Sugar and Snow

In case anyone was wondering where my addiction to sugar came from, when you grow up in Vermont, or at least when you grew up in Vermont in the 60s and 70s, there was this annual tradition of going on a field trip with whatever class you happened to be in that year to the "sugar house," which was in fact exactly that, a good old fashioned sugar house where the sap that came in from all the buckets as they were collected from throughout the woods was boiled almost for eternity until the single bucket turned into about a thimble full of the most amazing maple syrup, Vermont Made to be exact.  The proprietors would prepare for us each year and we of course would always go following a pretty good snowfall, and then the top layer of snow would be scraped off gently to leave this amazingly white, pristine surface of clean snow that they would then proceed to poor ridiculously fresh, like straight out of the boiling pan fresh, Vermont Made Maple Syrup.  I bet you all can guess what then happened, but all I can say is that if you have ever had maple sugar candy then try and imagine the freshest and most pure crystal form of this and that is what you get when you poor boiling hot maple syrup onto beautiful, fresh, deep, Vermont packed powder!!

Let the addiction begin.

Thank you again for getting this far with me.

It is Better to Have Loved...

I am now on the other side of the hill, and it is amazing to me that I have recently realized each relationship I have had up to this point, and there are just a few of meaning, have simply been a precursor to what was waiting, so that I would recognize true beauty, caring, thoughtfulness, sweetness, when it walked into my life, or I guess to be accurate I was the one that walked in, but that is really just semantics.

I kills me that my family, who never thought that any woman was ever god enough for me, would turn out to be at least somewhat right, in that yes there was something much, much better waiting for me.  A woman that has made me realize that true beauty does indeed lie within, but not usually mentioned is that it shines through like when the sun and the clouds conspire to show the world that yes there is a God, and that he is speaking directly to us.  A woman that every single time some little tiny thing is done for her appreciates it immensely, something as silly and small as opening a door for her, and a flower, well that is monumental, or at least she makes me feel that way.  It is simply wonderful that I have met someone that does not need or expect a great deal at all, nor does she really want it.  She would much prefer to make the absolute most out if whatever she has, and she views the older car that she drives, the car with power steering that does not work, and no heat at all as an absolute blessing, as it is transportation for her and her son and that is all that matters.

I am not sure why it took me this long to find such a person and to be shown that most of what people focus on and care about is not really what matters at all, but rather it is the true spirit of a person that shines through for everyone to see, the unshakable will of a woman that believes above all else in what truly matters and lets that belief drive her, fuel her, in all the amazing work she does.

None of this is to say that beauty does not matter, it matters a great deal, and most people, not all, will at least admit this to themselves, but it is true that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and I have beheld true beauty inside and out.  I am amazed at every smile, and every loving look from her eyes.  I am amazed that holding her hand can send a soothing, calming agent through my entire body, and turn my legs to jelly.  I am amazed that her voice could be so sweet and soothing and that I could want to hear every word, and never want to stop conversing.  I am even amazed, given today's technology, that if she would let me I would TEXT back and fourth with her all night long because I am always interested in what she will say next, what she will share!!

I know all this now, and I have enjoyed every second of every minute of every day we have known each other, and so it is in fact better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all, even if the end result is still the same!!

Thank you again for getting this far with me!!

Where I Am

It is amazing how much certain, smells, sounds, a piece of music can instantly transport you to a different place and time.

I just opened up Spotify to pick something to listen to as I needed help to stay focused and the third listing I clicked was George Winston's December.  Given the six degree day we are having, and the snow outside it seemed fitting, but as soon as the first track came on, Thanksgiving, I was instantly in my car in the early AM almost a decade ago heading for Okemo Mountain Resort.  I could see rt 131 clearly in front of me.  I could here, feel and smell my car as I made my way to "work."  I say it that way because teaching skiing for a living is not work in any way shape or form.  It is getting paid, and tipped very well, to hang out with people that want to become better skiers.  From the very old, 86, to the very young, 4, it just does not matter, or it didn't matter, just get them going up the lift and down in the safest and best fashion possible and keep them smiling while doing so.

I was fortunate to have two distinct periods of such "work," and both years were amazing experiences, times I will never forget, and it makes me wonder why I ever gave up that path, let alone twice.  No you can not get rich teaching skiing, and perhaps you can't even pay the bills.  Teaching skiing only gets harder as one gets older, or so I imagine, I have not tried it in a while, but being outdoors every day all day long.  Meeting new people, being an "ambassador" for the hill!!

Life to me sometimes is very much like long car rides when you space out for a bit and then wonder "how'd I get here already," as you look up and it takes you a minute to realize you are miles and miles down the road with no real recollection of time passing.

