I learn from my friend Charles Stevenson that I am not the only one with an ancestral tie to Trenton’s days of manufacturing glory. I met Stevenson back at the dawn of time, when I was briefly a freshman member of the college debate team and he was the grad-student coach. He now informs me that his wife’s grandfather, S. Roy Heath, owner of the Heath Lumber Company in Trenton, was the creator of the slogan back in 1910. In fact Heath won $25 in a contest sponsored by Trenton Chamber of Commerce to come up with the phrase that best captured the city’s spirit.
Charlie Stevenson was too modest to tell me that Heath went on to become a New Jersey state senator — and, much more impressive, that his family’s business, unlike my family’s, is still open today. Apparently it still features another of S. Roy Heath’s literary creations: the company motto, “If it’s in the woods, Heath can furnish the goods.” This kind of literary talent will always find an outlet.
(Speaking of literary talent, Charlie Stevenson’s book about the structural impossibility of leading the Pentagon, SECDEF, is actually very good.)
