A short time ago I was surprised to learn that Dan was alive as recently as 1975, and might still be alive in Coralville, Iowa. The last I heard of Dan he had broken his neck at a freestyle wrestling tournament two weeks after he won the 1970 high school state meet. He was expected to be quadriplegic for life, and I always assumed that his life thereafter would be cut short due to complications. Learning that he was still alive caused some reminiscing of my high school days.
The winter of 1967-68 was my sophomore year at C. R. Washington High School and we had a sophomore wrestling meet scheduled with Jefferson High School. Even as a sophomore at Jefferson, Dan had shown promise as a wrestler, so my teammates whispered about our upcoming match for weeks.
I don’t remember our sophomore match specifically, but I do remember bits and pieces. There were no spectators because the match was held in our wrestling room and was officiated by one of the coaches. It was a low-key wrestling meet. The score in my match with Dan wasn’t any more than a 2-point differential. In the spirit of never letting facts get in the way of a good story I’ve always thought that I won the match, and that it might have been the last match Dan ever lost. That may be incorrect, but it’s the way I like to remember it.
As the next two years went by I didn’t realize that there were opportunities to wrestle year-round. Dan wrestled throughout those years, and I ran track and cross-country instead. I became a JV wrestler and Dan became an All-American. I think I wrestled Dan a couple more times, but I never beat him again.
One of those years my talented teammate, Aaron, was ineligible for a major wrestling tournament. The night before the meet I got a call from the coach informing me that I would be filling in for Aaron. Aaron was all too frequently absent from wrestling meets and I never knew why. It was always my pleasure to imagine that he was ineligible due to truancy, academics, conduct, or criminal offenses. Had I been told by the coach I would have believed any, or all of the above. It wasn’t kind of me, but that was who I was at that time.
So with infrequent varsity wrestling experience I was thrown into this major tournament as the lowest seed in a 16-man bracket and was scheduled to wrestle the #1 seed in the bracket. The #1 seed was Dan. Dan had become a wrestler of great renown, had won many tournaments in several states, and was expected to make the state finals. There was some speculation in the newspapers that he might become the next Dan Gable.
I remember several snippets from our match at that tournament. At the referee’s starting whistle Dan immediately took a shot on my legs and had a takedown and two points before I knew what was happening. He briefly worked for some back points, but then intentionally let me up so he could take me down again. I was insulted that he would give me a point by letting me escape and had the audacity to think he could take me down again. I vowed that he would not get a shot on my legs again.
Sure enough, Dan shot on my legs again and was faster than I could imagine. His takedown move was so perfectly executed that it caused me to collapse to the mat like a sack of potatoes. It really ticked me off. I knew he was going to shoot on my legs, was prepared to defend, and it made no difference whatsoever.
What I remember of the rest of that match is Dan taking me down at will and letting me up just to do it all over again. During the takedown scrambles he would occasionally get another 2 or 3 points for back exposure, sometimes for long periods of time, but was never able to pin me. I never scored an offensive point of my own – I only got single points when Dan intentionally let me up. It was a thorough thrashing by one of the best wrestlers ever in the state. Dan won by a large margin and I was out of the tournament.
What I remember vividly after the match is picking up my warm-up sweats and heading over to sit on the first row of the bleachers to cool off. My folks came over to sit with me and be supportive, but no words were spoken – none were needed. I was feeling lower than an earthworm, and hanging my head pretty low. Instead of talking to the waiting media, Dan came over to sit with me and chat. I remember thinking, “Holy smokes! Every wrestling fan in this gymnasium knows who Dan is, but not a one of them knows who I am. I bet they are all wondering why Dan wants to talk to that guy from C.R Washington he just thrashed.” I was wondering the same thing. Well, it turns out that Dan is just a good guy.
I shook Dan’s hand again, just as we do at the end of a match, and I apologized for not being much of a challenge. Dan’s reply to me, in front of my parents, is why I remember him fondly. He said that I was always a challenge, that I always made him work hard, and that I never gave up the entire match. He said he was never able to pin me and was never able to get any rest. He just hoped he had enough energy left after wrestling me to make it through the next several rounds and get into the finals.
I don’t know if any of that was true. It may have all been lies, but they were compassionate lies, and they were said in front of my folks. Dan was gracious in his victory and gave me a measure of dignity. It was a lesson I’ve not forgotten 40 years later.
When the state meet came around I was cheering for Dan when he beat Aaron 4-3 in the state finals. Dan was 29-0 that year.
Thursday, December 29, 2011
Tuesday, December 20, 2011
Despair
As if the pain wasn’t torture enough, the uphill sucks every cheerful notion from my soul, and I feel like there is nothing left of me but an empty shell. It’s like the Dementors from a Harry Potter movie have descended on me and are sucking out the last wisps of physical and emotional well-being. As I trudge up the hill I am left with a soulless despondency. There is no hope. There is no joy. There is only this step, and the next, and a seemingly infinite number thereafter, each causing my heart to pound furiously and my lungs to heave. My legs are dead. My arms are dead. The effort is excruciating, and I want to cry out, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?”
But God didn’t do this to me. I did this to me. The vague recollection that I’ve survived this before is my only salvation. I am in the 3rd mile of a 4-mile pickup, which was preceded by a 6-mile warm-up. The final sum will be 11, but I dare not think of a number that large. It is too much to face and would be the end of me.
My mind is bombarded with all too many pain signals telling me to slow, to stop, to sit, but some small remnant of will allows me to focus on taking this step. I have faith that the next step will take care of itself. I will face the challenge of that next step when it comes. There is only the here and the now. The next step, and all the future steps are too much to face. All I want to do is take this step, knowing that it is one step closer to my car and eventual relief from my misery.
This hill is the last major obstacle on today’s run. It drains what little emotional life-force I have left. My pace has slowed, my stride-length has shortened, and I am barely moving, all of which means that my time spent in this self-inflicted hell will be even longer. It will take twice as long to run up the hill as it will to run down it. If I could climb this hill any faster it would shorten my misery, but there is no hope of that. It’s a physical and emotional impossibility. I have nothing more to give. Concepts like “mind over matter” and “giving “110%” are silly phrases that coaches and sports writers use. At a moment like this there is nothing to do but endure and persist, though my endurance left me miles ago.
I only know that this too shall pass. I cling to the fact that the hill is finite. I know this full well from past experience, and that knowledge gives me my only hope. If the hill is finite, then my suffering must also be finite, and that if I can only continue and not give up, the hill will end and the pain will lessen at the top.
And so the top of the hill is finally reached, and I start to fall down the slight decline on the other side. My stride lengthens and my pace quickens to keep me from falling on my face. I feel some wind on my cheeks that was not there before, and a small hint of life returns to my legs, and the sense of deliverance makes me want to scream, “I’m Alive! I’m Alive!”, if only I could breathe.
But God didn’t do this to me. I did this to me. The vague recollection that I’ve survived this before is my only salvation. I am in the 3rd mile of a 4-mile pickup, which was preceded by a 6-mile warm-up. The final sum will be 11, but I dare not think of a number that large. It is too much to face and would be the end of me.
My mind is bombarded with all too many pain signals telling me to slow, to stop, to sit, but some small remnant of will allows me to focus on taking this step. I have faith that the next step will take care of itself. I will face the challenge of that next step when it comes. There is only the here and the now. The next step, and all the future steps are too much to face. All I want to do is take this step, knowing that it is one step closer to my car and eventual relief from my misery.
This hill is the last major obstacle on today’s run. It drains what little emotional life-force I have left. My pace has slowed, my stride-length has shortened, and I am barely moving, all of which means that my time spent in this self-inflicted hell will be even longer. It will take twice as long to run up the hill as it will to run down it. If I could climb this hill any faster it would shorten my misery, but there is no hope of that. It’s a physical and emotional impossibility. I have nothing more to give. Concepts like “mind over matter” and “giving “110%” are silly phrases that coaches and sports writers use. At a moment like this there is nothing to do but endure and persist, though my endurance left me miles ago.
I only know that this too shall pass. I cling to the fact that the hill is finite. I know this full well from past experience, and that knowledge gives me my only hope. If the hill is finite, then my suffering must also be finite, and that if I can only continue and not give up, the hill will end and the pain will lessen at the top.
And so the top of the hill is finally reached, and I start to fall down the slight decline on the other side. My stride lengthens and my pace quickens to keep me from falling on my face. I feel some wind on my cheeks that was not there before, and a small hint of life returns to my legs, and the sense of deliverance makes me want to scream, “I’m Alive! I’m Alive!”, if only I could breathe.
Thursday, December 15, 2011
Temptation
At the end of my junior year in college I couldn’t take the final exam in Probability and Statistics at the normal time. The real reason escapes me after (2011-1974) 37 years. I expect there was a track meet that conflicted with the final. So Dr. Charles Lindsay, bless his soul, allowed me to take the final exam at a different time.
Dr. Lindsay plunked me down in the Chemistry Lounge in Peterson hall to take the exam. I was pretty confident that I could nail this exam; I was a junior and at the top of my game, so to speak. I was full of myself. I felt I could re-invent or re-derive whatever I couldn’t remember during the exam, but I still crammed up until the last minute and took my textbook and reference book along in case Lindsay had written an open-text exam.
So Lindsay plunked me down in this room all by my lonesome and told me I had two hours to complete the exam. It was a closed-book exam, so I tucked my notebook and books under my chair and set to work.
The first thing I do when taking a math test is to jot down all of the major equations I expect to use; I do a brain dump. This serves as my own personal reference sheet as I motor through the test. It is a comfort and confidence-builder knowing that those equations are on the paper should I have a brain freeze or moments of anxiety during the exam. If I remember that there is one I don’t remember (confused?) I try to relax and believe that it will come to me at some point later in the exam. It’s like trying to remember the name of your sixth grade PE teacher. If you try to remember, you can’t, but if you don’t try, it will often pop unexpectedly into your head later on.
To digress further, which is standard form for this blog, the second thing I do on math exams is to read all the questions. Problems on math tests aren’t lengthy. Solving the problem may be lengthy, as in a page or more of work, but stating the problem is usually brief. So I read the questions and mark all the ones I know I can do easily with the letter A, and put the letter B next to the problems that are not immediately obvious but I expect I can solve with some effort. I leave the hardest problems unmarked.
I like doing the A’s first to build confidence, score some points early, and ensure a passing grade. In the process of doing the A’s I find I remember stuff along the way that helps me knock out the B’s and build even more confidence. Along the way I re-remember equations and add them to my reference sheet. Finally I attempt the tough problems and try not to get confused by any difficulties I encounter.
So anyway, back to the story. I was sitting there in the Chemistry Lounge rocking through this Prob & Stat exam and I came across a problem that required some arcane equation from (analytic?) geometry, like the surface area of a sphere. (A = 4 x pi x r2) This had nothing to do with Prob & Stat, but it was necessary to solve the problem. I knew this equation then, and I know this equation even now, 37 years later, but at that brief, dark moment during the final exam, I forgot the equation for the surface area of a sphere. I had a brain freeze.
If this had been the normal exam setting I would have raised my hand to speak to Lindsay. I would have pointed out that solving the problem required knowing the surface area of the sphere. I would have asked him if he really meant to test us on our knowledge of geometry equations during a Probability and Statistics exam. I would have told him that I generally know this equation, but couldn’t pull quite pull it out of my brain at that particular moment. I would have asked that he plunk this equation on the board so that all the class would have the benefit of not being required to know it.
But I was sitting in the Chemistry Lounge all by my lonesome. I knew the equation existed in one of the books I’d brought with me. I knew the equation existed in hundreds of the chemistry books that surrounded me. I was sure that Lindsay did not intend for this obscure equation to be an obstacle to the problem, so I was tempted to look it up; sorely tempted. I really wanted to ace this exam and ace this course. I knew the material inside and out. I was a decent math student and wanted to hold my own with the best and brightest in the school, and we all knew who they were. (Hobby, Sheryl, Ann, and Gary, among others) I wanted to do really well so the top of the geek pecking order wouldn’t look down on me with pity as a really dim bulb.
Lindsay hadn’t checked on me in over an hour. What was the probability that he would show up during the one minute it would take me to look up this equation. But then I thought if Lindsay came in at that precise time he might think I was cheating. He might think I was cheating liberally if not singularly. How would he know that I was only looking up the one equation; he would only have my word. What if he disagreed with my personal assessment that this equation wasn’t relevant to the exam or the course?
Whether or not this was a significant infraction or not would be up to Lindsay’s judgment. Lindsay might decide to fail my exam, which would likely cause me to fail the course, and I would not graduate on time, that is if I was not expelled outright. Word would get around about the scandal and I would be the subject of scorn. My professors, my classmates, and my family would reassess my character and find it wanting. Jean would not want to associate with such a disreputable fellow.
I considered Professor Lindsay a friend, a friend who trusted me to take this exam on my own, to do the right thing while nobody was looking. I ultimately decided that one question on one exam wasn’t worth ruining everything I had done so far in my life, and much of the future. Getting a B on the exam and in the course wouldn’t be the end of the world, so I decided to noodle along on the other problems in hopes that my elusive memory would return, but I remained emotionally shaken that I had even considered jeopardizing everything.
Lindsay showed up soon thereafter to check on me, which, given the evil thoughts I’d just been considering, was an emotional jolt. I really would have been caught. I didn’t ask Lindsay about the geometry equation because I felt guilty about thinking about cheating, and decided that handicapping myself was the penalty I deserved.
I continued to work on the other problems and eventually realized that the derivative of the spherical volume equation would result in the surface area equation I needed. I knew the volume of a sphere was 4/3 x pi x r3, so the derivative was, and still is, 4 x pi x r2.
Problem solved.
Life saved.
Do the right thing, even when nobody’s looking.
(More sanctimonious self-righteousness)
Dr. Lindsay plunked me down in the Chemistry Lounge in Peterson hall to take the exam. I was pretty confident that I could nail this exam; I was a junior and at the top of my game, so to speak. I was full of myself. I felt I could re-invent or re-derive whatever I couldn’t remember during the exam, but I still crammed up until the last minute and took my textbook and reference book along in case Lindsay had written an open-text exam.
So Lindsay plunked me down in this room all by my lonesome and told me I had two hours to complete the exam. It was a closed-book exam, so I tucked my notebook and books under my chair and set to work.
