The Sanford Tales: And Other Stories, Both Tall and Short

By Wm. J. Green

A new piece of Americana came to life in the 1960s. It was named Sharpie. The chemist who led the laboratory work on the Sharpie project preserves the stories of the people whose creativity became the Sharpie Marker. Meet the team personally, laugh at their adventures and feel the pain of their losses. If you have ever used a Sharpie Marker, you too are part of the family. Get to know the original Sharpie family by meeting them where they lived.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jun 14, 2022
• ISBN: 9781669824947

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Copyright © 2022 by Wm. J. Green.

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without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Scripture quotations marked KJV are from the Holy Bible, King James Version

(Authorized Version). First published in 1611. Quoted from the KJV Classic

Reference Bible, Copyright © 1983 by The Zondervan Corporation.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Rev. date: 06/13/2022

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CONTENTS

Acknowledgments And Dedications

Introduction

I. Chuck Lofgren and His Stories

Eli’s Award: Lofgren has to confront racial discrimination

The Russian Circus: Lofgren tells a favorite story of his own

The No-No Pen: Lofgren’s walk through the factory changes everything

II. Francis Gilbert and His Stories

Easy Money: Francis has to take Lofgren’s money to make his point

Message Delivered: Francis breaks the news to me; I have survived

The Last Time I Saw Francis Gilbert: A chance encounter leads to a last goodbye

III. Me, Bill Green and My Stories

Lofgren’s Club: Bill spends an evening with Lofgren and his guests from France

Miami Calling: Bill and the Sharpie help President Nixon win the election

The Light of the Party: Two teenage girls ask Bill to develop a new Sharpie to help them prepare for the big dance. And he does

IV. The Sharpie Stories Library

A Short Fight: Sanford’s own Louie remembers a business scheme gone wrong back in his native Cuba

Fish: My Jewish friends love this one

The First Production Batch of Sharpie Ink – It is time to make the first production sized batch of Sharpie ink, but someone is stalling, and something has to be done

The Tooth Pulling: How can anything so painful make us laugh?

Letter to Shelly A classic bad decision

The Happy Wheelbarrow Remembering Artis Allen: One of my closest friends while working at Sanford was Artis Allen. Artis was a man who lived his faith every moment of every day. He too was a storyteller, and in his memory I am including one of his favorites

Mack and Mary: Being smart and being wise comes in many different forms. Mary was very much both – in her own way

Remembering Roosevelt Redd Roosevelt contributed a whole lot more to the Sharpie story than just good chemistry

Remembering Fred Johnson Fred joined Sanford after Sharpie’s success created a need for a larger workforce. Our friendship united two absolute opposites by most definitions. If Fred and I could be best of friends, why can’t the rest of the world get along?

V. Just For Fun The only connection these stories have to Sharpie is that they are mine

Dad’s Hickory Tree: The answer was slow in coming, but once it came, I now have to decide what to do with it

I Won! I Won! John Henry took on the steam drill and beat it. Bill takes on the computer. But does he win?

The Butterfield Boy Scouts: Scouting isn’t what it used to be. Maybe that’s not all bad

Get Outta Dodge: Making money for college was never so dangerous

Flying Reindeer: Bill takes a critical look at a favorite Christmas story

You Can’t Catch Me, I’m the Gingerbread Man: My mother taught me to share. This is what I’m doing

Sunshine Apple Mint Jelly: When Mother Nature does the cooking, you are in for a real treat

Grandpa’s Train Ride: As a small boy, Bill has to do a delicate job

VI. The Old Ballgame

F-9, Fly Out to Right Field: Bill has to try and save his high school baseball game. And he does his job - but in a nonconventional way

The Home Run, the Catch, and the Throw: Baseball fans will love these favorite baseball memories

World Series Magic: School interferes with the World Series and Bill finds a solution

VII. Stories for Reflection and Thinking

The Test: There is a difference between passing the test and knowing the answers

Run Gingerbread Run: Bill manages a Little League baseball team that is forced to accept a girl player

Jose’s Angel: Some problems have no easy solution. Some have no solution at all. All we can do is trust God

