Disclaimer, I intend no offense to Catholics or the many saints that exist, but did you realize that there is a saint for almost every purpose. Did you know that Saint Alexander of Comana is the patron saint of charcoal burners. That will come in handy next time I am forced to grill. Meanwhile Amand would be the patron saint of bartenders, another one of my many occupations. Anthony the Abbot would be the patron saint of gravediggers. And let us not forget the patron saint of women seeking husbands, Anthony of Padua. Shouldn’t that one have been a female? And those are just the patron saints that start with the letter A. If you want to check out the complete list for yourself, go to: https://d2y1pz2y630308.cloudfront.net/24191/documents/2019/11/Patron%20Saints%202.pdf
This morning our church was celebrating All Saints weekend and the conversation about saints came up. We were asked to consider the people in our lives that have passed on and though too many came to mind, I found myself thinking of my brother. He was only seven when he died. I was only eight. We were thick as thieves in our short lives to that point but we had already survived a lifetime of hijinks. There was no dare that he wouldn’t throw down and there was no challenge I didn’t accept. “I bet you can’t jump from that rock to this one.” I bet you’re too scared to jump off the hay loft.” And then there was the “I dare you to jump from that fence post to this one.” Though most of them resulted in various injuries, that last one was way too close to serious, not that mom or dad ever found out thanks to the unwritten code that we just didn’t tell on each other, ever! We clearly needed a patron saint of our own, like maybe Cajetan, the patron saint of gamblers.
My brother Karl and I circa 1959
Looking back and thinking about the impact on my life, I am nominating my brother for the patron saint of risk takers and I am thanking him for impressing on me the value of taking a risk. Without his encouragement, er goading, would I have grown up to accept and deal with the risks in life that gave me the opportunities to succeed, or the ability to take chances when they took me to the next level? Or for that matter, to have and have benefited from the experiences of my life? Without the willingness to take acceptable risks, would I have ever climbed a mountain or jumped from a plane? That last one definitely traces back to the leaps we took from the top of the hay mow. In short, life might have been far less exciting without the occasional walk on the edge.
Don’t get me wrong. There are risks we should never take, especially when they might impact others. But if it’s an acceptable risk, if we understand what we control and that within that element of control, we can build in the safety net we need, maybe then we might be willing to take the leap. One of the strongest traits of a leader is the willingness to take the risk that is necessary to advance the cause. Without risk takers imagine all the inventions, all the historic events, businesses, and all of the discoveries never made. Would we have ever walked on the moon or would we just be earthbound wondering what was out there? What would the world be like without risk takers?
Today I thought about my brother who all those years ago dared me to take the chance. For that he is MY patron saint.
Sharing our childhood home with my grandparents created so many endearing memories, most of them the sights and scents of my mom and dad, and my grandmother canning in our tiny farmhouse kitchen. There was the hundreds of mason jars lined up on the table, the big blue canning kettle and the steam rising off the boiling water ready to seal the fruits and vegetables into those mason jars where they would slowly disappear from our fruit cellar as the long winter gave way to spring and our garden thawed out, readying itself for the next growing season. Every once in awhile something brings that memory flooding back. In those moments, I can still remember the smells wafting from the kitchen all the way to my upstairs bedroom, that aromatic mixture of pickled corn and beets, dill pickles and relish, fruits and ah yes, the apple sauce. Oh that glorious mixture of apples and cinnamon. That recipe so perfected by my dad.
When canning came to an end each fall, and all the canning equipment had been stowed away, we would stack the shelves of our basement fruit cellar with enough canned vegetables and fruit to last us through the winter. We were self sufficient and I always remember mom and dad’s pride as they recorded the inventory. Nothing in our garden had gone to waste. As the winter wore on, each meal would be augmented with something from the cellar, fresh, aromatic, and delicious. But my favorite was always the apple sauce. We would have it on ice cream. We would warm it up and put it in a bowl with a little splash of cream, or as my grandfather liked it, spread across a warm slice of grandmas’ homemade bread. There just wasn’t anything it didn’t go well with.
