Goodbye 50's, Hello 60's!

Hmmm… So this is my last post on this blog as someone in my 50’s. Is that possible? Yikes, I will be 60 on Monday. Where did the time go? I just don’t know. By the time a person has lived for 60 years he should have at least a little insight about life and maybe be able to pass on a wise tidbit or two.

Part of me thinks I should post some good advice. I even know a small amount of good advice. Talk nice to yourself; you deserve it. That’s excellent advice. Manage the “phone call.” That’s also very good advice. The heart that loves is always young. So keep loving! That’s good advice too. I’m just full of good advice. Be thankful. Cherish your life. Yup, more good advice. Take out your head trash every week. Also good advice.

So what’s the best advice I can give after almost 60 years on this earth? Talk nice to yourself is way up there. Treat yourself with respect; that’s way up there too.

But you know, I think sometimes it’s just a very good idea to make homemade brownies. You know, from scratch. Now, there is good advice! But wait, if you eat the whole pan yourself, particularly in one evening, then that’s bad. If you share them, that’s good. I just made some last night. I shared with Katy.

It is the weekend. Please be good. Drive your car carefully. Ride with people who drive carefully. Treat yourself with respect. Spend time with people who treat you with respect. Treat other people with respect. Talk nice to yourself; you deserve it. I look forward to hearing from you or seeing you. Keep yourself whole physically and emotionally. Enjoy your weekend. (Make the brownies; you’ll be glad you did. It's good advice. I know because I'm almost 60.)

P

The Badometer: Part II

Sometimes I’m bad, like I mentioned last week. I do bad things like eat hot dogs. Sometimes I get bad readings on the badometer not because of what I do, but because of what I laugh at. I probably should know better but I just think some stuff is funny. I’m bad; what can I say?

My nephew, Steven, is currently a senior at Skyline High School. He plays goalkeeper for the soccer team. He has good grades and in the spring of 2009 he was invited to join the Honor Society. To gain admission into the Honor Society one of the things he was supposed to do was perform a certain number of hours of community service. He is a great kid but he just didn’t have the time to do the community service. I think that he really didn’t care at all about being in Honor Society, but let’s just say he didn’t have time for the community service. Yes, let’s just say that.

After he was sent the invitation letting him know that his grades qualified him for admission he was given an application packet and checklist of other items to complete like the community service. The deadline for submitting the application packet came and went. I don’t think Steven noticed or cared. Actually, I don’t think he cared one bit that the deadline passed.

Undeterred by Steven’s lack of interest in the Honor Society, the Faculty Selection Board sent him a form letter letting him know he had not been granted admission to the Honor Society because he had not applied. That alone makes me laugh. Oops, there goes the badometer. They encouraged him to reapply in the spring of 2010. I’m not sure how a person reapplies for something that he hasn’t already applied for. (Laughing again--the needle just moved a little more.)

Steven decided to respond to the faculty. He got out a Sharpie, and using his best penmanship, he wrote them a short note at the bottom of the letter the faculty had sent him. That would be the letter that let him know he could reapply for something he had never applied for. When his mom showed us the letter I asked for a copy because I thought it was so funny. Like I said, sometimes I am bad because of what I am doing. Sometimes I’m bad because of what I laugh at.


(Click on the letter to see a little larger version of it.)


It is the weekend. Please be good. Drive your car carefully. Ride with people who drive carefully. Treat yourself with respect. Spend time with people who treat you with respect. Treat other people with respect. Talk nice to yourself; you deserve it. I look forward to hearing from you or seeing you. Keep yourself whole physically and emotionally. Enjoy your weekend. (Try to laugh a little sometimes too.)

P

The Badometer: Part I

I try so hard to be good. I really do. I am a good person. Well mostly I am. Well, I think I am anyway. I try to do good things. You know I’m considerate and polite. I treat myself and others with respect. I’m professional and businesslike. Yeah, I’m a good person. I eat granola for breakfast. Well sometimes I do. Sometimes I eat cold pizza for breakfast but so what, that doesn’t make me bad; I’m still good. I think I am anyway. I eat fruit and I even like some vegetables. Sometimes I put blueberries in my granola. And yogurt too. Low fat. Dang, that’s so healthy. I must really be a good person. Yeah I like granola and blueberries and fruit and vegetables and skinless chicken, and low fat milk, and other good stuff. The trouble is that I like Cheetos too. I like Hershey bars with almonds and I like Nutty Buddies. I like bacon and breakfast sausage and I know they clog my veins. I like Snickers bars. I suppose that’s not such a bad thing and I suppose that they do at least one bad thing to me or possibly a plethora of bad things but the trouble is, sometimes I just don’t care. I just enjoy the Snickers bar. Clearly I’m not as good as I thought. Maybe I’m bad.

