Like Winston Churchill, "We never give in"

Yes, it's clearly been a while and oh so much has happened.  My last post was some time ago and here we are in December of 2013. Since 2012, we've had a severe concussion (for my daughter caused by a horse), a couple of deaths (a great horse and a great dog, that later of which was caused by a horse), an extremely challenging hoof abscess (for Bobbie, the toughest little pony on the planet) and extreme anxiety (much of which was caused by a horse or two or three).  Still not sold on buying that next horse?

To be fair, we've had many challenges in the last couple of years unrelated to our equine friends with a couple more deaths, surgeries, stress and etc., etc., etc..   If I seem a little casual about these horrific things, it's because we've been a bit beaten down and ...

On the bright side ... we've endured... and ... pause for dramatic affect ...  we truly are closer than ever as a family and man have we learned a lot about ourselves and been tested to the extreme.

As soon as we start wondering, "why us?", feeling sorry for ourselves for what we've been through or proud of ourselves for what we've been able to endure, we look closer at the people around us (feel free to do the same .. no really).  If we think about almost everybody we  know really well, they're all surviving and enduring something.  Whether it be for illness, anxiety, drugs, family woes, financial challenges, car repairs or anything else, we've realized that all of us are always fighting our way through something.

The beauty of challenge is surviving.   The beauty of surviving is we're still here.   The challenge of surviving is the fear of what's next.  The fight endures and like Winston Churchill, "We never give in"

A Real Life -- It's a Wonderful Life

Yesterday, on Christmas day, I felt like I was given a great gift by having the opportunity to meet an incredible eighty-ish year old woman.

The woman has had an extraordinary number of challenges in her life. She's currently fighting pancreatic cancer. About 30 years ago, she lost her first husband to the same type of cancer. She re-married to a minister who passed away about 10 years ago. She's now married again for a 3rd time. She raised a disabled son. When she was a teenager, she was in a severe car accident, that killed one of the other passengers and put her into a hospital for four months.

Yet, through all of that, she says that she's had a "blessed life". She told me that she's had 3 wonderful husbands, great parents, her son is now doing very well for himself and she's always found a way to be happy. The emotional impact of the car accident when she was young always helped to her to appreciate all of the moments of her life.

As far as her current fight with cancer, she said she's going to leave the "whys" to the scientists... she's going to fight ... but she has had a wonderful blessed life.

Inspiration from Jim Valvano

Former North Carolina State Basketball coach Jim Valvano led his team to the NCAA National Basketball Championship in 1983. He passed away from cancer 10 years later. He was of one of the most inspirational people I've ever heard. He is quoted as saying:

To me there are three things everyone should do every day. Number one is laugh. Number two is think -- spend some time time in thought. Number three, you should have your emotions move you to tears. If you laugh, think and cry, that's a heck of a day.

My father gave me the greatest gift anyone could give another person, he believed in me

Don't give up, don't ever give up

Cancer can take away all of my physical abilities. It cannot touch my mind, it cannot touch my heart, and it cannot touch my soul.

The Worst Motel I Ever Stayed At ... and Why I Stayed

I more than occasionally travel with my job and often find myself sitting alone in hotels and motels. The one I’m in tonight is a middle of the road accommodation. It’s not too snooty and not too Bates Motel. However, I have seen them all.

I’ve been upgraded in a few hotels to the point that I've had luxury suites with 3 bathrooms, a living room, ocean views on private floors with private elevators. I’ve been in hotels where I felt the need to iron my tee shirt and wipe down my sneakers before I dared even walk out of the room into the hallway on my way to work out in the gym. I was Mr. or Sir to every employee I passed from the manager to the maintenance people. While I can say it was uncomfortable at first, with a stiff upper lip, I generally adjusted expeditiously to such lofty treatment.

I’ve also been in a few hotels or motels where I literally threw my socks away rather than putting them back into my suitcase.

One night I can remember vividly. I’d been driving for miles and was dead tired. I was in a rural area and knew there’d not be another place for a couple more light years when I came across a dark motel. I walked into the rural motel’s front office (which doubled for the owner’s living room) and asked the manager as nicely as I could if they had any vacancies. There was no surprise when they said they did. She handed me the key and said, “The door sticks, so you’ll have to give it a little shove with your shoulder.” Then the kindly caretaker did a little mime of knocking the door in like a battering ram to demonstrate the proper technique.

