America's First Christmas on Dec 15th in Wilmington, Ohio - Learn more... |
GLENN: Let me go to Todd in Ohio. Hello, Todd.
CALLER: Hey, Glenn. I just wanted to thank you for encouraging us to teach our family about our teach our kids about the history of our I'm sorry. I'm nervous.
GLENN: Don't be.
CALLER: Well, when I was a kid, my dad used to take me to the Clymer family reunion and, you know, I enjoyed but I never really thought a whole lot bit and pretty much almost dismissed it and then started hearing you talk about our founders and the Clymer reunion is a reunion of the descendants of George Clymer who was the signer of both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, one of the six that did that. And I started telling my kids the stories about George Clymer and, you know, and I just wanted to make sure that our family history lived beyond my own because my dad passed away in 2001 and so I started telling my kids the stories and I forward looking my son to Independence Hall in Philadelphia and to the national archives in DC to he could see where they were signed. They saw the actual document and like I said, my dad passed away in '01 and I just wanted to thank you for encouraging us to do that.
GLENN: Thank you, Todd .
CALLER: For another generation, but I own a small business in Maineville, Ohio, and
GLENN: Wait, wait, wait. In Wilmington Ohio?
CALLER: No. I'm in Maineville, Ohio, is where they were, but we had a fire and we relocated to Wilmington, Ohio, and I had heard that you were coming to Wilmington and I just wanted to talk to you about the amazing people that are there.
GLENN: Yeah.
CALLER: June 30th, 6:00 o'clock in the morning I got phone call. Our business of 15 years where we make Mustang parts for the Ford Mustang was on fire and it destroyed our entire building. We lost all of our inventory and all of our supplies and my wife and I were standing there after the fire trucks left and there's an incredible silence when you're standing there alone and we just looked at each other like, what we going to do now? And a lot of people, I think, would probably turn to the government or ask for a handout or something like that, but we had gotten into a church that surrounded us when we needed it and they came out and took care of our kids while we were out there in the morning trying to rescue whatever was left and then my friend from church brought our kids out to the shop and I was, quite frankly, almost too embarrassed and ashamed because as a dad, didn't know how I was going to provide for my family and my daughter looked up and me said, Dad, it's going to be all right. Kind of like you, I feel like you're bluffing through parenthood and I looked at her kind of thinking, gosh, you promise? And we ended up before we even moved out all of our products that was left, our molds, to another building, I got a phone call from a guy from my church. He said, I've got a line on a building for you. I'm thinking, I'm covered in soot at the moment. Can I call you tomorrow? And I did and he ended up he had heard what had happened. He asked himself, what can actually said a prayer, said, what's one thing I can do to help Todd and it came to him he's going to need a building and he got in his Rolodex and called a guy named Brent Dixon in Wilmington, Ohio, and I had never been there before. It's only a half hour away and I hard about all of the DHL issues and how rough it was supposed to be and when I went up there, I was amazed at the peace in that town. It doesn't match the story. I mentioned it to my wife. I was, like, there is something about this place. And I met with the owner of the building and it turns out 20 years ago he had had a fire and his building burned down and he just wanted to help us and he actually let us move in on nothing but a handshake and I just wanted people to know about Wilmington. I'm learning about it myself and it's just an amazing place.
GLENN: I will tell you, Todd, what it is, if you haven't found it yourself, it is the power of prayer. That is still a community that still has a lot of Quaker influence in it and these are people that have not lost touch with God or the values that we used to have. I haven't been out there myself, but every single staff member I think we've had about 10 or 15 of my staff out there now getting ready for this event on next Wednesday and every single one of them that come back say, "I didn't want to come back. I just wanted to live there." And these are some of these are hard core New Yorkers, I've never lived out of New York, I love New York and they will all call or come back and say, I didn't want to come back. It's fantastic.
CALLER: I grew up in a small town in Ohio and moved to Cincinnati, Ohio, to go to college and thought I would never want to be in a small town ever again and when I went out of to Wilmington, you was just it was just such a peaceful place. It is Bedford Falls in a lot of ways, you know.
GLENN: Yeah.
CALLER: I haven't been there that long, but I love the place. It's a half hour drive. I went from a two minute drive to work to a half hour drive and I remember thinking, gosh, I'm not going to like this very much, but I love every minute of it. It's a beautiful countryside and you get into town and it's just an amazing place with people that aren't going to give up. Just like us. We're not giving up. We're looking to re we're about 90% back up on our feet. It took us five months to do it, but our goal is to grow our business this year and hopefully hire some people from Wilmington.
GLENN: Todd, can I make a recommendation to you? You can go online or you can find in it books, but you can probably find a version of the story online. Look up Thomas Edison and look up towards the end of his life. This is when he was inventing the movie projector and, I mean, he was he was into everything. I still I think he still holds more patents than anybody else in American history. He's an amazing guy. He was in New Jersey and one night his whole complex burns to the ground. He loses everything, all of his experiments, all of his notes, everything, and they work through the night to put the fire out and I'm trying to remember who it was that saw him at the end. It was one of his friends that saw him at the end of the night and he had soot all over him and everything else and his friend expected him to be just devastated, because he lost everything, lost I mean, can you imagine all of the experiments and all of the things that you were halfway in the middle of doing and all of your notes, everything gone. I don't even think he had insurance at the time. And he lost everything and his friend said, Tom, what are you going to do? And I'm paraphrasing. It's been a while since I've read the story, but the story goes that he got up on his kitchen table and said, "Well, right now I'm just going to take a quick nap because we have a lot to do tomorrow." And he just he slept on his kitchen table and started the next day and just and the employees were all devastated and he's, like, "Don't worry about it. We're going to be fine. Let's just keep going." And they started to they did exactly when you're doing. They just moved in several different places until he could rebuild everything, but he eventually rebuilt everything and he continued to be one of the leaders of American industry and American thought for the rest of his life. It's an amazing story. You should read it because I think you would connect with it .
CALLER: My crew all gathered around and helped us rebuild. My family came together. It's amazing because you would think that it would have been completely devastating and it was in a lot of ways, but there's miracles that happen I could tell you that would make your hair stand on end. I mean, I had rifts in my family, extended family that had healed like, 10 years we hadn't spoken. Because of this fire, we're having our first Christmas together this year in 10 years our whole family is going to be together. You know, it's like I could list many things that have happened because of that fire and that's what it took for my family to get back together, I'm okay with that.
GLENN: Todd, hang on the phone because I just want to get some information from you because I would like to talk to you next week when we're in Wilmington .
CALLER: I would love to.
GLENN: Okay. Hold on just a second. Let's get some information from Todd. We are going to be in Wilmington. I invite you to come. The town is preparing for your arrival and I've told them there could be 2,000 people there, there could be 10,000. I don't know how many people will show up, but this is a town that lost 7500 jobs out of 12,000 people and they're struggling, but it is a fantastic town and they have so much to teach the rest of the country because they're survivors. So, come and to do your holiday shopping in Wilmington, Ohio, next Wednesday and I'll be there all day long, starting in the morning until late at night. Bring your family and enjoy the day.
