Small is Possible. Lyle Estill

      When I take the Silk Hope road to John’s, the fecundity starts at Gum Springs Garage, where Roy continually chomps on a half smoked Tampa Sweet, and where mechanics gather around the woodstove. They can fix anything — all in good time — and it would be by stopping in, not by telephone that most updates on work are passed along.

      I then pass Louis’ place, where they run a small sawmill, and make cedar chests, and coat hangers, and where they run a small cow-calf operation, along with vegetable production. You can see multiple generations about the place, from young children weeding vast beds of broccoli to Louis’ father loading up a trailer of rough-cut wood.

      It’s a hopeful road, on the way to Quack and Back, despite the failure of silk.

      My brother Jim shares some overlapping philosophy with John. He is an insatiable entrepreneur who insists he be measured not by the vast pile of bad ideas, heaped at the bottom of the wall — but rather by those ideas that stuck. As a risk-taker he has figured out a way to stay in the possible, and not dwell on those ventures that stung him.

      At Piedmont Biofuels, many of us have internalized the teachings of John, and we have distilled it down to an expression that we call “staying in the Ray.”

      Ray is a resident of Blue Heron farm, the co-housing community down Lutterloh Road just past Gums Springs Garage. One day when Rachel and I were working the booth at the Sha-kori Grassroots Festival of Music and Dance, Ray approached our table. We chatted idly about one thing and another, and when he realized he was in the presence of Rachel, he lit up brightly.

      “You’re Rachel Burton?” he said. “Thank you. Thank you for teaching down at the college, and for being a female mechanic, for setting an example for my daughters, for being so generous with your knowledge. Thank you so much for all you do.”

      Rachel was taken aback. And beaming.

      That night she collided with some struggle in her personal life, and we talked on the phone. I asked her if she remembered her encounter with Ray earlier in the day. Of course she did. And I wondered if she could set down her troubles of that moment and think back to when Ray was showering her with gratitude.

      “Stay in the Ray,” I said, and we have all attempted to get back to that moment many, many times along the way.

      Whether it comes from a therapy session with John, or from the optimism of my brother Jim, or from a chance encounter with Ray, the message is the same. Anything’s possible, we can manifest any reality we desire. We might not make a lot of silk in these parts, but there is certainly no lack of hope.

Global Producers

      I HAVEN’T ALWAYS been enmeshed in the local economy. Quite the opposite. For many years I bought into the “you must be global to survive” concept. And I took the global economy bait, hook, line, and sinker.

      I was stopped at the light by The Manor when I heard the newscast on the CBC. The Manor was a strip club in an old stone turreted building that I passed on my way to and from work. Researchers had identified a new medical syndrome they were calling Seasonal Affective Disorder. I peered through the sloshing windshield wipers at the grey sky and realized I had suffered from it all of my life. They had a given a name to the winter blues. The marquis at the Manor said that Sugar and Spice were in town. And I promised myself that it was time to permanently move to a sunny, warm, faraway place.

      At the time I was in my brother’s technology business. I was a traveling salesman responsible for distant markets. We were head quartered in Guelph, Ontario, and I spent most of my days in Vancouver, or Winnipeg, or Halifax. For a time it felt as if I awoke in Guelph and commuted to Montreal.

      The alleged cure for Seasonal Affective Disorder was to spend some time beneath bright lights. It sounded crackpot to me. In my view we had a bright light, it was the sun, and all I had to do was move to a part of the world where there was more of it. My brothers indicated it would be fine for me to move to the United States, as long as we were fully engaged in every large market opportunity in Canada.

      Canada is a big place. In order to get us positioned in all Canadian markets I opened branch offices. And I lived on airplanes. When I finally managed to move to the south I left behind enough frequent flyer points to go to Hong Kong and back. For two.

      I moved to the United States in search of blue sky and sunshine, to follow the shifting technology markets which were feeling the sharp elbow of the newly enacted North American Free Trade Act (NAFTA). In one sense I was our emissary to the global economy — sent from afar to internationalize the family business.

      Since I merely set out to create a living for one, I had my choice of all the sunshiny markets America had to offer. California was expensive. And at the time it was suffering from drought. Texas would have been a good choice, but moving from Canada to the United States was enough culture shock, and I was afraid I could not handle moving to Texas, which appeared to be its own separate country. So I settled on the Research Triangle Park (RTP) of North Carolina, where things were cheap, and there was plenty of water and a growing technology market.

      There was a time when I would start each day at my new home in the woods before first light. I would put on my coat and tie and head to my office on the edge of RTP. It was a long drive on a two-lane road, and there was a good chance of getting stuck behind a tractor pulling a load of tobacco or cotton during the harvest times. I spent my days running from the boardroom to the plant floor, and from factories to retailers, selling technology from Canada.

      I would return home each night after dark, to my wood-stove, and my outhouse, and to a rickety kitchen table full of friends who liked to sit around and talk about forming “community.” We read books by Scott Peck, and went to weekend conferences with the likes of Thomas Berry, and we speculated long into many nights about theoretical constructs on how humans might better live together.

      Each morning I would leave the woods and rush back to my little enterprise, where I would import goods from Japan, and flip them into Montreal. I would bring down a load from Ontario, and distribute it all over the United States. I was an entrepreneur with my toe in the global economy. I read books on time management, and I read Tom Peters, who promised everyone that if we didn’t have a percentage of our businesses in the international markets, we were certainly doomed.

      To this day the brothers in my family hold different opinions. My brother Jim, who started the company, is now a technology mogul with business tentacles all over the globe. He likes to jokingly describe me as a nepotistic charity case that was writing poetry prior to getting a real job with his company. I like to assure him that my tireless effort made him the man he is today.

      We all were captains of industry, with big plans and big deals, which is why I was surprised when I overheard my father refer to the collective effort of his sons as a “little computer sales and service company.” We were conquering the world, yet he described us as if we were a local lawnmower shop.

      He spent his career in the manufacture and distribution of control valves for customers around the planet. Part of his task was to right size the factories to the markets. And to keep the unions happy. Part of his success came from figuring out how to think like a Canadian. As an immigrant to Canada, he aced that part, and he subsequently delivered the Canadian market to his global masters.

      We grew up with visitors at the dining room table, from Mexico, and South Africa, and from parts unknown. As children we had a grasp of McLuhan’s “global village,” even though the highlight of our week was the family trip to our local farmer’s market.

      When I immigrated to the United States, I was intent on delivering profits back to our Canadian headquarters. I was taught to check my anti-business bias in favor of black ink.

      My brother Mark, a former union organizer, also managed to reconcile his management-labor beliefs in the name of the family business, and he eventually joined me in our international efforts.

      Tami