Issue link: https://tmcpulse.uberflip.com/i/339692
t m c ยป p u l s e | j u ly 2 0 1 4 24 INDUSTRY SPOTLIGHT Q | Tell us about your formative years in Chicago. A | I was just up there a couple of weeks ago for my 50th high school reunion and as they say, it was a room full of old folks. But it brought back a lot of just absolutely wonderful memories. I grew up in a Northwest suburb of Chicago and attended a public high school with 523 graduates in our class. We were on the front edge of the baby boomers. I learned a sense of Midwestern values that I think I have been able to carry with me. I watched growth. I watched farm fields become shopping centers. I watched a real clear delineated little town become swallowed up by the expansion of Chicago. I became a big fan of mass transit because of com- muter railroads. I can remember going to Cubs games on my own with a bunch of buddies when I was eight, nine, ten years old. It was a wonderful time to grow up. There was Davy Crockett. There were Mouseketeers. We were learning, growing, establishing values and we didn't have the shock of the 60s yet. That was to come. My dad actually took me on a couple of trips. He was a traveling salesman all over the middle part of the country, and it was those trips that really began to set my feet in the study of American history and American leadership. If you are born and raised in Illinois, it's almost a requirement that you make a pilgrimage to Springfield. You go to Lincoln's home and Lincoln's tomb. That really sparked an interest for me. A couple of years later, I was not even ten yet, I visited my first Civil War battlefield, and as they say, the hook was set. That started this quest to understand American history and American values, not just the values of the upper Midwest. And there's one other thing we did that has stayed with me. During the summer, we would take a trip up to northern Wisconsin. It was our one vacation, and I became friends with the son of a chief of the Chippewa nation, in a little town called Lac du Flambeau. I learned about Native American heritage. I couldn't go on an island called Strawberry Island and I didn't understand why until much, much later in life. I learned the specialness of sacred places. JOHN NAU, PRESIDENT AND CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER OF SILVER EAGLE DISTRIBUTORS, SHARES MEMORIES OF HIS MIDWEST UPBRINGING, THE CHILDHOOD ADVENTURES THAT INSPIRED A LOVE FOR AMERICAN HISTORY, AND THE CENTER THAT HE HOPES WILL ENCOURAGE HOUSTONIANS TO LEARN ABOUT THE REGION'S PAST.