One For the Books

Today was as perfect a fall day in Maine as anyone could dream of. Although the morning dawned cloudy, by 9:30 the sun was bright and the water calm and cobalt blue. To make the day even more special, the clear skies and bright sunshine brought temperatures into the high 60’s and low 70’s. There was no question about what we would do today. All plans were jettisoned and the perfection of the day accommodated by spending all day on the lake.

For me it started with a morning fishing trip on which I caught exactly zero fish. But, like all fishing trips on lakes in Maine, the trip itself serves as its own reward…

The water levels here are two feet below normal due to an extended drought. This might have something to do with the below normal fishing results. But, there’s certainly nothing wrong with the fall colors.

Somewhere during my adventures, I came upon a rather brave loon who seemed totally at ease with my presence. He let me pull my kayak to within 20 feet then appeared to pose for me while I snapped several pictures…

Of course, whenever I go off in the kayak to go fishing, I leave Lucy at home. She is not a fan. So when I got close enough to the dock to be recognized, I saw her launch herself off the dock to serve as my welcoming committee…

Pam spent most of her day on her paddle board, often with Lucy swimming along beside her. There is nothing she enjoys more.

After such a delightful day, Ron and I sat on the little deck next to a gas fireplace while the moon rose across the way…

Tomorrow promises more of the same, but then the weather turns more seasonable with temperatures back down in the upper 50’s.

Disappointment and…Beauty

Today was supposed to be our big day. We were going to drive up to Toddy Pond in Orland, Maine with Tif to view a property that we had our eye on for over a week now. It checked off nearly every box on our exhaustive list. We were excited at the prospect. But late yesterday afternoon we got a text from Tif with bad news. There were already several bids in on the place and ours would need to be submitted by noon today! Our appointment to view was at 11:00. In addition, Tif suggested that a bidding war was taking place and she thought the winning bid would be close to 800K. The asking price was already at the top end of our budget, so that’s that. Very disappointing. But, any beautiful, wonderful thing in life is worth waiting for. So we go back to the drawing board and wait for something else. 

Its difficult to stay disappointed for long in Maine. I woke up an hour ago to this…

Last night we all sat down after dinner to watch the Sunday service from our church. In the message, David talked about the fact that our souls need to be nourished. We need to feed our souls, and one of the things the soul is hungry for is…beauty. If beauty is one of the things that restores the soul, then I am in the right place.

What a Morning

My day began at 6:00. That’s when I walked into the living room of the cabin and saw the lake still for the first time since we arrived two days ago. I kept glancing at it as I made coffee and emptied the dishwasher. After my chores were complete, I took a seat on the sofa. In keeping with my goal of limited interaction with the news, my laptop lay on the coffee table undisturbed. I took this picture with my cell phone…

I had turned on no lights. The gas fireplace in the corner gave off some heat, which was needed since it was 35 degrees out. I sat in the darkness, the only sound, the hum of the gas flame. Then suddenly it turned itself off, and I found myself surrounded on all sides by silence. I could hear my own breathing. Then I began looking across the lake at the shoreline. There is a ridge, then a mountain in the distance. On top of the mountain is a communications tower which you can barely make out against the pale morning sky. Just to the left of the tower there’s a thin line of brightness. I realize that this is where the sun will rise. I become transfixed by the spot. The line became brighter. At 6:55 the top edge of the sun peaked out over the ridge. I squinted. Within minutes, the light from the sun from 93 million miles away began to fill the cabin with a golden glow. I felt its heat against my face. I took another picture…

Then, in some bewitching trance, I found myself standing on the dock wearing a thin pair of pajama bottoms and a short sleeve t-shirt with a fishing rod in my hand. On the very first cast, I pulled in this little guy…

I stayed out there for fifteen minutes or so before I realized that it was pretty cold. When I turned around to walk up the dock back to the cabin, it was blanketed in sunlight…

Now Ron’s out there trying his luck…and its not even 8 o’clock. 

After I get something to eat, I plan on taking a kayak out to discover what this lake is all about. While I’m doing that, the rest of the world will get busy with all of its drama. Good people will do battle with bad people all over the world, like every day in the history of mankind. Good things will happen. Bad things will happen. The markets will either rally or fall. But for today, it will have to get along without me.

The Joys of Quirkiness

After a terrific night of sleep, I wake up to this view and 43 degrees…

Lucy is at her post, supervising all of my morning routines…

The house we rented is lovely, although not without its quirks. But a lake house without a level of quirkiness is not a lake house at all. For starters, we couldn’t find the carafe for the coffee maker. When we finally did, we discovered that it had a huge crack in it. The prospect of having no coffee this morning was too horrible to contemplate so I texted the indomitable Tif Ford at On The Water in Maine last night around 6-ish explaining our crisis. Within an hour the owner of the house, (a big league quirk in her own right), shows up at the house with a brand new Perculator… 

This was the coffee-maker of choice for my parents not to mention millions of Americans before Mr. Coffee came along. As I write this I am enjoying my first cup of coffee from a percolator in probably 30 years. Frankly, its not bad at all, although it will take a few pots before I figure out how to get the right brew strength. There are other options here..a French Press and another single cup thing that also looks French somehow. Hard pass. 

Beside the coffee kerfuffle, there’s the case of the wall clock that bellows out a different bird song at the top of every hour…

My Mom had one of these and it was the subject of much trash talk back in the day. I would harass Mom about it nearly every time I was over at the house. Of course, Mom’s version of the birdsong clock was defective. The owl, woodpecker and eagle didn’t work, and all the others sounded garbled and grotesque, like a recording of Helter Skelter played backward at the wrong speed. Oh the fun I had giving Mom grief over that clock. Anyway, this one works perfectly, which is even worse than a defective one. Last night we are all sitting on the sofa busy with nothing…

…when the screeching song of the Purple Martin starts bouncing off the walls! What in the Sam Hill?? Oh, its just the clock!!

Finally, there’s the matter of the haunted ceiling fan…

Aside from the obvious issue of it being the subject of many side-eyes from Lucy, our girl having a long and troubled relationship with the appliance, this particular model seems to cut on and off of its own accord, independent of human instruction. Everyone remembers it NOT being on when we arrived at the cabin, but while we were eating dinner we all noticed that it was on. As day follows night, the women in the house complained about the draft it was causing and asked Ron to turn it off. Thus began an hour long search for a switch that would perform this simple task. Turns out there was a remote control in one of the bedrooms that had been employed to operate the bedroom ceiling fan. But for reasons that are unexplainable whenever it was used in the bedroom, it had the opposite effect on the one in the living room. Quirky.

