He allows he's short on talent, too. "I only have one talent," he says with a mix of modesty and pride. "I'm a butcher." When he hefts an antique cleaver to show a visitor, one senses the tall, lean man could still make short work of a side of pork.

Ochylski admits he isn't especially stylish or sophisticated either. Other than a suit and tie at Sunday Mass, he dresses almost exclusively in olive-drab coveralls, a holdover from his meat packing days when they would have been so caked in pig's blood "they could stand by themselves." He often makes fun of his hairless head and red nose, and true to his farm boy roots, he chews a little tobacco and sprinkles his storytelling with an occasional "hell" or "damn."

Ochylski's self-description is missing a few details. He is a war hero who worked his way from poverty to build a multi-million dollar meat packing business that at one time was processing more than 5,000 hogs a day. He holds at least eight patents on innovations in the meat packing industry, and in the 1970s was the first western meat packer to tour plants in the Soviet Union.

Along the way, he and his wife Eleanor have reared a family of seven children, paid the debts of religious communities, fulfilled the wish lists of Catholic schools, and even given a downtown office building to the Diocese of Des Moines to house its chancery. In the past five years they have given nearly $1 million to Conception Abbey, which Ed calls a "priest factory," and in 2000 they established the Ochylski Family Foundation, which has contributed more than $10 million to Pope John Paul II's peace and justice ministries throughout the world.

Although he doesn't give himself much credit for brains or talent, Ochylski will say outright that he is a hard worker, not in a boastful way, but rather as a matter of honesty. In "retirement," he's still at his desk seven days a week, all but ignoring a closet full of fishing rods and the ocean lapping at the steps of the Florida dream home he bought for Eleanor. "I don't know how to stop," he explains blithely.

That work ethic carries over to Ochylski's faith life. Each morning he attends Mass, as he has every day for more than 50 years, followed by a breakfast of one small grapefruit, a banana, a clove of raw garlic, a slice of black bread and coffee, and quiet time with Magnificat, a collection of daily Scripture readings, reflections and prayers.

He approaches religion with the curiosity of a theologian. A generous conversationalist, he loves nothing more than discussing the challenges, responsibilities and mysteries of Christianity, especially the responsibilities.

Ochylski is a soft touch. He thinks nothing of whipping out his wallet and loaning money that he has no intention of recouping. But every act of generosity comes with a stern warning to the recipient. "Don't make a fuss!"

He still mutters with irritation about a daughter-in-law who publicly praised him at a fund-raising banquet last year, and it remains to be seen what reprimand awaits the author of this article.

More deserving of praise, he says, is the middle-class family or the elderly woman on a fixed income who gives what little they can afford. "They give of their sustenance," he says. "I give of my surplus."

"Besides," he adds, "it's not my money, its God's."

The storyteller

In the center of Ochylski's office sits a large expensive-looking desk, a gift from his children. But he says he rarely uses it. He prefers an antique roll-top with cubby holes worn smooth by more than a
century of use. It once belonged to Philip D. Armour, the meat packing pioneer and founder of Armour and Company.

Ed Ochylski spends much of his time at an old roll-top desk that once
belonged to the pioneering mean packer Philip Armour.

The office is an executive's dream. Polished brass fixtures and exquisite walnut woodwork glisten in the afternoon light. Sturdy bookshelves reach from floor to lofty ceiling. A balcony overlooks the ocean, and a stocked bar awaits evening guests. But there's little time to take it all in. Ed leads his visitor to a faded flea-market painting hanging above Mr. Armour's desk.

"That's the only painting I ever bought," he says. "I paid $3 for it."

In the painting, a frightened barber, razor in hand, stands over a rough-looking customer. On the wall in the background hangs a poster emblazoned with the customer's face and the words, "Wanted - Black Bart, $5,000 Reward."

