Team Work Makes Dream Work

The Allen County Fair wrapped up yesterday. This morning I woke up in my own bed for the first time in a week, sprawled out the way you can only do when you've been sleeping in an RV, and let the quiet settle in over coffee in the backyard. Somewhere between the first cup and the second, I started tallying the catch-up work waiting for me. And somewhere in there, I started thinking about what I'd just watched happen all week at the fairgrounds.

Sunday morning the Swine Carcass Show was underway, and I'd put together an economic analysis using the ultrasound data for the 4-H kids. I walked in and dropped the paperwork off with the club leaders. The response made me uneasy. I left. Walked a short distance. Turned around.

"Do you still need the carcass results printed?"

Deep down I already knew the answer. What followed in the next 45 minutes was a relay race nobody planned. I borrowed a computer from Extension staff. A 4-H Board member volunteered to drive the file off-site to get it printed. A second Board member made copies. The results hit the table with 15 minutes to spare.

Team work made dream work.

Later that afternoon, after the last PA announcement, the last awards ceremony, and with teardown in full swing, I started breaking down our campsite. Two fathers I barely needed to ask materialized and helped my son and me load a week's worth of cooking supplies, coolers, generators, and fuel jugs into the pickup. I had mentally planned two trips. We did it in one.

Team work made dream work.

I watched this happen dozens of times over the course of the week. You can credit the motto. You can invoke the Midwest Work Ethic or some higher calling. But I don't think any of that explains it. What I saw was simpler: people noticed something needed doing, and they did it.

No announcement. No assignment. No asking for credit.

Where in your life is something waiting on an extra set of hands? Step in. The dream doesn't work itself.