Richard: The man who went out of his way to help Bill earn money for college did so knowing that most of his own children would never attend college, or anything else

The Baptism of Moses Martin: The original Moses was 120 years old when he first looked into the Promised Land. Moses Martin was in his later years when he looked into the promised land and decided he needed to be baptized. It was not only his advanced age, however, that made this a problem

The Last Man Voting: Sometimes when winning you lose

The Delta Bridge: A poor, small town in Iowa loses a favorite landmark when an arsonist burns it down

A Different Chuck: A friend told me this story. He and his wife had an unusual and inspiring experience while on vacation in Paris

Epilog: A thank you to the reader

About The Author

PHOTO AND ART INDEX

W J DeGroft Patent 2,392,840

W. DeGroft Patent 3,345,674

C. W. Lofgren Patent 3,231,924

Two Hickory Nut Types, Photo, W. Green

Three Hickory Nut Types, Photo, W. Green

Martha Green’s Gingerbread Recipe, Photo, W. Green

The Gingerbread Man, Sharpie Sketch, C. Green

The Old Ballgame, Sharpie Sketch, C. Green

Clear Creek Catholic Church, Photo, K Patterson

Hammes’ Family Gravesite Memorial, Photo, K Patterson

Hammes’ Family Memorial, Photo, K Patterson

Covered Bridge, Sharpie Sketch, C. Green

Delta, Iowa Covered Bridge, Photo, D. Shipley

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

AND DEDICATIONS

A new piece of Americana came to life in the 1960s. It was named Sharpie*. My purpose is to preserves the stories of the people whose creativity became the Sharpie Marker. Meet the team personally, laugh at their adventures, and feel the pain of their losses. If you have ever used a Sharpie Marker, you too are part of the family. Get to know the original Sharpie family by meeting them where they lived.

In addition to the Sanford Ink Company officers in the 1960s described in this book there are several key players in the organization that I want to acknowledge here. First, I want to acknowledge Walter DeGroft and Ted Jensen, two members of the Sanford team who contributed greatly to the success of the Sanford Sharpie* Marker. Both left the company early in my Sanford career. While I remember them well, I simply did not at that time completely understand their specific contribution to the development of the product.

Walter was a longtime Sanford employee who did new product development work. Walter applied for and received a patent for a fine point marking device that was granted in 1964, a year before I joined the company. That patented device was given the name Sharpie. Walter was short and built like a bull. He grew up in the plains of Nebraska where as a young man he decided to go to Chicago to seek employment. He secured himself to the underside of a boxcar to escape discovery while making the trip. Once in Chicago, he was able to make a living as a prizefighter. He observed, however, that other fighters who had stayed in the fight game too long obviously suffered from brain damage, so he went looking for a better way to make a living. He had no formal engineering education, but he had raw engineering skills. I have no idea how he ever met Charles Lofgren, but somehow the two connected and worked together until Walter’s retirement shortly after I joined the company. A patent was granted in 1944 to Walter for a marking device. This was almost 20 years before the first Sharpie was produced. His name appears on the 1964 patent for the marking device that became known as the Sanford Sharpie Marker*.

Ted Jensen was also directly involved with the development of the Sharpie Marker. Ted managed the machine shop for the company. He would have acquired the equipment and set up the manufacturing operation that was in place when I started with the company. I am assuming it was Walter DeGroft who developed the size and shape of the working prototypes, and it was Ted Jensen that set up the manufacturing operation. I remember Ted as a man who enjoyed his family. I recall that he acquired a used bus and converted it into a family camper. Our conversations were often about his family and family fun. Both Walter and Ted are deceased as I write this.

I want to recognize here the significant and important assistance I received from Fred Otto while preparing this book for publication. Fred assisted in researching for historical information, organizing the information for publication, and advising on legal affairs. Fred significantly raised the professional level of this endeavor.

I want to also recognize the contributions of Dave Lombardi. Dave has established himself as an historian and an authority on the Sanford Ink Company and the Sharpie Marker. He maintains a private collection of Sanford’s products. Dave, who is vastly my superior concerning computers and the internet, assisted in the collection of historical information for this composition, and connected me with the group of artists currently working with Sharpie as their art medium. His assistance has been rapid, professional and unselfish. Both Dave and Fred Otto have very much become a part of the Sharpie team that I remember so well from over fifty years ago.

