Smell the Dirt

Growing up dirt poor in rural Nebraska, Leon Weiland learned hard lessons the hard way from an overbearing father and timid mother and from being that precocious kid who got a C+ in school but an A in life. As a young boy, with a little baling wire and ingenuity, Leon found a way to make something from nothing using scraps of about anything gleaned from the old buildings and farmstead in his boyhood environment. Most of all, he made something of himself, despite growing up in a chaotic...
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Growing up dirt poor in rural Nebraska, Leon Weiland learned hard lessons the hard way from an overbearing father and timid mother and from being that precocious kid who got a C+ in school but an A in life. As a young boy, with a little baling wire and ingenuity, Leon found a way to make something from nothing using scraps of about anything gleaned from the old buildings and farmstead in his boyhood environment. Most of all, he made something of himself, despite growing up in a chaotic family surrounded by a dilapidated farmhouse in tiny Madison, Nebraska, sleeping in a bedroom where rickety windows filtered the snow as it sometimes settled over his bed. It was also where he took many of his childhood baths sponging water from a tin pan positioned by an oil burning stove in the living room because the bath tub room was below freezing much of the winter. A student of life who found his way with the love of his life, Jean, faith in God, and the satisfaction from doing a day's menial work and seeing it all open the doors'of the nationally known Weiland Door Company. This is the story of a man with insight, determination, attitude, and above all, thankfulness. In a time when many are striving to discover their way, the life lessons learned and simply explained in Smell the Dirt can be an essential part of the personal journey of most anyone.