The first thing I do when taking a math test is to jot down all of the major equations I expect to use; I do a brain dump. This serves as my own personal reference sheet as I motor through the test. It is a comfort and confidence-builder knowing that those equations are on the paper should I have a brain freeze or moments of anxiety during the exam. If I remember that there is one I don’t remember (confused?) I try to relax and believe that it will come to me at some point later in the exam. It’s like trying to remember the name of your sixth grade PE teacher. If you try to remember, you can’t, but if you don’t try, it will often pop unexpectedly into your head later on.
To digress further, which is standard form for this blog, the second thing I do on math exams is to read all the questions. Problems on math tests aren’t lengthy. Solving the problem may be lengthy, as in a page or more of work, but stating the problem is usually brief. So I read the questions and mark all the ones I know I can do easily with the letter A, and put the letter B next to the problems that are not immediately obvious but I expect I can solve with some effort. I leave the hardest problems unmarked.
I like doing the A’s first to build confidence, score some points early, and ensure a passing grade. In the process of doing the A’s I find I remember stuff along the way that helps me knock out the B’s and build even more confidence. Along the way I re-remember equations and add them to my reference sheet. Finally I attempt the tough problems and try not to get confused by any difficulties I encounter.
So anyway, back to the story. I was sitting there in the Chemistry Lounge rocking through this Prob & Stat exam and I came across a problem that required some arcane equation from (analytic?) geometry, like the surface area of a sphere. (A = 4 x pi x r2) This had nothing to do with Prob & Stat, but it was necessary to solve the problem. I knew this equation then, and I know this equation even now, 37 years later, but at that brief, dark moment during the final exam, I forgot the equation for the surface area of a sphere. I had a brain freeze.
If this had been the normal exam setting I would have raised my hand to speak to Lindsay. I would have pointed out that solving the problem required knowing the surface area of the sphere. I would have asked him if he really meant to test us on our knowledge of geometry equations during a Probability and Statistics exam. I would have told him that I generally know this equation, but couldn’t pull quite pull it out of my brain at that particular moment. I would have asked that he plunk this equation on the board so that all the class would have the benefit of not being required to know it.
But I was sitting in the Chemistry Lounge all by my lonesome. I knew the equation existed in one of the books I’d brought with me. I knew the equation existed in hundreds of the chemistry books that surrounded me. I was sure that Lindsay did not intend for this obscure equation to be an obstacle to the problem, so I was tempted to look it up; sorely tempted. I really wanted to ace this exam and ace this course. I knew the material inside and out. I was a decent math student and wanted to hold my own with the best and brightest in the school, and we all knew who they were. (Hobby, Sheryl, Ann, and Gary, among others) I wanted to do really well so the top of the geek pecking order wouldn’t look down on me with pity as a really dim bulb.
Lindsay hadn’t checked on me in over an hour. What was the probability that he would show up during the one minute it would take me to look up this equation. But then I thought if Lindsay came in at that precise time he might think I was cheating. He might think I was cheating liberally if not singularly. How would he know that I was only looking up the one equation; he would only have my word. What if he disagreed with my personal assessment that this equation wasn’t relevant to the exam or the course?
Whether or not this was a significant infraction or not would be up to Lindsay’s judgment. Lindsay might decide to fail my exam, which would likely cause me to fail the course, and I would not graduate on time, that is if I was not expelled outright. Word would get around about the scandal and I would be the subject of scorn. My professors, my classmates, and my family would reassess my character and find it wanting. Jean would not want to associate with such a disreputable fellow.
I considered Professor Lindsay a friend, a friend who trusted me to take this exam on my own, to do the right thing while nobody was looking. I ultimately decided that one question on one exam wasn’t worth ruining everything I had done so far in my life, and much of the future. Getting a B on the exam and in the course wouldn’t be the end of the world, so I decided to noodle along on the other problems in hopes that my elusive memory would return, but I remained emotionally shaken that I had even considered jeopardizing everything.
Lindsay showed up soon thereafter to check on me, which, given the evil thoughts I’d just been considering, was an emotional jolt. I really would have been caught. I didn’t ask Lindsay about the geometry equation because I felt guilty about thinking about cheating, and decided that handicapping myself was the penalty I deserved.
I continued to work on the other problems and eventually realized that the derivative of the spherical volume equation would result in the surface area equation I needed. I knew the volume of a sphere was 4/3 x pi x r3, so the derivative was, and still is, 4 x pi x r2.
Problem solved.
Life saved.
Do the right thing, even when nobody’s looking.
(More sanctimonious self-righteousness)
Tuesday, November 1, 2011
Manager
I got an email at work the other day pushing a list of 1-2 day classes on Management Skills. The list was long and it amused me. Each class was $400-$1500.
Here is the list of classes -
Essentials of Strategic Planning for Managers
Essentials of Coaching for Managers
Essentials of Supervision
Certificate in Management Essentials
Emotional Intelligence for Managers
Executive Presence for the Non-Executive
Essentials of Change for Managers
Essentials of Motivation
Managing Problem Employees
Stepping Up to Management Certificate Boot Camp
Essentials of Leadership for Managers
Win-Win Negotiations
Essentials of Delegation
Essentials of Human Resources Management
Influencing Others: A Guide to Persuasive Techniques
So okay, yes, I confess to being a manager of personnel, but I find that term, Manager, offensive. I don’t know where I picked up the notion that being a manager had a negative connotation to it, but I did. It’s a personal affliction. Perhaps I’m the only person on the planet that has this quirk. Here is the root of my thinking. To say that I manage people implies that I coerce and manipulate my colleagues. That is what I think of when I hear the term management – coercion and manipulation. I prefer to think that I hire good people and let them do their jobs.
And yes, no doubt you’ve heard that phrase before – Hire good people and let them do their jobs. I’ve surely stolen the phrase as I don’t think I’ve ever had an original thought. Whenever I research what I think might be an original thought I find some super uber-nerd from the 1600’s thought it first and said it more eloquently than I could have imagined; thus my predilection for quoting people smarter and deader than I am.
I remember attending a conference some years ago where I attended a session on management techniques. The presenter said that his hour-long presentation could be distilled down to one sentence. He claimed that there was one, and only one, truly effective management technique. He said that HONESTY was the only management technique, if you wished to call conducting yourself in a fair and straightforward fashion a “technique”.
I liked the simplicity of this conference session. The claim was that colleagues could smell dishonesty a mile away, and it reeked of coercion and manipulation. They said that you would be best off if you could attempt to be honest in all your dealings with staff. I adopted that as my own mantra and have skipped attending most management classes ever since. Perhaps I have become an ignorant barbarian as a result, but at least I am an honest ignorant barbarian.
Along the same lines When I attended a workplace presentation on the Great Place to Work Institute, and their core principles of Credibility, Respect, Fairness, Pride, Camaraderie, and Trust, I added these to my office mantra – not saying that I did all of it, or any of it, all of the time, but I like to think I did some of it some of the time.
http://www.greatplacetowork.net/our-approach/what-is-a-great-workplace
And that’s all I have to say about that . . . for now.
.
Here is the list of classes -
Essentials of Strategic Planning for Managers
Essentials of Coaching for Managers
Essentials of Supervision
Certificate in Management Essentials
Emotional Intelligence for Managers
Executive Presence for the Non-Executive
Essentials of Change for Managers
Essentials of Motivation
Managing Problem Employees
Stepping Up to Management Certificate Boot Camp
Essentials of Leadership for Managers
Win-Win Negotiations
Essentials of Delegation
Essentials of Human Resources Management
Influencing Others: A Guide to Persuasive Techniques
So okay, yes, I confess to being a manager of personnel, but I find that term, Manager, offensive. I don’t know where I picked up the notion that being a manager had a negative connotation to it, but I did. It’s a personal affliction. Perhaps I’m the only person on the planet that has this quirk. Here is the root of my thinking. To say that I manage people implies that I coerce and manipulate my colleagues. That is what I think of when I hear the term management – coercion and manipulation. I prefer to think that I hire good people and let them do their jobs.
And yes, no doubt you’ve heard that phrase before – Hire good people and let them do their jobs. I’ve surely stolen the phrase as I don’t think I’ve ever had an original thought. Whenever I research what I think might be an original thought I find some super uber-nerd from the 1600’s thought it first and said it more eloquently than I could have imagined; thus my predilection for quoting people smarter and deader than I am.
I remember attending a conference some years ago where I attended a session on management techniques. The presenter said that his hour-long presentation could be distilled down to one sentence. He claimed that there was one, and only one, truly effective management technique. He said that HONESTY was the only management technique, if you wished to call conducting yourself in a fair and straightforward fashion a “technique”.
I liked the simplicity of this conference session. The claim was that colleagues could smell dishonesty a mile away, and it reeked of coercion and manipulation. They said that you would be best off if you could attempt to be honest in all your dealings with staff. I adopted that as my own mantra and have skipped attending most management classes ever since. Perhaps I have become an ignorant barbarian as a result, but at least I am an honest ignorant barbarian.
Along the same lines When I attended a workplace presentation on the Great Place to Work Institute, and their core principles of Credibility, Respect, Fairness, Pride, Camaraderie, and Trust, I added these to my office mantra – not saying that I did all of it, or any of it, all of the time, but I like to think I did some of it some of the time.
http://www.greatplacetowork.net/our-approach/what-is-a-great-workplace
And that’s all I have to say about that . . . for now.
.
Saturday, October 15, 2011
Humanity
I got rear-ended on the freeway during Friday morning’s rush hour. Nobody stopped to offer themselves as witnesses to the accident. Nobody stopped to see whether anyone was injured. Nobody stopped to offer assistance during the 30 minutes the two cars sat in the median with emergency flashers on waiting for the police to arrive. And now I can’t sleep because I find this deeply disturbing.
Friday, October 7, 2011
Flu Shots
I was standing in line at work for a blood pressure check yesterday (mine is barely within acceptable bounds at 120/80) and had to listen to some dumb-asses tell everyone within hearing why they don't get flu shots. These were otherwise intelligent people who in this instance are woefully ignorant and cling to their urban myths. My blood boils when I listen to ignorant people spread their superstitions around like they are facts.
What is even worse, they won't bother to read up on the facts, and when presented with authoritative information, they prefer to discount and ignore the authority and stick to their superstitions instead. Believing themselves to be right is apparently more important to them than actually BEING right.
It's funny, in a pathetic way, how people will get their children all the basic childhood immunizations, like DPT (diphtheria, pertussis, and tetanus) but don't "believe" in flu shots. They otherwise believe in doctors, medical science, the scientific method, and the proven repeatable results of lab experiments, but in the case of flu shots they choose NOT to “believe” the proven science of experts. They trust the doctor for all their other ailments, but in the case of the flu shot they trust only their own ignorance.
This is unbygodbelievable! My only response is to make disparaging remarks, and that isn’t kind. Regrettably, as I read the previous paragraphs it appears I have already done so. I am sorry about that, but not very.
Please remember that even intelligent people can be ignorant.
Also remember that ignorance can be cured; not so with stupidity.
Here is the truth from an authoritative source. All of it is science. The myths and superstitions are completely debunked.
http://www.webmd.com/cold-and-flu/features/top-13-flu-myths
I hope your parents were successful in educating you against the superstitious crap about flu shots.
Okay, now I really do sound like my father.
Thursday, September 29, 2011
Stone Mountain Enclave Rules (finally)
So repeating some of last weeks’ posting, we had this group of runners, that wasn’t really a group, and didn’t have a name, but did have some informal organization in the form of rules. The rules were unspoken and commonly understood by the old-timers. Rookies only learned the rules through their unintentional infractions and incurring the resulting verbal harassment by members of the group. So then, what were the stinkin’ unspoken rules?
1. The first mile was always a warm-up. Thou shalt never begin the serious part of the workout during the first mile. It simply made good sense, especially since many of us were reaching middle age. To immediately dive into a hard workout was to invite injury, and friends don’t let friends injure themselves. The first mile was always held at a conversational pace, and anyone who pushed that pace was verbally castigated by the rearmost members of the pack. “Where the hell you think you’re going, ass-h**es! Slow the F down!”
2. Workout proposals were discussed during the first mile. It was considered bad form to simply bolt into a hard workout at the first mile mark without announcing your intentions. Runner’s etiquette dictated that you state your proposed workout so that others could invite themselves along or propose alternatives. It was the friendly thing to do. After all, if you wanted to run alone, why did you show up to run with us in the first place? Oftentimes we’d split into multiple workout groups depending on the number of proposals and according to ability. There were always a few who were just out for a long sociable slow run who would do exactly that.
3. The day’s route was also discussed during the first mile as a subset of the workout discussion. A friendly sociable person invites their friends to weigh in on the route as well as the workout. There was the 2-mile dead end road, the 5-mile loop, the 8-mile loop, and the 10-mile bicycle trail to the high school, and every combination thereof to get whatever distance you desired. There were also numerous trails available in the park, but these were rarely used on the weekend. The weekend runners were wary of the trails. Hal L. said he trained too hard and too long to waste his efforts by spraining an ankle on the trails. One of the few times Mike L. ran the trails he fell and cracked his head open on a rock, which cut the run short (major foul) and necessitated a trip to the emergency room for stitches. Mike used to trip on the tiny crack between segments of the sidewalk, so it wasn’t much of a surprise that he fell.
4. If you decided to run with whoever was doing the easy sociable run that day, it was also against the rules to pick up the pace unannounced. It was socially unacceptable to surreptitiously pick up the pace and try to lure the slower runners into something faster than was their intention. If you wanted to pick up the pace, that was fine, but you had to announce your intention so that you wouldn’t screw up the other fellow’s workout. And when you picked up the pace you needed to mosey off significantly faster than the slow folks. It was against the rules to pick it up a little bit and just hang-out there 50 to 100 yards in front, and thereby entice the slow folks into more workout than they wanted that day. If you announced that you were going to pick it up, you had to so significantly, and it better-by-god be significant enough that you eventually disappear around the bend.
5. It was well known and understood that runner’s lie like fishermen, but this was only appropriate behavior at the starting line of races. Workouts were a whole ‘nuther kettle-of-fish. When proposing a workout pace we insisted on honesty within 10-15 seconds per mile. It wasn’t fair to trick a buddy into running a pace faster than what was originally proposed. If you said you were going to do a 4-mile pickup at 6:30/mile pace, then etiquette required that you attempt to do exactly that so you didn’t trick a buddy into doing something too fast and might get him injured. It was okay if you were feeling good and having a good day to go a little bit faster than announced, but if you went too fast you would get your butt chewed out. Theoretically, we didn’t race during workouts, but our workouts were hard enough that they often felt like race-worthy efforts.