"That picture is about the decisions we make in life," Ochylski explains. "That barber has a decision to make. He can slice the man's throat and claim the reward, or he can give the man a shave and collect his nickel.but.," he says with a grin as he points toward a pistol barely noticeable in the outlaw's hand. "That is the 'but.' There's always a 'but' in every decision we must make."

Over the next two hours, Ochylski's visitor will learn that everything in the office has a story to tell.

Curtains in the barn

A faded photograph of a barn hangs near a slightly out-of-focus picture of Ochylski's father, Edward Sr. When their farmhouse burned down in the mid-1930s, the Ochylski family couldn't afford to rebuild or buy a new home. The barn had no plumbing, beds or heating, but for the next 10 years it would be home. Eventually Edward Sr. converted a large section of the bottom floor into living quarters, constructing walls and installing windows, wood flooring and indoor plumbing.

That resourcefulness, passed from father to son, would come in handy years later when the younger Edward converted the abandoned Armour executives' gymnasium in Chicago into a packing plant. The Olympic-size swimming pool became a machine shop.

Ed remembers his classmates teasing him about living in a barn. He also remembers being shunned in the predominantly German Lutheran farming community because of his Polish Catholic heritage. One family eventually allowed their son to play with Ed, but only behind their barn, hidden from the view of neighbors. And their son was forbidden to visit the Ochylski home.

Animosity toward the Ochylski family was compounded when his father hired Clifford, a black farm hand. It was said that Clifford, who became a mentor to young Edward and even gave the boy an occasional drag on his cigarette, was the only black man in Michigan who was fluent in Polish.

Reading his mail

In an autobiography that Ochylski contributed to a family history, he describes his military service during World War II with conspicuous
brevity: "From Camp Butner I was sent to Europe as a replacement in the 95th Division. The real adventure began; Scotland, England, France, Germany, then Belgium and the Battle of the Bulge. The war ended for me in Camp Carson, Colorado, at an Army hospital and recovery center. The scenery was gorgeous. I could see Pike's Peak from my room."

"People who were in combat don't talk about it," he explains and changes the subject.

Almost an hour later, as his visitor is preparing to leave, Ochylski
suddenly begins answering unasked questions about the war. "They gave out medals like candy over there," he says as he lifts a collection of combat medals from a desk drawer: three Bronze Service Stars, a Combat Infantry Badge, a Good Conduct Medal ("They made a mistake there," he jokes), and a Purple Heart and cluster. That's not all the metal he brought back from Europe. He was wounded twice at the Battle of the Bulge and still has shrapnel in his leg and shoulder. A bomb blast left his spine crooked and stole 50 percent of his hearing.

Ochylski's piercing blue eyes turn moist as he recalls his first taste of combat.

Hunkered in a foxhole waiting for orders to attack, he was puzzled when he heard dull popping sounds. Within moments the awful truth dawned. It was the sound of bullets - near misses - thudding into the clay around him.

This sign at the entrance to the Ochylski's Florida estate says
"!Witamy!" "You are welcome" in Polish.

"During the attack that night, I found myself standing on something slippery," Ochylski recalls, fighting back a sob. It was the internal organs of a soldier. "We were kids you know, 19, 20 years old. There were guys with their arms blown off, blinded, dying. They were crying out, 'Mama! Mama! Mama!' It was horrible!"

Throughout the night, Ochylski's unit was pinned down by German mortars and bullets filled the air like locusts. But at dawn, U.S. bombers roared in from the horizon. "We jumped about, joyously waving at them and trying to point to the German positions," he recounts.

But joy was short-lived. The American bombers began mistakenly pummeling their own troops, a tragic error that in later wars would be called "friendly fire."

"I thought I would surely die," Ochylski says. At that moment, he says he felt peaceful, no longer cold, hungry or scared. With the strange calm of the doomed, he sat down, reached into his pack, and began reading his mail.

The butcher

"I was very fortunate," Ochylski says with pride. "Unlike young people today, I knew precisely what I wanted to be at age 7. I wanted to be a butcher."

