My Neighborhood

Suddenly, I have been freed from the stress and strain of the United States equity markets for the next three days. That’s 72 hours without a knot in my stomach and it feels like a gift. To make matters even better, the weather forecast sounds delightful, sunny skies with high temperatures in the high 70’s low 80’s with low humidity. Later this morning I will be heading out for a run, attempting 5 miles.

Last night there was an end of school, beginning of summer celebration in our culdesac which featured a food truck parked on the street directly in front of our house. Right about the time it was to begin there were thunderstorms in the area. Fortunately, after a short two minute downpour, the clouds parted and a cooling breeze popped up. The culdesac was filled with families and dogs. Pam and I sat up some folding tables in our driveway, soon they were populated with moms and dads and little kids. Beach balls and footballs were flying through the air and the sound of laughter was everywhere. The tacos provided by the La Concinita truck were delicious.

We have been here since the very beginning of Wythe Trace, the only people to ever live in our house. We have watched the neighborhood change over the past 25 years, watched a list of neighbors come and go in the houses around us. When we moved here our kids were in elementary school. Now they are both married adults who live in other cities. Now, we are surrounded by families that are exactly like we were back in the day, harried and harassed by the pressures and joys of raising a family. We love being able to watch them, without the pressures and responsibilities of it all! This is the benefit of staying put in one place. As you age, your neighborhood gets younger…which helps you feel younger.

But there was another thing I noticed last night. Not only is this place younger, its also gotten much more diverse. I saw beautiful kids playing in the street last night from all over the world. There are families from India, Egypt, Haiti, Russia, Asia and England. I saw white kids happily playing with black and brown kids. Red heads, blonds, brunettes and shiny black haired kids slurping on popsicles. I saw different breeds of dogs soaking up the attention, oblivious to the race of whoever happened to be scratching their bellies.

As I watched it all I couldn’t help wondering…Why on Earth would anyone fear this?

What Do You Value?

What do you value the most? This is a very different question than what is the most expensive thing you own, isn’t it? You can be proud of an expensive car. You can be proud of a lovely home or a large and growing investment portfolio. But what is it that you…value? It has been said that too many people know the price of everything but the value of nothing. I think this is true. Do not misunderstand me. There is nothing at all inherently wrong with an expensive car, lovely home or a large investment portfolio. I am quite fond of all three. But none of these things will end up defining me when I’m gone. I don’t draw any identity from them. They all three serve a purpose, but they are not eternal purposes. These are not the things that friends and family will stand around talking about at my funeral…or yours.

So, Pam and I are housing a youth intern from our church for the summer. So far he has feasted on Pam’s cooking like its his job, but last night Pam had other plans so it was going to be just the two of us for dinner. I took him to Wong’s Tacos and we had a great time eating and talking sports. He’s a good kid. But like everyone else who meets someone new, I want to tell him all about the things I like. We talked baseball, pro football and college football. When we got back home the garage was empty since Pam was away and I noticed it more than I usually do. Its something that I wanted to show him. I wanted him to see it, because to see it goes a long way to explaining who I am. What did I show him? 

This…

At first glance this probably looks like an ugly garage wall…because it is an ugly garage wall. But, its much more than that. Back in the day it was known as “The Wall.” Any middle school, high school, or college kid who ever spent any time at our house for anything was asked to sign the wall. There are kids we housed from choir tours as they passed through Short Pump. There are nursing students from Liberty who we housed when they were in town for their clinical studies. There were high schoolers who attended the New Year’s Eve parties we used to throw every year for them. There were kids who I taught in Sunday School, Kaitlin’s friends, Patrick’s friends, friends of friends of kids who I didn’t even know. There were boys that used to let themselves in the house through this garage at all hours to help themselves to whatever was in the fridge. Pretty soon I will get the sweet kids next door to sign it. I tell my intern that he has to sign it before he heads back to school in the fall. Sometimes when I’m putting the lawn mower away I will stop for a minute and read a couple of them and think…I wonder what Meghan is up to these days? Each note is precious to me. Each has meaning. More than any material thing I have ever owned, I value this wall. But if I ever sell this house, the wall will be painted over, because the scribblings and the names beneath the scribbles will mean nothing to a stranger. To me, they help tell the story of the life that Pam and I have built over the past 38 years. 