6. Everyone understood that you never asked anyone to ease up so that you could keep up. The fittest runners had longer and faster workouts, and were never compromised by those who weren’t at the same fitness level. Everyone had different constraints on their training time due to job, spouse, school, kids, and whatever else was in their life. None of us was running professionally. None of us was running up to our ability due to training constraints. Everyone did what they could. No one was asked to do less than they could.
7. Conversation during a run always leads to BS. Marvin H. had a reputation for being full of BS. At the beginning of a run when you heard Marvin H. speak, you had an obligation to call out “BEEP, BEEP, BEEP”, and excuse yourself for not turning off your BS detector. We would all then reach for our waistbands to turn off our virtual BS detectors and someone would say, “Go ahead, Marvin. It’s safe now.”
8. At the end of the hard portion of the run, if anybody was in sight you were obligated to mill about or run back to pick them up so they could join you for the warm-down. It was against the rules to run hard all the way to the cars. If you were in sight of the leaders when it was time to warm-down, you had earned the right to be included in the warm-down and finish the run with the lead group. The last 1-2 miles was always run slow and easy so that nobody in sight got left behind. Also, friends don’t let friends get injured, and not warming down from a hard run was to invite injury.
9. And finally, the only real rule was, “There ain’t no rules!”
1. The first mile was always a warm-up. Thou shalt never begin the serious part of the workout during the first mile. It simply made good sense, especially since many of us were reaching middle age. To immediately dive into a hard workout was to invite injury, and friends don’t let friends injure themselves. The first mile was always held at a conversational pace, and anyone who pushed that pace was verbally castigated by the rearmost members of the pack. “Where the hell you think you’re going, ass-h**es! Slow the F down!”
2. Workout proposals were discussed during the first mile. It was considered bad form to simply bolt into a hard workout at the first mile mark without announcing your intentions. Runner’s etiquette dictated that you state your proposed workout so that others could invite themselves along or propose alternatives. It was the friendly thing to do. After all, if you wanted to run alone, why did you show up to run with us in the first place? Oftentimes we’d split into multiple workout groups depending on the number of proposals and according to ability. There were always a few who were just out for a long sociable slow run who would do exactly that.
3. The day’s route was also discussed during the first mile as a subset of the workout discussion. A friendly sociable person invites their friends to weigh in on the route as well as the workout. There was the 2-mile dead end road, the 5-mile loop, the 8-mile loop, and the 10-mile bicycle trail to the high school, and every combination thereof to get whatever distance you desired. There were also numerous trails available in the park, but these were rarely used on the weekend. The weekend runners were wary of the trails. Hal L. said he trained too hard and too long to waste his efforts by spraining an ankle on the trails. One of the few times Mike L. ran the trails he fell and cracked his head open on a rock, which cut the run short (major foul) and necessitated a trip to the emergency room for stitches. Mike used to trip on the tiny crack between segments of the sidewalk, so it wasn’t much of a surprise that he fell.
4. If you decided to run with whoever was doing the easy sociable run that day, it was also against the rules to pick up the pace unannounced. It was socially unacceptable to surreptitiously pick up the pace and try to lure the slower runners into something faster than was their intention. If you wanted to pick up the pace, that was fine, but you had to announce your intention so that you wouldn’t screw up the other fellow’s workout. And when you picked up the pace you needed to mosey off significantly faster than the slow folks. It was against the rules to pick it up a little bit and just hang-out there 50 to 100 yards in front, and thereby entice the slow folks into more workout than they wanted that day. If you announced that you were going to pick it up, you had to so significantly, and it better-by-god be significant enough that you eventually disappear around the bend.
5. It was well known and understood that runner’s lie like fishermen, but this was only appropriate behavior at the starting line of races. Workouts were a whole ‘nuther kettle-of-fish. When proposing a workout pace we insisted on honesty within 10-15 seconds per mile. It wasn’t fair to trick a buddy into running a pace faster than what was originally proposed. If you said you were going to do a 4-mile pickup at 6:30/mile pace, then etiquette required that you attempt to do exactly that so you didn’t trick a buddy into doing something too fast and might get him injured. It was okay if you were feeling good and having a good day to go a little bit faster than announced, but if you went too fast you would get your butt chewed out. Theoretically, we didn’t race during workouts, but our workouts were hard enough that they often felt like race-worthy efforts.
6. Everyone understood that you never asked anyone to ease up so that you could keep up. The fittest runners had longer and faster workouts, and were never compromised by those who weren’t at the same fitness level. Everyone had different constraints on their training time due to job, spouse, school, kids, and whatever else was in their life. None of us was running professionally. None of us was running up to our ability due to training constraints. Everyone did what they could. No one was asked to do less than they could.
7. Conversation during a run always leads to BS. Marvin H. had a reputation for being full of BS. At the beginning of a run when you heard Marvin H. speak, you had an obligation to call out “BEEP, BEEP, BEEP”, and excuse yourself for not turning off your BS detector. We would all then reach for our waistbands to turn off our virtual BS detectors and someone would say, “Go ahead, Marvin. It’s safe now.”
8. At the end of the hard portion of the run, if anybody was in sight you were obligated to mill about or run back to pick them up so they could join you for the warm-down. It was against the rules to run hard all the way to the cars. If you were in sight of the leaders when it was time to warm-down, you had earned the right to be included in the warm-down and finish the run with the lead group. The last 1-2 miles was always run slow and easy so that nobody in sight got left behind. Also, friends don’t let friends get injured, and not warming down from a hard run was to invite injury.
9. And finally, the only real rule was, “There ain’t no rules!”
Wednesday, September 21, 2011
Stone Mountain Enclave Rules
From the online Merriam Webster Dictionary –
enclave: a distinct territorial, cultural, or social unit enclosed within or as if within foreign territory
Decades ago, when I was relatively young, I belonged to a group of runners that met each Saturday and Sunday morning at Stone Mountain Park. And with that opening statement I feel that I have already begun to deceive you. The word “group” implies there might have been some organization involved. This is not true. We had a saying – “the only rule is there AIN’T no rules!”
And the first statement is also incorrect because it is stated in the past tense as if the group no longer exists. The group still exists, but it is a mere shadow of its former self. We once had at least 10 showing up each morning and sometimes as many as 20 or more. Alas, the kids grow up and the parents grow old. We now average 2 or 3 each morning, and occasionally it is just me.
The title of this post is also misleading. There never was a name for this group of runners. Many names were proposed over the years, some of them discussed seriously, but as good-humored anarchists we eventually shouted all of them down, but only after ridiculing the proposer, his/her spouse/partner/significant other, kids (if any), domicile, pets, and manner of transportation.
The only thing we had in common was that we chose to collect at the same place and time to run each weekend. Most had a ball sport somewhere in their background; I may have been the only one who did not play with balls in high school and college, but we had all come around to distance running as our chosen avocation as young (mentally and emotionally immature) adults.
We had representatives from both genders and multiple ethnic groups. Each of us had been invited by a member or referred to the group by a neighbor or friend, or the friend of a friend who knew of this group who ran at Stone Mountain Park. We welcomed all who came, and excluded no-one, but how else would you find us at 0730 on a weekend morning at an obscure point on the planet if not given directions? Anyone who drove up at the right time and looked remotely capable of running got an invitation to join us.
Finding a compatible group of runners to train with is not as simple as it might seem unless you are exceedingly tolerant. Most running groups are “too” something – too fast, too slow, too profane, too sacrilegious, too religious, too political, too polite, too passive, too competitive and so on. So we’ve had a number of folks join us for a period of time and then just disappear. I hope they didn’t find us “too” something, but instead just lost the desire to experience masochism via long runs.
Even though we weren’t an organized group per se, and we didn’t have a name, there were still rules. They were unspoken rules that were closely observed and enforced through profane verbal reprimands. So having said all of that as preamble, I find I’ve reached the bottom of my page and have thereby fulfilled my weekly quota of words. Next week – the rules, provided I can remember a few of them. I’ve written all of this on faith that I will remember some of the rules and they will be mildly entertaining.
enclave: a distinct territorial, cultural, or social unit enclosed within or as if within foreign territory
Decades ago, when I was relatively young, I belonged to a group of runners that met each Saturday and Sunday morning at Stone Mountain Park. And with that opening statement I feel that I have already begun to deceive you. The word “group” implies there might have been some organization involved. This is not true. We had a saying – “the only rule is there AIN’T no rules!”
And the first statement is also incorrect because it is stated in the past tense as if the group no longer exists. The group still exists, but it is a mere shadow of its former self. We once had at least 10 showing up each morning and sometimes as many as 20 or more. Alas, the kids grow up and the parents grow old. We now average 2 or 3 each morning, and occasionally it is just me.
The title of this post is also misleading. There never was a name for this group of runners. Many names were proposed over the years, some of them discussed seriously, but as good-humored anarchists we eventually shouted all of them down, but only after ridiculing the proposer, his/her spouse/partner/significant other, kids (if any), domicile, pets, and manner of transportation.
The only thing we had in common was that we chose to collect at the same place and time to run each weekend. Most had a ball sport somewhere in their background; I may have been the only one who did not play with balls in high school and college, but we had all come around to distance running as our chosen avocation as young (mentally and emotionally immature) adults.
We had representatives from both genders and multiple ethnic groups. Each of us had been invited by a member or referred to the group by a neighbor or friend, or the friend of a friend who knew of this group who ran at Stone Mountain Park. We welcomed all who came, and excluded no-one, but how else would you find us at 0730 on a weekend morning at an obscure point on the planet if not given directions? Anyone who drove up at the right time and looked remotely capable of running got an invitation to join us.
Finding a compatible group of runners to train with is not as simple as it might seem unless you are exceedingly tolerant. Most running groups are “too” something – too fast, too slow, too profane, too sacrilegious, too religious, too political, too polite, too passive, too competitive and so on. So we’ve had a number of folks join us for a period of time and then just disappear. I hope they didn’t find us “too” something, but instead just lost the desire to experience masochism via long runs.
Even though we weren’t an organized group per se, and we didn’t have a name, there were still rules. They were unspoken rules that were closely observed and enforced through profane verbal reprimands. So having said all of that as preamble, I find I’ve reached the bottom of my page and have thereby fulfilled my weekly quota of words. Next week – the rules, provided I can remember a few of them. I’ve written all of this on faith that I will remember some of the rules and they will be mildly entertaining.
Wednesday, September 14, 2011
Stock Market Crash (2011)
A young acquaintance of mine admitted to being amused by the most recent (ongoing) stock market crash of August 08-10, 2011. I found little amusing in the crash and felt his statement was callous.
Many of us have been working since dirt was invented and are still working to acquire a nest egg that we can retire on. A sizeable percentage of that nest egg just disappeared. I’ve been working since 1967 (44 years) and fulltime since 1974 (37 years). After a lifetime of what feels like indentured servitude this stock market crash may have just sentenced me to several more years of hard labor. He finds this funny? I don’t.
A great many others, like his parents, have been retired for several years and are relying on the income from the assets it took them a lifetime of work to acquire. A significant percentage of these assets disappeared over a matter of days. His parents may now find it necessary to reenter the workforce at a time when the unemployment rate is 9.1%. Finding a job when you are in your 60’s in this job market will not be easy. They will be lucky to find jobs as baggers at Kroger. I don’t find that amusing either.
BAH!
Many of us have been working since dirt was invented and are still working to acquire a nest egg that we can retire on. A sizeable percentage of that nest egg just disappeared. I’ve been working since 1967 (44 years) and fulltime since 1974 (37 years). After a lifetime of what feels like indentured servitude this stock market crash may have just sentenced me to several more years of hard labor. He finds this funny? I don’t.
A great many others, like his parents, have been retired for several years and are relying on the income from the assets it took them a lifetime of work to acquire. A significant percentage of these assets disappeared over a matter of days. His parents may now find it necessary to reenter the workforce at a time when the unemployment rate is 9.1%. Finding a job when you are in your 60’s in this job market will not be easy. They will be lucky to find jobs as baggers at Kroger. I don’t find that amusing either.
BAH!
Friday, September 9, 2011
Ben Franklin Epitaph
Again, another tidbit from the book I recently finished –
Benjamin Franklin wrote an epitaph for his gravestone in 1728 when he was 22 years old.
As his death approached in 1790 at the age of 84 he directed that his gravestone read
“Benjamin and Deborah Franklin”
and nothing more than that.
Tom
August 2011
Benjamin Franklin wrote an epitaph for his gravestone in 1728 when he was 22 years old.
The body of
B. Franklin, Printer
(Like the Cover of an Old Book
Its Contents torn Out
And Stript of its Lettering and Gilding)
Lies Here, Food for Worms.
But the Work shall not be Lost;
For it will (as he Believ'd) Appear once More
In a New and More Elegant Edition
Revised and Corrected
By the Author.
As his death approached in 1790 at the age of 84 he directed that his gravestone read
“Benjamin and Deborah Franklin”
and nothing more than that.
Tom
August 2011
Thursday, September 1, 2011
Ben Franklin at Retirement
I got tickled today by a Benjamin Franklin quote I came across in the book, The First American: The Life and Times of Benjamin Franklin by H. W. Brands.
Benjamin Franklin retired from the printing business in 1748 at the age of 42. He wrote the following to his friend Cadwallader Colden.
"I am settling my old accounts and hope soon to be quite a master of my own time, and no longer (as the song has it) at every one's call but my own . . . I am in a fair way of having no other tasks than such as I shall like to give my self, and of enjoying what I look upon as a great happiness, leisure to read, study, make experiments, and converse at large with such ingenious and worthy men as are pleased to honour me with their friendship or acquaintance, on such points as may produce something for the common benefit of mankind, uninterrupted by the little cares and fatigues of business."
I don't feel compelled to produce something for the common benefit of mankind, but the rest of it sounds pretty good to me.
Young folks may not appreciate Ben's sentiment, but I expect the retired and nearly retired will.