Lucky for us, Lucy has made her peace with the overhead menace…

This morning we are heading into Camden for the Harbor festival/book and craft show. Awesome pictures are sure to follow.

Travel, Day One

Rolled out of Short Pump at 6:45. First five hours went very well, with only moderate traffic. Since we have Lucy with us, we can’t stop at a fast food joint to eat. Instead we look for a rest area. We found the perfect one at the Pennsylvania Welcome Center in Interstate 81. Lucy was perfectly well behaved. The facility was immaculate. However, I was inappropriately dressed, my shorts and thin t-shirt ill-equipped for overcast skies and 53 degrees. Pam could not resist snapping the following photograph:

The second five hours was going quite well until the minute we crossed the Connecticut line. Getting through the Bury’s is always tough, but it was only 2:30 in the afternoon, most emphatically not rush hour. But alas, it made no difference. The 40 miles or so that is required to get from Danbury through Waterbury, took forever. By the time we pulled into our hotel just east of Hartford in the suburb of Manchester, we had been on the road for exactly ten hours, having travelled 582 miles. This only leaves us a measly 4 and a half hour trip tomorrow.

Upon our arrival at our Hotel, Lucy was ecstatic, and insisted on a bout of romp-on-the-big-bed-fun…

I plan on going for a three mile treadmill run in the morning, then hitting the road by 8:00. When we arrive in Camden the first order of business will be buying a fishing pole…since I left both of mine in my garage!! Oh, I’ve got all my gear, all the lures, a brand new reel etc…but no fishing poles. But, if you think that’s bad, one year on a summer trip Pam forgot to pack her bathing suits. So, I suppose it runs in the family. Lucy never forgets anything.

Once More

Today will be a chaotic and busy one. It always is. That’s because in 24 hours we will once again be leaving for Maine. This time only for two weeks and we are bringing my sister Paula and her husband Ron along to celebrate her retirement from 45 years as an educator. We will also be bringing Lucy along to supervise, a job she takes quite seriously. Originally we had planned on leaving Saturday, but then Hurricane Ian happened. Having once before driven to Maine during a hurricane, we swore that would not happen again. So we will leave Friday and get ahead of it. The ten day weather forecast for Maine calls for very little rain with high temperatures between 58-63 with low temperatures between 36-45. To make the trip even more exciting, we have an appointment next Tuesday to view a lake house that has promise. 

For the next two weeks we are staying in a different cabin on a different lake. It will be our first time on Lermond Pond. The name of the cabin is Our Song.

Lucy got a bath yesterday and knows full well what is coming. She could not be happier. We go to Maine in the summer to escape the heat and humidity and for long lazy days at the lake. In the Fall we go back for the leaves, the chilly nights and…long lazy days at the lake. For Lucy its all the same—she gets to go swimming and fishing with Mom and Dad and that’s all she cares about.

We tend to savor the fall trip because of the finality of it. During the summer, as great as that is, we all know that the fall trip is coming. The fall trip means that our time in Maine is coming to a close for 9 long months. So, we savor every minute.

It will be fun to explore a new lake. All of them are unique. I’m told that the fishing is excellent on Lermond. One great thing about this particular lake is that its only 17 minutes from Camden! Here’s a map of the place, with a red dot where the cabin sits…

As always, will keep all of you posted with pictures and tall tales of our adventures.

Doing My Homework

So, if you attend Hope Church or watch the livestream you will understand what follows. If not, hopefully it will still be meaningful and encouraging. For the past two Sunday’s our Pastor, David Dwight, has us examining the longings of the soul. As sermons go, these past two have gotten pretty thick into the theological weeds, but sometimes that’s exactly what I need. Not all the time, but sometimes. Anyway, this past Sunday he was talking about why humans are so prone to worry, why we are so anxious about everything. After examining some of the reasons for our perpetual angst, he read the following verse from the 4th chapter of Philippians and offered it to us as a possible remedy…

“Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable— if anything is excellent or praiseworthy, think about such things.”

I was never great at doing my homework back in the day. There was always much more fun alternatives for my time back then. As a fully grown man I’m not much better at homework. But for some reason last night I sat down in my library, took out a yellow pad and listed all the highlighted words from the above verse down the left side of the page. Then I cleared all the frustrations and resentments of the day out of my head as best I could. Then I sat out to actually do what the Apostle Paul asked us to do…I started to think about these eight things. Whatever popped in my head I wrote down on the right side of the page. Here’s what it looked at after thirty minutes or so…

True…..The reliable laws of physics, a reminder of a reliable creator.

Noble…The soldier who throws himself on a live grenade to save his platoon.

Just…..Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird.

Pure….The devotion and loyalty of a dog.

Lovely..The window boxes full of flowers that adorn every business on the streets of Camden, Maine.

Admirable…The homeless man who found a wallet with $600 inside, then tracked down the owner and returned it.

Excellent…Ted Williams’ 1941 season.

Praiseworthy…The steadfast, undying love of Jesus.

This morning, my list was different in a couple places. The entire exercise has been a huge encouragement to me because it has reminded me just how many things in my life qualify to be included on this list. It has calmed my spirit, eased my anxiety a little. I hope this doesn’t end up being one of those things that works so well I stop doing it! I’m kinda famous for that.

Give this a try tonight or first thing in the morning.

Pondering Lewis Before Dawn

I’ve found that when you’re up at 4:30 in the morning, strange thoughts come to mind. Like…when you lose a job at the Fire Department, do you get fired or do you just get put out? How about this…have you ever wondered what Mount Rushmore looked like before it was carved? Would the natural beauty be described as…Unpresidented? Or, suppose your wife sent you all over town looking for her favorite paper towels? Would that make you a bounty-hunter?

Yes, being up at this hour isn’t easy. On the other hand you get to hear bad news before any of your friends. I suppose there’s something to be said for being the early bird. At least its quiet. You have plenty of time to pray for people going through rough times. I’ve never been good at the whole pray without ceasing thing. I can’t do anything without ceasing. But prayer comes easy at four in the morning. Plus, when you’re occupied with intercession for others, you forget about your own crap, at least for fifteen minutes, and that’s considerably better than nothing.