During the 1930s, on trips to Detroit with his father, young Edward
witnessed first-hand the human toll of the Depression. "We didn't have to drive very far to see families moved out onto the streets in sleet and snow and every kind of weather," he recalls. "Things were really rough then. Those were mean times."

But the view changed when they passed the slaughterhouses. Strong, well-fed butchers were coming and going from steady jobs.

"I thought that was amazing," he says. "The butchers always had jobs."

Bloated sheep and a pair of five-dollar calves

At 14, Ed began applying for jobs in the slaughterhouses, only to be turned away for lack of experience. But he continued to hang around, closely watching the butchers at work, paying attention to their technique and skill.

Then one day, as he passed a neighbor's farm, he saw some dead sheep left in the summer sun. The carcasses were bloated and gave off a stench, but young Edward saw only opportunity. He dragged the dead sheep to a small brick building that would later house his first butcher shop. Remembering what he learned from watching the men at the slaughterhouse, he skinned and dressed the carcasses. The next day he returned to the slaughterhouse, this time with "experience." He was hired to kill calves for ten cents a head, and with the help from the older men, soon became a skilled butcher.

Then one day Ed's boss told him he had to join the union. Ochylski set the membership papers aside and went back to work. Two weeks later, when the boss approached him again, he said he would join if he could have the skinner's job, which paid 12 cents a head.

"I can do it better," he argued. "That man's a drunkard. He doesn't come in half the time and he makes holes in your skins."

"No," the foreman said, "he's got seniority."

"Hell, I didn't even know what that word meant," Ochylski says.

Informed that if he didn't sign he would be fired, Ed quit. He went to a nearby livestock auction and bought two calves for $5 each. He butchered them and the next day sold one to a hospital kitchen and another to a restaurant.

"Those were my first customers," he says. "That's how I got started."

Why, why, why

In a black and white photograph 11 boys are lined up in two rows. Some try to look tough, a couple seem bored, a few are smiling. Standing in the middle of the back row is a tall strapping lad who looks a little uncomfortable having his picture taken. He has a full head of hair, but his eyes are immediately recognizable. "I was the biggest, dumbest kid in the class," Ed says with a grin. Beneath the photo, on a scrap of paper, is the word "Why."

The photograph is of Ochylski's high school football team.

He says he remembers well the day the team was selected from the 60 students at a small rural school.

The biology teacher, who also coached football and basketball, walked in, pointed at the biggest boys and said, "OK, you, you and you, you're on the football team."

At the first practice the coach pointed to a goal post and said, "You run that direction. If you get knocked down before you make 10 yards, the other guys get the ball and they run the other direction."

Over the next three years, the team didn't win a game.

"The other kids, teachers and even our families wouldn't come out to watch us play," Ochylski remembers. "Soon the cheerleaders stopped coming."

In Ed's senior year, Mr. Nelson, a young teacher fresh out of the
University of Michigan, was hired to teach science and coach football.

On the first day of practice, he watched his new team for 15 minutes and blew his whistle. He ordered the boys to the locker room and strode off the field. In the locker room the team found him perched on the edge of a desk, slowly twirling a football in his hands.

"You see this," he said. "This is a football. And by the way, the object is to win."

For the next three weeks the boys never saw the practice field, listening instead as Mr. Nelson drilled the word "why" into their heads.

This is why you block this way. This is why you hold the ball like this. This is why it's important to have your shoestrings tied. This is why you run behind this blocker ...

"Everything was why, why, why," Ochylski recalls. "That was the most important lesson I ever learned." Over the next 60 years, Ochylski's employees would learn it as well.

"Unfortunately, most people, including teachers, foremen and business owners don't tell you why," he says. "Too often, a boss will say, 'Here's a knife, go cut like this all day long.' But they don't tell the person why."

Ochylski says he always told his butchers precisely how he wanted them to cut, and then, a la Mr. Nelson, he explained why. "If they didn't cut this way," he told them, "it would make it more difficult for the next guy on the line to do his job, or it could ruin the cut." Telling them why, he says, gave his workers a sense of pride. "It makes the job important."