To work as I wish, or not at all
To be the master of my own time
To associate with people of my choosing
To read, ponder, wander, and pursue whatever interests me
To be free of the everyday hassles and aggravations of the work world
It would be peace, harmony, bliss, ecstasy, heaven
Tom
August 2011
Benjamin Franklin retired from the printing business in 1748 at the age of 42. He wrote the following to his friend Cadwallader Colden.
"I am settling my old accounts and hope soon to be quite a master of my own time, and no longer (as the song has it) at every one's call but my own . . . I am in a fair way of having no other tasks than such as I shall like to give my self, and of enjoying what I look upon as a great happiness, leisure to read, study, make experiments, and converse at large with such ingenious and worthy men as are pleased to honour me with their friendship or acquaintance, on such points as may produce something for the common benefit of mankind, uninterrupted by the little cares and fatigues of business."
I don't feel compelled to produce something for the common benefit of mankind, but the rest of it sounds pretty good to me.
Young folks may not appreciate Ben's sentiment, but I expect the retired and nearly retired will.
To work as I wish, or not at all
To be the master of my own time
To associate with people of my choosing
To read, ponder, wander, and pursue whatever interests me
To be free of the everyday hassles and aggravations of the work world
It would be peace, harmony, bliss, ecstasy, heaven
Tom
August 2011
Thursday, August 25, 2011
Regulations
A collection of thoughts –
We (our government) regulate and legislate way too much. We like to think we believe in freedom, but as a country we don’t behave that way. Through legislation and regulation we attempt to dictate how people live and think. Our government (you and me) tell me what I can and can’t do, and how I have to do it. It seems as if nothing is exempt from government control –alcohol, tobacco, food, medication, plants, animals, buildings, sex, and even our own personal property. We have cabinet level departments to regulate Agriculture, Commerce, Education, Energy, Labor, Transportation, Health and Human Services, Housing and Urban Development, the Treasury, and the Interior. It is no wonder that the growth of our GDP is so low with that much regulation going on. We can’t do anything without filling out some paperwork and getting permission from some bureaucrat who thinks they know our business better than we do. I predict that we will eventually choke on over-regulation by our own government. WE will be our own undoing; probably not during my lifetime, but surely during this century.
To paraphrase a quote by David Starr Jordan (1851-1931)
Wisdom is knowing what to do [or NOT do] next, Skill is knowing how to do it, and Virtue is doing it.
Not only do we over-dictate within our borders, but we also try to influence and impose our way of life on other countries. Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya are the most recent examples. For a supposedly freedom loving country we sure have some imperialistic and dictatorial manners. Our government’s domestic policy and foreign policy is “I know what is best for you and I will make you believe as I do.” I can only figure that this comes from an overinflated sense of self-righteousness about our values, values that we as a country can never come to a concise consensus on. Internationally I think we could exercise a little more MYOB – Mind Your Own Business, or Star Trek’s Prime Directive – no interference with the internal development of alien civilizations. Protect ourselves, yes, but meddle, no. The difficulty is to know where self-protection ends and meddling begins.
“Democracy consists of choosing your dictators after they’ve told you what you think it is you want to hear” – Alan Coren (1938-2007)
I am not proposing sedition or treason against our government. I am simply proposing that we as a collection of people, that collection being known as a government, show a little restraint. We should not be using our government as the solution to all things. We should be careful when using our government to impose our will on others, both inside and outside of our borders. The government should only do that which only the government can do. Otherwise, how do we determine where the government’s self-imposed limits should reside? Do we really think the government can limit itself? Exactly where is the government’s limit? That is the problem; the all-powerful government seemingly knows no limit.
“Where the people fear the government you have tyranny. Where the government fears the people you have liberty.” – John Basil Barnhill (1914), though often misattributed to Thomas Jefferson
“That government is best which governs least” – Henry David Thoreau, Civil Disobedience (1849)
I am sorry to sound like some backwoods anti-government extremist. I just wish our government showed a little restraint such that I wasn’t constantly afraid of what the Federal Government is going to do next. They scare me. I’d appreciate some moderation.
Tom
July 2011
We (our government) regulate and legislate way too much. We like to think we believe in freedom, but as a country we don’t behave that way. Through legislation and regulation we attempt to dictate how people live and think. Our government (you and me) tell me what I can and can’t do, and how I have to do it. It seems as if nothing is exempt from government control –alcohol, tobacco, food, medication, plants, animals, buildings, sex, and even our own personal property. We have cabinet level departments to regulate Agriculture, Commerce, Education, Energy, Labor, Transportation, Health and Human Services, Housing and Urban Development, the Treasury, and the Interior. It is no wonder that the growth of our GDP is so low with that much regulation going on. We can’t do anything without filling out some paperwork and getting permission from some bureaucrat who thinks they know our business better than we do. I predict that we will eventually choke on over-regulation by our own government. WE will be our own undoing; probably not during my lifetime, but surely during this century.
To paraphrase a quote by David Starr Jordan (1851-1931)
Wisdom is knowing what to do [or NOT do] next, Skill is knowing how to do it, and Virtue is doing it.
Not only do we over-dictate within our borders, but we also try to influence and impose our way of life on other countries. Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya are the most recent examples. For a supposedly freedom loving country we sure have some imperialistic and dictatorial manners. Our government’s domestic policy and foreign policy is “I know what is best for you and I will make you believe as I do.” I can only figure that this comes from an overinflated sense of self-righteousness about our values, values that we as a country can never come to a concise consensus on. Internationally I think we could exercise a little more MYOB – Mind Your Own Business, or Star Trek’s Prime Directive – no interference with the internal development of alien civilizations. Protect ourselves, yes, but meddle, no. The difficulty is to know where self-protection ends and meddling begins.
“Democracy consists of choosing your dictators after they’ve told you what you think it is you want to hear” – Alan Coren (1938-2007)
I am not proposing sedition or treason against our government. I am simply proposing that we as a collection of people, that collection being known as a government, show a little restraint. We should not be using our government as the solution to all things. We should be careful when using our government to impose our will on others, both inside and outside of our borders. The government should only do that which only the government can do. Otherwise, how do we determine where the government’s self-imposed limits should reside? Do we really think the government can limit itself? Exactly where is the government’s limit? That is the problem; the all-powerful government seemingly knows no limit.
“Where the people fear the government you have tyranny. Where the government fears the people you have liberty.” – John Basil Barnhill (1914), though often misattributed to Thomas Jefferson
“That government is best which governs least” – Henry David Thoreau, Civil Disobedience (1849)
I am sorry to sound like some backwoods anti-government extremist. I just wish our government showed a little restraint such that I wasn’t constantly afraid of what the Federal Government is going to do next. They scare me. I’d appreciate some moderation.
Tom
July 2011
Wednesday, August 17, 2011
Exclude
Like all of the other posts, this is for Alice, Luke, and any players to be named later –
Longtime readers have probably noticed that I like to collect inspirational quotes. I like them because they are concise and they cut to the heart of a matter. They help me regulate my daily behavior by serving as my rules for the road. As situations arise the pithy statements come to mind, and I know what I should do, and must do, rather than what I might be inclined to do. The Serenity Prayer, the Boy Scout Law, the lyrics to the Impossible Dream, and many others guide me. And so today’s posting is about yet another quote from my personal collection of favorites.
“The ugliest word in the English language is . . . exclusive.”
Carl Sandburg (1878-1967)
(Documentation of this quote is exceedingly thin. I’d love to have a reputable source to back it up.)
That is the essential point of a sermon I delivered to Ann and John repeatedly as they were growing up. It probably isn’t necessary to expound on that quote. If you extrapolate on that word you know what Sandburg meant and can tell where I am headed. Of course I am going to write a few hundred unnecessary words anyway.
Even in elementary school Ann and John could easily understand what it meant to be excluded. They’d experienced it firsthand. It’s unavoidable. It is a common childhood experience for all of us.
We talked about playing on the playground and how there is often a kid on the sidelines who clearly wants to be invited to play. We talked about what it feels like to be that kid, and how I still remember being that excluded kid 30+ years later. We talked about how wonderful it feels to be invited and included. We talked about being brave enough to be a leader and include the excluded at every opportunity.
I suspect everyone can remember painful experiences of exclusion in the past. Children are unintentionally gifted at hurting others through exclusion. Even preschool munchkins practice exclusion when they hoard toys. Only with age do we gain some empathy for others and realize the pain we’ve caused in our past.
In elementary school the point of my sermon was empathy with others; that many of our personal pains come from being excluded, or excluding others. In junior high the exclusion sermon detoured into the specifics of cliques, the haves and the have-nots, the in-crowd and out-crowd. In later years the sermon dealt with society’s ills being rooted in exclusion from food, housing, education, and freedom.
Well, so what? What’s the conclusion to this sermonette? Well yeah, that’s what I’ve been struggling with for over a year now. This missive has been sitting unfinished at the previous paragraph for a year now because I didn’t have any kind of conclusion to offer like I do in most of my pieces, but maybe it is this thought that just struck me:
Including others is the right thing to do and that ought to be enough motivation right there.
But, if you need a more shallow self-serving motivation –
If you include others, you will be popular.
If you exclude others, you will be unpopular.
(Take a moment to think about the truth in that statement.)
Leaders include.
Losers exclude.
I welcome your conclusions.
Tom
July 2011
Longtime readers have probably noticed that I like to collect inspirational quotes. I like them because they are concise and they cut to the heart of a matter. They help me regulate my daily behavior by serving as my rules for the road. As situations arise the pithy statements come to mind, and I know what I should do, and must do, rather than what I might be inclined to do. The Serenity Prayer, the Boy Scout Law, the lyrics to the Impossible Dream, and many others guide me. And so today’s posting is about yet another quote from my personal collection of favorites.
“The ugliest word in the English language is . . . exclusive.”
Carl Sandburg (1878-1967)
(Documentation of this quote is exceedingly thin. I’d love to have a reputable source to back it up.)
That is the essential point of a sermon I delivered to Ann and John repeatedly as they were growing up. It probably isn’t necessary to expound on that quote. If you extrapolate on that word you know what Sandburg meant and can tell where I am headed. Of course I am going to write a few hundred unnecessary words anyway.
Even in elementary school Ann and John could easily understand what it meant to be excluded. They’d experienced it firsthand. It’s unavoidable. It is a common childhood experience for all of us.
We talked about playing on the playground and how there is often a kid on the sidelines who clearly wants to be invited to play. We talked about what it feels like to be that kid, and how I still remember being that excluded kid 30+ years later. We talked about how wonderful it feels to be invited and included. We talked about being brave enough to be a leader and include the excluded at every opportunity.
I suspect everyone can remember painful experiences of exclusion in the past. Children are unintentionally gifted at hurting others through exclusion. Even preschool munchkins practice exclusion when they hoard toys. Only with age do we gain some empathy for others and realize the pain we’ve caused in our past.
In elementary school the point of my sermon was empathy with others; that many of our personal pains come from being excluded, or excluding others. In junior high the exclusion sermon detoured into the specifics of cliques, the haves and the have-nots, the in-crowd and out-crowd. In later years the sermon dealt with society’s ills being rooted in exclusion from food, housing, education, and freedom.
Well, so what? What’s the conclusion to this sermonette? Well yeah, that’s what I’ve been struggling with for over a year now. This missive has been sitting unfinished at the previous paragraph for a year now because I didn’t have any kind of conclusion to offer like I do in most of my pieces, but maybe it is this thought that just struck me:
Including others is the right thing to do and that ought to be enough motivation right there.
But, if you need a more shallow self-serving motivation –
If you include others, you will be popular.
If you exclude others, you will be unpopular.
(Take a moment to think about the truth in that statement.)
Leaders include.
Losers exclude.
I welcome your conclusions.
Tom
July 2011
Wednesday, August 10, 2011
Saying Goodbye
I recently visited my mother in Iowa. (July 7-10, 2011) Inevitably, at the end of the visit it came time to say goodbye. Mom is 88 and I am 59. We both know our time on the planet is finite and dwindling. Each time we say goodbye we know there is an increasing probability that this is our last moment together. It’s not a pleasant notion, but a realist has to acknowledge the truth, and we did so during our conversations.
And so our most recent moment of farewell was a little longer than the previous one. We hugged each other a bit more tightly, and a little longer, and we cried a little more than we used to. What bemused me was our mutual attempt to avoid the tears. Why do we do that?
It’s not like we were trying to hide the fact that we love each other; I did travel a thousand miles to see her and we were, in fact, hugging each other. Not crying, or crying a little less, doesn’t really make the moment any less emotionally painful. Saying goodbye to Mom hurts me whether I cry or not, and whether I cry or not doesn’t make it any easier on her either. She’d be hurt if I didn’t cry and didn’t care. So I don’t get it. Why don’t we just cry and express the way we feel?
Right now I miss Mom because of the distance that separates us.
Someday we are going to miss each other for another reason.
I hope it isn’t anytime soon.
And so our most recent moment of farewell was a little longer than the previous one. We hugged each other a bit more tightly, and a little longer, and we cried a little more than we used to. What bemused me was our mutual attempt to avoid the tears. Why do we do that?
It’s not like we were trying to hide the fact that we love each other; I did travel a thousand miles to see her and we were, in fact, hugging each other. Not crying, or crying a little less, doesn’t really make the moment any less emotionally painful. Saying goodbye to Mom hurts me whether I cry or not, and whether I cry or not doesn’t make it any easier on her either. She’d be hurt if I didn’t cry and didn’t care. So I don’t get it. Why don’t we just cry and express the way we feel?
Right now I miss Mom because of the distance that separates us.
Someday we are going to miss each other for another reason.
I hope it isn’t anytime soon.
Thursday, August 4, 2011
Ann Asks: The old topsail routine
Oh good grief. How am I going to cover this one? No one summer was like another. Each one seemed to be different. One summer it was just the two grandmothers who went with us. Then Bill joined us the next summer. Then Carl joined us the summer after that. Then several years later Carl died and it was back to just Bill and the grandmothers. And then it all ended when you left for West Point and John’s coach said, “Swimmers of John’s caliber don’t take vacations’.
Jean should be writing this one as she was the brains and labor of the outfit. She knows all the particulars. I was just a driver.
Here goes nothing –
By the summer of 1989 both Ann and John were involved in recreation league swim meets in Gwinnett County, so the kids had obligations to swim in individual events or relays at the Gwinnett County Swim League Championship meet. Our vacation to the beach was always scheduled after that final swim meet. We felt that if you joined a team, then that was a commitment that had to be fulfilled to the very end.