A couple of days ago at a similarly ridiculous hour of the morning I ran across the famous C.S. Lewis quote:

“If we find ourselves with a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we were made for another world.”

It has been ping-ponging around in my head ever since. Part of it rings true to me. There has always been within me that great unscratched itch, an unexplained longing for something, I know not what. But the other part of Mr. Lewis’ quote is off-putting. I don’t want to think of myself as someone “not of this world.” I kinda like this world. It’s my home. Being uncomfortable as an Earthling is seriously problematic. It’s where we live and have our being. It would seem to me that we need to make the best of it! But, there’s no denying that Lewis is on to something here. If you’ve read any of his work you know that C.S. Lewis is always on to something. The man always is on the short list of people from history who I would love to have dinner with. Speaking of which, here’s my top ten in no particular order:

1. Thomas Jefferson

2. Alexander the Great

3. C.S. Lewis

4. Winston Churchill

5. Wolfgang A. Mozart 

6. Queen Elizabeth I

7. Satchel Paige

8. The Apostle Paul

9. General George Patton

10. Jimmy Stewart

Enough of this rambling nonsense. It’s now time to get cracking. At 4:00 this afternoon the stock market will shut down for 65 hours, and I will be able to breathe a little.

Consider the Lilies

This has been a week. Work pressures have been rising to a boil. Yesterday I had my first migraine in probably six or seven years. Last night I hardly slept. All week I’ve been pondering something my Pastor said in his message Sunday. Then today, we had the Federal Reserve Chairman Show which whipsawed the market while I was on the road between turning down money from a client and a doctor’s appointment. Like I said, its been a week.

So I walk out onto the patio late this afternoon amidst all of the tumult that life has become these past few days and am astonished by this…

Don’t ask he what kind of flower it is. All I know is that it is part of one of those overpriced plant and flower arrangements they sell at Strange’s. I paid a ridiculous amount of money for it back in April or May to Pam’s great delight, then sat it out on the patio and neglected it all summer. While we were in Maine, the kids next door were charged with watering it along with everything else we wanted to keep alive while we were away. Despite our indifferent care, it thrives still in mid September. This particular bloom is nearly five feet high, and caught my eye as I walked down the deck steps. I took a closer look, examining all the rich detail of the thing, and was mesmerized by the intricacy, the vibrant, glowing color and the symmetric artistry. All the while, life has been speeding by, buffeting us from all sides, but out in my back yard, this lonely plant has not been deterred from becoming what it was created to be…a work of art. It matters not if we gaze upon it, whether or not we even acknowledge it doesn’t have the slightest effect. This flower has been out here night and day, under blue skies and darkest night, withstanding rain, hail, drought and neglect. And it has done it all just so this thing of astonishing beauty would spring forth and catch the eye of a besieged 64 year old man feeling sorry for himself. I stood there for several minutes, then snapped this photograph to remind myself of the moment. As I did a verse from one of the Gospels writers came to mind, the words of Jesus:

…Consider the lilies, how they grow: they neither labor nor spin; but I tell you, not even Solomon in all of his glory clothed himself like one of these. Now, if God so clothes the grass of the field which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the furnace, how much more will he clothe you? Oh you of little faith…

Get Over Yourselves!

Is this even real? Never in my entire life have so many obsessed so much over something so moronic as the British Royal family, especially the two biggest grifters in history—Harry and Meghan. Of course, I suppose I should be grateful. At least somebody finally managed to knock Donald Trump off the front pages.

Commercials Today…

I suppose that this particular Blog post should come with a warning of sorts like… Mature content…or…some of what follows might be inappropriate for certain audiences. Its not that I will be telling off-color jokes or talking about pornography or anything. Its more like…well, I’ll just start and see how it goes.

So, a few weeks ago Pam and I found a really good show to watch called The Split. Its on Hulu and stars Nicola Walker, one of our favorite actresses. 

The show is about dealing with divorce and marital betrayal and everything that goes with it. It’s terrifically written and brilliantly acted and features a long list of characters who go about making hash of their lives while desperately needing Jesus…but this blog is not about the show. Its about what Pam and I have had to endure while watching the show.

I mentioned that this show was on Hulu. Well that means that about every 12 minutes we have to watch 2 minutes of commercials. As has always been the case with Hulu, that means we see essentially the same six commercials over and over and over again. Whatever. I guess something has to pay the bills. And yes, we can mute the sound every 12 minutes and sometimes we do. But once you’ve seen some of these ads they are forever etched in your memory’s hard drive, and  impossible to erase. What commercials am I referring to, you’re probably wondering? Here goes…

The pharmaceutical industry has identified and sat out to eradicate the plague of Peyronies Disease, an ailment about which I knew nothing before seeing the ad. But now I will always and forever know that Peyronies Disease is a deformation of the male sex organ which results in odd and uncomfortable looking shapes down there…illustrated by a bent carrot.

 I’m not sure I will ever look at a carrot in the same way, having seen the laughably absurd use of the formerly innocent vegetable as a prop for their new miracle cure. The first time the spot aired, Pam and I looked at each other with a mixture of horror and embarrassment, unsure which of us should be more embarrassed. With each successive viewing of this ad, we just roll our eyes and laugh.

Next, we are informed that studies show that our nether regions, even after a proper shower return to their odiferous selves 75% faster than they would have had we simply used the brand new Butt Deodorant by Lume. In case confused viewers might have been wondering where and how this bum cream was to be applied, a smiling actress shared the directions to us with helpful hand motions. I sincerely believe that had I been eating anything at the time that I watched this ad for the first time, I might have spewed it across the room. The thing I can’t get out of me head is…who has the job of verifying just how good or bad the test bums smelled in that study they referred to. I mean, what would you call that job??

Then there are two other ads which I can never really keep apart since they both are pharmaceutical commercials featuring various treatments for HIV related issues, so half the ad is some guy droning on and on about all the ghastly side effects with images of gay and lesbian couples canoodling while performing a series of routine household chores.

