Originally published on August 10, 2008.
It is just about twenty years now since I sent out my first safety newsletter. I had come home from speaking to thousands of top safety leaders at the National Safety Congress and over 500 people had asked me for more information about my live presentations and about my safety products. I just figured that a newsletter might be a great way to contact them all at once and on a continuing basis. We would print up the newsletters, staple them together and then put a commemorative stamp on each one together with an address label. It got rather popular and we soon found we were sending out as many as seven thousand copies. I had a nice neighbor lady who helped me with each mailing and it was no small chore. The results were far beyond my expectations and I was kept busy full time as a professional speaker and an author and when we went to e-mail, I began churning the newsletter out each week. Thanks to my friend, Terry Pochert, we have kept this going. I still give an occasional speech and every now and then we get a nice order for our products and most of all, we get messages from many of you about how you saw me speak at some conference and made a special personal commitment to safety and it changed your life. That is really why I continue to take the time to knock out this newsletter.
Then too, this keep my writing skill sharp and I use my talents writing new books. I’ve been sharpening my photographic skills too and we recently published a little book about our little town here in North Carolina, titled Round Hillsborough. Well, we enjoyed some nice success with that book and we are in the final stages of editing another photo book and I have two more in progress.
In my new book I think I captured some of the joy of what I am currently experiencing as follows…
“Heading up the hill toward that unique structure that had first caught my eye, I sensed a new spring to my step and in my mind, I was singing
Zip-a-dee-do-da, Zip-a-dee-ay
I’m rushin’ toward octageneria!”
References:
- Read Art’s Obituary
- Original Posting – ArtFettig.com