Work Hard, Play Hard
“Train a boy in the way he should go; even when
he is old, he will not swerve from it.”
—Proverbs 22: 6
“I’ll go,” Dick said.
“No, you’re in the middle of a stack. I’ll go,” Mary said.
Rich, not yet one-year-old, belted out an impressive cry from his crib a room away. Mary stapled the plastic bag of flies she had been working on, slid it into the pile, and slipped into the bedroom hoping to stop the baby’s crying before he woke up any of the other three children. Dick glanced at the clock—1 a.m. He had to be to work at his father’s furniture store in six hours. He still had at least two hours of filling orders—that was with Mary’s help. He rubbed his eyes and opened another envelope. This one had two dimes and a nickel taped to a folded piece of paper along with a cut-out copy of the ad he had placed in Sports Afield—“Free Introductory Offer—5 hand-tied flies free…25 cents postage and handling.”
He wrote down the name and address of the new customer on a recipe card and placed it on the bottom of the two-inch pile of cards. Was all this late night labor really only worth the 11-cent profit from each order? If they accounted for the hours spent opening orders, packing flies into homemade bags, licking envelopes, multiple trips to the post office, and counting out coins, they would have been so far in the red they might have reconsidered their new venture.
But these new customers, these passionate anglers, gave them a reason to believe. So they worked until 3 a.m. cutting the large plastic bags the dry cleaner sent their clothes home in into small squares, folding five flies into each of them, stapling them shut, dropping them in an envelope, and writing all the addresses down. By the time they went to bed they had a box full of orders ready to go to the post office. Dick would drop them off during his lunch break. This became their weekly routine for the next few years. They gradually increased inventory, adding bamboo fly rods, a few lures, reels, and line.
They had saved the names and addresses of people who enjoyed fishing. So, they took the little profit they made from the fly orders, printed a mimeographed sheet offering their new products, and mailed it to their customer.
“We had no idea if it would work,” Dick said. “But we lived in a place where people believed in the relationship between risk and reward and we understood that involved the real possibility of failure. And when you fell on your face, and everybody does, you picked yourself back up and tried again or you did not move forward.”
Once Dick's brother, Jim, joined and took over much of the day-to-day operations, Mary could concentrate on the children and Dick could give his entire day to his father's hardware store. At night, he helped with the kids and then he and Mary went to work. Like most young parents, they were living on a few hours of sleep at night. What little money they had, went back into the business, but what little free time they had went to their family. Saturdays were for recreation--mostly fishing and hunting and camping and exploring. Sundays were mostly for God. But sometimes, after Mass, that included hunting and fishing and camping and exploring—basically spending time among His creations with the people He gave them to love.
Within a few years, even Rich joined in the fun:
"This is a good field here," Dick said pulling the Station Wagon over to the side of the road.
"Can I come?" Rich said from the back.
"It's going to be a hard walk,” Dick said.
"That's okay. I can do it.” Rich’s mouth was wide with a grin and he was almost shaking trying to contain himself.
So Dick took his shotgun and his young son and stepped into the cool November air. He pulled his ankles through the inter-tangle of weeds in the ditch, knowing the heavy edge cover was perfect for pheasants. Still, a rooster caught him off guard when it burst from the grass fifteen feet in front of them. Dick managed to shoulder the shotgun and fire while Rich yelled, "There's one, Dad! There's one!” Dick missed.
As they pushed on through the field, Rich’s smile never faded as he looked up at his dad, his hero, with wonder and awe. Someday, maybe he could hunt like his dad. Someday, he would bring a pheasant home. Someday, he would be a bigger part of a tradition that had been passed on since the beginning of human existence. But that day, he was simply happy to walk alongside his dad through the tangle of weeds and brush. In that moment, nothing else mattered. It was just Rich and his dad and they would share that memory for the rest of their lives. Another rooster flushed a few steps further. This time Dick connected.