You are where you are, and it is what it is, but sometimes it just does not make a great deal of sense from where I once was??

Thank you again for getting this far with me.

Lead, Follow, or Get Out of the Way

The last few days, or weeks, or years, I have been reminded of this phrase as I continue to try and make change, improve that around me, make a difference, especially in the lives of the youth of America, and I have come to realize that this is not isolated, or specific to one place, and it is not just in one facet of my life, but it seems in all.

Change is difficult, change is not easy in any way, and NOBODY likes change when you come right down to it, and especially change that is forced upon them.  I am a teacher, a coach, a consultant, a businessman and many other things, and no matter the scenario, change is always met with resistance.

The best example I can give you is when a forklift driver at a very large food manufacturer once tried to run me over in the finished goods warehouse!!  A union forklift driver by the way.  Why, because we were there to make change.  I believe, as did all of my colleagues and our client believe, that this was positive change, make the warehouse faster, improve flow through, increase the total capacity of the warehouse by 13 %, automate the location identification, but nonetheless I had to do an ole with a forklift.

I am writing this tonight because it needs to be written.  I am writing this tonight because the past few days have been very specific to this phrase, and I am writing tonight to try and get all of us to think about which of these things we are doing, or should be doing.  I am also writing here and not on my FB page, and especially not on the team's FB page because these are my thoughts and views, and no one else's specifically.

To me this is simple.  There are rules in every job.  Very few of us get to set those rules, just like very few of us get to make or change laws.  There is then the job we are supposed to do, most often within these rules, or guidelines, and then there is a little thing I like to call COMMON SENSE!!  I am not saying people should break rules, and I am not saying that all organizations should not have processes and procedures people need to follow, if this were not true we as a society would live in total anarchy.  What I am saying is that every once in a while it is OK to make sure that we are not being just a little too literal!!

So my message to all the SHEEP of the world, especially those that make a habit out of using rules and regulations to police other in organizations and wind up being significant and constant road blocks to any real change, or true success, usually for others is:

Lead, follow, or get out of the way!!  Please stop simply standing in the way of all those that are trying to make change, do better at what they do, grow personally and as an organization, and just get the hell out of the way and let great be great!!

Another way of saying it is you are not part of the solution, you are part of the PROBLEM!!

Thank you again for getting this far with me.

The Kids Always Get Stuck in the Middle

Here is what just struck me about the government shutdown; it no longer matters who is write or who is wrong, who "wins" and who "loses," which party gets to claim a victory!!  This thing has to end because the people that are getting hurt are not the folks with money that can still pay the rent, or more accurately mortgage (s), it is our President, living rent free in a fairly nice house, and some of the nations Republican representatives that also live in fairly nice digs, both when they are in DC and when they are home, and their constituents taxes are paying for most of that.

I know too many people now that are no longer getting paid, are having to find jobs to pay the rent, or buy food, or pay for school, or all of the above and more because the government has hung out a gone fishing sign.

I am also not so stupid about all of this that I don't realize that there will be people who suffer from whatever compromise, or changes, that may have to be made to "Obamacare," but is there not a medium term solution that will fill the government bus back up so at least our country does have a "close for business" sign on the door anymore!!

It just seems like a very messy separation/divorce, and the kids are stuck in the middle and are therefore the ones that are suffering the most, and frankly the parents in this situation do not care and are being the most childish!!

Thank you again for getting this far with me!!

50 Years and Still Clueless

The longer I live, the more I experience, the less I know!!  I do not know if this is the same for the rest of the world, but it sure is for me.

I have wanted to be married since I was four years old, REALLY!!  Four is when I first started to notice, flirt with, and follow my sisters friends around.  She was four year's older than me, so I guess at that time I was interested in older "women."  This trend actually lasted until freshman or sophomore year in high school and then began to reverse itself.  When I was a freshman in high school I dated a senior and I now know that I almost gave my father, and her mother, a heart attack.  When I was a senior in high school I dated a Freshman, or two, and then the process started all over in college.

My freshman year at the College of Wooster I used to see the same women every day in the training room before and after pre-season practice.  She always had to have her knee wrapped and so she would be standing up on the training table...wow.  Just thinking about it now it still makes me blush.

In August on most college campuses the only people on campus are coaches and athletes and so for an 18 year old football player it was essentially heaven.  This young lady it turned out was a field hockey player, and an All-American.  She ended up her senior season breaking the TEAM scroing record by herself!!  Later that fall she saw me in the school pub, called The Pub, you can't make that up.  After worshiping her for the entire fall she looked at me as only she could have at that time, she did that index finger come hither thing and I was putty.  She never spoke to me after that night.