During the weeks prior to our departure Jean would gather groceries and all the other gear we needed for the beach. Bill did the same in Raleigh. Eventually Jean developed a document detailing all the stuff we needed to bring, which things were ours to bring, and which were Bill’s. Since Bill had only a 3 hour drive from Raleigh, and Grandma Millen (Gladys) was his only passenger, he could carry more groceries and could handle the items that required refrigeration. He could also arrange to arrive around check-in time, get the key, and buy any last-minute grocery items.
The swim meet was a two-day meet encompassing all-day Friday and all-day Saturday. Collecting all that gear and packing it in two cars Saturday morning, after spending the entire previous day outside at a swim meet, and staring at another whole day of the same in front of you, well, let’s just say it is an exercise of patience and endurance. Keep in mind the Mom and I were both stroke and turn officials during many of these meets and Mom was the President of the swim team for several of these years, so our days were full of responsibility. We also had two kids to parent and two relatives to host. It was a labor of love. Hard work, but great fun too.
We attended the championship swim meet until its conclusion late Saturday afternoon and then the 6 of us (Carl, Grandma Reva Pedelty, Jean, Tom, Ann, and John) piled into two cars for the 8 hour drive to Topsail Island. We left directly from the swim meet for Topsail Island.
The route was I-20 east from Atlanta to Florence, SC, and then US 76 over to Wilmington NC. US 76 seemed like backcountry roads compared to the interstate, but it was interesting to see all the homesteads along the way and the changing geography and flora as we approached the coast.
Each morning at the beach I’d get up and go for a run. My memory fades about having company during my runs. I bet Ann joined me some when she reached high school. John probably slept in most of the time as he had been doing two-a-days and welcomed the break. We’d eat cereal for breakfast and check the waves and the tides chart while we were eating. There would be a long discussion of when the best waves would occur. Then we would wait an hour (to placate the gods who created the eating and swimming myth) before going out to hit the waves.
A brilliantly composed piece about playing in the Big Waves was posted on July 27, 2009 and I won’t repeat that here, but feel free to click on the link and re-read it. The essence is this – Ann, John, and I (Tom) would stay out in the waves until we were exhausted from the effort or about to burn to a crisp.
Mom (Jean) and Grandma Pedelty (Reva) would spend the morning walking up and down the beach looking for sharks teeth. Carl did the same and when he got back to the beach house he would humorously pretend it was a competition on quantity, quality, or size, whichever category would permit him to claim victory. Bill would alternate between body surfing, hunting for sharks teeth, and reading books. Grandma Millen (Gladys) would mostly sit on the porch reading books and watching the rest of us frolic, and occasionally wander down to the waterline to check the water temperature.
Exhaustion seemed to guarantee that everyone was back in the house by lunchtime. It was pretty rare that we had to hunt people down for meals. There were plenty of adults to lend a hand so lunch was prepared in short order, devoured in short order, and cleaned up in short order.
After lunch it was naptime, or at the very least a quiet time. There is something about the beach and swimming fatigue that guarantees great sleeping, even in the middle of the day. After naptime we repeated our morning activity of hitting the beach. Sometimes the moms would go shopping or hit the turtle museum.
Again, exhaustion guaranteed that everyone was in the house in time for dinner. There were some adult beverages in moderation before dinner. The water was undrinkable unless you turned it into lemonade, so there was pink lemonade for the kids. We usually ate out a couple times during the week to give the moms a break.
Everyone welcomed bedtime. I never slept so well in my life. I was so tired from all that time in the ocean and the run in the morning. Sleeping was wonderful; and no worries while I was at the beach. The real world didn’t exist. Ecstasy. Heaven. Nirvana. Bliss. Yeah, it was all waiting for me back in ATL, but for one brief shining moment, none of it existed.
And in the morning, we did it all over again.
Postscripts –
1. One year when Carl wasn’t with us we tried doing the trip in one car, but that was pretty brutal on everyone. The space in the car was much too tight. We never did that again.
2. One year when Ann did not have afternoon relays Ann, Jean, and Grandma Pedelty headed off to the beach at midday leaving John and me at the swim meet. This was before John was old enough to drive, so I drove all 8 hours and arrived at the beach after midnight. John and I howled at the moon during the drive that night; lots of fun.
3. John’s birthday fell such that he was always just days into his two-year age group, or in the middle of his age group, at the time of the Georgia State Long Course Meet. This meet was the qualifying meet for the Zone team. Members of the Zone team were held in high regard amongst the swimming community, which is to say that you were officially hot stuff.
Not that the Zone team was one of John’s goals, but this one year John “finally” qualified for Zones at the state meet in spite of his age. At the close of the meet the officials cornered John on the pool deck needing an immediate commitment to the Zone team/meet which was to be held the first week in August. The meet conflicted with our vacation week at the beach. John never hesitated. John chose the beach over the Zone team.
Jean should be writing this one as she was the brains and labor of the outfit. She knows all the particulars. I was just a driver.
Here goes nothing –
By the summer of 1989 both Ann and John were involved in recreation league swim meets in Gwinnett County, so the kids had obligations to swim in individual events or relays at the Gwinnett County Swim League Championship meet. Our vacation to the beach was always scheduled after that final swim meet. We felt that if you joined a team, then that was a commitment that had to be fulfilled to the very end.
During the weeks prior to our departure Jean would gather groceries and all the other gear we needed for the beach. Bill did the same in Raleigh. Eventually Jean developed a document detailing all the stuff we needed to bring, which things were ours to bring, and which were Bill’s. Since Bill had only a 3 hour drive from Raleigh, and Grandma Millen (Gladys) was his only passenger, he could carry more groceries and could handle the items that required refrigeration. He could also arrange to arrive around check-in time, get the key, and buy any last-minute grocery items.
The swim meet was a two-day meet encompassing all-day Friday and all-day Saturday. Collecting all that gear and packing it in two cars Saturday morning, after spending the entire previous day outside at a swim meet, and staring at another whole day of the same in front of you, well, let’s just say it is an exercise of patience and endurance. Keep in mind the Mom and I were both stroke and turn officials during many of these meets and Mom was the President of the swim team for several of these years, so our days were full of responsibility. We also had two kids to parent and two relatives to host. It was a labor of love. Hard work, but great fun too.
We attended the championship swim meet until its conclusion late Saturday afternoon and then the 6 of us (Carl, Grandma Reva Pedelty, Jean, Tom, Ann, and John) piled into two cars for the 8 hour drive to Topsail Island. We left directly from the swim meet for Topsail Island.
The route was I-20 east from Atlanta to Florence, SC, and then US 76 over to Wilmington NC. US 76 seemed like backcountry roads compared to the interstate, but it was interesting to see all the homesteads along the way and the changing geography and flora as we approached the coast.
Each morning at the beach I’d get up and go for a run. My memory fades about having company during my runs. I bet Ann joined me some when she reached high school. John probably slept in most of the time as he had been doing two-a-days and welcomed the break. We’d eat cereal for breakfast and check the waves and the tides chart while we were eating. There would be a long discussion of when the best waves would occur. Then we would wait an hour (to placate the gods who created the eating and swimming myth) before going out to hit the waves.
A brilliantly composed piece about playing in the Big Waves was posted on July 27, 2009 and I won’t repeat that here, but feel free to click on the link and re-read it. The essence is this – Ann, John, and I (Tom) would stay out in the waves until we were exhausted from the effort or about to burn to a crisp.
Mom (Jean) and Grandma Pedelty (Reva) would spend the morning walking up and down the beach looking for sharks teeth. Carl did the same and when he got back to the beach house he would humorously pretend it was a competition on quantity, quality, or size, whichever category would permit him to claim victory. Bill would alternate between body surfing, hunting for sharks teeth, and reading books. Grandma Millen (Gladys) would mostly sit on the porch reading books and watching the rest of us frolic, and occasionally wander down to the waterline to check the water temperature.
Exhaustion seemed to guarantee that everyone was back in the house by lunchtime. It was pretty rare that we had to hunt people down for meals. There were plenty of adults to lend a hand so lunch was prepared in short order, devoured in short order, and cleaned up in short order.
After lunch it was naptime, or at the very least a quiet time. There is something about the beach and swimming fatigue that guarantees great sleeping, even in the middle of the day. After naptime we repeated our morning activity of hitting the beach. Sometimes the moms would go shopping or hit the turtle museum.
Again, exhaustion guaranteed that everyone was in the house in time for dinner. There were some adult beverages in moderation before dinner. The water was undrinkable unless you turned it into lemonade, so there was pink lemonade for the kids. We usually ate out a couple times during the week to give the moms a break.
Everyone welcomed bedtime. I never slept so well in my life. I was so tired from all that time in the ocean and the run in the morning. Sleeping was wonderful; and no worries while I was at the beach. The real world didn’t exist. Ecstasy. Heaven. Nirvana. Bliss. Yeah, it was all waiting for me back in ATL, but for one brief shining moment, none of it existed.
And in the morning, we did it all over again.
Postscripts –
1. One year when Carl wasn’t with us we tried doing the trip in one car, but that was pretty brutal on everyone. The space in the car was much too tight. We never did that again.
2. One year when Ann did not have afternoon relays Ann, Jean, and Grandma Pedelty headed off to the beach at midday leaving John and me at the swim meet. This was before John was old enough to drive, so I drove all 8 hours and arrived at the beach after midnight. John and I howled at the moon during the drive that night; lots of fun.
3. John’s birthday fell such that he was always just days into his two-year age group, or in the middle of his age group, at the time of the Georgia State Long Course Meet. This meet was the qualifying meet for the Zone team. Members of the Zone team were held in high regard amongst the swimming community, which is to say that you were officially hot stuff.
Not that the Zone team was one of John’s goals, but this one year John “finally” qualified for Zones at the state meet in spite of his age. At the close of the meet the officials cornered John on the pool deck needing an immediate commitment to the Zone team/meet which was to be held the first week in August. The meet conflicted with our vacation week at the beach. John never hesitated. John chose the beach over the Zone team.
Wednesday, August 3, 2011
Ann Asks: That goose at your first apt
At last, a short easy one which I will make difficult. My first apartment was in Marion Iowa in 1974-1975. The goose was at my second apartment at 6355 Memorial Drive, Stone Mountain, GA. At first I had a one bedroom apartment there, and then when Jean and I got married I got a 2 bedroom apartment on the third floor (big stuff at the time) in the same complex. (Too much information)
There was a small man-made lake in the center of the complex and a collection of 10-15 geese that spent the year there. There was also a day-old bread store not too far away that sold loaves of bread for next to nothing, so for cheap entertainment I would occasionally buy a day-old Twinkie for me, and a day-old loaf of bread for the geese.
I’d stand on the porch and toss out chunks of bread onto the shoreline, or fly entire slices of bread out into the lake like Frisbees. At first the geese would fly over to my porch when I started tossing bread out. Then it became such a habit that they would fly over when I just stepped out on the porch. Eventually they came over when I just opened the patio door. They knew day-old bread was in the offing. (Offing = the near or foreseeable future, look it up)
One of the geese was particularly aggressive. If I went out on shoreline he would come right up to me while the others kept their distance. If I sat down he would climb on my legs. If I lay down he would climb on my chest. It was difficult to keep my hands, and the bread, out of this guy’s snapping beak.
Sometimes I’d finish distributing a loaf and head to my car to run errands. This aggressive goose would follow me up to the parking lot on the other side of the apartment building and try get in the car with me! There were reports that some of the geese had been hit in the parking lot, so I’d lead the goose back to the shoreline where he would be safe, and then run for the car, but he was too fast, I could not shake him.
I think I eventually worked out a successful strategy to get him off my tail, but I can’t recall what it was. My one bedroom apartment was on the first floor and he’d follow me to the door and try to get in the apartment. (Nothing better than having goose crap all around the entrance to your apartment) The two bedroom apartment was on the third floor, and the goose couldn’t do stairs, so I think my escape strategy involved the stairs.
Not my best work, but there it is.
There was a small man-made lake in the center of the complex and a collection of 10-15 geese that spent the year there. There was also a day-old bread store not too far away that sold loaves of bread for next to nothing, so for cheap entertainment I would occasionally buy a day-old Twinkie for me, and a day-old loaf of bread for the geese.
I’d stand on the porch and toss out chunks of bread onto the shoreline, or fly entire slices of bread out into the lake like Frisbees. At first the geese would fly over to my porch when I started tossing bread out. Then it became such a habit that they would fly over when I just stepped out on the porch. Eventually they came over when I just opened the patio door. They knew day-old bread was in the offing. (Offing = the near or foreseeable future, look it up)
One of the geese was particularly aggressive. If I went out on shoreline he would come right up to me while the others kept their distance. If I sat down he would climb on my legs. If I lay down he would climb on my chest. It was difficult to keep my hands, and the bread, out of this guy’s snapping beak.
Sometimes I’d finish distributing a loaf and head to my car to run errands. This aggressive goose would follow me up to the parking lot on the other side of the apartment building and try get in the car with me! There were reports that some of the geese had been hit in the parking lot, so I’d lead the goose back to the shoreline where he would be safe, and then run for the car, but he was too fast, I could not shake him.
I think I eventually worked out a successful strategy to get him off my tail, but I can’t recall what it was. My one bedroom apartment was on the first floor and he’d follow me to the door and try to get in the apartment. (Nothing better than having goose crap all around the entrance to your apartment) The two bedroom apartment was on the third floor, and the goose couldn’t do stairs, so I think my escape strategy involved the stairs.
Not my best work, but there it is.
Thursday, July 28, 2011
Ann Asks: How you met the Wilsons
Just to set the scene and the chronology – I moved to Atlanta to take the job at Emory in March of 1975. Jean and I married in June of 1976. Jean moved to Atlanta that summer and began teaching at Avondale High School.
The short version:
We met Anne and Earl Wilson through Dolores Hall, a colleague of mine in the Emory University Registrar’s Office. Earl Wilson and Dolores’ husband, Gene Hall, had been fraternity brothers when they were in college at Mercer University. Actually, I think they were all at Mercer at the same time.
The long version:
Shortly after Jean and I married, which coincided with Gene Hall’s 50th birthday, Dolores invited us to spend the weekend at their lake house on Lake Hartwell. The lake house was a long trailer permanently situated in the woods. The Halls had several acres of land at Lake Hartwell that included a log cabin. Jean and I stayed in the log cabin.