*****

Dedicated to my loving wife Ginny. When we started our life together, her hope was for a happy home and a loving family. And she hoped I would provide these things by being a responsible person working a good job. Instead, I have pushed the limits and explored the unknown. I have put things at risk and lost a lot of them. It has been a wild and crazy ride, yet she is still with me. June 7, 2021, was our fifty-eighth wedding anniversary.

Dedicated to my loving parents. Martha and Johnny Green believed very much in the Bible verse, Seek Ye first the kingdom of God, and all these things will be added to you. They never paid attention to my grade point average. They never cared what college I attended, if any. Those things were only important as far as they reflected being responsible with the life that God gave me. Their expectations for me were much higher than those of most parents, not lower as some might suppose. I’m still working at it, Mom and Dad. I’m still working at it.

Dedicated to a host of friends from my Sanford days who allowed me to have intimate fellowship within their African American community. What we accomplished wasn’t just unique; I believe it had a purpose. If this endeavor at writing is successful, perhaps it can do some good. And if this endeavor is never read, then I thank Him for what we had. And I pray that He finds another way to share what we had with the rest of the world.

William J Green

Albuquerque, NM

April 15, 2022

*Sharpie is the registered U S Trademark No. 2121523 owned by Sanford L P Newell Operating Company, a successor to Sanford Ink Company, later named Sanford Corporation. William Green worked as a chemist for this company from 1965 to 1979 and was the lead chemist for a group of chemists developing the inks and specifying the component selection for the Sharpie Fine Point Permanent Marker. At this time the name Sharpie is used for a family of writing and marking products, some of which Mr. Green also developed during his Sanford career

INTRODUCTION

My wife and I were enjoying an evening with four other couples. It was several days after Super Bowl 40 where the Pittsburg Steelers had defeated the Seattle Seahawks for the NFL championship. After the guys had thoroughly discussed the game itself, the subject turned to the Super Bowl commercials. Here the ladies joined in, giving their opinions along with their husbands. Finally, one of our friends noticed my silence and asked, What about you, Bill.? Which commercial did you like best? I had been waiting for that moment. Didn’t anyone notice?

Puzzled faces stared at me. What do you mean? The question was returned in concert.

Didn’t . . . Anyone . . . Notice? I emphasized each word. Of course, I knew they hadn’t noticed. I just wanted to set up my explanation. I made the Super Bowl! I said with pride. These were close friends, and they knew I was getting ready to make a point. I was confident they had failed to connect me with the Super Bowl commercial that had given me a great deal of pride. I just wanted to point out to them they had missed something they shouldn’t have.

We don’t get it. How did you make the Super Bowl?

Didn’t you see the Sharpie commercial? I made the Super Bowl! I did it in my own way and in my own profession. The Sharpie Marker had recently been packaged with a retractable tip giving it a function much like a retractable ballpoint pen. This was many years after my involvement with the product. But still, the overall success of the Sharpie had prompted this expansion into a new market. This was still my Sharpie.

Puzzlement was immediately replaced on the faces of my friends with expressions of enlightenment, and then came the Oh yeah . . . that’s right. You were part of the team that developed the Sharpie, aren’t you!

That’s right, I replied. And when I saw that commercial, well . . . I was very proud. In my own way and in my own career, I made the Super Bowl, just like the players in the game. Even if it was a new package for an old product, the Sharpie is still my baby.

I didn’t realize the significance of what I had accomplished at that time in my career when I did my share of work on the development of the Sharpie Marker. But I’ve been proud of that product for a long time. I’ve watched as entertainers, athletes, and even presidents casually pull their Sharpie from their pockets and sign autographs. In the pop movie classic, The Terminator, a story set many years in the future, the writers created a scene where the hero reaches into his pocket during a critical moment, takes out his Sharpie, and marks on something. Just what, I don’t recall, but it isn’t important. If science fiction writers can be believed, my Sharpie will be around for thousands of years.