Recently, after trips to every apple orchard pumpkin patch in the area, with grandchildren in tow, my daughter handed me a pint of the golden nectar. She has been working on it for the past several years and she just might have perfected it. Somehow, through experimentation, old recipes scratched out on weathered notecards, and of course hours of shared applesauce sessions at her grandfather’s side, Bailey has come as close as humanly possible to my dad’s apple sauce recipe. It now sits proudly on my counter awaiting the moment I crack the seal and carefully ration out my first serving.
Where my wife and I have never seemed to successfully carry on the tradition, my daughters have prevailed. They have become the gardeners, the chefs, and yes the canners I never was. The art had skipped a generation but thanks to my daughter, I now have a pint of homemade, ready to savor, dad’s special recipe, apple sauce, and along with it, a chance to bask in the memories it has evoked. Memories of being that eight year old kid, sneaking down the stairs , and sneaking a peak of my dad as he worked side by side with my mom as they canned more than just food for the winter, but memories for a life time.
You’ll have to excuse me now, I have a bowl of warm applesauce and cream waiting on my evaluation.
I don’t know about you, but I for one can’t wait for November 9th. Before you correct me, I know that November 8th is election day. I can’t wait for the day after for two reasons. One, I will hopefully realize that my prayers have been answered, well maybe some of them. And two, that these horrible campaign ads will finally stop invading my spaces; my TV, my phone, my email, my streaming services, and even my game apps. I am tired of being bombarded with fear mongering commercials that play to the darkest regions of my soul where lies my primordial fears and urges. I am worn out trying to stay optimistic in the face of these hateful negative ads. What ever happened to decency when it comes to these attacks on the opponent’s character and for that matter what has happened to campaign promises? I’d actually welcome a few of those promises even if they are unlikely to be kept. Anything is better than the hate messages.
When I was still in my working career as a financial planner, I had to be extremely careful about anything I stated or committed to in writing when it came to describing the delivery of my services. In fact, even if I was careful to be entirely honest, everything still went through compliance where any and all statements were scrutinized for any distortions or false promises. It was common practice and fully expected and respected. My question is, why are these campaign ads not subjected to at least a semblance of compliance? Do the candidates and their third party pacts have no time to check the validity of their statements? Or is it, that truth doesn’t sell when it comes to politics? These ads splice in sound bites that have nothing to do with the issue or are at the very least distorted into half truths. They leave it up to the voter to do the research, case in point, I did a recent lookup on “cash bail” and the reasons behind changing that system. Please take the time to look that one up for yourself. It is enlightening when you choose a neutral site. Here’s the problem with the belief that the voter will do the research, its highly unlikely that they will and the candidate or the supporting pact hopes they don’t. If they did, the scare tactic would lose its impact and the voter might actually stop believing anything the candidate is saying.
So integrity compliance is one issue, but the shear volumes of money thrown at these ads is, in my opinion, a moral crisis. Ask any nonprofit how hard it is for them to raise funds to provide the services that the government can’t afford and they will tell you it is in many cases heartbreaking at best and in some cases the direct cause of their demise. A school system begs for a million dollars in aid so that they can deliver the education the public demands all too often forced to deliver it in aging buildings. Meanwhile, federal and state legislators vote no to the very programs and referendums that would help to level the playing field between the haves and have nots. And all of this, while we the public and all too often the biggest corporations adorn them with campaign war chests that could fund hundreds if not thousands of worthy causes. They then turn around and pour those dollars into the very campaign ads I just railed against.
Here’s my parting thought. What if the requirement that the ads had to be complied by an outside research service actually resulted in the ads never being allowed. The money wouldn’t need to be spent on airing them and maybe we would give our hard earned dollars to better causes. And if the ad was to pass compliance, it might just be forced to rely on information about the candidate and their beliefs rather than the current practice of relying on your ability to paint the other candidate as evil incarnate leaving you, by default, as the only choice I have as a voter. You don’t need to agree with me, but think about it.
As the tropical storm brewed in the south Atlantic Ocean and eventually strengthened into Hurricane Ian, it somehow created this excitement as one watched nature show its hand. It created almost a sense of awe as you watched the storm strengthen and slowly pick its path. That all turned to shock when it eventually made its decision to come on land and the world began to witness its fury.
