The Way I Heard It with Mike Rowe - 92: Sharp as a Tack

Episode Date: February 27, 2018

Big John knew a simple but powerful equation when he saw one.

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This is the way I heard it. Little John held up his little hands and smiled. His mother saw the blood and smiled back. Won't be long before those hands are tough as leather, she laughed. Little John grinned and went right back to work, polishing his father's tools, pulling each one through the mix of sand and emery powder again and again until it was just right.

He wasn't satisfied until he could see his reflection in the steel, and the tips glinted with a razor's end. edge. These tools were all he had left of his father. Little John's father was a tailor who died at sea, on his way to England to secure funding for his struggling shop. He left behind a young wife and three hungry kids. Little John's mother had taken over the business, and little John had taken on the job of keeping his father's needles polished and sharp. Early on, little John understood the math. The sharper the needle, the faster you work. The faster you work, the more you make.

The more you make, the more you eat. It was a simple but powerful equation. Little John watched his mother's hands fly, his razor-sharp needles slicing through the rough cloth, like a hot knife through butter. Years later, Big John held up his big hands and smiled. These were a blacksmith's hands, thick and dirty, and just like his mother had promised, tough as leather.

Big John's tools were bigger and heavier than his father's tools, but he still kept them razor sharp and polished until he could see his reflection. As Big John packed his tools for the long trip, he thought of his father, and that fateful journey east on the high seas. Big John was heading west, though, hopefully with better results. First by canal to Chicago, then stagecoach to the edge of the edge of the sea. Illinois frontier. Out west, blacksmiths were in high demand, and Big John quickly became known for his meticulously polished spades that glided through the thick Illinois clay. And farmers

loved his pitchforks. With their tines sharpened to a razor's edge, they pierced the wet hay, like a hot knife through butter. Big John forged, he polished, he sharpened, and he made a decent living. He also got a lot of work fixing plows. It seemed like every Illinois farmer had the same problem. The cast iron plows they brought with them were just not cutting it. And by it, I'm talking about the prairie itself. The soil out here was dense and muddy, far harder to till than the farms back east. All day long, farmers had to stop and clean the sticky clay mud that caked on their plows.

Eventually, the mold board would bust, or the plow share would split, and they'd end up in Big John's blacksmith shop griping about the land they had come so far to farm. The longer it took the plow, the less land they could work, the less food they could grow. It was a simple but powerful equation. One afternoon, Big John was summoned to the local sawmill to fix a timber carriage. He watched his giant trees floated in one end of the mill, and stacks of neatly sliced lumber rolled out the other end. He was fascinated by the giant steel blades that whirled and whined

as they sliced through the massive old-growth timbers. These blades were made of high-grade Sheffield steel. Big John plucked a broken blade from a scrap pile. It was polished, smooth from thousands of cycles through sap-filled logs. It was so smooth, in fact, that Big John could see his reflection in it. And that gave John a very big idea. The blacksmith took the broken blade from the sawmill and carried it back to his shop. He ground the teeth off and sharpened it to a razor's edge.

Then he hammered the high-grade steel blade onto an iron mold board and started polishing. He didn't stop till he could see his reflection. Big John carried his experimental plow on his big shoulders down to his neighbor's farm. By the time he had it hitched to his neighbor's horse, a small crowd had formed to see what the excitement was about. Big John gave the signal. The horse pulled. Big John pushed, and the sharpened plowshare cut through the thick prairie soil, like a hot knife through butter. There were audible gasps as the red clay worked its way up the highly polished moldboard and tumbled harmlessly back to the ground.

Big John could cut a whole furrow without stopping. It's impossible to overstate the importance of the self-scouring plow. The faster the plow, the more land you can cultivate, the more food you can grow. And when you're talking about the breadbasket of America, well, that's a simple but powerful equation. By the end of the day, Big John had orders for three more plows and the seeds of a new empire, were sewn. Today, Big John's name is one of the most famous on earth, branded and familiar green letters everywhere, from the largest industrial farm to the most cluttered suburban garage. But the crazy part is, the product with which he is automatically associated, isn't a plow.

In fact, Big John died more than a quarter of a century before the machine he's most known for even existed. So this weekend, when you're cutting the backyard without breaking a sweat, thank the little boy who sharpened his father's needles, then grew up to be the big blacksmith who cracked open the prairie and filled America's breadbasket. John Deere. Anyway, that's the way I heard. If you work in University Maintenance, Granger considers you an MVP, because your playbook ensures your arena is a always ready for tip-off, and Granger is your trusted partner. Offering the products you need all in one

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The ocean delights us as playful otters restore coastal kelp forests. The ocean teaches us how Our choices impact even the deepest places. The ocean connects us. Visit Monterey Bay Aquarium.org slash connects.