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When I was growing up in Gordo, Alabama, my dad kept an old red Folgers coffee can on top of the fridge. Every evening, he’d drop in his loose change, quarters, dimes, and the occasional crumpled dollar. He called it the “someday fund.”
Now, my dad wasn’t a man of fancy words. He wore his jeans thin, worked at the lumber yard six days a week, and drank his coffee black as motor oil. He didn’t believe in loans, and he sure didn’t believe in quitting. If something broke, you fixed it or made do.
By the time I hit my senior year of high school, I had a crazy dream. I wanted to go to Auburn and study engineering. No one in my family had been to college, and truth be told, we didn’t have much in the way of college money. But I filled out the forms, kept my grades up, and worked nights bussing tables at Benny’s Catfish Shack.
One night, after supper, Dad walked over to the fridge, grabbed the red can, and set it down between us at the table. It was heavier than I remembered.
“I reckon this’ll help you get started,” he said, sliding it across the table.
I opened it. Bills were stuffed between rolls of coins, and a little scrap of paper on top just read, “Go build something.”
That old coffee can didn’t pay for everything. I still had to take some community college classes first, work summers, and live lean. But it got me started.
I graduated from Auburn with honors. Today, I design bridges. I even helped with the one they just opened over the Black Warrior River.
I kept that red can. It’s in my office now, next to my degree. Still has a little change in it.
Because Dad was right, sometimes, you don’t need a big start. You just need to start with what you’ve got.