Just this last April, my family and I spent three weeks on Fort Myer’s Beach and we were so taken with the beautiful shoreline, the busy streets and businesses that lined them, and of course the people, tourists and locals, who showed us what a great travel destination it was. As I now see the pictures of the devastation scroll across my TV screen, It strikes home that this hurricane and its aftermath is somehow a bit more personal. Every now and then, one of the pictures will have just enough structure left for me to identify an establishment we ate or shopped at. The photo above is just one of those establishments I fear is no longer there.
My heart goes out to the City of Fort Myer’s, Fort Myer’s Beach, and Sanibel Island. You didn’t deserve this storm or its wrath, but it has now left its mark. In the coming days, weeks, months, and even years to come, this area will clean up the wreckage and rebuild. Whatever we can do to assist, I am sure will be well received. If you are reading this and have an inkling to help out, choose a way to be part of their recovery. I have included links below for Lutheran Services and for Red Cross, both who are already on site and helping to provide needed services to any and all they can assist.
I need to preface this piece. Today marks the 21st anniversary of 9/11 and it must be recognized that the loss on that tragic day can never come close to the loss I am writing about in this piece. The courage and bravery of those involved in any and all aspects of that day must never be forgotten.
Last week Deb and I, along with another couple, Larry and Annette, had decided to ride the Sugar River Bike Trail from Albany to New Glarus. Not wanting to ride down and then ride back on the same trail, we had been clever and agreed on a way to leave my car at the end of the trail in New Glarus and Larry’s car at the trailhead in Albany. We would drop off our spouses and the bikes in Albany, drive both cars down to New Glarus and then return to Albany in Larry’s car. Once we completed the ride, I would drive Larry back to Albany to get his car. Perfect plan. What could go wrong? Maybe a disclaimer here: Neither Larry nor I felt particularly proud of our respect for the environment demonstrated in this plan, but hey, we at least rode bikes at some point.
If you have been a faithful reader of my blog or for that matter, patient enough to sit through any of my many stories, you will know that my keys and I sometimes part ways. As we finished our ride and were locking up the bikes, I looked across the parking lot at my waiting car. It took me all of a second for the painful reality to hit me. No, my keys weren’t lost, not this time. In fact, I knew exactly where they were and let me add, they were safe and secure. The problem was that they were safe and secure in Larry’s car, the car that was now 16 miles away in a parking lot in Albany. Facing me now, was the hierarchy of who do I confess to first, my spouse, who would immediately lecture me, rightfully so, on the virtues of making sure I kept track of things, or Larry and Annette, enjoying their well deserved ice cream while anticipating Larry’s ride back to Albany and his parked car, and blissfully ignorant to the events now unfolding just a few feet away..
I opted for neither and headed straight for Kennedy’s Ice Cream stand where I shamelessly asked the owner if she knew how I might actually get back to Albany other than by riding my bike back up the trail…. alone! Even as my loving wife was figuring out what was going on, the owner tells me she will call her husband and he and his truck can take me there. Now all I had to do was break the bad (embarrassing) news to Larry and Annette. Their response was both expected and priceless. The expected; “You’re kidding, right?”, the priceless part; in that exact same moment of shameful confession, the owner calls out to me and says. “He’s on his way.” Praise the Lord, I’m saved! An hour later, Larry and I have returned with Larry’s car, my keys, and a new best friend. In that half hour trip back up, we have heard my hero’s life story, identified at least three intersections in our lives and have considered buying his restored wooden Criss Craft boat, or at least ready to ask him for a ride in it.
Here is my point. We all experience losses in life. Some of those losses are catastrophic; the loss of health, the loss of life, or even the loss of a loved one. Others are far less critical such as the loss of some item or, in my case, the loss of pride. As hard as it was to admit the mistake to my friends, the amazing result was the forgiveness I received and the incredible acts of kindness I experienced at the hands of strangers. The agony of my shame was overshadowed by the reward of renewed faith in the community of strangers. Going forward, I may just make it a practice to lose things so that others can have the chance to rescue me. On second thought, probably not the best of plans.