Our Curse

My last few posts here at The Tempest have been on the pessimistic side, and for that I apologize. I blame most of it not on the financial markets, the state of my country or even the sorry state of the Washington Nationals. I blame it on the weather.

Here in Short Pump we have entered the steamy season. Some of you reading this live in parts of the country where what I am about to describe seldom happens. Here it happens for roughly three entire months of the year. In the past I have referred to it as “God’s curse upon the south for the sin of slavery.” I even took a picture of it once. How can you take a photograph of the weather, you ask? Simple…

This is what every window in our house looks like at 6 o’clock in the morning. Currently it is 68 degrees outside and the humidity is 97%. I know what you’re thinking…how can it possibly be 97% humidity if it’s not raining?? I can assure you it is quite possible. In fact it is as common as lying politicians. Still don’t believe me?

Yesterday morning it was actually ten degrees warmer, so this is somewhat of a reprieve. What’s really fun is when you get up super early to run in these conditions because you know its the best part of the day.

What’s it like to live this way? Imagine walking out to get the mail and by the time you get back inside the house your fingernails have started to sweat.  A five minute drive in a car which has been parked outside for an hour produces a pool of sweat inside your belly button. But as bad as it is for men, its far worse for women…

              BEFORE                           AFTER

Nevertheless, because I am a southern boy and this is my lot in life, I am headed out for a three mile morning walk…after which time the sweat that gets wrung out of my walking shorts and shirt will fill a cereal bowl.

22 days until Maine.

A Stranger in a Strange Land

I’ve been in a 5:00 am groove for a couple weeks now. My eyes pop open right at the stroke. There is always a frustrating dream left swimming in my head, the details of which seem crystal clear when my eyes first open but have vaporized into thin air by the time I walk downstairs to do my morning chores while its still dark outside.

I say a morning prayer while drinking my coffee. I thank God for the blessings of life, for another day. I don’t ask any favors. It seems selfish from someone who has already been given so much. I pray for whoever comes to mind, a friend who just said goodbye to her husband who died of cancer, another friend who recently had surgery and is having a rough time recuperating. Then I open my iPad and start reading the news from overnight.

There’s a story about a group of young men arrested at a gay pride event. The FBI had preempted their intentions to start a brawl in the streets. There was a picture of 30 mugshots of lost young men.

I read about an employee at Google who was let go for a public assertion that his company had created a sentient algorithm.

Then I read a story about the new Army where the traditional drill Sargent was being replaced by a kinder, gentler version more inclined to mentorship than yelling. It will be hard to eventually eliminate this iconic image from my mind…

I am informed about Justin Bieber’s latest health struggles, half of his face having been paralyzed. I wonder what could possible have possessed him to share this news publicly.

I see a mug shot of Nancy Pelosi’s billionaire husband after his arrest on DUI charges. He has the slightly annoyed but confident facial expression of someone secure in the knowledge that he is the billionaire husband of Nancy Pelosi.

Then I scan the financial news. There is a lot of it and it all seems bad. Inflation. Interest rate hikes. The obliterating crash of Bitcoin. Stocks officially in a bear market. Apparently, the pressure is on the Federal Reserve Chairman to either do something or do nothing.

I shut down the news site and escape to the MLB website for a break with the hopes that my heart will be comforted by the familiar and eternal rhythms of box scores. I learn that Stephen Strasberg has once again been deactivated from the Washington Nationals roster by yet another injury. He is currently in year 2 of a 7 year contract that is paying him 35 million dollars a year to pitch a baseball, something he has been physically unable to do almost since the very day he signed the papers. Fortunately for him, the contract was fully guaranteed. Unfortunately for the Washington Nationals, the contract was fully guaranteed.

It is now 6:30 and I feel like a stranger in a strange land. 

It’s time for a run.

Decline?

June 13. 5:46 AM

This morning I wake up with my usual Monday morning anxieties. After a rough week, I see that the news isn’t good for today’s opening on Wall Street. I read about a potential compromise on guns brewing in the United States Senate. I see where its supposed to be in the mid 90’s with oppressive humidity all week. I’ve got a guy coming to the house in just over an hour to trim back a few overhanging tree limbs. Meanwhile, the iPad I am typing this blog on has suddenly started behaving strangely, with an irritating gap between what I type and what appears on the screen. 