A particularly bad thing I do is eat hot dogs and enjoy them. Katy doesn’t like hot dogs so I try to only eat them when she is not home and I am feeling really rowdy. Recently we were talking about what to have for dinner and I said I wanted to have hot dogs and that I would go to the store and get her something else for dinner because I knew she didn’t like those darn vein clogging, heart stopping, cancer causing, tubes of death. She told me she wanted a mushroom.

A what?

I like mushrooms. Mostly I do. It kind of depends on where they are. I like mushrooms on pizza. For dinner or breakfast; it’s all good. Sometimes I like a mushroom burger. The thing is that a mushroom burger is supposed to have one burger and a bunch of mushrooms. How hard is that to understand? Saying I like mushrooms means that I like mushrooms with an “s”. It doesn’t mean I like mushroom. As in one single mushroom. Katy wanted a mushroom burger without the burger and with only one mushroom. I thought, are you serious, one mushroom. You want one mushroom for dinner? She said she would put it in a bun and have a mushroom burger. Whoa, whoa, whoa! That’s not a mushroom burger. A mushroom burger has to have a burger and the mushroom part means mushrooms not mushroom. Whatever. She said I could eat my nutritionless hot dogs and she would have a mushroom. One of them. One huge mushroom. Big enough to fit in a hamburger bun all by itself. Are you serious? Is there such a thing? Are they grown or are they manufactured? Are they even real? I think a mushroom that is that big is a processed mushroom or something. They take a bunch of real mushrooms, grind them up, press them together, and cram them in a mushroom mold to make them look like one, giant mushroom. What holds it together? Surely whatever is in that processed mushroom is worse for you than a little hot dog. Or two. Or three. And you want me to barbecue a mushroom? Are you serious? One mushroom all by itself? Who ever heard of such a thing?



I love my wife and I will do a lot to help her be happy. Even make her a fake mushroom burger.

The trouble is, is that as weird as I think barbecuing one mushroom is, I look at that darn thing on the barbecue sitting there next to my hotdogs and I think I’m not good; I’m bad. Katy is eating a mushroom and I’m eating hotdogs. What is wrong with me?

I decided to hook myself up to the badometer (rhymes with speedometer) to check to see if I am good or bad. The badometer is a scientific device of course. It is available at Radio Shack, Amazon, and directly from the manufacturer at Badometer.com.

If the hotdogs next to the mushroom aren’t enough to tell me I’m bad, the badometer confirmed it.

Dang it! What could I do?

I hooked Katy up to the badometer and of course she got a good reading. She always does.







I made fruit salad.



It improved my reading on the badometer.



But I just know that I will never be as good as my wife. Still, I refuse to eat one monster shroom to improve my reading. Maybe I’m just hopeless.

It is the weekend. Please be good. Drive your car carefully. Ride with people who drive carefully. Treat yourself with respect. Spend time with people who treat you with respect. Treat other people with respect. Talk nice to yourself; you deserve it. I look forward to hearing from you or seeing you. Keep yourself whole physically and emotionally. Enjoy your weekend.

Oh, and smile too. Just that simple thing will improve your reading on the badometer.

Proud to Be an American: Part II

I fished in Montana for several days at the end of August. In the motel we stayed in there was a simple breakfast served each morning as part of the package. The TV in the dining room always had Fox news playing. It seemed to be comfortable for most everyone in the room. I'm not saying whether or not I prefer Fox news. It's clear that Fox presents a conservative or right wing perspective. CNN presents a more liberal or left wing perspective. I'm not saying whether I prefer CNN. Heck, maybe what I really prefer is the Outdoor Channel but that's not the point. Maybe you think one or the other of these news sources is the "truth" and the other is "all lies". Maybe you prefer the cooking channel. Still that's not the point. Maybe there is no such thing as unbiased news reporting anywhere in the world. To a certain extent maybe we are all biased in one way or another.

So here's something else I like about America. We don't have unbiased news be we do have opposingly biased news. How many countries on the planet have that? A few, but not many. Regardless of whether I prefer FOX or CNN or the Outdoor Channel, I live in a country where the news can be reported from different perspectives. I do not take that freedom for granted. It is something else that makes me proud to be an American. My country is not perfect but it is still pretty darn amazing.

