This message comes from Bloomberg Business Week's newest podcast, Everybody's Business, hosted by Stacey Vanek-Smith and Max Chaffkin.

The big business stories of the week are just a starting point to their discussion on what's really going on with the economy.

Listen every Friday, wherever you get your podcasts.

This is Planet Money from NPR.

The way Jim Chapman tells it, basically his whole life has been about heeding the call of duty in his tight-knit rural community.

He was a cop for decades, a Boy Scout troop leader, a volunteer firefighter, and an EMT, all in small town western Michigan

where he's from. In his retirement, Jim became the deputy supervisor of Green Charter Township,

basically the assistant mayor. And then something happened that put him in charge of the town.

And this will give you a sense of the scale of the place. It was actually while Jim was on

shift as an EMT, when he got a call from the dispatcher saying that someone had died.

I got an address, and it's like you do, you drive to the address, and you turn onto the actual

road and start looking for house numbers, and you go, holy crap, that's Bob's house.

Bob was the town's supervisor, Jim's friend and his boss.

When Jim arrived, other first responders told him that Bob had passed away peacefully in the night.

And they told Jim they would take care of Bob's body so he wouldn't have to.

I said, no, he needs a friend with him while we're doing this, and I will be here.

And I helped carry him out of the house. I saw that as a moral duty.

In the days that followed, the town board decided to make Jim the new township supervisor.

I kind of got volunteered to finish out his term.

But this new duty, making decisions about the future of his town, that would turn out to be

much more fraught than anything Jim had done before.

Green Charter Township is a small rural community surrounded by lush farmlands and forests.

...