Sometimes while watching these ads I think about the kinds of commercials that dominated television when I was a kid. The most embarrassing ad I ever remember was stupid old Mister Whipple imploring his customers not to Squeeze the Charmin. I’m sure there were other embarrassing ones too. But, I’m pretty sure that this bent carrot thing or the hand tutorial for the butt cream ad would never have made their way on to television screens back then. Thank God in heaven. I can’t imagine the horror of being in the same room as my parents watching Gunsmoke when either of these ads came on. I would have died from embarrassment.

Then it occurs to me that there is probably an algorithm that determines which ads are sent to which homes at Hulu. If so, who do these people think we are? What are they trying to suggest to us? Hmmm….

The Adventures of Running in the Neighborhood

Ok, since my son roped me into signing up for the upcoming Richmond Marathon in November, I have begun training in earnest. First of all I should point out that I am only running an 8K—because I am not an idiot—but even that requires preparation. So, there I was yesterday morning heading out for a 4 mile run. My plan was not to run through the neighborhood loop, but to venture out to a track I have come up with that takes the sidewalks surrounding Wythe Trace. I made the turn onto Center Ridge, then the left onto Hazel Tree. That’s when it got crazy.

I’m trucking along, mind racing with suicidal thoughts—my default thought pattern while running—when all of a sudden a black shadow darted out from behind a trash can to my left, right in front of me. It was making a grunting sound and nearly knocked me over. Since I had my cell phone in my hand, I somehow had the presence of mind to snap a photograph…

I have never seen a black pug in the neighborhood before. There are two white ones who live next door to me, Van and Rookie, but this guy I had never seen before. He seemed thrilled at the sight of me, running like a maniac all around me as I continued my pace forward. This was a timed run after all, and I wasn’t about to let this mutt stop me. So as I ran I offered several verbal commands to the pup ordering him to cease and desist. But he was having none of it. He continued to run circles around me as fast as his little stubby legs would carry him. But there was a problem. I was rapidly approaching Pump Road. Surely this dog would turn around and head back where he came from soon. Not a chance. When I turned onto Pump, Killer came with me! He would run ahead maybe 30 feet or so, then turn around and race back towards me darting this way and that like some sawed off whirling dervish. Since Killer was showing zero interest in going home, I had a decision to make. If I continued my route there was an excellent chance that this pup would get hit by a car. Since I didn’t want a dead Pug on my conscience, I abruptly bailed on my scheduled track, reversed course and heading back to the relative safety of the neighborhood, Killer in tow, all without once breaking stride! This is clearly illustrated by the following…

At this point I reasoned that when we both passed by the trash can from which he had introduced himself, Killer would peal off back into his yard and that would be that. Nope. He was just having entirely too much fun. He stayed with me, tongued flapping wildly out of his grinning mouth, all the way to Summer Stream Drive when fortunately he was distracted by another runner heading in the opposite direction. I never saw him again.

I suppose that the lesson is, keep a sharp eye out for Killer if you decide to run early in the morning in Wythe Trace. 

Fresh Worry

My day began at 4:25 am. At least that’s what the clock across the room said as I got close enough to see it on my way to the bathroom. It was a fitful night. The number of things racing through my mind lately seem almost infinite. As a result sleep has been very hit or miss. Whenever I wake up after 3:30 or so there’s no point in trying to go back to sleep. Good thing I have this blog.

During the day, the pressures of my profession ebb and flow. During times of high “flow” I have grown accustomed to taking short diversion breaks, no more than a minute or two in duration to distract myself. One of them is the game Words With Friends, which I play with only one other person, an old friend from my Grove Avenue days. I’ll pull the game up on my cell phone and fire a word at her, then put the phone down and get back to my work. Whatever gets you through the day.

Yesterday was another friend’s birthday, or so I was informed in the wee hours of the morning. This provided me with another distracting coping mechanism for the rest of the day. At regular intervals throughout the day I would pause and think of old age jokes, then post them on Facebook…

You’re so old you knew Burger King when he was just a Prince.

You’re so old, the key on Ben Franklin’s kite was to your first apartment.

You’re so old you sat behind Jesus in 2nd grade.

You’re so old you’ve used Preparation A thru G.

You’re so old when you were born the Dead Sea was only sick.

Between these time-wasting side shows I managed to get some things accomplished. I completed my entire 2022 Firm Element Compliance regime between 11:00 and 3:30, managed to calm the fears of two clients, compose and edit a client letter for submission to legal for review, and eat lunch at a new-to-me Greek joint near Staples Mill and Broad where I discovered the epicurean delights of a Gyro Pizza. 

Then I arrive at home only to discover a fresh source of angst, a difficulty which one of my adult children is going through, and about which I am powerless. Honestly, this situation is worse than any work-related anxiety because it involves one of my kids. One of the things nobody ever tells you when you’re out there having babies is that one day thirty-plus years later you’ll still be losing sleep worrying about them. You desperately want to swoop in and save the day, but you can’t. It’s not your fight anymore. Well…it is but you no longer have jurisdiction. So you go to bed with something new dancing around in your head thinking of how you would fix it if you were King. But you’re not King.

You’re not even a Prince.

My Latest Role

Like all human beings, I have been asked to perform many roles in my life. I have been a child, a teenager, and an adult, each of which carried its own set of expectations. I have been a son, a brother, an uncle, and a friend. I have been a husband and a father. I have been a student, an employee and an owner of a business. Each of these required a specific skill set. Some of them came natural to me, others stretched me.  Over the years I have excelled at some of these roles, and failed miserably at others. More often than not I have excelled and failed at the same role over a matter of days. Life can be hard to carry off without mistakes. I have made my share.

For a long time my primary role, the one that dominated my thoughts and energy was that of businessman and provider for my family. It was the last thing I thought about at night and my first thought every morning. It shouldn’t have been that way. I should have lived a more balanced life in those days. A faith and trust deficit was largely to blame. I worried too much, about things that in hindsight I had no control over anyway. Those periods of stifling anxiety were all wasted moments that I will never get back. But, you move on.

Now I feel like I am entering a new phase of life, one which will require a new and challenging set of skills I’m not sure I possess. At some point soon I will begin winding down my business life, not retiring—that pathetic and terrifying word—but more a reordering of my schedule which will yield an abundance of free time. This will require a change in lifestyle. I hope I’m ready. One day I will take on the role of grandfather. I have been shamelessly auditioning for this role for several years now. Hopefully I will one day get the call. I’m sure that when the time comes I will be delighted, however, my children might be terrified by my grand-parenting style which I’m sure will be wildly out of compliance with all modern grand-parenting protocols. I plan on making up for any mistakes with lavish financial gifts.