The time is just a few minutes after 3:00 am. John is already up and carbo loading on a breakfast of pancakes and syrup. In a little more than an hour he will be starting off on what will be a 240-mile trek by bike across Wisconsin. The ride will start here in Lacrosse, Wisconsin and work its way southeast across the state eventually ending on the waterfront in downtown Milwaukee. He will be accompanied by 700 fellow bike riders, some as lone riders like John while others will ride for teams of several riders. The trek will take them through nearly 70 miles of gravel trail and tunnels, with another 170 miles on backroads as they rise and fall over 6500 feet of total elevation. While the ride starts with hundreds of riders, only about 160 will cover the entire 240 miles in a single day. John has trained all year for this ride, but today will be his distance record as he joins the group to cover it in a single day.
3:45 am Ready to roll
I will be driving the sag wagon for John’s trip, accompanied by my daughter Bailey who is John’s spouse. Our job will be to meet him at the designated checkpoints along the way where we will refresh his water bottles and provide him with the snacks and food he has planned out for each stop. This honor had fallen to my younger daughter, Kathryn, last year, but is mine to experience this year. I am honored to be on his sag crew and a part of his journey.
It is now 4:30 am and we are with John as he awaits the start and continues to check and recheck everything on his bike. The start is only minutes away now and bikers are coming from every direction to find their starting positions. The start area is marked off in intervals that closely mimic the starting paces the riders intend to keep. The faster pace riders are placed near the beginning, while slower starters will take up positions further back in line. The last thing any rider wants is to be involved in a collision within the first mile of the ride due to an uneven start. John will take a position in the top third of the riders with a chosen pace around 15 mph. My first impression is of how focused John is. If he is to be successful, he must maintain a sustainable pace, pay attention to his times as he has planned them out, and be able to break the ride into segments. He will likely be on the bike for up to 17 hours and he has to find ways of avoiding thinking about how much he still has left, as opposed to focusing on the segments as he finishes one and begins the next. Only if he thinks of them as a bunch of shorter trips, will the totality of the trip not take its toll on his emotional energy.
Focused! John prepares and Bailey syncs the app we will use to track John.
It’s 5:00 am, the start! John gives us a cursory glance and a wave, and he is off into the dark. By the time Bailey and I have made our way back to the hotel, the app on her phone shows John already 6 miles out. Sparta is our first check point some 30 miles away. We decide we better forego breakfast and get on the road to meet him. It’s amazing how this feels like a sacrifice for us and then we remember, John’s on the bike, we are in a car. Way too easy to lose perspective. We vow to toughen up, but not without a cup of coffee to go.
The weather last night was dotted with torrential downpours. We are worried as John approaches the Sparta Elroy trail, as to the condition of the gravel bed. How messed up will the tunnel surfaces be. One of those tunnels is nearly a mile in length and there are no lights. The riders will depend on the collective light cast by their bike lights. As John prepares to leave this first pit stop, he expresses concerns about switching from pavement to the gravel trails but grabs fresh water and a couple bananas and heads back out. He will repeat this action up to ten more times throughout the day. At least the rain, forecast to be off and on all day, has so far held off. We pick John up as the trail crosses through the next three villages. He does not stop at any of these, but I can feel the relief in Bailey as she waves him through. Each crossing shows he is riding strong and has chopped off another ten miles here and another fifteen miles there. His next planned stop will be Elroy.
We are there waiting in Elroy. It is amazingly only 9:45 in the morning. It seems so much later but then we remind ourselves that John has now been riding for almost five hours. Again, with the perspective! This is the point where he will switch from the Sparta Elroy trail to the 400 Trail as it winds its way down to Reedsburg. As it turns out, we were able to pass John a slice of pizza and pudding cup at the old train depot in Kendall. He warned us that he may not stop at Elroy and as he approaches us on the trail, he gives a thumbs up and rides straight through. I guess we catch him at Reedsburg.
We wait at the depot in Reedsburg and eventually we start seeing riders we know have been coming through the previous checkpoints around the same time as John. Bailey’s app says that he is about 2 miles out and so we wait. Then suddenly we see him making the corner leading into town and the end of the 400 Trail. He reaches the depot covered in mud, gravel, and grease. His black bike is barely recognizable, but John just wants a quick refuel on some snacks and heads back out. We will meet him in Wisconsin Dells where he will take ten minutes to wolf down a burger and fries that we are to pick up while we wait. The good news, he is off the gravel trails for the next few hours and the sun is out. The bad news, the Baraboo Ridge lies dead ahead and that means the hills have begun.