Up the hill from the Halls’ trailer was a house owned by the Wilsons. The Halls and the Wilsons have been lifelong friends since their days at Mercer University shortly after WW II. It was their custom to invite each other for drinks before dinner each evening while up at the lake, and sometimes to have dinner together.
The Halls invited us up to the lake to stay in their cabin several times, and on each occasion we would end up having drinks, and possibly dinner, with the Wilsons. Our friendship developed from those visits in the late 1970s. We’ve been good friends for 35 years.
Tom
June 2011
The short version:
We met Anne and Earl Wilson through Dolores Hall, a colleague of mine in the Emory University Registrar’s Office. Earl Wilson and Dolores’ husband, Gene Hall, had been fraternity brothers when they were in college at Mercer University. Actually, I think they were all at Mercer at the same time.
The long version:
Shortly after Jean and I married, which coincided with Gene Hall’s 50th birthday, Dolores invited us to spend the weekend at their lake house on Lake Hartwell. The lake house was a long trailer permanently situated in the woods. The Halls had several acres of land at Lake Hartwell that included a log cabin. Jean and I stayed in the log cabin.
Up the hill from the Halls’ trailer was a house owned by the Wilsons. The Halls and the Wilsons have been lifelong friends since their days at Mercer University shortly after WW II. It was their custom to invite each other for drinks before dinner each evening while up at the lake, and sometimes to have dinner together.
The Halls invited us up to the lake to stay in their cabin several times, and on each occasion we would end up having drinks, and possibly dinner, with the Wilsons. Our friendship developed from those visits in the late 1970s. We’ve been good friends for 35 years.
Tom
June 2011
Wednesday, July 20, 2011
Ann Asks: How you asked Mom to marry you
This one is embarrassing and painful to tell. I was 23 years old. Please remember that throughout the story; I was 23 and didn’t know any better. I was immature. The decision to marry Mom (Jean) isn’t the issue. It was a good decision. How I proposed is the issue.
From June 1974 through February 1975 I worked as the sole computer programmer and de facto director of the computer operations for Frank N. Magid Associates in Marion, Iowa. At that time the firm was engaged in marketing research and I was writing a computer system for statistical analysis. What Microsoft Excel Pivot-tables can do in seconds took me almost a year to program in 1974.
During this time Jean was teaching math at Anamosa High School in Anamosa, Iowa. Jean had a second floor apartment in a house in Anamosa. I had an apartment in Marion I shared with my Coe College running buddy Mark Robertson. We continued to date making frequent trips (30 minute drive) back and forth to see each other on weekends.
In March of 1975 I took the job as Assistant Registrar at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. I had a salary of $8,400 per year. My primary assignment was computer operations, all of which is avoiding the embarrassing part of the story.
I was 23 years old and had never been away from home. Yes, I went to college and lived in the dorms, but I was never more than 2 miles from home. Yes, I graduated and got a job and an apartment in Marion, Iowa, but I was still only about 5 miles from home. I really wanted to prove to myself that I could live by myself independently. That was my thinking at the time. So I took the job in Atlanta. It was selfish of me. I am sure I hurt Jean’s feelings and totally confused my parents. My dad kept asking me, “Are you sure you know what you are doing?” I said I did, but I now know that I didn’t.
Jean and I sent letters back and forth between Anamosa and Atlanta. We also recorded messages on cassette tapes which we mailed back and forth. Occasionally these got crushed by the United States Postal Service. Phone calls were rare as long distance charges in those days were quite expensive.
Jean spent a fair number of weekends at my parent’s house in Cedar Rapids as they had become good friends. I spent my weekends reading science fiction books and being lonely in my Stone Mountain apartment. After six months alone in Atlanta I declared myself thoroughly independent, but totally miserable.
So I finally got up the guts to ask Jean to marry me one weekend in August, but realized she was visiting her sister in Iowa City. I didn’t have enough money to fly to Iowa to ask her in person, and driving 18 hours each way didn’t seem reasonable either. Note well that some segments of the interstate road system were not yet complete. So I tracked down Rachel’s phone number and called her. I was 23, okay? Keep remembering that.
I got Jean on the phone and tried to make a series of statements that were so obvious and true that the only logical conclusion would be that we should get married. I didn’t want “No” for an answer. I wanted her to see that we were right for each other and that she simply must say “Yes”.
It was too much like a mathematical theorem that didn't make sense, and it wasn’t making any sense to Jean as I built up to the final conclusion. Jean was listening to my sales pitch and thinking that I was breaking up with her, and the whole time I was thinking I was making a good argument for marriage. So when I finally concluded with “Will you marry me?” Jean was confused and shocked. There was this long silence on the phone and I was scared that she was going to say “No”. So eventually I filled the silence with “If you’d like some time to think about it that would be okay.”
I guess the correct approach was “I love you. Will you marry me?”, but I didn’t think that was a compelling argument. I thought that if my only asset was love, then I was a pretty poor candidate for a partner in life. Oh well, hindsight is pretty good from here. John Lennon says, “All You Need Is Love”. I thought that was a given, like in math, and didn’t need to be said, but clearly I should have stated it up front.
After waiting an eternity for an answer on the phone, long distance no less, Jean eventually said yes, but it didn’t come out clearly amongst the sobbing and crying, so I asked her to say it again just to be sure.
Over the next 10 months we only saw each other a few times, like at Christmas and spring break. We got married on June 26, 1976. Nowadays our longest separations are when she leaves me to go see our grandchildren!
That’s my version of events.
Tom
June 2011
From June 1974 through February 1975 I worked as the sole computer programmer and de facto director of the computer operations for Frank N. Magid Associates in Marion, Iowa. At that time the firm was engaged in marketing research and I was writing a computer system for statistical analysis. What Microsoft Excel Pivot-tables can do in seconds took me almost a year to program in 1974.
During this time Jean was teaching math at Anamosa High School in Anamosa, Iowa. Jean had a second floor apartment in a house in Anamosa. I had an apartment in Marion I shared with my Coe College running buddy Mark Robertson. We continued to date making frequent trips (30 minute drive) back and forth to see each other on weekends.
In March of 1975 I took the job as Assistant Registrar at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. I had a salary of $8,400 per year. My primary assignment was computer operations, all of which is avoiding the embarrassing part of the story.
I was 23 years old and had never been away from home. Yes, I went to college and lived in the dorms, but I was never more than 2 miles from home. Yes, I graduated and got a job and an apartment in Marion, Iowa, but I was still only about 5 miles from home. I really wanted to prove to myself that I could live by myself independently. That was my thinking at the time. So I took the job in Atlanta. It was selfish of me. I am sure I hurt Jean’s feelings and totally confused my parents. My dad kept asking me, “Are you sure you know what you are doing?” I said I did, but I now know that I didn’t.
Jean and I sent letters back and forth between Anamosa and Atlanta. We also recorded messages on cassette tapes which we mailed back and forth. Occasionally these got crushed by the United States Postal Service. Phone calls were rare as long distance charges in those days were quite expensive.
Jean spent a fair number of weekends at my parent’s house in Cedar Rapids as they had become good friends. I spent my weekends reading science fiction books and being lonely in my Stone Mountain apartment. After six months alone in Atlanta I declared myself thoroughly independent, but totally miserable.
So I finally got up the guts to ask Jean to marry me one weekend in August, but realized she was visiting her sister in Iowa City. I didn’t have enough money to fly to Iowa to ask her in person, and driving 18 hours each way didn’t seem reasonable either. Note well that some segments of the interstate road system were not yet complete. So I tracked down Rachel’s phone number and called her. I was 23, okay? Keep remembering that.
I got Jean on the phone and tried to make a series of statements that were so obvious and true that the only logical conclusion would be that we should get married. I didn’t want “No” for an answer. I wanted her to see that we were right for each other and that she simply must say “Yes”.
It was too much like a mathematical theorem that didn't make sense, and it wasn’t making any sense to Jean as I built up to the final conclusion. Jean was listening to my sales pitch and thinking that I was breaking up with her, and the whole time I was thinking I was making a good argument for marriage. So when I finally concluded with “Will you marry me?” Jean was confused and shocked. There was this long silence on the phone and I was scared that she was going to say “No”. So eventually I filled the silence with “If you’d like some time to think about it that would be okay.”
I guess the correct approach was “I love you. Will you marry me?”, but I didn’t think that was a compelling argument. I thought that if my only asset was love, then I was a pretty poor candidate for a partner in life. Oh well, hindsight is pretty good from here. John Lennon says, “All You Need Is Love”. I thought that was a given, like in math, and didn’t need to be said, but clearly I should have stated it up front.
After waiting an eternity for an answer on the phone, long distance no less, Jean eventually said yes, but it didn’t come out clearly amongst the sobbing and crying, so I asked her to say it again just to be sure.
Over the next 10 months we only saw each other a few times, like at Christmas and spring break. We got married on June 26, 1976. Nowadays our longest separations are when she leaves me to go see our grandchildren!
That’s my version of events.
Tom
June 2011
Wednesday, July 13, 2011
Ann Asks: How you and Mom met
This is a tough one. Memory fades over time. I had to ask Mom (Jean) for help to get this one right. (Any errors are mine.) We just celebrated our 35th wedding anniversary on June 26, 2011, so I suppose this one is worth revisiting.
Jean and I both went to Coe College. Jean started in the fall of 1969 and I started in the fall of 1970. Coe had a single computer course at that time, a time of punched cards and the IBM 1130 computer. I think Jean and I took the sole computer course in opposite semesters during the 1970-1971 academic year. Jean might have taken the course the year before. The point is we didn’t meet in class. We did have a couple math courses together later on, but that isn’t where we met.
It was the next academic year, during the fall of 1971 that we met. Jean was a junior and I was a sophomore. After having taken the computer class and doing well in it, Jean had gotten a job (work/study program?) operating the computer at night in the computer center. Students in the computer class would punch their programs into paper cards and submit them to Jean to be run through the computer. Jean operated the computer, cleared jams in the card reader, aborted programs that hung in infinite loops, and managed the line printer.
C. R. (Chuck) Nicolaysen was Registrar, Director of the Computer Center (a two room operation) and also taught some math classes as he was an ABD (all but dissertation) PHD candidate in mathematics. Nicolaysen was also coaching the distance guys on the track team and I’d been pestering the Registrar’s Office for a part-time job. Eventually Nicolaysen gave me a job as a night time computer operator and later as a tutor for the students taking the computer class. So Jean and I met when she was operating the computer at night and I was tutoring the computer students.
First Date
Jean says this was January 21, 1972 – her father’s birthday. Once again, Nicolaysen is involved. As I said before, Nicolaysen was coaching the distance guys on the track team. January was the beginning of the indoor track season, though the distance guys run year-round. Nicolaysen invited the distance guys over to his house for pizza and beer on January 21, 1972. What destitute underage college kid doesn’t like free beer and pizza? Count me in, Coach!
Nicolaysen had been gently twisting my arm to be the date of his college-age niece who was visiting that weekend. I was in the midst of gathering the courage to ask Jean to the pizza function during this period of verbal arm twisting. Eventually I persuaded freshman half-miler Ed Trimble to take on the role of host to the niece and convinced Jean to come with me. The rest is history, or I should say, the entire story is history.
Jean and I both went to Coe College. Jean started in the fall of 1969 and I started in the fall of 1970. Coe had a single computer course at that time, a time of punched cards and the IBM 1130 computer. I think Jean and I took the sole computer course in opposite semesters during the 1970-1971 academic year. Jean might have taken the course the year before. The point is we didn’t meet in class. We did have a couple math courses together later on, but that isn’t where we met.
It was the next academic year, during the fall of 1971 that we met. Jean was a junior and I was a sophomore. After having taken the computer class and doing well in it, Jean had gotten a job (work/study program?) operating the computer at night in the computer center. Students in the computer class would punch their programs into paper cards and submit them to Jean to be run through the computer. Jean operated the computer, cleared jams in the card reader, aborted programs that hung in infinite loops, and managed the line printer.
C. R. (Chuck) Nicolaysen was Registrar, Director of the Computer Center (a two room operation) and also taught some math classes as he was an ABD (all but dissertation) PHD candidate in mathematics. Nicolaysen was also coaching the distance guys on the track team and I’d been pestering the Registrar’s Office for a part-time job. Eventually Nicolaysen gave me a job as a night time computer operator and later as a tutor for the students taking the computer class. So Jean and I met when she was operating the computer at night and I was tutoring the computer students.
First Date
Jean says this was January 21, 1972 – her father’s birthday. Once again, Nicolaysen is involved. As I said before, Nicolaysen was coaching the distance guys on the track team. January was the beginning of the indoor track season, though the distance guys run year-round. Nicolaysen invited the distance guys over to his house for pizza and beer on January 21, 1972. What destitute underage college kid doesn’t like free beer and pizza? Count me in, Coach!
Nicolaysen had been gently twisting my arm to be the date of his college-age niece who was visiting that weekend. I was in the midst of gathering the courage to ask Jean to the pizza function during this period of verbal arm twisting. Eventually I persuaded freshman half-miler Ed Trimble to take on the role of host to the niece and convinced Jean to come with me. The rest is history, or I should say, the entire story is history.
Wednesday, July 6, 2011
Ann Asks: How you started going to Topsail Island, NC
Our first summer at the beach was in 1985, the year after our fathers died. (Harold Pedelty and Richard Francis Millen) Ann was four years old and John was one. Warren Southerland (running buddy) and Alice Southerland were familiar with Topsail Island, NC through Alice’s family. Alice’s family was from nearby Burgaw, NC, and used to go to Topsail with some frequency.
In 1985 Warren proposed to the core group of running buds that we rent a large beachfront house on Topsail Island for a week together. I think the group was the Carter, Lowrie, Southerland, and Millen couples plus their two kids each. We rented a 6 bedroom house. The adults got the four bedrooms on the main floor and the kids were bunked in the two bedrooms in the basement. (Connected by an outside walkway) I think John stayed in our bedroom because he was so young compared to the other kids. Jennie Southerland may have watched over Ann overnight with the other kids. Each of the four master bedrooms opened onto a large common room and kitchen where we all gathered for meals and beverages.
The idea was the guys would run in the morning before it got really hot, and then everyone would hit the surf throughout the day between meals.