He decries the tendency of business today to "robotize" people. "What I did was try to humanize them."

For the record, under Mr. Nelson that football team never lost a game.

The raid

The second time Ochylski thought he was going to die came four decades after he had read his mail on a European battlefield.

It was an especially warm autumn day in 1982 when 12 agents from
the Immigration and Naturalization Service, accompanied by local television crews, raided Ochylski's Packing Company plant in Des Moines, Iowa, arresting 21 workers whom they claimed were in the
country illegally.

The agents demanded identification, and when it wasn't produced shoved the men face-down on the pavement. No one in a slaughtering plant carries identification, Ochylski said. The work is wet and bloody.

"It was cruel," he says of the treatment of his workers. "They forced these men to lie there in the hot sun. I told the officers that if they'd just asked, the workers would've come out voluntarily."

News camera's then captured a chilling scene as Ochylski, who at 60 still cut an imposing figure, stepped forward to block the way of an agent trying to enter another building without a warrant. Suddenly, the agent began poking the barrel of his pistol into Ochylski's chest and yelling, "I'm going to blow you away!" The officer later claimed Ochylski, who was still carrying a saw with which he'd been cutting carcasses, had threatened him, which Ochylski denied.

People familiar with the big Polish butcher weren't surprised by the footage on their television screens that night. Ochylski was no stranger to such controversy. He had gained a measure of fame in the 1960s and 1970s for hiring all comers, especially Polish and Mexican immigrants and blacks, and then promoting worthy members of minorities to foreman and management positions, a practice frowned upon by unions in the Chicago stockyards.

In an industry notorious for labor unrest, Ochylski astounded observers with his ability to avoid it. "My plants never had unions," he says proudly, "because there was no need. I always tried to listen to my 'partners.' We never referred to them as employees, always 'partners.'" He consulted with workers on wages, working hours and safety issues, and held extravagant parties for them and their families.

Unlike others in the meat industry who feared raids by the INS,
Ochylski never asked if an applicant had legal documents to live or work in the U.S. The INS acknowledged that Ochylski was breaking no laws, but it contended that he had a responsibility to turn in applicants he knew were illegal.

"I cannot bring myself to do this," he told the Des Moines Register
following the 1982 raid. "We do what the law requires. If I wanted never to be bothered by the INS, as it has been suggested, I'd hire all pure white people with no 'ski' at the end of their surnames. I would hire no José, no Ali, no Kim Soong. When my father came to this country he was helped and given a job, despite his surname and language barrier, and I too was helped and employed, even with my 'ski' surname."

INS agents, he asserted, discriminate against non-whites and people with accents.

Ochylski was vindicated the next day when the INS released the arrested employees, and admitting they were not illegal aliens.

A month later, in a separate incident, the officer who threatened to blow Ochylski away was arrested and charged with extortion.

Stealing from the Pope

As the new millennium approached, Ochylski took a long look at his
charitable giving and found it lacking. First, he decided that the United States was an affluent nation that could take care of itself. He would therefore direct his help elsewhere. He determined that the best person to advise him would be Pope John Paul II. With customary directness and optimism, he set out to meet the Holy Father.

After two years of dead ends, he began losing hope. Then one day in 2000, over lunch in a Des Moines restaurant, a priest offered to introduce him to Cardinal Bernard Law of Boston. When Ochylski met with the cardinal and told him what he had in mind, the prelate lifted a phone receiver, pushed a button and within minutes had arranged a meeting in Rome the following weekend between Ochylski and the Archbishop Stanislaw Dziwisz, the Pope's longtime personal secretary.

Ochylski had to overcome Archbishop Dziwisz's initial suspicions. Many people, the archbishop explained, wave large sums of money around in order to meet with the Holy Father, and not always with the purest of motives. Once the archbishop warmed to Ochylski, he arranged a meeting with the Holy Father.