The stop in Wisconsin Dells goes well and Bailey and I hide our shame as we finish off our McDonalds burger, fries, and a shake, oh the humanity! John wants to get right back out so his hamburger will wait. Fries and a pudding cup are all he takes time for, and he is off for the climb over the ridge. Once he clears the ridge, it will be mostly downhill to the ferry crossing at Merrimac. As Wisconsin Dells was designated as the halfway point, over 400 riders have now disappeared from the ride. But John and about 160 others will trek on. As we wait for the ferry to complete its trip across and back on the river, John gets a well-deserved half hour rest. But time can become his enemy if he is to finish by 10:00 pm in Milwaukee. The ferry barely drops the gate and John and about 30 riders are headed down the road.
As nice as the sunshine was at the ferry crossing, the blackening skies on the other side of the river bode nothing but bad news. John had barely reached the next village at Lodi when the skies let loose. The rain came in torrents. Bailey and I are on the road when the storm hit and are barely able to keep driving. We catch ourselves complaining about the rain when the reality hits us that John is somehow continuing to ride in this. We know that because we are tracking his progress on the app. He has slowed considerably but he is still moving south. We stop complaining and once again regain the perspective. We say a silent prayer and wish him God speed.
We reach the next checkpoint at Bristol where a group of friends and family will await John’s pass through at the Sassy Cow Creamery. John is looking forward to seeing his children at this stop. Jackson and Adela have made posters and will be there to cheer him on to the finish some 90 miles ahead. This will be his encouragement for the final push. The problem is the rain. It is coming down so hard that we can barely see across the street. But then we all catch a break. The rain lets up just long enough for us to spot John’s light blinking through the gloom. It is around 3:30 as he crests the hill and we all clang bells and rush out to welcome him to this briefest of stops. Hugs from Jackson and Adela, encouragement from the friends and family that are there, and John gets back on the bike and heads on down the road. As the rain starts back up, we can just catch a glimpse of the red light on the back of his bike fading into the distance. I will forever hold that image of that solitary rider disappearing into the gloom.
This is where I left the sag wagon. I needed to drive my wife and our grandkids to the hotel in Milwaukee where we would wait for John to finish the ride. Bailey would see him through the next two stops at Waterloo and Lake Mills. At Lake Mills she would wave John through as he had to enter gravel trails once more for 25 more miles on the Glacial Drumlin trail to Milwaukee. The next time she would see him would be the finish line in Milwaukee. As we found out later, this was one of the worst legs of the trip if not thee worst. The trail was littered with tree branches and water running in the ruts. This leg alone would do in the casual rider, but John must push through this ever mindful of the distance remaining and the approaching darkness.
Back on the gravel
The call came in from Bailey at 9:30. She was at the finish line and John was 9 miles out. The goal of finishing before 10:00 was in jeopardy but he was pushing as hard as he could. As the minutes ticked down, we waited at the finish line, Jackson and Adela with their posters, and the rest of us with fingers crossed. At 10:00 the app said 1 mile out. At 10:05 we saw bike lights crossing the avenue three blocks down and at 10:06, to the screams of “you made it”, and 17 hours after leaving Lacrosse, John finished the ride. I should add this note. At that 1 mile out mark, John had called Bailey and said I need a hamburger when I come in. My wife immediately headed to the restaurant only to find out the grill had been shut down for the night. Upon hearing the story and seeing John’s children waiting, the chef said I am going to fire up the grill and make him the perfect hamburger, which in John’s case is plain, no condiments just the meat. The least we can do after 240 miles.
I would never have fully understood this ride or my sons-in-law’s obsession had I not been able to be even a small part of it on his sag crew. My deep respect for what he accomplished goes without saying. You are the toughest guy I know. Now get on that bike and start training for next year.
Sometimes things just work out. I had driven downtown to meet my wife and daughter. My daughter had just finished her first yoga class as an instructor and we decided we should celebrate with a dinner and a drink. The first eating establishment we tried offered too small a menu. The next, closed for the evening. The third try offered no parking and no outside dining. Ready to give up, we found ourselves at The Madison Tap at the Robinia Courtyard, a place none of us had been before but had heard enough good things said about them, to give it a try.