Throughout all of the roles I’ve played in my three score and four years, some personality traits have remained in tact. No matter if I was 16 or 60 I have always been a sarcastic, trash-talking, practical joke-pulling, inappropriate joke-telling man child. I have been accused of such by enough people to be forced to admit that it is true. In addition, especially in the early days of trying to establish myself in business, I have often had to battle a blunt, aggressive, forceful style of communication. You will notice the lengths I have gone to trying to avoid the word rude. Although this is something about which I am not proud, neither do I spend a lot of time beating myself up over it. The fact is, I have gotten better with age. It is a flaw I have battled to temper, if not fully eliminate, from my personality. But, some things are just a part of your DNA. Anyone who ever spent thirty minutes with my mother on a bad day will understand the cruel power of genetics.

But life is about making transitions. The great thing about human beings is that we have the astonishing ability, unique in all creation, to transform ourselves from one kind of living to another kind literally overnight. A human being can live a certain way for forty years then one day wake up and say, “I’m tired of this,” pick up, pack up, and move somewhere else and start over. I heard a speaker talk about this one time. He said, “Suppose you were a tree. If you had sucked up all the nutrients in the ground where you were planted and were tired of the view you couldn’t change location.  Because you’re a tree. You’re stuck! Not so with human beings!” I’ve never forgotten that illustration. Which brings me to the point of this post…the changing roles of life.

I think I know what I want to be for the rest of my life. I mean, I’m still going to be sarcastic. I’m probably still going to blurt out inappropriate things at times, and I’m sure I haven’t pulled my last practical joke. But I want to spend the rest of the time I have left being an encourager. There aren’t enough encouraging people in the world. Everybody’s a critic because its easier to be one, especially with the anonymity of the internet. But being an encourager takes intentionality, the ability to follow through. How many of us have had the thought pop into our head that “that person did a really nice job with that presentation”, or “that was awfully nice of her to do that.” The hard part is the follow through…letting the words come out of your mouth, taking the time to write the note or send the email. And it’s so stinking easy! What does it take…a minute? A mere word of affirmation has incredible power to transform someone’s day. We have no idea what the people around us are going through at any particular time. Someone might be at the end of their rope when you come along with a box of donuts and an iced coffee. How cool is it to think that you might have inadvertently been someone’s life line?

Here’s something I’ve learned about this encouraging thing. It is tremendous fun! Seeing the smiles on people’s faces when you show up with treats, reading their replies to your notes, sometimes seeing the tears, is truly a beautiful thing. It makes you feel like you’re doing God’s work…because that’s exactly what you’re doing. Being a blessing to someone is about as wonderful as life gets in this crazy screwed up world. And yet, too often I’m so caught up in myself I miss opportunities. Either I’m distracted or lazy. When this happens everyone loses. If I’m going to do it, it can’t be a part time gig. But, like every other role I’ve gotten to play in my life, I’ll get better with practice.

Here’s Some Great News!!

Want some good news? How about this??

This is about the best thing I’ve seen on the news in quite some time. How many times in life do the good guys win? Seldom. You could look it up. And yes, the Ukrainians qualify as the good guys in this conflict if for no other reason than they were the ones attacked by an overwhelmingly superior force. They are the ones who suffered the brief but barbarous occupation, they are the ones who had their civilian centers ravaged by the tools of war. But now, 7 months after the invasion, their inspiring forces have gone on the offensive, and the Russian war criminals are fleeing back to Mother Russia. Vladimir Putin is suffering a profound humiliation, and lovers of freedom around the world should be celebrating. In every conceivable way this is a win for the world. Although the fight isn’t over, on this Sunday afternoon, I will rejoice in these pictures of jubilant Ukrainian soldiers atop personnel carriers waving their flag in victory. Well done!

Apple Watch Mindfulness

This past Christmas Pam got me an Apple Watch. I didn’t ask for it but she knew I would like it, and I do. It is especially helpful when you’re on a run, what with all of its health monitoring capabilities. The thing keeps track of my heart rate, blood pressure, pace, elevation change and even maps out my run for me. Pretty cool. But, the minute I strapped this baby on Christmas morning I immediately became aware that the people who are responsible for conceiving and building this devise…aren’t like you and me. I knew in an instant that these men and women probably all live in California, drive Teslas, and enjoy hot yoga. Not there’s anything wrong with that.

Every morning I get this message on my watch:

When you hit that open mindfulness button, you are instructed to reflect. Just in case you aren’t clear on what exactly you should reflect upon, it gives you this helpful hint:

After this reflection thing, you are then asked to concentrate on breathing, which sounds easy enough, but in the event that you’re the kind of person who doesn’t generally give breathing a whole lot of thought, these handy tips are helpful:

Again, absolutely nothing wrong with any of this stuff, it’s just that I’ve never been the type of guy who feels comfortable with anything that requires such blatant self-consciousness, not to mention the fact that softly touching my heart while breathing would bring back some rather horrible memories from a health scare I endured 20 years ago!

So every morning when all these self reflection prompts pop up on my Apple Watch, I hit the clear all button and get on with my day. For me, I don’t need a mindful moment to “decide how I want to be today”. Every day when I wake up, I want to be a good person, maybe slightly better than I was the day before. This was drilled into my head by my father, a man who believed that most of the horror and sinfulness in the world was a result of people far too obsessed with themselves and not nearly concerned about their neighbor. He would say that we should probably seek something more grand, more noble, more majestic to reflect upon than ourselves. Even the term, self-reflection, would for him be suspicious. But, he was a man born in a different time. A man who came of age in the Depression and spent his 19th birthday in a jungle in the New Hebrides Islands. Mindfulness would have been a foreign concept.

Here’s my question though, aimed at my tech-savvy readers. Is there a way to turn off these daily notifications?  That might be helpful.

