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.

Boy Oh Boi-se

In two weeks it will have been exactly 3 years since I moved to Boise and for three years now, every time I speak with someone outside of three hundred miles from here there is some crack about potatoes, or desolate, middle of no where!!  Please look at a map people!!  Do a little research!!  Just go to Google and/or Google Earth!!

Top 10 cities to live, work and play, Kiplinger, Top 10 cities Top 10 turnaround towns, CNN Money, Top 10 downtowns, Livibility.

Another thought, just come visit!!

This is the first place I have ever moved just for the place.  First school, then work, then a woman, then work, then family, then coaching, but never just because I was blown away by the place, and that was just over a long weekend.  Other places I have lived (Chico) I would listen to people rave about living there and all the amazing things they could do, and all of it was 45 minutes this way, and hour and 15 that way.  I am sitting in my new office looking at the foothills that I could walk to from here, easily, and then hike, run, cross-country ski.  5 minutes down the road I know of an amazing rock face that people are on every day.  5 minutes!!  That rock face overlooks the Boise Diversion Damn the scene of my favorite picture to date.  I am 100 yards, +/- from the Green Belt where today you would be able to walk, run, ride, board, under 65 degree blue skies and it is October 29th!!

Boise, ID is a whole lot more than potatoes folks, and it is anything but desolate.  There are lots of beautiful places to live in this country, and Boise is one of the most beautiful, at least of all those where you are not entirely on your own away from all civilization.

Thank you again for getting this far with me!!

The Other Side of the Coin

Yes there are two sides to every coin, and I was thinking early on in the Augusta discussion about the other side of the coin and then got distracted.

As I was listening to my very conservative, very republican, country club business partner last night it brought me back to a very simple reality; Augusta National is a PRIVATE club.  The nature of private does tend to mean in this country "not for general consumption," but somehow everyone, even I, wound up in the middle of discussing who Augusta National should admit to their PRIVATE club.

Again, the secret handshakes not withstanding, does anyone have the right to tell anyone else what do with their PRIVATE lives??  I realize that many people want to, abortion, alternative lifestyles, not just gay marriage, but lifestyles in general, buckling in when you drive.  These are all very different examples, and yes some of these decisions, and others, may have an impact on other people, but they are still PRIVATE decisions are they not.

The quote that I found most amazing from yesterday was when a female golf analyst for ESPN said "at least the final bastion of the male dominated  society in this country is gone."  Huh??!!  There are thousands, if not millions, of "old boys clubs," secret handshakes, and just plain old every day examples of "old school," in the worst connotation of the term, still in existence today and there will be for some time to come.  Even when I worked at "the firm," there were plenty of deals being done on Bourbon Street, in strip clubs, with lots of cash, booze, and naked women around, and not only does all of that still happen, but many of the women from the firm that made partner did so because as well as being qualified, which those that I knew definitely were, they also agreed with, supported and took part in that way of doing business.

"the last bastion of male dominated society??"  I bet Augusta wished they were that powerful.

Cond- A - Cending

Right off the bat I need to say this is not a note in anyway against Condalisa Rice as I do not know enough to be dangerous in that regard, either way.

However, having watched Sportscenter long enough this morning I came to realize that the two new member thing is not at all what anyone is saying it is, at least not that I can tell, and it reminded me a great deal of President Bill Clinton making the grand announcement when he first took office about how many of this he was going to appoint and how many of that, and I said it then and will say it now, you can't force diversity in such a planned and structured way and have it be real, and in the case of President Clinton you wind up eliminating a class or race of people from consideration regardless of qualification, which seems to me to be exactly what we are supposed to be getting away from.

Anyway, ten years, almost to the day, that a woman made very public her wanting to be at Augusta and being kept out Augusta adds two female members, very rich, very powerful, one black and one white, female members.  How nice that Augusta can get black and white to keep moving in the proper direction on the race front, they can get rich, they can get powerful, and all at the same time come across as doing such a wonderful thing, and what a great step and so on.

The folks at Augusta National are lying, as all the men in all the exclusive "boys club" do, and they are getting rewarded for it in more ways than anyone can for doing so.

Always there has to be a first step, I get that, and always someone has to push the establishment to take that step, I get that as well, but doesn't anyone else get sick of the fact that one, people can't just do what is right in the first place, and two, that even when they do they can't just say outloud " we are doing this just to keep all of you people quiet for another ten years, and we are going to get all we can out of these two before we let any others in."

