Conversation with My Father

My father, Henry Roden, is a great man. I think we may all feel that about our fathers, but mine is especially great. Here are some highlighted quotes from this morning during my annual Thanksgiving Day phone call with him. Thanks Dad, for everything.

• On Concepts - "People don't sell things, they sell concepts. It's like the guy who sells drills. He doesn't sell drills, he sells holes."
• On Change - "There are three types of people in this world. Those who make things happen, those who watch things happen and those who wonder what the hell happened?"
• On Labor - "It's like when I was in Mexico in '62 and there were hundreds of workers alongside the road swinging pick-axes and I said to the guy I was with, 'wouldn't it be easier to do this with a machine?' And he said, 'but then they would have no jobs.'"
• On Farming - "Tried that and there's NO WAY I'm going back to it. What we should have grown was palm trees. We would have made a fortune."
• On Government - "When I was out helping the democrats get into office, what was amazing was the enthusiasm that the young people for Obama showed about what they were doing."
• On Hillary - "One of the local political cartoonist put it best ' Billary.'"
• On Juarez (just south of the border where he lives in New Mexico) - "They talk about 200 dead this year in Tijuana, Juaraz has had 1,300! Most if it drug related. Of course the kids still come to school in this country. We just built a new bridge for them to cross over on. You don't hear about those things much in the media."