The Queen is Dead

The queen of England has died at age 96. Her reign started six years before I was born. As queen she has presided over the unraveling and dismantlement of the British Empire. When she ascended to the throne, Great Britain was one of the three or four most consequential and powerful nations in the world. Today, it less resembles a powerful, influential nation than it does a museum piece. Yet, she remains more popular and beloved now than at perhaps any time over the past seven decades. The BBC churns out one show about the queen after another and we Americans watch with a mixture of fascination and confusion.

I would venture to say that there is a giant disconnect when it comes to attitudes towards the queen specifically and the British Royal family in general among men and women. I remember back when Prince Charles married Princess Diana. I had just graduated from college and was sharing an apartment with my sister Paula. I looked on in astonishment as Paula—along with every other woman I knew—sat there glued to the television watching the nuptials. Several decades later, I watched my wife eating her freshly made scones and tea while she watched Prince Harry marry that gold-digging American girl. For the life of me I will never understand.

I have to admit that the old girl held up nicely over the years. By all accounts, Elizabeth was a fine woman who conducted herself with grace and dignity and represented her country with devotion and integrity. But last night as I scrolled through the reactions to her death on social media I just had to laugh. One decidedly non-British commenter dramatically declared that she would, “Never forget where I was when I got the awful news!!” Wow.

I happened to be chatting on line with a baseball-loving buddy of mine when the subject of the queen came up…

Then he added this observation:

“I was more sad when my favorite bartender quit than literally anything that has ever happened to the royal family”

To which I responded:

“No Kidding! What about when the Nationals traded away Max and Trea on the same day?! Comparing that with the death of a 96 year old queen? No way!”

And that’s about the size of the chasm that exists between men and women on the subject of all things British Royal Family. However, I believe it possible to respectfully mourn the passing of an iconic figure of world history while at the same time being baffled by the outsized admiration people have for a family so shot through with degenerates, narcissists and ne’er-do-wells.

Perhaps with the promotion of the Prince of Wales to the throne, people all over the world will suddenly snap out of it and come to realize that royal blood is just like any other kind.

I Owe You Guys

So, sometimes I get readers who ask why I write about certain stuff or why I don’t write about other stuff. My answer is always, “I have no idea.” I write whatever pops into my head while drinking coffee in the mornings. It’s really no more complicated than that. But here lately several people have asked me why I stopped doing the dad joke thing. Well, for one thing, I wasn’t aware that I had stopped doing dad jokes. But upon further review, it turns out that I had stopped doing a lot of dad jokes. It wasn’t intentional. I guess while I was in Maine I didn’t feel the need to cheer myself up as much. That’s the purpose of dad jokes and always has been. When the stresses of life start getting overbearing, I look for something funny, preferably in a ridiculous sort of way. Well, there’s nothing funnier than a ridiculous dad joke, in my opinion. Now that I’m back in the real world with all of its uncertainty and anxiety, I’m back to searching the world over for the very worst, most ridiculous dad jokes I can find. Sometimes the search is fruitless. Just like sometimes when you go fishing you don’t catch anything. I’ve got to admit, I’ve burned up quite a lot of my valuable time to come up with what follows, so I sure hope you like them. Besides, it 

has been a while so I figured I owed you guys.

I recently bought a toilet brush.

Long story short, I’m going back to toilet paper.

My wife asked me if I had ever heard of Quasimodo.

I said, “the name rings a bell.”

Guy hears a knock on his door. He opens it and there’s a snail on the porch. He picks up the snail and throws it as far out into the yard as he can. Three years later the guy hears another knock, opens the door, and the same snail is back on his porch.

The snail says, “What the hell was that about?”

Its only a five minute walk from my house to my favorite bar, but strangely, it takes 25 minutes to walk home.

The difference is staggering.

I can’t stand people who take drugs.

…the TSA, for example.

What kind of exercise do lazy people do?

Diddly-squats.

Doctor: Do you want the good news or the bad news?

Patient: Tell me the good news.

Doctor: Alright. We’re going to name a disease after you.

What do pessimists and people with sausage phobias have in common?

They both fear the wurst.

This is a First For Me

Washington Nationals

Nationals Park

1500 South Capitol Street SE

Washington, DC 20003

Attn: MANAGER Dave Martinez

Dear Mr. Martinez,

It is not my habit to write letters to sports figures. In fact, despite a lifetime of devotion to Major League Baseball, this is my first. But I feel compelled to reach out to you now, not back in 2019 when our team was riding high, but now when we are in the midst of the mess that has become 2022.

I have watched the games with the frustration that comes with losing. I’ve watched ownership trade away our very best players over the past couple of years. I’ve seen the far less talented players who have replaced them struggle. I’ve watched the losses pile up. 

But through it all I have noticed two significant things that I wish to share with you, because I believe you need to hear this.

First, the guys you have been left with, the guys that you have been forced to go to war with every day are still playing hard. I have not seen one ounce of quit in anybody on this team. They grind, they compete, they play with enthusiasm and energy as if they were competing for the pennant. This is a testimony to their own professionalism, but it is also a reflection of their manager. You and your coaching staff deserve a lot of credit for the max effort we see every single game.

Secondly, I have watched dozens and dozens of your post game sessions with the press. I try to imagine what it would be like in my profession to have to answer questions from reporters after every bad day I had at work and can’t even fathom such a thing. Yet, you go out there, win or lose and answer every question with patience and grace. I never hear you throw a player or a coach under the bus. I never hear a single complaint about the hand you have been dealt by ownership. All I hear from you is an attempt to build up the confidence of your players. Even after an awful performance, you always find something positive to say on the player’s behalf.

In short, you have demonstrated for all of us how to conduct yourself with dignity and professionalism when everything is going south. Anyone can be positive and graceful while winning a World Series. It takes something special to do it while in last place.

So, thank you Dave Martinez, for giving us everything you’ve had this season. Thank you for having everyone’s back and for demonstrating class and integrity and demanding it from your players. Next year will be better. I’m sure of it.

Sincerely,

Doug Dunnevant

The Gift

Out of the blue a few days ago I get a text from my son that says, “I just bought you something!”. Then the next day he sends another text declaring, “Order shipped!! 9400111202557987878415…tracking number.” At this point I’m thinking, Dang…this must be something special what with him giving me the tracking number and all. What’s he up to?

