I met the 99% on Northgate for New Year’s. Continue reading »

It’s a Saturday and my wife was at her school for their Science Fair. Leaving for it this morning while the rest of us slept in, she wrote a note saying how sorry she was to be gone and suggesting that we visit. And we did, our daughter and I. In her classroom, among the aftermath of children at school on a weekend and now sciencing loudly in their new gym, our daughter found a left-behind video game handheld still playing the game’s soundtrack of Bush and Blur and other such fare, sounds like she’s enjoyed many times before, playing along with her father in his office. She danced and snapped and sang and smiled and radiated, our beloved daughter, and in her we were, as always, well-pleased.

On our way back out to the car, I looked to the end of a hallway and saw a young boy holding a trophy, looking up at his mother as she talked on the phone. She was patting his head and rubbing his shoulder with her free hand. Congratulating him in a briefly-distracted way as she made another boastful phone call, no doubt. Appreciating well-earned pride, I offered my loud “Congratulations!” from down the hall. The boy looked up, almost confused. As we turned the corner, he disappeared from view just as he was looking up to his mother again in a still-lost kind of way. The mother’s amusement at a stranger’s misplaced enthusiasm echoed through the corridors carried on the dour words “is fifth.”

When I was young, even my loquacious father would grow weary of my talking. And then sometimes it was out of empathy for my mother’s desperation for brevity that he would try his hand at “informing my presentation.” He’d say what his dad had said to him:

You have two ears and one mouth. Listen twice as much as you talk.

I appreciate the sentiment, really. But I have two ears and one mouth. I have to compensate for the ears’ advantage.

Months ago, a very close friend passed away. I’d like to tell you about him for he was truly a great man, but I’m still wrapping my mind around it. I can tell you that, true to form, he was playing a game (very seriously, I’m sure) when he had his heart attack. His wife was notified and escorted across southeast Texas at a terrifically high speed by a relay of state and local law enforcement in order to be by his side. He waited for her. For his funeral, a city parade was rerouted so as not to be a disturbance. A proud Marine, all branches of the military were represented at his funeral which overflowed the church, and they in their respective uniforms joined the chorus to sing the Marines’ Hymn.

I want to honor him in the manner he deserves – through extraordinary and uncommon actions, through a life well-lived with integrity, intensity, loyalty. I think of him every day, as I do others to whom I am indebted whose legacies no longer enjoy their nurturing and protection – my grandparents (even and sometimes especially my father’s father who I did not know), my uncles Johnny and Butch, my friend Levi. Do I honor my inheritance? Do I earn it?

Just a month ago his wife, herself an extraordinary and inspirational human being, was diagnosed with cancer. Continue reading »

After an hour of meticulous mapping, I’m almost ready take a brand-new 40-mile ride. Then I notice that 4 blocks are on MLK and there’s nothing I can do about it. It’s just 4 blocks out of 40 miles, right? So what?

Another route, that’s what. I’d sooner do all 40 miles on a one-lane dirt county road (20 if I hear banjos).