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.