My son doesn’t normally buy stuff for me. Sure, I get stuff for my birthday or Father’s Day but not just random stuff the last week of August. I mean, I’m intrigued at this point. I’m thinking that maybe he’s feeling sorry for me and my difficult readjustment to the business world. Maybe he’s worried about me, thinks I need a lift. Who knows? So when I find a package in the mailbox yesterday afternoon I got pretty excited. I ripped open the package and out tumbled this:

Now, I realize that probably 95% of you have no idea what this is, and even if I give you the following hint, you will still be clueless:

Candidly, I had never heard of Jack Vale. But it didn’t take me long to discover that this man has made it his life’s goal to rid the world of the plague of unrealistic sounding fart machines. Jack here surveyed the world around him, identified a problem that desperately needed solving and set about to solve it. To make it easier for me, my boy sent yet another text:

Then, to prove that last assertion, Patrick sent me a video with evidence which I have to say was quite impressive. Of course the last part of his text was a thinly veiled competitive challenge, so since yesterday afternoon I have been practicing and I can say without hesitation that its not nearly as easy as Jack Vale makes it look, but my technique is improving squeeze by squeeze. The Pooter has served as a much needed distraction, making it one of the most useful gifts I have received in quite some time.

Now, I know what some of you are thinking, especially the women in this audience. Something along the lines of, “What the heck??” Others might be trying to imagine what kind of father I had been to raise a son who would send him a gift like The Pooter. Still others might be feeling sympathy for Pam the next time the family gets together for a holiday, what with her husband and son going around making fart noises with two Pooters. Well, you’re forgetting Jon. My son-in-law will no doubt want in on this…so it will actually be three Pooters, but that is neither hear nor there. The point is that there is sure to be lots of feminine eye-rolling going on this Thanksgiving.

In the meantime, I have been gifted with the ultimate distraction fidget tool. It will be worth at least two appointments with a therapist. Plus it has given me reassurance that my work as a father was not a complete waste.

Grace Notes

This has been a rough week. Everyone has them. Maybe you’re having one too. Today will be long and stress-filled. Four appointments and a ton of calls to make. Hump day, they call it. Indeed. When you’re in the midst of a week like this it’s easy to lose sight of the little blessings of life, those grace notes that slip through the dreariness and help light your way. Here’s one that happened Monday afternoon.

Every year when we go to Maine we always buy little gifts for the kids next door. One of them, Kennedy, is especially artistic, so this year we found this really cool origami kit that came with everything needed to make origami flowers of all kinds. Pam thought it would be perfect for her so she bought it.

Monday was the first day of school. Around 5:30 or so the front door bell rang and there was Kennedy with the most adorable smile on her face. She had a flower in her hand and extended it to me. “This is for you. It’s a poppy.”

She then proceeded to tell me all about how she made it and how much fun it was, and that there were plenty of other flowers she is going to make. I asked her how her first day of school went and her face lit up. “My teacher is really nice. She says that her classroom is her kingdom and when she wants to get our attention she says, “Hear Ye, Hear Ye!” And we all have to say together, “Long Live the Queen”.

The entire encounter was over with in fifteen minutes. She went back to playing in her front yard with some other kids and I went back to whatever it was I was doing. But now, as I worry about what this day will bring, I look at Kennedy’s flower that Pam placed in a little blue vase and it makes me smile.

Sometimes the way we cope with difficulty is by stopping to appreciate the simply things. Things that are lovely, sweet and true.

Thanks, Ken

Coping With Stress in 2022

My profession comes with mountains of stress, the kind that never goes away. It is hard to measure or quantify. There are times when it feels greater and more debilitating than others, but it never ever leaves. When I was younger I seldom thought about stress. Of course back then I had fewer clients with far less invested. The stakes weren’t as high. As I have gotten older and the business has grown stress is much more front and center. I am consciously aware of it’s presence at all times. To cope with it I have developed strategies to manage the stress, most of them without even realizing what I was doing. It is only in retrospect that I have come to realize what these coping strategies are.

What are my symptoms? What does stress do to me? Lots of things actually. Over the years I have experienced debilitating headaches, dealt with migraines for several years. Thankfully, those days are largely behind me. I have had bouts of insomnia, still do at times. I’ve experienced digestive issues with no known physical cause. There are other physical symptoms that I will leave out of this discussion. On the psychological side of the equation, there are seasons of great doubt. I doubt my own skill and abilities, despite a 40 year record of relative success. There are occasional and thankfully brief periods of intense fear, some of it irrational. It always passes, but each episode leaves a mark. I have managed these stress related symptoms privately. I have always considered them as part of the price of admission for work in my chosen field of endeavor. While, as a younger man, I could shake it all off by listening to a motivational speaker or watching a ballgame, once I reached my late 50’s, none of the old tricks worked any longer.

It occurs to me that one of the coping mechanisms I developed was…Maine. While Pam and I have always gone to Maine for a week or so every summer for over 38 years, it was seven years ago when we began to go for four weeks at a time. In 2016 I made the unilateral decision to rent a house on Hobbs Pond for an entire month. Since that year we have stayed for even longer stretches of time during the summer and fall. In 2022, by the time we are finished, we will have spent eight weeks in Maine. Although I truly enjoy our time there, what I have come to realize is that a big part of me needs longer and longer stays. Time in Maine disconnected from the grind allows everything to heal. The tension built up over months and months slowly drains out of the system.

But even with eight weeks in Maine, that leaves the other 44 weeks. The single hardest thing about my work is that I find it nearly impossible to close everything down, to turn off the part of my brain that thinks and ponders and second guesses the decisions of the day. I said nearly impossible. There is one thing that I have found that works. there is one thing I can do which always sweeps work thoughts away.

Writing.

Over the past decade I have written over 2,650 posts on this blog. I have written over two dozen short stories, and as of a month ago, four novels. It isn’t my job. Although lots of people read this blog, only a handful of people have ever read any of my novels or short stories. So I must ask myself why I spend so much time writing. The answer should have been self evident to me long before now, but I suppose self-deception is the easiest kind. The reason I write so much is because when I’m writing, everything else gets blocked out. Work concerns vanish into thin air once your mind wraps itself around the creation of a story. So, for me, writing is an effective mental health therapy. Maine is an effective mental health therapy. Even though eight weeks in Maine is awfully pricey therapy, writing costs me nothing.

