The Post-Journal
Who’s Gonna Fill Their Shoes?
JUN 15, 2024
ROLLAND KIDDER
There is a wonderful country song sung by George Jones which
is about great country singers who have now passed or someday will. To give you
a taste of it, here are four lines:
“Who’s gonna fill their shoes?
Who’s gonna stand that tall?
Who’s gonna play the Opry
And the Wabash cannonball?
The answer, of course, is that no one can likely fill
their shoes. Country singers are one of a kind. However, there is a subtheme, I
believe, in the song, and that is that transitions are coming for all of us,
either in life or in death. We cannot stop them. The question then is: How do
we prepare for them? Who’s gonna fill our shoes?
As to dying, the answer is pretty clear — you should
have a will. Even if your estate is small, it is not fair to have your heirs
squabble over matters you could have addressed in a will making your intentions
known.
Probably, more important, is the making of proper
transitions while you are alive. For example, if you are changing jobs — make
it easy for yourself, your family, your employer, and fellow employees by
planning ahead for it. The same goes for politics. If you hold an elective
office, you should let people know in advance if you not going to run again —
so that they have an opportunity to choose a successor.
However, I think the most important transition is for
those who own businesses, because transitions there can affect the livelihood
of many as well as impact family dynamics.
I knew a man who was the owner of a very successful
family business employing hundreds of people. Yet, his “Achilles heel” became
evident when he tried to pass the business down to his three children – none of
whom were either interested in or capable of running the business. It ended up
in bankruptcy.
On the other hand, I have another friend who had a
family business with three children who wanted to be a part of it. He worked
out a transition where all three children eventually had businesses of their
own, including keeping the existing family business going. That is what you
call good transition planning.
Sometimes there is no family transition possible, so
other arrangements need to be made. In that regard, it was good to see in the
newspaper recently where two local businesses were sold to employees, financed
in part by assistance from our local Industrial Development Agency (IDA.) To
me, that is exactly the kind of activity the IDA should be involved with –
retaining local jobs by helping with a business transition.
So, the moral of the story is that whether we like it
or believe it — transitions in life and death are coming, are inevitable and
should be planned for. Enabling someone else to “wear those shoes” is
important.
Yet, George Jones has a point — some country singers
are so good that I don’t think their “shoes” will ever be filled. Certainly,
for sure, there will never be another Johnny Cash… who, on one unforgettable
day, before an audience of inmates, sang the “Folsom Prison Blues” at Folsom
Prison.
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