Pope John Paul II says goodbye to Ed Ochylski after Ochylski's first
visit with the pontiff. The two have remained friends since.

In three separate meetings, the Holy Father and Ochylski struck up what would be an enduring friendship. The Pope told his guest about two ministries that provide relief and education throughout the world and could use his financial support. Ochylski's mission was accomplished.

But the visit also provided fodder for one of his more amusing tales.

During dinner at the Papal Palace, Ochylski, sitting opposite the Pope, saw a basket of fruit on the table, and remembered the skimpy breakfast served at his hotel. With the impulsiveness of the 14-year-old kid who walked off his dream job in the middle of the Depression, Ochylski waited until the Pope and the two others present were distracted and swiped an orange.

As the conversation continued the thief in the palace got greedy. He again waited for the right moment and stole another piece, and then another. If John Paul noticed he didn't let on.

Then the thought hit Ochylski, "If I confess to a priest that I stole fruit from the Pope, he'll call for the men in the white coats."

So he slowly began sneaking the fruit back into the basket.

"What are you doing?" the Pope suddenly asked, catching his sheepish guest in the act of returning stolen produce. An extremely uncomfortable moment later, the Supreme Pontiff and Successor to Peter smiled and with a dismissive wave said, "Put them back in your pocket."

Ochylski still has a photograph of the ill-gotten fruit. And John Paul sends him a Christmas card every year.

Tata's advice

Edward Ochylski is a man with no regrets. "One thing God gave me is the ability to forget," he says. "There are a lot of things I just don't remember, especially bad things. And those bad things usually turned out to be the best things that ever happened to me."

He credits that philosophy to his father, or "Tata" as his children called him, a butcher block of a man who wasted few words.

Ochylski remembers complaining about something he regretted doing or not doing when his father said, 'Boy,' - that's what he always called me - 'Boy, never look up the rear end of a dead horse. Dat doan buy no whiskey! Doan waste your life away by thinking about what might have been. Dat horse is dead! What good do you do looking up his rear end?'

That was one of three nuggets of advice that Ochylski declares were the greatest gifts he ever received.

The second occurred soon after the younger Edward had moved his family and business to Chicago, and fallen on hard times. On the verge of bankruptcy, a despondent Edward Jr. was about to throw in the towel and return to Detroit to find work.

One day his father, now nearly 80 years old, surprised his son by driving to Chicago. Father and son shared a cup of coffee and small talk at a tiny lunch counter in the stockyards. When they left, they found their way blocked by several hundred sheep that were being herded to slaughter. As the two men stood there, leaning against a rail and watching the passing herd, the elder man lit a cigarette, blew a cloud of smoke into the air, and said, "Boy, you got big troubles, hah?"

Ed lied that everything was fine. His father took a couple more drags on his cigarette, slowly exhaled the smoke, and flicked an inch of ash onto the passing sheep. "Boy," he said. "when you in dat big river, you gotta swim - or you gonna seenk."

"I was thinking, well s***, I need money, not swimming lessons!" Ochylski recalls. But throughout a sleepless night, the words made a racket in his head: "YOU GOTTA SWIM - OR YOU GONNA SEENK!"

By morning he realized what his father meant.

"I began 'swimming' with renewed determination," he says. "And by the way, 31 years before, it was my father who taught me to swim in the Clinton River."

The third pearl came as his father was dying.

"I drove to Michigan to spend time with him," Ochylski says. "By then, thanks to his earlier advice, things were going quite well for me."

Sitting on the edge of the bed, he asked his father if there was anything he would do different if he had life to live over again.

"Boy," he replied, "I would do everything, taste everything, try everything, but all in good measure." The dying man raised a forefinger and admonished his son, "Boy, life is meaningless without trying a little bit of everything. Sometimes the things you try are not good ... Dat's why I say 'in good measure.' Even if a snake bite you once, you will not die because it was a small measure. But doan let him bite you two times."

As the younger man rose to leave, his father said, "You are a good boy."

It was the first time the old man had complimented his son.

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