Yesterday morning I finally went to Patient First to deal with the pain in my left elbow. I’ve had it for over two months now but unlike in the past, the pain now doesn’t come and go—instead it has taken up permanent residence. The perky doctor instantly diagnosed it as lateral tendinitis and proved his diagnosis with a couple jujitsu moves using his gloved hands and my left arm which hurt like hell, but served to bolster his assertions. He slipped a brace on my elbow that instantly relieved the pain which came with certain movements, then he prescribed a gel to apply liberally, then shuffled me out the door. The good news is that nothing is torn.

Pam and I find ourselves in a show hole, reduced to watching a Danish political drama with subtitles and rapid fire dialogue which gives you a headache, and is difficult to watch while eating. Take your eyes off the screen for ten seconds to cut up your steak and you’ve missed a key plot detail. It’s called “Borgen” and if you pay close attention to those subtitles its actually pretty good. Still, we keep hoping to discover the next Foyle’s War and we keep getting disappointed when we don’t.

I suppose we could always tune in the January 6th show, but my overpowering sense of self-preservation prevents me from doing so. I catch the thumbnail summaries the morning after and watch a few of the videos and thats bad enough. I have made the executive decision not to voluntarily watch what is basically an infomercial about the official decline of a nation. I understand enough about history to know that world dominance has a shelf life. The Romans had their time, the Greeks before them. The British ruled the world for a while and the United States has stood astride the globe as a colossus for almost a hundred years now. Nothing lasts forever. Maybe our time is up, our years of power and prestige is in decline. We seem hopelessly divided, increasingly brutish and nasty to each other, and led by men and women unequal to the task. Heck, we can’t even agree on a working definition of treason anymore, let alone convict anyone of it. Although our public schools can’t dependably teach kids how to read, write, add and subtract, we are well on our way to confusing the Bejesus out of them with regards to sexuality and the proper pronouns used to describe the burgeoning number of genders available for them to choose from. Its hard not to conclude that I live in a nation in decline.

Of course…I could be wrong. Many people before me have come to similar conclusions about the fate of our Republic and wound up spectacularly wrong. History is complex, the forces that drive it are often unknowable. Just when national decline seems assured someone invents the computer and all bets are off. So, my conclusions might be equally wrong. 

I don’t know that I have ever needed Maine any more than I do this year.

Lucy at the Lake

I have mentioned often how much Lucy loves going to Maine, what a marvelous traveler she is, how much she adores the water. But its hard to explain it adequately with words. Explaining anything about the time we spend in Maine is a challenge. Although I’m pretty good with words I never feel like I’m able to convey the emotional impact the place has on all of us. When I scan through the thousands of pictures we’ve taken, the ones that come closest to capturing the feeling have one thing in common…Lucy is in them. Here are just a few:

I am the boss of the dock.

Always willing to assist Dad when he takes a nap.

And make sure he stays safe when he takes the kayak out.

I can’t let this one out of my sight.

Fetching my frisbee like its my job…because it is.

Guarding dad whenever he goes on a hike…

And, there are LOTS of hikes…

I help Dad fish.

…by inspecting each catch.

For some reason, whenever Mom and Dad leave me at the cabin alone they feel the need to spy on me…so I make sure to give them many different poses.

…then every now and then I act like there’s an intruder just to mess with them a little.

I love our house…

Sunsets are the best.

My happy place.

Beware The Thieves of Wonder

Famed New York Times outdoors columnist Nelson Bryant wrote what follows to his two daughters shortly before his death at age 96.

“The secret I would have you know……is that even though the years will steal your fresh beauty, it need only be, in truth, a minor theft. What you must guard against is that jaded state wherein there is nothing new to see or learn. Marvel at the sun, rejoice in the rhythmic wheeling of the stars and learn their names, cry aloud at the swelling beauty of an orchid in the white oak woods, or December’s first snow; slide down the wind with a hawk and cherish the smell of woodsmoke and mayflowers, or the caress of a warm wool blanket; tarry by a stream where willows bend and flee tedium’s gray embrace. Cherish laughter and whimsy, but battle unrelentingly for what you know is right and be aware that the thieves of wonder can enter any heart.”