He let Rich carry the wild bird back to the car and though the boy tripped and fell more than once, he pushed himself back up proud to have contributed to the success of the hunt. Rich lifted the pheasant high. Its golden feathers shimmered in the morning light and he marveled at the blue and red and white on its neck and head. As he piled into the car, he did not realize his life had just changed forever. He had been a part of something pure and natural and lasting. Moments like that last long past the day they happen.
For his children, Dick Cabela was the man who came home from work and still took the time to teach us how to shoot with a Crossman pump-action BB gun. The man who thumped us in the back when we slouched in church. The man who, dripping with sweat and his breath laced with the wheezing of asthma, hefted us to his shoulders as we climbed to the top of a mountain trail because giving up had no meaning for him. He was the man who took us goose hunting and walleye fishing to teach us the rewards of patience.
As the family grew, so did the company. Eventually, Dick, Mary, and Jim had to move the operation to Sidney, where they would spend the rest of their lives. Dick and Mary's nine kids went to school there. We made small-town friends. We sometimes got into big-town trouble. We went through a few dogs. We laughed. We cried. We worked together. We played together. And no matter what mistakes we made and no matter how far we fell, we always knew we were loved. And loving us meant involving us in the activities in which they found the greatest satisfaction—predominately church and the outdoors. And both of those took hold in each child to varying degrees and at varying stages of our lives.
Dick and Mary also involved us in their business. In the beginning, they did not have a choice. They ran Cabela's from home. So in between telling bed-time stories and burping babies, they filled orders and sent out mailers. The oldest learned that nothing worthwhile came easy. Whether it was earning the trust of a new customer who would become a lifetime patron or bringing enough walleye home to feed all the kids and half their friends. We learned that the businesses we shopped at and worked for and read about in the newspapers most likely began as humble ideas and grew through hard work, perseverance, and sacrifice. We also learned these things should not come at the expense of our passions, our family, or our faith.
Dick and Mary were passing on a piece of themselves simply by living their lives the best they could. When they risked all the previous year's profits, and then some, on a fall catalog featuring items like exploding golf balls and clown-faced door knob covers and subsequently lost all they had worked for, they taught us about risk taking and failure and learning lessons. Had they never tried to expand beyond their comfort zone, what would that have said about courage? Had they given up on the now in-the-hole business, what would that have said about perseverance? Had their next try at a fall catalog not been more focused on the outdoor gear their customers desired what would that have said about wisdom? And had they not shared the most personal parts of themselves simply by taking us hunting and fishing what would that have said about love?
Dick and Mary understood, maybe even without realizing it, that there needed to be balance. They worked hard—excessively at times. They never missed Mass on Sunday. And they made sure to make time for their children.
Too often today, we fall into the lie that we do not have time to pursue our passions. Dick and Mary did it with nine kids. If we cannot do it with two or three what kind of example will we have set for them and what hope will there be for their children? They need to know what it takes to succeed. Whether it is in their career, personal, or spiritual lives, they need to know that it is going to be hard, that it should be hard. Because if it comes too easy then there is no appreciation for struggle and no respect for the result—whatever that may end up being. Those thoughts rarely crossed Dick and Mary’s minds. They simply lived their lives the best they could. And they truly lived. They never sat on their porch and waited for life to come to them. They sought it out. They believed in taking risks. They believed in pursuing goals. They thrived on the adventure of the unknown. And they trusted God loved them in whatever might happen. They never planned to have nine children. They just trusted God would give them however many He thought best. They could never imagine a life without each one of them.
Dick and Mary loved their faith. They loved their adventures. And they loved their family. For them, none of these things could be separated. Some things are urgent. Some things are important. Some things are vital. Filling orders or getting the job done, whatever that may be, is urgent. Hunting and fishing with loved ones is important. Sacrificing for someone you love is more vital than we can ever know. It is vital and it is heroic. Sometimes we need to let the urgent things wait in order to do something important. And sometimes even the important things should be delayed for a moment of vital sacrificial love.