As we were shown to a small table in the courtyard, a band began to set up. As the instruments and the musicians started filing in, it became clear we just might have stumbled into one of those happy accidents. Who doesn’t appreciate a chance for live music. As we finished our meal and contemplated a second drink, someone in the band started hanging up their banner. Much to my surprise, the band turned out to be Mama Dig Down’s Band. In my preretirement career, I had become indirectly associated with the band and knew the band’s organizer and lead singer as well as several of the band members. Tonight was going to be a reunion of sorts and I just had to hang out and listen to them play.
If you are unfamiliar with the band or may have never heard them play, they are a multipiece brass band offering a wide range of music but specializing in the New Orleans Jazz style. Oh yeah, and they are great! As Mama Dig Down opened their set, the courtyard literally began to vibrate with the resonate sounds of their lively brass music. Soon patrons began spilling out of the bar and into the courtyard and in no time at all, the crowd was rocking to the sound. In fact, it was nearly impossible to not begin moving to the rhythm of the band as the horns wailed out their jazz beat and the drums drove it home. For a moment, if you closed your eyes, you could imagine yourself standing in the middle of Bourbon Street in the center of the French Quarter. The effect was magical.
I had not started the evening in the best of moods, but I certainly ended it in a great mood. Nothing raises one’s spirits like live music shared with the people you love in a setting you wound up at completely by accident. Thank you Roc and Darin and Mama Dig Down’s Band for a perfect evening. So perfect, not even the parking ticket under the wiper blade of my car could wipe the smile from my face.
I will start with a disclaimer and a “survey says” question. First the question, just so you are at least a little curious; On a scale of one to five, with one meaning I am living but barely to five representing you’re living the high life, how would you describe your financial situation? It’s a rhetorical question so don’t send me emails with your pick but do answer the question for yourself. Second is the disclaimer. I am a math geek and this blog will have a fair amount of math in it.
With that made clear, here goes. As a math geek; 1. I love solving math problems, just ask my kids. Every where and anywhere we went there was a potential math problem looming. Their favorite, okay my favorite, was the semi on the highway problem. It goes like this. Most semis will have the length of their trailer posted somewhere on the back of the truck but the standard is 53 feet. The tractor is another 12 feet for a total average length of 65 feet. If I am traveling 60 mph, my wife would say if only, and I have them start counting the seconds from when my front bumper passes the trucks rear bumper up to the moment my front bumper passes the tractors front bumper, the question posed is “How fast is the truck going?” Someone out there will say can’t you just shadow the truck and check your speedometer? Bet your kid is still asking you to tell them the answers to their homework. By the way, this will keep your child busy and less likely to ask the proverbial how much longer till we get there question and possibly even avoid the worst case scenario of “She’s invading my space.” Enough said on loving math problems as you can simply speculate on the living math hell my daughters grew up in. 2. I love statistics. I have never seen any game, especially games of chance, or demographic that can’t be expressed with statistics. As a teacher, my students would be tasked to make up survey questions and then go out to find the real data. In yet another project, they would use statistical math to calculate the number of theoretical license plates printed in the sequence leading up to my personal vehicle license plate. And again, I know what you are thinking, “He gave them his license plate number?!” What were you thinking? Of course I didn’t give them my license plate. I was a middle school math teacher? The very first survey question would have been, on a scale of one to five, what is the damage risk level to my car of a 7th grade student seeking revenge? Obviously it was the principal’s license plate. And 3. I firmly believe that statistics in the wrong hands can be grossly misleading if not just plain false. Have you seen the latest poll numbers of your favorite politician as put out by their own party? One that always bothers me is that two out every three dentists recommend, fill in the blank here, toothpaste. I suspect that company’s product was filled in that blank. There, you now have my manifesto, and for that matter, most of the math you will need to contemplate.