I went to "prep" school, and I fought the idiots that ran the place and that went there the whole time I was there.  I tanked an interview at Dartmouth for undergrad because I did not want to do the preppy thing all over again, and because I was never any good or had any interest in secret handshakes, and I worked for the largest consulting firm in the world and fought the partners on the same BS for my eight years there until they had had enough of my telling them it was wrong to lie to people to make extra BILLIONS!!

I just wish everyone would stop the bullshit, do what is best for the planet and everyone on it all the time and allow others to do the same.

Beauty and the Beast

Nothing like being on the road all the time, in airports, one plane after another, especially when you run into just the right person at just the wrong time.

I have not seen Madagascar 3, but I have seen the previews, and you know the zebra (I think) with the crazy rainbow hair, well that was me traveling back at the end of last week.  Add to that the fact that I did not have any razors left so I tried the disposable razor that the hotel had and I would have been far better off to have asked for a butter knife.  I made the calculated decision that trying to shave my chin and mustache would have been complete suicide so for the week I had left the goatee, and then of course on Thursday morning I had to be at the client site at 6:30 AM.

My first flight on Thursday afternoon was at 4:15 Eastern out of Baltimore, and there was good news and bad news.  The good news was that I was upgraded, the bad news was that one, we had the Asian mom from hell on our flight and she two was upgraded with her two kids and the husband.  She and her husband were seated three rows apart and thus she spent the entire time either handing him the infant, for five minutes at a time to complain to the flight attendant, or ringing the flight attendant call button because she was unhappy with whatever was going on at that moment.  Her technique was quite unique by the way, she would push the button six times every time, thus getting three rings instead of one.  The second bit of bad news was that we left the gate late for the third week in a row, and I almost forgot, but I was seated next to a high maintenance dude, and I use the term loosely, that I was in a group of 6 or so folks that I spoke to in the gate area as they lined up to be first on the plane before they were done deplaning.  As you might imagine, this simply delays the entire process.

When we arrived in Denver, for the third week in a row, I had to hurry to the gate to try and make it onto the 6:35 connection, to get me into Boise at 8:30 instead of midnight or later.  Last week I ended up having to spend the night in Denver and return on Friday morning.  This time the plane was still there and the door was still open, however, there were no seats.  To add insult to serious injury, the flight attendant walked me down the jet-way because she thought there was a seat open...there was not.

With all of this as background for just how horrible I was feeling by 7:00 PM when I entered the French restaurant in the airport, and for the fact that I looked much worse, the next five hours was truly amazing.

As I was sitting at my table, just sort of spacing out for a while since I had over three hours to kill, a young lady was seated at the table next to me.  Blonde hair, blue eyes, a perfect smile, and very natural outward and inward beauty.  This young lady was born and raised in the middle of nowhere South Dakota, and was now living in Sioux Falls and working as a dental hygienist.  Once I discovered that little bit of information I am certain that I did not allow my teeth to show again.

As it turned out, this young woman was headed to Boise to visit her sister, a nurse at St. Alphons.

We chatted through the rest of my dinner, her dinner, and some dessert and then headed to the gate together.  When she first was seated she was apparently speaking with her mother on the phone, which I did not know, and so I asked a question.  She said quickly into the phone "I'll call you back," and then she put the phone down on the table.  She mentioned that it was her mother and I joked about that not being a very nice way to treat her mother, to which she replied "isn't that the way it is though with our mothers?"

On the way to the gate I reminded her to call her mother back and she laughed and said that she better.  As she chatted with her mother I again, half joking this time, jabbed at her and said I wanted to speak with her mother.  She looked at me somewhat surprised, but not in an all together bad way, and said "you do?"  I confirmed, but kept walking to the gate.

When we arrived at our gate it was packed.  She looked confused, too many people for a 10 PM flight to Boise, and so while she continued to chat with her mom I went up and inquired and in fact our flight had been moved.  She just kept on with her conversation all the while loosely following me through the terminal.  We arrived at our gate and found a place to drop our stuff and have a seat.  She sat and finished her conversation while I paced, as that is what I do.

