I was driving down Governors Highway, a four-lane street I often take to my office, when I heard a loud thump on my right front tire. We’ve had tornadoes lately, and a lot of heavy branches were littering the road. The noise subsided as I reached the next light. As I stopped, I heard honking on the right side of the car. A young Black man was gesturing for me to open my window. He told me I had a big tree branch under my tire. I thanked him. Then he got out of his car, pulled the branch out and tossed it onto the grass. I was a bit stunned. He had done something really nice, totally unsolicited, and then he just drove off. I doubt I would have done the same for him. *** In my lifetime, race relations have changed a great deal. My parents fled our home on the South Side of Chicago because “schvartze” (Yiddish for Black people, with a negative connotation) were living too close. Today we live in a neighborhood where our Black neighbors watch our home when we are gone and have our keys. America has changed. We have changed. Last week,…

My guest today, Doug Rizzo, has been working in machine shops for over 55 years, and he’s only 62. Doug worked in his father’s company through good times and terrible, and did applications for Doosan. Now, he’s a plant manager by day and runs his own shop for six or seven hours at night. Doug says he loves all of it, from doing applications, to making fixtures, to cleaning oil off machines. He says it’s where he’s meant to be. It’s where he finds flow. ******** Listen on your favorite podcast app using pod.link.     . View the podcast at the bottom of this post or on our YouTube Channel. Follow us on Social and never miss an update! Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/swarfcast Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/swarfcast/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/todays-machining-world Twitter: https://twitter.com/tmwswarfblog ************* Link to Graff-Pinkert’s Acquisitions and Sales promotion! Machinist Since Age 6 Doug Rizzo’s father owned a machine shop. He started on drill presses and Bridgeports at six. At nine he was running an NC-controlled lathe. Summer vacations, weekends, snow days. He was with his dad in the shop, Madison Sprocket and Gear. They ran Acmes, Brown & Sharpes, Wickmans. Many of those machines came from Graff-Pinkert, long before Doug and I ever spoke. Day job, night…

Eighteen years ago today, the Cubs were playing Houston, and Ryan Dempster was pitching. I remember hearing the game on the radio as they were wheeling me into the operating room for a quadruple heart bypass to save my life. At least I think I heard it, or imagined hearing it. Since I was five years old, the Cubs have been knitted into my cerebral cortex, so even if I was unconscious, I may have somehow imagined Dempster on the mound against Houston. Why do I care so much about the Chicago Cubs? Why do I study the batting order for almost every game and know the histories of even the most insignificant players? Why do I respond so viscerally to an error, a pop-up with runners on base, or a stupid throw by an outfielder to home plate when he should have thrown to third? I’ve thought about this passion for the Cubs a lot lately as they scuffle through another pennant race. They are a good team but clearly well behind Milwaukee and probably the Dodgers. Yet this does not diminish my ardor. It just increases my pain. I grew up with the Cubs. My mom was an…