Those who know me well, as I hope my followers do, know that I finished my career in the finance world. Loving statistics, see above, I came across this tidbit, okay, I deliberately looked it up. It would seem that the total asset value of households in the U.S. is estimated at $113 trillion. The total U.S. debt of those same households was $15 trillion resulting in a net wealth of $98 trillion That’s trillion with a T and twelve zeroes behind it. I mean look at it, $98,000,000,000,000. But, that begged the question, here comes the math problem, how much is that per individual U.S. citizen? There are, at last count, 329 million folks living here in this great country. I’ll save you reaching for your calculators, but I bet my grandson can do the math in his head, that’s $297,000 per person, and that would include individuals like my five year old granddaughter. Factor out those under the age of 21 and the population drops to 197 million changing that wealth number to roughly $497,000 per individual. Wait, what? Feeling short changed? Remember, you still need to subtract your total amount of debt before you arrive at your personal total. I am betting that many of you might be willing to trade positions and settle for that national average.
So what’s my point? Well the obvious one is whose got all the money? If your household, all the adults in the house times the $497,000 per person exceeds the average, well I sure hope you answered that survey question I opened with, at 4 or better. If your household doesn’t exceed the number and you still gave yourself a 3 or better, maybe you already see my point. It’s not what everyone else has that I don’t, but what I have and what I am able to do. I could go further into the weeds and tell you that the top 1% of US households hold 20% of the total wealth, or roughly $20 trillion. ($20,000,000,000,000) Their average wealth then jumps to $6,000,000 per individual! But now I’ve put the spotlight on what I don’t have and that is the complete opposite of the point I am trying to make.
We are a consumer nation and that fact tends to cause us to view the glass as half empty. That in turn leaves us with the feeling that we don’t have enough, or that we deserve more, or just that we might never be satisfied. I asked my opening question before I gave you the statistics for a reason. How did you answer it? Glass half empty or glass half full? Had I posed the statistics first, would it have changed your answer? Don’t let statistics overwhelm you. They are averages at best and you are better than average. Of that I am sure.
If you were waiting for me to go all, no offense, Bernie Sanders on you, I just wouldn’t. I may share his belief that wealth could be spread a little fairer and maybe accomplish more if we got over our political war on taxes, but at the end of the day, what truly counts is your attitude on what you have, not what you want. Heck, what would I do if I had the wealth up there in that 1% bunch. Oh yeah, I’d likely give to those with less. But that’s just me, because I already have enough.
The last time I saw a movie in a theater had been almost three years ago. Yesterday, finally, my wife and I returned to the theater for our favorite five buck Tuesday date. We sat, at the edge of our seats, through Top Gun Maverick. It felt good. It felt normal, almost. Remember when this whole Covid-19 thing was going to inconvenience us for a few weeks, maybe a few months at most?
Here we are two and a half years later. Some things are back to normal. Some aren’t. Some might never be. I could say the world has changed, and many will profess that very sentiment, but the truth is we changed. We have changed the way we do so many things. We have changed the processes. Many of us have changed the way we socialize, where we socialize. Most of us have come through this with a different outlook. For some, more positive. For others, more negative.
The pandemic has challenged our perception of freedom. It has made some of us demand our rights, while sadly, being willing to suppress the rights of others. We have always seemed to be a divided nation, but the pandemic seemed to push us even further apart. It seemed to focus our anger and then the isolation seemed to cause us to direct that anger outward, and often at the wrong people.
We have so many issues to deal with as a nation. Equal rights, not just for a few but for everyone, black or white, male or female, gay or straight. Climate change, whether you want to call it global warming or just admit that the climate is in fact being changed by our very behavior, our insatiable desire for everything fast and convenient, for our unwillingness to pay the price of doing it right. For common sense gun laws to protect us from ourselves. And please don’t tell me its the bad guys that have all the guns even as you tell teachers to arm themselves against the next potential attack. Why are we not dealing with these issues? Why are we at the very least, still dragging our feet. How has Congress become so isolated from the reality of who it is they are supposed to represent. When did it become only about the party and the money it took to get them elected? When did they forget that they are supposed to represent us? When did we all get so distracted?
I will not blame everything that’s wrong on the pandemic. It only focused things in an all too often negative light. I will also not blame a lone individual for everything that doesn’t work out my way. I will leave that last one to politicians and their political ads that attack and blame while offering no solutions or the plans needed to implement them. I will, however, hold people responsible for their actions, whether they directly impacted it through their involvement or just incited it by their rhetoric.
