Making It Happen. Kyle Mackenzie

your main problem is that you don’t know anything about projects.”

      I hated it when Jenny reduced my nice, big, insurmountable problems to simple, solvable, problems. “It’s not that I don’t know anything about projects, Jen,” I began. “It’s just that they always become too big and complicated to handle. It’s almost as if the outcome is randomly determined by the Project God, and He is a close relative of Thor.”

      “Do you honestly believe that a project can’t go well?” she asked me.

      “I suppose not.” I said. “I just haven’t run into anyone who knows how to do it.” I paused. “Lots of people claim to know. But most of their ideas don’t hold up when I try to apply them.”

      Half a dozen books about projects had made their way across my bedside reading table in the last few years. I had been to three seminars on the topic. All in vain. Sure, I got ideas, but they did not take into account individuals who were disorganized, people who did not want to spend time doing mathematical analysis, or project managers who did not trust their team. Plus, they were always very construction oriented. And most projects I had worked on had a big administrative component that directly affected everything else.

      Ironically, while I was able to criticize other people’s approaches, I had never figured out an alternative. Whenever I had finished a project, it was time to get on with some other work, or a new project. There was never any time to sit down and learn something from what we had just done. So of course we always did the next project the same way.

      “…should go and see Martha.” Jenny interrupted my thoughts.

      “Sorry, hon, what was that?” I asked.

      “I said, if you want to figure out how to do projects better, you should go and see Martha.”

      I looked at my wife for signs of mental distress. “Martha, your grandmother?” They say that if you want to know what someone will be like in 30 years, just look at his or her parents. I have often wondered if looking at the person’s grandparents gives you a picture of what they will be like in 60 years. This always gives me a fright when I think about Jenny’s grandmother.

      To be fair, the old woman was not that bad. It’s just that Martha (as everyone, including her own daughter, calls her) was perhaps the weirdest senior citizen I had ever met. Somewhere in her eighties, she lived with her daughter (Jenny’s mother) in Darfield. She apparently spent her time sitting on the porch in her rocking chair, smoking her pipe (yes, a pipe), thinking, and being crusty to people like me. Admittedly, she did have a mind like a steel trap, but she made people uncomfortable (at least people like me), pointing out how someone was doing something wrong, or how they could do it better. The most annoying thing about Martha was that she was almost always right. If she told you there was a better way of doing something, there was. But she would tell you in a way such that you did not want to give her the satisfaction of showing her she was right.

      “What does Martha know about projects?” I asked Jenny.

      “What do you know about Martha?”

      “She’s your grandmother, and I often hope your mother was adopted. Other than that, not much. Why?”

      Jenny gave me an exasperated look. “If you don’t know anything about her, how can you be so sure she can’t help you?” There was that logic again.

      “I don’t approach drunks on the street asking for help on projects, do I?” I asked rhetorically. “And I don’t know anything about them either. C’mon, Jenny, you have to give me a reason to go subject myself to her.” I liked the way that sounded. You didn’t go visit Martha, you subjected yourself to her.

      “To be honest, Will, I don’t know that much about her background. I do know that when I was a little kid and Martha was living with us, she used to travel all around the country, and even overseas. She would always tell me she was ‘helping set people’s thinking straight,’ as she put it. According to Mom, Martha and my grandfather started a manufacturing business together before the Second World War. They did very well with it, even better after Pearl Harbor. When my grandfather was killed in London in 1942, Martha ran the whole thing herself. I guess she sold out sometime before I was born and came to live with my Mom.”

      It made sense. Martha seemed like someone who was used to ordering people around. “That’s fascinating family history and all, hon, but what makes you think she can help me with launching the WindSailor?” I asked.

      “With her experience in business,” Jenny answered, “don’t you think she might have run across a project or two?”

      I sighed. I guessed it wouldn’t hurt to talk to her. It probably wouldn’t take long. But I had one last line of defense. “Jen, she calls me Willie, and you know how I hate that!”

      3

      What is a Project?

      One thing I’ve always liked about Darfield is the town’s “oldness,” the way the whole little village looks like it came from about 1920 (which most of it probably did). The streets are wide and lined with big old elm and oak trees, and behind the trees sit the houses. Big two- and three-story places, with porches that run all the way around the front, houses that really do have the character that real estate listings always claim. Every time I drive through the place, I feel nostalgic for the small town America that was gone before I was born, or perhaps never really existed.

      Fortunately my nostalgia is tempered with practicality. Jenny and I were not crazy enough to buy one of those old places – far too much upkeep! When I get home from work I do not want to spend my evenings installing new plumbing, replastering walls, and fixing rotting floor boards.