It worked really well and everyone had a great time, but it wasn’t quite as much fun for Jean and I as it was for the other couples. We were the youngest couple and the only ones with munchkins. Ann was 4 and could walk, but wasn’t old enough to swim out in the surf. John was one year old, new to walking, and had to be watched constantly. Both had to be watched every second (a failure on my part) while all the other kids were old enough to take care of themselves. So if Jean wanted to hang-out with the ladies, I had to watch the kids, and if I wanted to body surf with the guys, Jean had to watch the kids.
In the summer of 1986 we rented a house at a New Jersey beach. My brother Bill was living in Trenton and made the arrangements. Brother Al and wife Joan and their munchkins Ida and Ray came. So did my mom. A good time was had by all, but I surely noticed how much colder the water was up in NJ.
One year (1988) we rented a duplex on the beach with the Southerlands and invited the grandmothers to come. Jean’s mom (Reva Pedelty) and my mom (Gladys Millen) came, and Warren’s mom (Billie Southerland) was also there. THAT was a vacation! TWO built-in grandmothers to help watch grandchildren and lend a hand in the kitchen is a REAL vacation.
It was either the next year or the year after that the Southerland’s had had enough of the beach and bowed out. Jean and I still loved Topsail Island, so we invited my brother Bill and Jean’s uncle, Carl Willford, to join us along with the Grandmothers. That remained our annual beach contingent through 1999, our last year at the beach.
Jean went through our inventory of pictures and it looks like we went to the beach in –
85 with the running buddies
86 in NJ with the Millen brothers and grandma M (Gladys)
87 with grandmothers
88 with grandmothers and Southerlands
90 with grandmothers and Bill
91 with grandmothers, Bill and Carl
92 with grandmothers, Bill and Carl
93 with grandmothers, Bill and Carl
95 with grandmothers, Bill and Carl
97 with grandmothers and Bill
98 with grandmothers and Bill
99 with grandmothers and Bill
89 was Jean’s 20th HS reunion in Iowa and Tom’s 15th Coe reunion in Iowa
94 was short trips to Chattanooga aquarium, Rock City, Lookout Mountain, Ruby Falls and Chatooga river rafting
96 was the Olympics in Atlanta (Carl died in December)
In 2000 Ann graduated from high school and headed off for summer training at West Point soon thereafter. Also, John had just finished his first year of high school in 2000 and his Dynamo swim coach, Hugh, said “Swimmers of John’s caliber don’t take vacations.” So Ann’s departure for West Point and John’s swim coach ended our trips to Topsail Beach. At that point our vacations turned into repeated trips to see Ann up at West Point, and following John to swim meets all over America.
In 1985 Warren proposed to the core group of running buds that we rent a large beachfront house on Topsail Island for a week together. I think the group was the Carter, Lowrie, Southerland, and Millen couples plus their two kids each. We rented a 6 bedroom house. The adults got the four bedrooms on the main floor and the kids were bunked in the two bedrooms in the basement. (Connected by an outside walkway) I think John stayed in our bedroom because he was so young compared to the other kids. Jennie Southerland may have watched over Ann overnight with the other kids. Each of the four master bedrooms opened onto a large common room and kitchen where we all gathered for meals and beverages.
The idea was the guys would run in the morning before it got really hot, and then everyone would hit the surf throughout the day between meals.
It worked really well and everyone had a great time, but it wasn’t quite as much fun for Jean and I as it was for the other couples. We were the youngest couple and the only ones with munchkins. Ann was 4 and could walk, but wasn’t old enough to swim out in the surf. John was one year old, new to walking, and had to be watched constantly. Both had to be watched every second (a failure on my part) while all the other kids were old enough to take care of themselves. So if Jean wanted to hang-out with the ladies, I had to watch the kids, and if I wanted to body surf with the guys, Jean had to watch the kids.
In the summer of 1986 we rented a house at a New Jersey beach. My brother Bill was living in Trenton and made the arrangements. Brother Al and wife Joan and their munchkins Ida and Ray came. So did my mom. A good time was had by all, but I surely noticed how much colder the water was up in NJ.
One year (1988) we rented a duplex on the beach with the Southerlands and invited the grandmothers to come. Jean’s mom (Reva Pedelty) and my mom (Gladys Millen) came, and Warren’s mom (Billie Southerland) was also there. THAT was a vacation! TWO built-in grandmothers to help watch grandchildren and lend a hand in the kitchen is a REAL vacation.
It was either the next year or the year after that the Southerland’s had had enough of the beach and bowed out. Jean and I still loved Topsail Island, so we invited my brother Bill and Jean’s uncle, Carl Willford, to join us along with the Grandmothers. That remained our annual beach contingent through 1999, our last year at the beach.
Jean went through our inventory of pictures and it looks like we went to the beach in –
85 with the running buddies
86 in NJ with the Millen brothers and grandma M (Gladys)
87 with grandmothers
88 with grandmothers and Southerlands
90 with grandmothers and Bill
91 with grandmothers, Bill and Carl
92 with grandmothers, Bill and Carl
93 with grandmothers, Bill and Carl
95 with grandmothers, Bill and Carl
97 with grandmothers and Bill
98 with grandmothers and Bill
99 with grandmothers and Bill
89 was Jean’s 20th HS reunion in Iowa and Tom’s 15th Coe reunion in Iowa
94 was short trips to Chattanooga aquarium, Rock City, Lookout Mountain, Ruby Falls and Chatooga river rafting
96 was the Olympics in Atlanta (Carl died in December)
In 2000 Ann graduated from high school and headed off for summer training at West Point soon thereafter. Also, John had just finished his first year of high school in 2000 and his Dynamo swim coach, Hugh, said “Swimmers of John’s caliber don’t take vacations.” So Ann’s departure for West Point and John’s swim coach ended our trips to Topsail Beach. At that point our vacations turned into repeated trips to see Ann up at West Point, and following John to swim meets all over America.
Monday, July 4, 2011
2011 Peachtree Road Race
The first three miles, all downhill, was 21:40. I knew I would pay for it later, but it was so easy and effortless, it seemed illogical to make an effort to go slower. I was just running the speed that the downhill grade permitted.
The second three miles, mostly uphill, was 23:18. It felt like I was paying for all my past sins. I cannot describe the depth and breadth of my agony. My mind was a bottomless pit of despair as I never saw the 4-mile mark, or the 5-mile mark, which might have given me some glimmer of hope that the pain would be finite.
At the 6-mile mark I saw a seeded runner collapsed on the side of the road receiving aid from a medic. I envied him as his misery was over.
Yeah, it was that good.
The mile plus walk/jog uphill to the Marta station was icing on the cake.
The mile minus walk/jog back to the car from the Buckhead station told me I am not in good enough shape to be running a 46:26.
The second three miles, mostly uphill, was 23:18. It felt like I was paying for all my past sins. I cannot describe the depth and breadth of my agony. My mind was a bottomless pit of despair as I never saw the 4-mile mark, or the 5-mile mark, which might have given me some glimmer of hope that the pain would be finite.
At the 6-mile mark I saw a seeded runner collapsed on the side of the road receiving aid from a medic. I envied him as his misery was over.
Yeah, it was that good.
The mile plus walk/jog uphill to the Marta station was icing on the cake.
The mile minus walk/jog back to the car from the Buckhead station told me I am not in good enough shape to be running a 46:26.
Friday, July 1, 2011
Ann Asks: How you and the running guys got together
I started running in the fall of 1967 when I joined my high school cross country team in an effort to get in shape for the wrestling season. The concept of specializing in a single sport in high school and year-round training in that sport was just in its infancy. There were no facilities, clubs, or organizations that offered year-round wrestling for high school kids. I’d heard apocryphal stories about someone who knew someone whose parents had bought wrestling mats for their sons and set up a workout room in their basement, but nobody knew these people firsthand. I didn’t know of anyone with a wrestling mat, and didn’t know anyone who wrestled during the offseason, so I ran when I wasn’t wrestling and wrestled when I wasn’t running. By the time I got to college I’d transferred my fanaticism from wrestling to running, and had colleagues willing to run with me throughout the year.
When I graduated from college in May of 1974 I’d been running for roughly 7 years. I started a job in Marion Iowa on the Monday after graduation. I’d been in organized sports my entire life and suddenly I was without a team and had no sport to pursue. I was lost. I gave up running altogether for several months, and then ran sporadically after that. There weren’t many track or road races for non-elite runners back then, so there didn’t seem to be much point.
I moved to the Atlanta area in 1975 to work for Emory University and it was more of the same. I was listless. All I had was my job, and I didn’t know anybody, and I didn’t have any hobbies. I wasn’t a member of a team anymore, so I didn’t have a team of guys to socialize with.
Nicolaysen, my boss, recognized this fairly quickly and told me I needed to find an avocation to balance against my vocation. My job was good, he said, but I needed to have more than that in my life. He said I needed a diversion, a distraction, a hobby. It could be anything; one thing, or several things would do, but he observed that I had enjoyed running once upon a time, and that might fill the void in my life. So I started going to Stone Mountain Park to run a couple days a week after work.
Running was still a rare activity back in those days, so I rarely saw anyone running at the park, but one evening I saw two guys about my age that appeared to be headed out to run. I asked if I could tag along, and they agreed. They introduced themselves as Greg Jordan and Billy Savage.
I couldn’t keep up because I’d been running so rarely, but they told me they ran every weekday from the same starting point at 5pm and I was welcome to join them any time. I did join them with increasing frequency and was eventually able to keep up and go the entire distance. Over time Greg introduced me to every trail in the 3200 acre park.
Greg and Billy also told me about a group of guys who met at 7:30 on Saturday and Sunday mornings at the park for long runs. Eventually I got up the courage to join these fanatics, and they became my teammates in the running pursuit. Mike Anderson, Ben Burr, Joe Carter, Debbie Carter, Mark Erb, Dave Eve, Mitch Ferrell, Larry Giddings, Marvin Hodge, Greg Jordan, Eugene Klibinoff, Randy Kuykendall, Hal Leeuwenburg, Mike Lowrie, Gordon Maner, Robin Porter, Mike Pratt, Scott Raymond, Jean Richardson, Jesus Romero, Tom Shinnick, Warren Southerland, Dave Stiles, Wes Wessely, Rita Wilhoite, Tim Willis, Gale Wood and a host of high school and college kids have been my training partners and friends over the years.
So now it is 36 years later and I am still running with the Stone Mountain enclave on Saturday and Sunday mornings. We are fewer in number (3-4 most mornings) and less able than before, but our competitive and argumentative natures persist. Actually, we never argued. We simply engaged in enthusiastic discussions and called each other names like “Dumbass”, but we always said it with great affection.
And that’s all I have to say about that.
Tom Millen
June 2011
When I graduated from college in May of 1974 I’d been running for roughly 7 years. I started a job in Marion Iowa on the Monday after graduation. I’d been in organized sports my entire life and suddenly I was without a team and had no sport to pursue. I was lost. I gave up running altogether for several months, and then ran sporadically after that. There weren’t many track or road races for non-elite runners back then, so there didn’t seem to be much point.
I moved to the Atlanta area in 1975 to work for Emory University and it was more of the same. I was listless. All I had was my job, and I didn’t know anybody, and I didn’t have any hobbies. I wasn’t a member of a team anymore, so I didn’t have a team of guys to socialize with.
Nicolaysen, my boss, recognized this fairly quickly and told me I needed to find an avocation to balance against my vocation. My job was good, he said, but I needed to have more than that in my life. He said I needed a diversion, a distraction, a hobby. It could be anything; one thing, or several things would do, but he observed that I had enjoyed running once upon a time, and that might fill the void in my life. So I started going to Stone Mountain Park to run a couple days a week after work.
Running was still a rare activity back in those days, so I rarely saw anyone running at the park, but one evening I saw two guys about my age that appeared to be headed out to run. I asked if I could tag along, and they agreed. They introduced themselves as Greg Jordan and Billy Savage.
I couldn’t keep up because I’d been running so rarely, but they told me they ran every weekday from the same starting point at 5pm and I was welcome to join them any time. I did join them with increasing frequency and was eventually able to keep up and go the entire distance. Over time Greg introduced me to every trail in the 3200 acre park.
Greg and Billy also told me about a group of guys who met at 7:30 on Saturday and Sunday mornings at the park for long runs. Eventually I got up the courage to join these fanatics, and they became my teammates in the running pursuit. Mike Anderson, Ben Burr, Joe Carter, Debbie Carter, Mark Erb, Dave Eve, Mitch Ferrell, Larry Giddings, Marvin Hodge, Greg Jordan, Eugene Klibinoff, Randy Kuykendall, Hal Leeuwenburg, Mike Lowrie, Gordon Maner, Robin Porter, Mike Pratt, Scott Raymond, Jean Richardson, Jesus Romero, Tom Shinnick, Warren Southerland, Dave Stiles, Wes Wessely, Rita Wilhoite, Tim Willis, Gale Wood and a host of high school and college kids have been my training partners and friends over the years.
So now it is 36 years later and I am still running with the Stone Mountain enclave on Saturday and Sunday mornings. We are fewer in number (3-4 most mornings) and less able than before, but our competitive and argumentative natures persist. Actually, we never argued. We simply engaged in enthusiastic discussions and called each other names like “Dumbass”, but we always said it with great affection.
And that’s all I have to say about that.
Tom Millen
June 2011
Saturday, June 25, 2011
Gotta Have Talent
Joe (running buddy) and I were talking about what makes a great athlete during last weekend’s run. I told the story about Dennis, who had wrestling talent, but did not love the sport. I told the story about Scotty who loved soccer, had talent, and worked hard, but lacked the necessary height and weight to play Division I.
There is yet another category of athletes I haven’t mentioned. I’ve known plenty of guys over the years who loved their sport, worked hard, had the physical attributes, but lacked talent. They aren’t particularly memorable folks. Mostly they are us. Me, myself, and I; we are they - the tall girl who tried to play basketball; the slow kid who tried to be a sprinter on the track team, and the big guy who thought he could be a football lineman just because of his size. There are plenty of us who love our sports, have the right builds, and work hard, but ultimately lack the speed, strength, agility, or whatever else is required.
All of which leads me back to a previous post regarding an excerpt from Again to Carthage by John L. Parker, Jr.
His point was that to be great at a sport you have to win the lottery of size and talent attributes for that particular sport, plus you need to love that sport in order to persevere through the workouts. You have to have them all in order to be great – Love, Talent, Physical Attributes, and the Discipline to work your butt off.