I was beat. I walked across the parking lot to my night’s slumber palace, ignoring the man in an adjacent apartment sharpening his knife collection on his front stoop (No, I’m not kidding). Remembering the manager’s mime, I turned the key and shoved my shoulder into the door to no avail. I then backed up a little (like the movies) and then rammed the door like I were the Notre Dame front line.

You’ll be happy to know that the door did open and that my shoulder has not been right since.

When I entered the motel room, the aroma wafting around the room could best be described as “week-long rodent decay.” There literally was not another place for hours. I just sucked it up and decided I was going to stick it out. You should know … that night I did not only put up with that aroma and the sound of ever sharper knives. I put up with sounds of rodent traffic in the ceiling (sounded like the late rodent’s funeral precession), a four foot water stain in ceiling over the bed (It makes me feel better to say it was a water stain) a bath room with no shampoo and a shower with walls and floors that had a six inches of give in any direction.

Why did I stay? Yes, I was dead tired. However, there are some pieces of the story I didn’t initially tell you.

The manager in the hotel was not a great cleaning lady or exterminator for that matter. However she was one of the single nicest people I’ve ever met. She was nice to me.

Again, there was no shampoo in the bathroom. When I went back to office, she gave me some of her personal shampoo and put it into a little Styrofoam cup. Odd, Yes... but... she gave me her shampoo.

While I was waiting for the key… she was building a repore by telling me about her daughter that recently moved back from Colorado and then asking me about my kids. I laughed at her jokes… She laughed at mine.

She not only mimed the shoulder ram… she offered to use her own shoulder to get the door open for me before I initially left the office/living room. I wish I'd taken her up on it. She was going to go out of her way for me.

If you treat me right, I’ll put up with you’re faults. If you treat me right, I may not remember your name … but I may never forget you.

11 Movies That Will Inspire the Happy

A good inspirational movie will always bring you out of the dumps and doldrums. There's no garbage on this list. All of these I've seen more than once.

11. Cinderella Man
10. Remember the Titans
9. Rocky
8. Seabiscut
7. Forrest Gump
6. It's a Wonderful Life
5. Chariots of Fire
4. Goodwill Hunting
3. Slumdog Millionaire
2. Rudy
1. Field of Dreams

My Wedding Day Mistake

It was 23 year ago today that I made a mistake on my wedding day that I've lived and agonized over. The mistake was this ... When I was asked that day the question all grooms are traditionally asked, "Will you promise to love, honor and cherish her until death do you part?"... my answer was a resolute and unwavering, "I Will!"

Don't misunderstand me. My mistake was on my wedding day. My mistake was not my wedding day. No disrespect to the brides of others, but, I married the single most perfect woman on the planet that day. I've been unbelievably happily married since.

My mistake was simply saying, "I will." In the days leading up to my fateful wedding, I wanted everything about the wedding day to be no less than perfect for my beautiful bride. I agonized over the tux until I got the perfect one. I studied the wedding day script until I knew it forwards and back. I circled and highlighted my key line in the script and read it over and over until my throat was red and raw. "I will." "I will." "I WILL!" I proclaimed to the mirror over and over like I were Robert De Niro in Taxi Driver saying "You talking to me."

The problem was this, since my wife was a wee little girl, she'd been saying her wedding line over and over in her head. She knew the line. She didn't need a stinking script. The only difference was that her line was, "I do."

After I was asked my question on the wedding day. Again, I followed the script and answered "I will." So, when she was asked, "Will you promise to love, honor and cherish him until death do you part?"... she hesitated slightly. She was trapped with me... I mean my answer. She answered, "I will."

Of course, I didn't know anything was wrong at first. We had a great first kiss. We had an incredible reception. However, when we driving away from the reception, on our way to the honeymoon, she said to me, "What's with the 'I Will?'"

I pointed out that I'd followed the script. She replied, "What script?"

Thus, today on my 23rd wedding anniversary I hereby amend my answer to my wedding vows and related vows I've made over the last 23 years in the following manner:

Do you promise to love honor and cherish her until death do you part? I do!