When the call ended I went over and sat down, still waiting for them to begin boarding.  I asked if she was in the "back of the bus," which she confirmed.  I asked if she wanted me to try and get her an exit row seat and she smiled and said "that would be very nice of you, thanks."  I headed up to the woman at the main counter and she had no additional mental capacity available to help the process, so I then went to the woman at the podium by the gate door, she had less mental capacity, or none at all perhaps.  I went back to the first gate agent and tried again and this time she was able to secure us another exit row seat.  Two more hours together.

We continued to chat the whole way onto the plane and then the whole way to Boise.  I remained me, saying hello to the little kids as they entered and making them smile.  Picking up a cup that our very grumpy row mate dropped along the way and bringing it up front to throw away.  I knew two of the four flight attendants on this flight from flying too much and so we joked with them a bit and gave them some ideas for their day off in Boise the next day, and then continued to inquire about one another.

By the end of the journey I knew a great deal about her and that I wanted to know a great deal more.  I had babbled enough along the way because that too is what I do, at least when with a beautiful and intriguing woman, so she knew about the coaching, the writing if you want to call it that, and the coaching.  She knew about the love for cooking, or at least the past love, and requested a grilled cheese sandwich when I asked what would you want me to cook?  She actually said "an amazing grilled cheese sandwich."  My reply of course was that I would be more than happy to so and then I explained how my Italian grandmother had shown me how to make these amazing grilled cheese sandwiches, and how she had a grilled cheese "press" that my grandfather had constructed for her a very long time ago.

I also asked her favorite food...watermelon!!

Who wouldn't be taken with a down to earth, easy to talk to, beautiful lady?  I definitely was.  I had shown her one of the cards I had made with the painting on it that I had done for my sister Mia.  I also showed her the card with the Matterhorn.  We also discussed movies and theatre and the fact that she would like to see the Lion King on Broadway.  I have seen it and agreed that it was very much worth seeing.  I suggested that meeting in NY for a show was not that hard to do from Baltimore and Sioux Falls.

As I got up to get my things and get ready to go I made sure she knew that I would love to continue our conversation and then I told her that I had a "dilemma."  I told her that I was raised to believe that women do not call men, or at least not men they do not know, and a man never asks a woman for her number, or her age.  Of course when I was growing up this thing existed called a phone book and people had home numbers.

I have spent much of this weekend as I do most weekends, trying to get things done so I can be back on the road tonight, but I also spent much of this weekend actually missing, if that is the right word, maybe wishing for, this amazing woman that appeared in my life Thursday night, and then walked out of it very early Friday morning outside the Boise Airport.

Thank you again for getting this far with me.

An Apple is An Apple

Don't over think it, an apple is in fact an apple. There are many different types, shades, sizes, even colors, but they are all still apples. Wow this isn't going where it was intended.

OK, so two points for the price of one:

1. There are people on the planet, not as many as there used to be perhaps, that are good people, in their soul, it is who they are. I realize that with the way the world is today we have all become skeptical, but "an apple is still an apple." Let the apples be just that, big, beautiful, shiny, red, luscious, juicy, and above all else good for you, and teachers. Not all "good deeds" come with a price, an expectation, or a hidden agenda. Hello with a big smile may just be hello. "Can I help you with that" may just be someone else trying to make your day a little bit easier, or a little bit better. Let's not let the fact that world has definitely gotten a bit tougher these days eliminate the possibility of good intentions...please!! 
2. There was a time in my life, not that long ago, when I did not see anything but people. In the classroom, on the athletic field, in business. Never considered anything else. Black, white. Democrat republican. Liberal, conservative. I never considered any of this. I had never even heard the term "white trash" until I was engaged, and when my fiance used it and then told me what she meant that was the beginning of the end. Maybe it is just me, but we seem to have gone backwards. We seem to have become more polarized as a country, and across the world. Obviously 9/11 had a great deal to do with the world view, but enough is enough. 

It is always dangerous when I am at home for more than a few days at a time and start to put my thoughts down, and maybe this is all just in my head, but I would love for the planet to get just a little bit kinder again, and a little bit more trusting again. Wasn't there a phrase once that people used all over the world, especially relative to birthdays and anniversaries, "it is the thought that counts." I realize that this phrase was probably invented by men that kept forgetting these important days, or maybe it was by women when they kept getting the same gifts, or the wrong gifts for these special moments. Nonetheless, I do think that it is in fact the thought that counts, and that we all need to take this into account more often before we judge, or jump to conclusions.