Many of us have everything except talent; fortunately we can still have fun doing what we love.
I guess that is one of the joys of life.
There is yet another category of athletes I haven’t mentioned. I’ve known plenty of guys over the years who loved their sport, worked hard, had the physical attributes, but lacked talent. They aren’t particularly memorable folks. Mostly they are us. Me, myself, and I; we are they - the tall girl who tried to play basketball; the slow kid who tried to be a sprinter on the track team, and the big guy who thought he could be a football lineman just because of his size. There are plenty of us who love our sports, have the right builds, and work hard, but ultimately lack the speed, strength, agility, or whatever else is required.
All of which leads me back to a previous post regarding an excerpt from Again to Carthage by John L. Parker, Jr.
His point was that to be great at a sport you have to win the lottery of size and talent attributes for that particular sport, plus you need to love that sport in order to persevere through the workouts. You have to have them all in order to be great – Love, Talent, Physical Attributes, and the Discipline to work your butt off.
Many of us have everything except talent; fortunately we can still have fun doing what we love.
I guess that is one of the joys of life.
Friday, June 24, 2011
Gotta Have the Bod
John had a classmate in high school named Scott who was an incredible soccer player. He could do amazing things with the ball and was a prolific scorer. Scott was talented, obviously worked hard in practice, and loved the sport.
I got to talking with Scott one day and learned that he wanted to go to UVA. I asked if UVA had offered him a soccer scholarship and he shook his head no. He said he wasn’t good enough to play for UVA and I had to shake my head in wonderment. Scott was one of the best soccer players I’d seen over the years. He was fast, he had ball skills, he worked hard, and he kicked everyone’s tail in high school. I could not imagine anyone better than Scott.
When our son John got to UVA we went there for a fall visit and watched a UVA soccer game. I immediately understood what Scott meant, but did not state clearly. The players at UVA weren’t any faster than Scott, and their ball skills weren’t any better than Scott’s, but every man on the field was at least 6 feet tall and 180 pounds. Scott was 5’6” at most, and maybe 140 pounds. He wouldn’t win any headers at the collegiate level, and as a lightweight would be easily bumped off the ball by a heavier man.
Scotty was good enough in every sense but one; he wasn’t the physical specimen he needed to be in order to compete at the Div-I collegiate level and there wasn’t a thing he could do to change that. He had the love, he had the talent, but he didn’t have the physical attributes through no fault of his own.
I got to talking with Scott one day and learned that he wanted to go to UVA. I asked if UVA had offered him a soccer scholarship and he shook his head no. He said he wasn’t good enough to play for UVA and I had to shake my head in wonderment. Scott was one of the best soccer players I’d seen over the years. He was fast, he had ball skills, he worked hard, and he kicked everyone’s tail in high school. I could not imagine anyone better than Scott.
When our son John got to UVA we went there for a fall visit and watched a UVA soccer game. I immediately understood what Scott meant, but did not state clearly. The players at UVA weren’t any faster than Scott, and their ball skills weren’t any better than Scott’s, but every man on the field was at least 6 feet tall and 180 pounds. Scott was 5’6” at most, and maybe 140 pounds. He wouldn’t win any headers at the collegiate level, and as a lightweight would be easily bumped off the ball by a heavier man.
Scotty was good enough in every sense but one; he wasn’t the physical specimen he needed to be in order to compete at the Div-I collegiate level and there wasn’t a thing he could do to change that. He had the love, he had the talent, but he didn’t have the physical attributes through no fault of his own.
Thursday, June 23, 2011
Gotta Love It
Back when I was in high school there was this guy, Dennis O, who was a gifted and successful wrestler at a neighboring school. (Why couldn’t that have been me?) His name was in the newspaper all the time. When Dennis entered Coe College he didn’t wrestle at all and the story behind this was an item of great speculation amongst the jock community. It was generally assumed that he could have been a 4-time conference champion and might have placed at the Div-III national meet. It was a great curiosity that he gave up wrestling. I was among the many at Coe who wondered why.
I got to know Dennis as a classmate during my years at Coe. I avoided asking Dennis why he gave up wrestling as I suspected that the answer had to be something deeply traumatic and emotional. It was beyond my ability to imagine a set of circumstances where, if I had his talent, that I would give up wrestling other than through a life-threatening illness or some deep psychological trauma. I was convinced that wrestling had to be a deeply painful topic for Dennis.
So one day, late in our time at Coe, in the normal course of conversation the topic did come up without my having to raise it, and I’ve never forgotten Dennis’s answer to the unasked question. He said, “You know, Tom, I never loved wrestling. I was good at it, but I never loved it. So I really didn’t sacrifice anything to ‘give up’ wrestling. There was just a bunch of other things I preferred to spend my time on.”
It is forty years later now and I am still blown away by that “aha” moment. He never loved wrestling? I’d never thought of that as a possibility, but of course, if you don’t love it, why would you do it? Certainly he is better off searching for, and spending time on, activities he did love. It made perfect logical sense for Dennis, but not for me. Also, if he did not love the sport, ultimately, he wasn’t going to be successful at it. But still, it was pretty painful for me, the guy who lacks the talent, to watch another guy with talent “give up” the sport I love.
I got to know Dennis as a classmate during my years at Coe. I avoided asking Dennis why he gave up wrestling as I suspected that the answer had to be something deeply traumatic and emotional. It was beyond my ability to imagine a set of circumstances where, if I had his talent, that I would give up wrestling other than through a life-threatening illness or some deep psychological trauma. I was convinced that wrestling had to be a deeply painful topic for Dennis.
So one day, late in our time at Coe, in the normal course of conversation the topic did come up without my having to raise it, and I’ve never forgotten Dennis’s answer to the unasked question. He said, “You know, Tom, I never loved wrestling. I was good at it, but I never loved it. So I really didn’t sacrifice anything to ‘give up’ wrestling. There was just a bunch of other things I preferred to spend my time on.”
It is forty years later now and I am still blown away by that “aha” moment. He never loved wrestling? I’d never thought of that as a possibility, but of course, if you don’t love it, why would you do it? Certainly he is better off searching for, and spending time on, activities he did love. It made perfect logical sense for Dennis, but not for me. Also, if he did not love the sport, ultimately, he wasn’t going to be successful at it. But still, it was pretty painful for me, the guy who lacks the talent, to watch another guy with talent “give up” the sport I love.
Saturday, June 18, 2011
Today's Run - Saturday, June 18, 2011
I ran the 2+5+2 route with a 3-mile pick-up on 4-5-6 @7:33. Looking for the first symptom of my next injury; no signs so far, just fatigue. “A man’s got to know his limitations.” Not admitting any, just quoting a Dirty Harry movie. C’est Moi.
Could have run faster, but wanted to train rather than strain. It is the second piece of speed work inside a long run since April 1, so I was being careful. Mom will give me hell if I get injured, but isn't that the point, to find out how far/fast you can go before your body betrays you? My mind is stronger than my body. I can live with that.
Thursday, June 16, 2011
Spouse and Kids
I started this post over a year ago and have let it sit idle. Not sure what the point is; just some observations, none of them original thoughts, just stuff I’ve picked up over the years –
I’ve been enjoying Ann’s comments on Facebook about how Alice is mimicking her. Alice cooks in her play kitchen, washes dishes, puts on jewelry, and pretends she is packing gear for a trip in the car. Perhaps that is what prompted these thoughts over a year ago:
Getting married and having kids is an experience of conversion. You convert yourself into someone else; not who you are, but who you’d like to be. You try to become the person you wish you were, a person who is better than you are when left to your own worst nature. That is who you become, or at least try to become. You become this better person because you love your spouse, and you love your kids, and they both deserve someone better than you. But you are what they have, so you have to become that better person they deserve.
Kids are near-perfect mirrors of their parents. They do and say everything you do and say. So you see yourself in them, and they acquire the traits you hate most about yourself. So you have to change yourself so your kids don’t become you. And that is why you sometimes don’t like your kids, because they’ve become you, including your worst habits, in spite of your best efforts.
Also, day by day they express their expectations of you, and these expectations are not small. Blinded by love, your spouse thinks you are a good and admirable person. (Perhaps they don’t know the real you yet.) Blinded by faith and love, your kids and spouse think you are god, or at least god-like. You try to be right about all things, consistent in applying all the rules, living by all the rules, eating some of everything, and behaving appropriately at all times.
Parenting - an impossible job and the only job I ever loved.
I’ve been enjoying Ann’s comments on Facebook about how Alice is mimicking her. Alice cooks in her play kitchen, washes dishes, puts on jewelry, and pretends she is packing gear for a trip in the car. Perhaps that is what prompted these thoughts over a year ago:
Getting married and having kids is an experience of conversion. You convert yourself into someone else; not who you are, but who you’d like to be. You try to become the person you wish you were, a person who is better than you are when left to your own worst nature. That is who you become, or at least try to become. You become this better person because you love your spouse, and you love your kids, and they both deserve someone better than you. But you are what they have, so you have to become that better person they deserve.
Kids are near-perfect mirrors of their parents. They do and say everything you do and say. So you see yourself in them, and they acquire the traits you hate most about yourself. So you have to change yourself so your kids don’t become you. And that is why you sometimes don’t like your kids, because they’ve become you, including your worst habits, in spite of your best efforts.
Also, day by day they express their expectations of you, and these expectations are not small. Blinded by love, your spouse thinks you are a good and admirable person. (Perhaps they don’t know the real you yet.) Blinded by faith and love, your kids and spouse think you are god, or at least god-like. You try to be right about all things, consistent in applying all the rules, living by all the rules, eating some of everything, and behaving appropriately at all times.
Parenting - an impossible job and the only job I ever loved.
Friday, June 10, 2011
Delusions of Adequacy
I was recently asked when I’d be making a new blog post. I was pleased to be asked the question because the question implied the blog has been worth reading in the past. And how sad that is, on my part, to be so needy for a compliment that I was all too willing to misread a bare question and construct an implied compliment out of nothingness. There you have it. I’ve yet again bared my ugly soul for your amusement. But the truth is I need a few compliments every few months to keep me slogging through my blogging, even if I have to compliment myself.
The truth is that nobody is reading this thing except for a few family members I’ve begged to read it, and are likely doing so out of obligation. We all have busy lives and this blog has a lot of competition for time. Kids, meals, exercise, sleep, work, chores, plus other forms of media produced daily by professionals are attractive necessities and distractions. This blog cannot compete with any of the above.
I’ve always been amused by the phrase “delusions of adequacy”, and I admit that I have had mine, this blog being one of them. Successfully writing technical computer specifications, annual reports, and memoranda for 36 years led me to a 2-year delusion of blogging adequacy. But the silence each posting generates is a greater indication of the truth than the occasional protestation by a singular reader that the writing is good and the stories are interesting. I’d like to believe the rare complimentary soul, but the silence is more believable as an indicator of failure.
Even though distance runners are experts in deferred gratification, not seeing the impact of a series of workouts for roughly 12 weeks, there has been little gratification, deferred or otherwise, while writing this blog. It’s been fun from time to time, but mostly it has been hard work. And no matter how much work I put into these posts, when I re-read them they just sound lame.
Also, I am running out of material. All too often when I start a piece I come to realize that it contains ideas I’ve already covered. When I go back and read old posts to see what I’ve already covered, I find I’ve been a self-righteous pompous ass, and the whole dang thing embarrasses me. The delete key is a tempting solution to my embarrassment. There are some stories left to tell, but when I think of how much work it will take to write them, well, I can’t even make myself begin.
I have a couple of pieces finished about what makes a great athlete and describe several representative folks I’ve known over the years who were one essential ingredient short of being great. But the pieces only say what every jock on the planet already knows. I also have another political rant ready to go, but I am reluctant to post it and tick-off all of my liberal relatives. It’s not much fun to read something you totally disagree with, so I’d rather not inflict my opinions on my cousins.
There is another post that is ready to go, I even had it posted for a couple of hours two years ago, but it is critical of a former coach of mine and will likely never see the light of day again. There are nine posts already written about work that are waiting for retirement, but even then, if I have wisdom, they also will not see the light of day.
So there you go folks, or the singular of that word; here is my latest post.
I cannot predict when I will be posting another delusion of adequacy.
The truth is that nobody is reading this thing except for a few family members I’ve begged to read it, and are likely doing so out of obligation. We all have busy lives and this blog has a lot of competition for time. Kids, meals, exercise, sleep, work, chores, plus other forms of media produced daily by professionals are attractive necessities and distractions. This blog cannot compete with any of the above.
I’ve always been amused by the phrase “delusions of adequacy”, and I admit that I have had mine, this blog being one of them. Successfully writing technical computer specifications, annual reports, and memoranda for 36 years led me to a 2-year delusion of blogging adequacy. But the silence each posting generates is a greater indication of the truth than the occasional protestation by a singular reader that the writing is good and the stories are interesting. I’d like to believe the rare complimentary soul, but the silence is more believable as an indicator of failure.
Even though distance runners are experts in deferred gratification, not seeing the impact of a series of workouts for roughly 12 weeks, there has been little gratification, deferred or otherwise, while writing this blog. It’s been fun from time to time, but mostly it has been hard work. And no matter how much work I put into these posts, when I re-read them they just sound lame.
Also, I am running out of material. All too often when I start a piece I come to realize that it contains ideas I’ve already covered. When I go back and read old posts to see what I’ve already covered, I find I’ve been a self-righteous pompous ass, and the whole dang thing embarrasses me. The delete key is a tempting solution to my embarrassment. There are some stories left to tell, but when I think of how much work it will take to write them, well, I can’t even make myself begin.
I have a couple of pieces finished about what makes a great athlete and describe several representative folks I’ve known over the years who were one essential ingredient short of being great. But the pieces only say what every jock on the planet already knows. I also have another political rant ready to go, but I am reluctant to post it and tick-off all of my liberal relatives. It’s not much fun to read something you totally disagree with, so I’d rather not inflict my opinions on my cousins.
There is another post that is ready to go, I even had it posted for a couple of hours two years ago, but it is critical of a former coach of mine and will likely never see the light of day again. There are nine posts already written about work that are waiting for retirement, but even then, if I have wisdom, they also will not see the light of day.
So there you go folks, or the singular of that word; here is my latest post.
I cannot predict when I will be posting another delusion of adequacy.
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