It is the weekend. Please be good. Drive your car carefully. Ride with people who drive carefully. Treat yourself with respect. Spend time with people who treat you with respect. Treat other people with respect. Talk nice to yourself; you deserve it. I look forward to hearing from you or seeing you. Keep yourself whole physically and emotionally. Enjoy your weekend.

P

Proud to be An American: Part I

Ten days after the terrorist attack in 2001 my students put on a Proud to be An American Program. The program had several elements including a moving assembly in the gym and forming the American flag on the football field. A sixty yard section of the field was divided up into approximately 325 grids. Second period classes were designated as red, white, or blue, and asked to wear that color. They were assigned to specific grids. We had no idea if kids would wear the color we asked them to wear and we had no idea if everyone could find their grids without ever having practiced. They wore the colors and they found the grid. That morning was an extraordinary experience on so many levels. The willingness to risk and the commitment that my students showed still inspires me years later.

Certainly there are many things that are not perfect about our country. I can acknowledge that and I can help to make things better. I also acknowledge that there are so many, so very many incredible, good things about my country.

Today, and particularly tomorrow, regardless of what is in the news, I choose to be proud to be an American.

It is the weekend. Please be good. Drive your car carefully. Ride with people who drive carefully. Treat yourself with respect. Spend time with people who treat you with respect. Treat other people with respect. Talk nice to yourself; you deserve it. I look forward to hearing from you or seeing you. Keep yourself whole physically and emotionally. Enjoy your weekend.

P

Choices and Directions

Even though there are choices in my life, every day I have choices, sometimes all that I see is red lights. They yell at me and give me all kinds of reasons to stay stopped. I feel like I don't have any choices and my life is controlled from outside of me. It frustrates me and I don't like it.



Sometimes at least a suggestion would be helpful. Watch out for that direction. Go this way. Okay, I can make the choice. The trouble is, sometimes I'm not smart enough to take the warning.



No, no, no. That's not the right way. Stay stopped.




Oh sure, don't go this way. Watch out for that way. Show me the GOOD way!


I don't want all this help. I don't want people making suggestions to me. I want to make up my own mind. And I want ALL the choices.





Sometimes I feel like deciding what to do is too difficult. I just need some clear direction. Yeah, that's what I'm talkin' about. Go THIS way.


Don't tell me what to do. I want to make up my OWN mind.



Are you serious? That's too many choices! How the heck am I supposed to know which way to go? How about that one in the middle? Is it really telling me to go both ways?



On the same day I feel like I have too many choices...



And no choices at all.


I always have choices. Damn It! They may not be the ones I want but I always have choices.


It is the weekend. Please be good. Drive your car carefully. Ride with people who drive carefully. Treat yourself with respect. Spend time with people who treat you with respect. Treat other people with respect. Talk nice to yourself; you deserve it. I look forward to hearing from you or seeing you. Keep yourself whole physically and emotionally. Enjoy your weekend.

P

Aging--Part V: It is Not All Easy

Some parts of aging are exciting and I have looked forward to them through the decades. Even now I still actually look forward to turning 60 in October; I am not dreading it in any way. Some aspects of aging are troubling and disconcerting. Things just don’t work as well as they did, I don’t recover as quickly, hearing and eyesight are diminished, balance and flexibility are not what they once were. It is, some days, sobering, troubling, and scary. Sometimes there is nothing else to be said except that things are what they are.

I want to age gracefully, to accept the changes that happen to me which I cannot control and to still actively make change in my own life for as long as I am alive.

I have made four posts recently that in my mind are upbeat and that show people aging well and still embracing life. Not all of aging is that way.

My mother is 87. She is my hero. If you know me and if you have heard me talk you know how true this is. Just a few years ago she was still driving to the grocery store and to church. Osteoporosis has just wrecked havoc on her bones. She is crooked and twisted. She walks very tentatively; she always uses a walker or holds someone’s arm. Her hands shake. She has experienced profound hearing loss this past year; even with her hearing aids she struggles to hear conversation and often doesn’t. She has cataracts that make it challenging for her to read. Nothing about this is glamorous, light hearted, or fun. She will battle until the end because that is who she is. She is scared.

Embrace and cherish your life. Help others do the same.

It is the weekend. Please be good. Drive your cars carefully. Ride with people who drive carefully. Treat yourself with respect. Spend time with people who treat you with respect. Treat other people with respect. Talk nice to yourself; you deserve it. I look forward to hearing from you or seeing you. Keep yourself whole physically and emotionally. Enjoy your weekend.

P