating, provide budget conscious information, and news that leads to participation in health programs, and other quality of life purchases – all of which can either increase profitability or decrease costs.
Volunteering. This is something that took a serious hit after COVID. People just aren’t as comfortable volunteering for things anymore. Well, the viral threat is back to pre-pandemic levels so there’s no reason for not giving some, not all, but some of your free time to groups who bring about better community.
We all need to participate in the game. We can throw the curve or hit it. We can take a pitch, we can walk, hell, we can even steal, but the ball determines the fate of the game.
And this isn’t a lesson on civics or intended to be teaching or preaching. It’s observations from a place of fun – baseball.
But baseball and my Reds are about at the end of their annual unheralded summer run, so it’s on to the annual cautious anticipation of how long it takes my Vikings to fade into mediocrity – even when they’re really good. But that’s Beside the Point.
Chuck Vandenberg is editor and co-owner of Pen City Current and can be reached at Charles.V@PenCityCurrent.com.