The Husband Store

Husband Store

A store that sells new husbands has opened in New York City, where a woman may go to choose a husband. Among the instructions at the entrance is a description of how the store operates:

You may visit this store ONLY ONCE! There are six floors and the value of the products increase as the shopper ascends the flights. The shopper may choose any item from a particular floor, or may choose to go up to the next floor, but cannot go back down except to exit the building!

So, a woman goes to the Husband Store to find a husband. On the first floor the sign on the door reads:

Floor 1 - These men Have Jobs.

She is intrigued, but continues to the second floor, where the sign reads:

Floor 2 - These men Have Jobs and Love Kids.

"That's nice," she thinks, "but I want more."

So she continues upward. The third floor sign reads:

Floor 3 - These men Have Jobs, Love Kids, and are Extremely Good Looking.

"Wow," she thinks, but feels compelled to keep going.

She goes to the fourth floor and the sign reads:

Floor 4 - These men Have Jobs, Love Kids, are Drop-dead Good Looking and Help With Housework.

"Oh, mercy me!" she exclaims, "I can hardly stand it!"

Still, she goes to the fifth floor and the sign reads:

Floor 5 - These men Have Jobs, Love Kids, are Drop- dead Gorgeous, Help with Housework, and Have a Strong Romantic Streak.

She is so tempted to stay, but she goes to the sixth floor, where the sign reads:

Floor 6 - You are visitor 31,456,012 to this floor. There are no men on this floor. This floor exists solely as proof that women are impossible to please. Thank you for shopping at the Husband Store.

PLEASE NOTE:

To avoid gender bias charges, the store's owner opened a New Wives store just across the street.

The first floor has wives that love sex.

The second floor has wives that love sex, have money and like beer.

The third, fourth, fifth and sixth floors have never been visited.

Fresh Observations

Here are a few things that I have come to realize recently:

* Peter Pan and Skippy are poor substitutes for Jif.

* Watching the number one pitching prospect for your team make his big league debut and proceed to hit three batters and give up seven runs in four innings is depressing.

* Listening to the entire Rise and Fall of Mars Hill podcast on the drive home from Maine is at once fascinating and horrifying.

* When the stock market rises 11% over the six weeks you are in Maine, then drops 5% the first week you return it makes you wonder about the cosmic correlation.

* Lucy was not born to live in the suburbs.

* Watching people who were all for government bailouts of banks and gladly cashed their stimulus checks argue against the moral hazard of bailing out college loans makes you grateful for the rarity of your own moral, economic and political consistency on the subject of government bailouts.

* The air smells better in Maine.

* The new Elvis film is one of the saddest stories ever told.

* Getting back into running in Virginia humidity is a form of self hatred.

* “In Essentials Unity, in Nonessentials Liberty, in all things Charity” is perhaps the finest summation of a church’s doctrine I’ve ever heard.

* How is it that a person can go away for six short weeks then forget how to run his own coffeemaker?

Social Media is About to get Hilarious

Back in April of this year I wrote this:  https://doug-thetempest.blogspot.com/2022/04/here-are-just-few-random-thoughts.html.

With today’s announcement by the Biden Administration of their college debt forgiveness program, I fully expect that social media platforms will soon be exploding with invective from all quarters, from the left for being too timid, from the right for the audacity of asking the taxpayers to pay off debt obligations entered into by willing adults. It will be brutal and unrelenting for a few weeks, then we will all move on to the next outrage. Can’t wait for the creative meme war!

It is worth noting that my biggest objections and worries from the April piece noted above, which appeared in the next to last paragraph, were both addressed by the administration…proving clearly the massive weight carried by The Tempest in shaping public policy. 

This is one of many problems that come up in the course of politics where I feel that it is impossible to craft a perfect solution. Every proposal for fixing some things is flawed, because the problem is complex. We are the largest consumer economy in the history of planet Earth. As such we can simply not afford to have an entire generation opt out of consuming because of a crushing college debt burden. If that happens we all lose. On the other hand, forgiving loans, comparatively speaking, is the easy part. The hard part is passing along the 300 billion dollar price tag for that debt forgiveness to the American taxpayer. How will the non-college educated crowd feel about that? Not to mention the college educated crowd that somehow found a way to pay off their loans? It is a no win situation for anyone proposing a fix.

I have great sympathy for the folks who say, “Look, you signed up for a loan. You understood at the time that loans have to be repaid. So why should the government or anyone else have to come along and bail you out?” Excellent question. However, we Americans aren’t always opposed to governments bailing out those who make dumb decisions with their money. In my lifetime the government has at various times bailed out the following:

- New York City

- Chrysler Corporation

- The Entire Savings and Loan industry

- Bank of America

- Wells Fargo

-The Stock market in the Panic of 1792…thanks, Alexander Hamilton!

- Bear Stearns

- Home Mortgages of one million Americans in 1933

- AIG Insurance Group

- Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac

-  Penn Central Railroad

- Lockheed

- The entire American Airline Industry after 9/11

- General Motors

- Ford

- Citigroup

- Small businesses via the TARP bailout of 2008

This is nowhere near an exhaustive list, but you get the idea. I mean, how do you think we have accumulated a 29 Trillion dollar national debt? So, its not that large scale financial bailouts are anything new. It’s just that the beneficiaries of this particular bailout are people that at least on some basic level should have known what they were signing up for. 

My background, education and experience leads me to be against any sort of bailout both on economic and moral terms. But that’s in a perfect world where trade offs are not required. In the world where we actually live, bailouts have become like the air we breathe. (Did you cash your relief checks from the government during COVID?) Still, when I look at this list of bailout recipients I must ask myself this question. If my government is going to bailout out anyone would I rather they bailout young, college kids with their entire lives ahead of them…or the arrogant, amoral morons who ran AIG, Bear Stearns, or Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac? While many of the college graduates who will benefit from these bailouts may have made bad life planning decisions, they didn’t line their own pockets through malfeasance and greed. Besides, what will most of these graduates do with their newfound financial health? Probably go out and buy a house, or a car, or some decent furniture. They may even have the confidence to start a business. On the other hand what did most of the suits at Citibank do with all that bailout cash? probably bought that fifth vacation home in Barbados.

So yeah. This is a tortured fix to a giant problem, and absolutely nobody is going to be happy about it.

But, Facebook is gonna be hilarious for a couple weeks!