The solutions to our nation’s problems, our world’s problem, start with our own actions. If we want equality for all, then let’s start treating each other as equals. Let’s see the person, not their color, their sex, or their religion. And if we want to slow down or maybe even one day stop global climate change, then let’s each agree to do our part. Recycle, reuse, maybe pay a little more for products made with our environment’s well-being in mind. Let’s do business with businesses that take steps to protect the environment. And let’s speak with our votes. If the candidate is living in reality denial, has no solutions, is unwilling to compromise for the good of the nation, for us, then we vote them out. We are far more powerful than we think. And when we act together, we can become a force for change.
It might have been serendipitous that the first movie I saw after that long pandemic break, was one chock full of testosterone, speed, and comradery, but it seems it was the nudge I needed to break out of my latest episode of writer’s block. Just one more step toward normal.
It was a lazy summer afternoon. We were up north at our cottage and had gone for a walk along the winding barely two lane road that found its way to our cottage near the end of it. Jackson and I had fell well back of his mom and sister as he asked only the questions an inquisitive seven year-old could ask. Realizing that they had gotten so far ahead as to be completely out of sight, Jackson and I settled on a tale we would tell when we got back to the cottage. We would tell them that as we rounded the last bend, there in the middle of the road stood a big old black bear. This was something we had all long wished to see but never had and thus the bait in the story. We practiced how Jackson would tell of the event and anticipated the surprise on his mom’s face when he would spring it on her. As we entered the cottage and his mom asked where we had been, Jackson looked her in the eye and froze. “You tell the story Opa.” This had been Jackson story to tell but he just hadn’t yet embraced the art of storytelling.
There is a story within a story here and that was the story inside. Storytelling is an art as old as time. In fact without it, we wouldn’t have history. It is that storytelling throughout time that gives us the accounting of our history. Some stories are just that, a retelling of an event in a just the facts ma’am, kind of style. Other stories are told for the enjoyment of the listener, while still others, like Jackson’s, just to spin a yarn. These last two styles need to be rich in the colorful detail that makes them worth the time spent listening.
I come from a long line of artful storytellers. From my grandfather and my father, through my aunts and my uncles, I learned the history of the family and the family farm, but I also heard stories of the adventures and misadventures of the storytellers. I would often hear the same story told by two different tellers but each with their own choice of detail and sometimes, facts. The multiple telling of the same story taught me perspective. With story telling, there is an obligation to the overall facts of the event, but there is also literary freedom in the way the event was remembered and the storyteller’s style of retelling it. That is the art of storytelling.
Stories are powerful tools. As I previously mentioned, they can tell the history of an event or they can do so much more. If used properly, a story can be used to motivate through the lesson it delivers. The best motivational speakers use personal stories to relate their topic to the listener. By personalizing their message with their own experiences via stories, the speaker draws the listener in and paints a verbal image that helps them both relate to and remember the message. And of course, when properly enhanced and artfully told, the story can be pure entertainment. Most of my storytelling falls into this last bracket.
I have been accused of embellishing the facts and I will never deny that I might have, just a bit, but I believe the story should be entertaining. To that end, I reserve the right to a little additional literary freedom. Many of my favorite stories to tell have, needless to say, grown in stature over the years. I have also been accused, mostly by my wife and daughters, of making the story longer every time I tell it. I choose to blame that on my memory of the event continuing to improve with each retelling.
Throughout my adult life I have told stories. Some may have been told in my childhood, those being the ones I usually told to get out of the trouble I had so artfully gotten into. When I taught, I used them to relate life lessons to my students. As I developed my career as an investment planner, I told them to help my clients understand the financial decisions they would need to make. As a bartender I picked up the art of telling the story well and as a parent I used stories to guide my daughter’s decisions, to help them learn of their past, just as my father and grandfather did before me, and often, just to make them laugh. And they usually did.
I am now working on the next generation of stories as I go for long walks with my grandchildren. Through my stories, I hope that they will learn the histories of their parents, their grandparents, and the relatives that came before. They will hear stories of adventures and even some misadventures. They will hear stories of people and places and things. They may even hear stories they will choose to one day retell. Through them all, I will try to pass on the beauty and the art of telling the story. Even if it’s a tall tale of the bear we never saw.
kenisms 