Sophomore year it was off to The University of Rhode Island where there were more students on the quad the first day of classes than there was in all of The College of Wooster.  Needless to say I did not do all that well in school that fall either.

The middle of sophomore spring my life changed forever and I do not know if I have ever had any control of it since.  I walked into The Balfour House, the off campus spirit wear and class ring store, and fell in love as soon as I walked through the door.  Now I had been in love before, or at least I told myself, and someone else I was, but this was very, very different.  I am sure that I quite literally stopped in my tracks.  After regaining a small percentage of my faculties I managed to say something, I do not know what, and then eventually someone managed to ask if I could take her out, make her dinner, I am not sure.  She told me she had a boyfriend, and so I tried to politely excuse myself.  The response when I said that I should probably go then was something that I will never forget, "but I enjoy talking to you.  Please come back and visit."

Later that spring my dad was visiting and we wound up walking into the store and I am confident that he had a similar response as I first did.  When we walked out he told me that she was definitely interested in me and that she "was a keeper."  My response, "thanks dad I've got it."

Very long story short, this is the young lady that traveled to Hanover, New Hampshire with me in July for my father's wedding.  I have never been happier than that day, even though just before leaving Rhode Island to drive to New Hampshire we had a long conversation about how incredibly confused she was, and how hard I had made her life.  She had made the decision that when we returned to Rhode Island she would get back together with her high school sweetheart and current boyfriend.  The most difficult and wonderful weekend of my life to that point, and maybe ever.

This is the first time anyone will know that I asked her that weekend, while sitting at a table in The Village Green having some breakfast, or pretending to have some breakfast because I was so nervous and anxious I could not eat, if she could see herself living a life with me in the mountains building houses and making a family.

On the following Monday we said goodbye, and two Mondays after that, and two Mondays after that.  About a year later, maybe more, I got a phone call from her because she was getting married and wanted me to hear it from her.

Her answer in The Village Green that day..."definitely."

It took a very long time after that experience to get back on the proverbial horse, horrible choice of words I realize, but so be it.

The next time lightning struck was the summer before graduate school when someone I worked with was going to visit a friend in one of the dorms at Dartmouth and I was the driver for the day.  Love at first sight yet again.  Two years together on the Dartmouth campus.  One year long distance while I finished up and she began at Illinois Law, and then two years of "commuting" from Toronto to Champaign every weekend, or every other.  Five and a half years of joy and hell, being as sure as a person can be about something and as just as unsure depending on the moment.  Five and a half years of support and caring through undergrad, law school and the bar, and then "what's wrong?" dead silence on the other end.  "You want to try JAG training on your own don't you?"  "How did you know?"  " If that is what you need to do then that is what you need to do.  If I have to wait then that is what I will do."  "Why are you making this so easy for me?" "I love you, what else am I supposed to if this is what you want?"

She recently retired from a decorated JAG career and is now a Partner in a very highly regarded law firm.  Talk about following a plan from beginning to end.

I can still hear my sisters voice in my head at times "you are going to make someone a great husband some day."  I have also heard forever "do you have kids." "No, not yet." " You are going to make a wonderful father."

I love kids.  What I believe about relationships and women all comes from my mother and my father's mother.  I believe they taught me well, but in the end after 50 years I cannot tell you anything about why, or why not.

It is what it is, and there is not much else to say.

Thank you again for getting this far with me.

The grey has come.  Not dark, but a grey, monochromatic blanket that is winter.  This is not like it was back home when we were growing up when winter would come and feet of snow would come with it.  This is a few inches of snow, a complete lack of leaves on the trees and every Canadian Geese among the living outside my office window looking for food, warmth, cover.

If it is possible for a tree to be beautiful, devoid of leaves, as near death in its appearance as possible, and totally alone in its place in the middle of the vast parking lot where the geese are wandering, this tree is just that.  It is odd because the tree does not look out of place, rather it makes the parking signs, with their yellow concrete bases, and the light towers, and the fifty five gallon trash cans painted blue throughout the lot, all fade away.  The tree demands the eyes attention somehow as if it were standing alone in the middle of a giant hill top meadow thick with days of fresh snow.

If I were to try and walk across that meadow now, and to climb the hill behind it, as I have done before, I doubt very much that I could make it, or even that I would survive the effort.  It does not seem that long ago now, but it is, when I layered up from head to toe, long johns, top and bottom, wool socks, ski pants, turtle necks plural, the thickest sweater ever knitted, Northface fleece and parka, ski hat, goggles, and gloves, just to get to the top of the hill, above the trees, to get the shot of the valley, the farm, the barn, and the horses.  One of those days when it took almost as long to layer up as it did to reach the goal.

Thank you again for getting this far with me.