I have been in Europe and Asia and noticed Sharpies in use everywhere. I learned to approach a new business opportunity by walking into an office in another part of the world and looking for the Sharpie lying on someone’s desk. Oh, I would say, pretending to be surprised, I see you are using a product that I developed. It was a great conversation starter.

No, the product was not my personal brainchild. There were several people who share credit for this product. First and foremost, there was Chuck Lofgren Sr., the president of Sanford Ink Company when Sharpie was developed. Then there was Francis Gilbert, the executive vice president of the company, and the man who turned Lofgren’s dreams into marketable realities. There was also Walt DeGroft, the manager of new product development, and someone with a most unlikely background for the position he held. There was Ted Jensen who transformed prototypes into assembly lines. And then there was me, Bill Green, an ambitious young chemist fresh from the University of Iowa.

Together we made it happen. As I think back on that part of my life, I indeed take great pride in what was accomplished. The Sharpie has been produced and sold for many years now. It has provided many jobs right here in America. Many of my personal friends from those days spent their entire careers producing and selling Sharpies and are now enjoying retirement funded by Sharpie’s success. I like to brag that more people have used the Sharpie than have watched Tom Brady play football, both live and on television. And if that is not true today, it will be someday. Tom’s career is nearing an end. Sharpie is still going strong.

And now, looking back on what happened and who made it happen, I am finally beginning to realize the significance of it. A small group of men in a small private company developed and produced a product that is what it is today, a product that has been used by almost all Americans as well as many people around the world. It has become a piece of Americana.

I also realize that this is a story of some colorful people with very diverse personalities who blended their differences with their talents to create success. There is a lesson here for us today. Our story should not die, and I am one of the last who can tell it.

I

Chuck Lofgren and His Stories

There is only one way to begin the story of the Sharpie Marker, and that is to introduce Mr. Charles W. Lofgren, Sr. Typically, he was called Lofgren by everyone in the company. Occasionally he was called Chuck if it fit the occasion. If the circumstances required some formality he was called Mr. Lofgren. As I proceed, I will do what everyone else did, I will call him by his last name, Lofgren. He was happy with being called by his last name. If he wasn’t happy being called Lofgren, he would have changed things.

Actually, there were two Lofgrens. One was the man who presided over the fortunes of the Sanford Ink Company when I joined the company in 1965 and was still presiding over it with the new name of Sanford Corporation when I left Sanford employment in 1979. There was another Lofgren who was a husband, father, grandfather, and very much a family man. But as he would remind me whenever I erred by trying to turn our conversation to his personal life, Lofgren the family man stayed at home when Lofgren the businessman went to work, and the president of the company stayed at work when the family man went home. Of his personal life I only recall he had a daughter named Jane, and his wife was a member of the Carpenter family. In addition to that, I recall Henry Pearsall, Mr. Lofgren’s son-in-law who managed the company upon his retirement.

No one ever questioned who controlled everything that happened at Sanford. Lofgren was number 1. If you wanted to call him on the company phone, you simply picked up the phone and dialed 1. That connected you to the president of the company. If you dialed 2, you were connected to the vice president, Frances Gilbert. When Lofgren pulled up to the front door of the Sanford building, he parked at the reserved spot directly in front of the entrance. If he wasn’t there for some reason, that parking spot remained empty. The license plate number of his Cadillac was 2740. That is because the address of the Sanford building was 2740 West Washington Boulevard, Bellwood, Illinois.

Lofgren wasn’t just in charge of everything that happened at Sanford; he also knew everything that happened at Sanford, and the two are not always the same thing. Furthermore, whatever happened at Sanford was what he wanted to happen at Sanford. Those two were the same thing. When things went awry as they sometimes did, Lofgren would fix them.

The quality of the Sanford products was always at the top of the list for Chuck Lofgren. He started with the company as a salesman and was still a salesman at heart when he left the company. Other areas of the company were of importance, but the sales staff was alone at the top of the list. It was Lofgren’s belief that for a salesperson to do his job, he had to absolutely believe that the product he was