The Legendary John Roland Baker – Navigating the Narrow Road

Life itself is a challenge. It is a series of ups and downs, mountain-tops and valleys, great gains and uncomfortable losses, confrontations, times of testing, times of elation and happiness, times of great sorrow and sadness, times of struggle and stress, times of easement and calmness – these are the facts of life that challenge the potential of every person who has ever had the opportunity to take a chance at it. Everyone strives to make it to the good times of life; the times of easement, peace, and comfort.  But I don’t think that there are many people who petition God for hard times to come upon their life – but I could be wrong.

The America that we live in today is vastly different than it was thirty-plus years ago when I was born. With that being said, it is still the greatest country of all time, and I believe it will remain so. But there has been a shift in the mindset of our culture in the past few decades. Let me explain what I mean:

My Papaw Baker (John Roland Baker) worked at the International Paper Liquid Packaging Plant in Bastrop, Louisiana from 1948 to his retirement in 1992 – 44 years.

As he was starting off  at IP, he was drafted into the service in 1948. Once he completed his training, he was stationed in Germany from the fall of 1951 to the summer of 1952 in, what he called, “The War of Occupation”. After he returned from Germany, he immediately went on a Monday morning and applied for his old job at IP, got hired the next day for $1 an hour, and got married that Friday night to my Granny (Joye Pardue).

In 1972, after twenty years of consecutive service to IP as a common mill worker, he went into maintenance. The last twenty years of his service to IP were the definition of dedication. Granny Baker still tells stories of how he would go out on the weekends when the mill was not running properly and stay until it did.

He constantly toiled and worried about how it was running when he was not there. He was a salaried worker in his position as a millwright, so it was not for the money that he went out and done his work – he didn’t get anything extra. He simply took pride in what he did, and, until the day that he passed away in 2004, he monitored how IP was doing in the stock market. He loved his job, and took great pleasure in being an asset to the company.

One year after my Papaw retired from the Liquid Packaging plant, it shut down due to lack of maintenance and poor operations. The man that stepped in after my Papaw retired did not have the same passion for the company as my Papaw did.

The mill quickly became a money pit. Everything began to break down. I remember when I was a kid going to the plant with my Papaw on a Saturday just so he could grease one squeaky bearing – and that’s all he would do. But the administration that took over after he left did not pay attention to the squeaky bearings or the leaking tanks or the poor performance of the machines. It is speculated that the only thing they were interested in was making money for their own bank accounts – not the company’s.

The year after he retired – 1993 – he went to go and purchase a car (Pontiac Grand Am) for one of my cousins. It was something he did for all of us grandchildren. When he went to go get the money out of his savings account – $2,500, they would not allow him because that was too much to withdraw at one time. So, he was forced to get a loan from the bank, which was something that he had never done. He literally had NO CREDIT HISTORY. That loan lasted a total of 24 hours because the next day he went and paid it off through a bank transfer.

Workplace longevity and financial conservatism was something that defined the era of the baby-boomers, and for many it still does. There’s nothing wrong with that – this is just a fact. People worked at the same place, many times disregarding any sort of hardships or workplace corruption for the cause of the greater good of the family. You had to put food on the table, and you just endured it all, putting your heart and soul into the work that was provided for you to do. You didn’t go and buy anything that you didn’t have the money for.

My Granny tells me the story of putting a $20 dress (and twenty bucks was a lot of money back then) on lay-away shortly after her and Papaw were married (in the 1950’s). When Papaw found out about it, he gave her the money to go get it off of lay-away and made her promise she’d never put anything on lay-away ever again. To the very day that he died, Papaw Baker had never owned a credit card.

My, how times change. My Papaw was credited with 44 years of service to the Paper Mill. I recently read a statistic that said the average longevity today of anyone in a similar setting is about 6 years. Something else comes along with greener pastures, and off we go. There is no company dedication anymore – it’s all about me, myself, and I. Again, every case is not the same, and I’m sure that there are some people who leave a job with a viable excuse to go on to another one. But I believe the majority of people just hop from job to job because of selfishness and greed. The Bible tells us in Hebrews 13:5 to be content with such things as ye have: for he hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee. Ecclesiastes 2:24 says There is nothing better for a man, than that he should eat and drink, and that he should make his soul enjoy good in his labour.

We also live in a time now where the overwhelming majority of people have a credit card. Now, I believe that there is smart credit and stupid credit. For example, I believe it is a smart move to finance a house on good terms and low interest. A house will last you a long time, and most companies will finance about thirty years on a loan. But I believe it is quite stupid to finance a cheeseburger that will only last until your next meal. And if you swipe your credit card in the drive through, that’s basically what you are doing – financing a cheeseburger.

Now for those of you who take offense to that, just know that I’ve had to buy groceries on a credit card before (about ten years ago) – but it was of necessity. And there are also people who are responsible with credit and pay off the balance as soon as the bill comes in the mail. What I’m talking about is people who are addicted to the good life, but they are drowning in an unsustainable mountain of credit debt. The Bible says that The rich ruleth over the poor, and the borrower is servant to the lender. (Proverbs 22:7) The word ‘servant’ used in that verse literally means a ‘slave’.

You can have too much of a good thing. As the old-timers used to say, “Too much sugar for a dime is a real problem.”

But my point is that the challenges of life today differ tremendously from generations past. The older generations were passionate about hard work, respect, and honor, while many today are just passionate about themselves and their own selfish gains. Adding to that, the atmosphere of today is charged with a feeling of entitlement. People feel “entitled” to a good job, a huge house, a fancy car, etc.

America has changed. Our mindset has changed. Our work ethic has changed. A good challenge doesn’t appeal to anyone anymore. “Sticking it out” is no longer an option.

Now enter: The Christians. We should be the ones setting the bar high, we should be the ones to whom people turn to when life falls apart, we should be the ones that employers actively seek for work, we should be the ones that set the example for everyone.

Folks, it’s time for us to begin challenging ourselves to a higher standard. We say we walk on the narrow road that leads to life….

…but sometimes it looks more like we are on the broad path that is coasting towards hell.

I think I’ll choose the narrow path………just like Papaw Baker did.