There’s nowhere to run, nowhere to hide
Issue 61: July/Aug 2008
Jerry and I hadn’t been married all that long (something over five years, is all) when we founded Good Old Boat magazine. What were we thinking? Occasionally women have said to me: “If I had to work with my husband, I’d probably kill him.” Grounds for murder, rather than divorce? I wonder if it would stand up in court.
We didn’t know how compatible we’d be, working together day in and day out. We work in our home. Days go by and we don’t leave for more than a trip to the grocery or hardware store, perhaps a walk around the block. Days go by sometimes when we don’t see anyone else. This is much like it is when we’re on vacation on our boat . . . there’s nowhere to run, nowhere to hide.
As joint leaders of this organization, we make some decisions independently and some cooperatively. The most important decisions that we save for mutual agreement are the choices we make regarding content of the magazine. The most important thing we can do for the future of this magazine, we figure, is to give our readers good articles to read. So it takes two thumbs to get in: Jerry’s and mine. (Sometimes, if an article can bring tears to the eyes of that “old softie,” however — and some writers know how to play him like a violin — Jerry is able to get a thumb-and-a-half for that article.)
Thinking of our cozy arrangement leads one to wonder what works in a marriage. Similar temperaments? Not in our case. One of us has a short fuse. The other is slow to explode. Similar skills? On the contrary. Our skill sets are just different enough to make this business work. We each bring to the table what the other lacks. It was a brilliant mix for starting a magazine, which we could not have guessed when we met. Similar backgrounds? Not at all, although we both grew up in Indiana and attended competing Big Ten schools, and we both wound up divorced and single and living in Minnesota.
We certainly have much in common now: an entire company and relationships with all the people involved in making each issue happen, as well as a host of sailing friends. We’re learning the magazine business together. It’s a little easier than it was in the beginning, but the technology changes so fast that neither one of us dares to blink. We make those mutual decisions about content and the future of the business together. We work together and we vacation together. We go on business trips together. And at the end of the day we sleep in the same bed. A recipe for a long marriage . . . or a disaster. It could have gone either way.
The true test? I think we should wallpaper a room in our home. Or maybe not. He might murder me!
Thank you to Sailrite Enterprises, Inc., for providing free access to back issues of Good Old Boat through intellectual property rights. Sailrite.com