While you may start out in a moldy basement apartment, do you promise to attempt to find an old fixer upper and embark on home improvement projects with vim, vigor and power tools at the risk of your personal safety and manhood to make your bride happy? I do!

Do you promise to have fun, laugh until your stomach and cheeks hurt each and every single day together for the rest of your days? I do!

Do you promise to try absolutely everything together including but not limited to, water skiing, snowboarding, horse back riding, a marathon (next year), para sailing, cutting umbilical chords, green bean casserole, crown molding and chick flicks? I do!

Do also promise to love honor and cherish the life that you've built together which includes, but again is not limited to, two kids, 3 cars, a great (ever changing)house, 5 horses, 2 dogs and a turtle named Sheila? I do!

Do you promise that you will never answer another question with the words ... "I will?" I Do!

I do and always will love my wife... forever.

The Pinewood Derby

As my son and I walked into the middle school cafeteria where the Tiger Cub Pinewood Derby was about to be held, we noticed that the organizers of the the event had laid the wooden cars out on tables near the track.

On the table were amazing cars in the shapes of hot dogs, school buses, apples, surfboards and the odd car that actually looked like ours ... a car. Many of the cars seemed to have been professional painted with German engineered designs. One car (the father of the boy apparently worked at a toy factory) had a computer aided, machine carved carousal horse on the side panel. Or fluorescent orange pine sports machine seemed a little overwhelmed.

It was a mere five weeks earlier, that my six year old son had snuck up to the side of the bed, gently tapped the shoulder and whispered, "Can we build it now?" A small block of pine, four plastic wheels, a sheet of number stickers and four shiny nails were all that were given to us at the previous nights tiger Cub meeting.

Our goal of that morning was to turned those simple ingrediants into something cool that could propel itself down a plywood track faster than any of the other fifty Tiger Cub cars.

The race organizers finally placed a dinosaur looking vehicle and our fragile car atop the track and pulled a lever which raised a Plexiglas shield from the front of the cars. I watched my son's eyes open wide and the weight of his little body shift forward as the cars hurled down the track that took up the full length of the cafeteria.

I looked quickly back to finish line as the cars crossed and then back to my son who pumped his fist into the air and whispered a victorious "Yes!" My thoughts were ... We won! We won! ... I mean He won! He won! There were more heats to go.

As the races went on, one could visibly see the disappointment in the faces of the children who lost as they sighed, stamped their feet or looked with scrunched faces back towards their Moms and Dads. Conversely, the winners were light on their feet and full of joy.

The curious thing was the neither the joy of the winners nor the sorrow of the losers seemed to last long. While there were a few exceptions, most of the boys seemed to bounce back to the state of the middle rather quickly.

My son was no exception. He seemed very happy with his victory at first then he went quickly back to exchanging headlocks with his friends. While the other fathers and I were nervously awaiting the next race, the boys that been knocked out were staging crash up derbies with pinewood cars that seemed to have $20,000 European paint jobs.

When his friends cars were racing, my son would cheer as loudly as anyone for their cars to win. This did not seem like it would bring the years of glorious memories to victors that I imagined or the years of agonizing memories to the defeated.

Amazingly, I had to remind my son that his name and number had been called for his next heat, we ... he ... won easily. Each race we won moved us closer and closer to the finals. Glory would soon be mine ... er ... his. I was, infact, planning my son's victory speech in my head as heat number 4 began.

We were racing against a car that was painted to look like an ambulance. Yes, a cute, idea-- but hardly a thought was made to the air that would furiously pound into the front of its course and blocky exterior. The race started out close, but the ambulance started pulling away. Then our car slowly began to gain. I looked at my son's hands high in the air as the cars crossed the finish line. It ended up a victory -- for the ambulance. My son's hands dropped.

I looked back at our car resting solemnly against the bumper at the end of the track. I then found my son at the exact moment he was flying through the air about to do a full body slam onto a large pile of boys.

Yes, trophies are nice, but when it comes down to it, our small victory was just building the car, just trying and having hope. Winning was not the most important thing that day. We had to race the race -- we ... he ... had to try. Anyway pee wee baseball came soon after. We got a trophy for that.