“Well,” said Mrs. Melissa Trent to her nine-year-old son Milton, “here we go!”
And she pressed the button on the computer, and the paperwork was sent in.
“Hooray!” Milton shouted, and ran to get his eleven-year-old sister Velma and his eight-year-old sister Gracie. “We're official!”
The idea the Trent little ones had about it being easier for grandparents to remember taking their medicine if their grandchildren's pictures were on a set of cards smiling and waving had officially begun the process of becoming a business: Love Is the Best Medicine Reminder Cards.
Thomas Stepforth Sr., billionaire businessman and grandfather to the Trent children, was on the other end of the phone, silently weeping with his wife Velma.
It was not just that the Stepforth entrepreneurial spirit had gone to another generation – they had been entrepreneurs ever since they had done the trading necessary to get the sweet, strong wine that they would substitute for the usual and knock their masters clean out for New Year so they could escape slavery!
It was that there had been a rupture in the family … and the wounds were now healed … Melissa remembered when her father's businesses included the family because she was the oldest child of her parents, and she was hurt the most when her father, in the quest to do all that he could do as a businessman, had neglected the family.
She had married twice to men with no real business aspirations as an extreme response … but that second husband, Sgt. Vincent Trent, ended up being a family man who could work business in. He was vice president of the Ludlow Bubbly … and his business partners in the company were all men who understood business was to support, not displace, the family.
“They had time to think about it all first – I didn't,” Mr. Stepforth said. “It is good that they all can learn from my mistakes, and avoid them.”
This nexus between the orientation of her husband and the repentance of her father allowed Melissa to step into her gifts and structure her children's ideas the proper way … so, Sgt. Trent worked as vice president, but now, his family had its own family business too, just like the Ludlows did.
Velma, Milton, and Gracie would thus have a chance to learn about all that it took to run a business – their first trial, because their parents were wise enough not to over-market and advertise but let them work within the circle of adults they had around them.
Elder sister Vanna, 17, worked with her mother in the design portion of the cards, and eldest brother Melvin, 21, of course reached into his business of beatmaking and production to get a commercial together.
“What I love about it is how – especially given the disruption to schooling – this brings focus to the growth in the home,” Sgt. Trent said to his neighbor Capt. R.E. Ludlow. “All that energy these kids have – it is wonderful to see it channeled into something that benefits themselves and others.”
“I must say that I have noticed that over here as well – carbonator days are wonderful days, although still hectic with seven grandchildren under 12 years old,” Capt. Ludlow said. “A family business is a different kind of order than the military order we know better, but everyone sees the outcome and works for it, and feels good about it – it is productive and life-affirming.”
“Well,” Sgt. Trent said, “this the high civilian order that we defended by military order. The goal, to hear Jefferson tell it, was never to have this workaday world and rat race. He envisioned everybody basically on their own little plantation … and we will be kind here and go back to the Bible and say that the goal was to have every man, and thus every family, under its own vine and fig tree, and then sharing and trading the results for a complete living for everyone.”
“That is an unusual way of thinking of the matter,” Capt. Ludlow said, “but if that is correct, it is not just the children who are in the first trial of what it really means to live a proper, productive, self-sufficient civilian life. So are we.”
“So far, so good,” Sgt. Trent said, and Capt. Ludlow smiled.
“Blessed be the name of the Lord,” he said, “and may He bless and keep us as we make soda tomorrow with our overeager crews!”