page contents Google

HEALTH JOURNEY ON A ROUGH ROAD

A ‘health journey’ is a phrase used by people with lots of doctor appointments. If you’re old enough you either take that rough road yourself, or you show up for others on it. Personally, I’ve never liked the term. I like it even less when it applies to young people coming down with old people […]

PLACING BLAME IN THE RIGHT PLACE

What’s the best way of placing blame? Pointing a finger? Yelling? Or checking to make sure there’s anyone or anything to blame? What about the blameless among us who’ve never done anything wrong?

GUITAR PLAYERS OF THE PAST

My guitar friends say guitar players are the same from every era. Unlike current critics of the NBA who say past greats played against milkmen and plumbers and wouldn’t survive in today’s game, musicians from the past are just a request away. Or a documentary. I recently saw The Wrecking Crew.

PERFORMANCE PRESSURE SELF INFLICTED

Performance pressure starts with doubt. Will you be good enough? Have you trained to win? Can you do it? These are the same questions asked when people decide to get married.

HALL OF FAME: WHICH ONE IS FOR YOU

A Hall of Fame career deserves to be enshrined in a place of honor. Why? So others can see their accomplishments and try to copy them? That’s partly correct until you start learning more about the people. A great player doesn’t always mean a good person. But why limit inductions for only sports?

WRITING ROOTS: HOW DEEP DO THEY GROW

Writing roots are reading roots. Everybody knows that from their first grade if they had a teacher as good as Mrs. Baker. I recall her saying, ‘Our writing is a reflection of our reading.’ I believed it then as I believe it now. (Folding a corner to mark my place in Patrick DeWitt’s novel The […]

TOXIC MALE? HOW TO TELL

Baby boomers were exposed to the toxic male early on, but it had another name: Junior High Football Coach. But it wasn’t their fault, it was just the times. When guys with names like Dick Butkus, Ray Nitschke, and Sam Huff were stuffing guys like Jim Brown and Jim Taylor, every coach wanted their players […]

PEP TALK? MY BEST MEMORY BEFORE A BIG WRESTLING MATCH

When does a pep talk make all the difference? You’re warmed up, ready to go, just as the coach gives last instructions. As a high school wrestler in my second year, I needed all the pep I could get. Ordinarily you wouldn’t put a second year guy out against a well known mauler, but . […]

FRAGILE MEN CLUB? YOU’RE ALREADY SIGNED UP

Fragile men had no place in Western American history stories about the savage frontier and cruel hardships. Nor in the early industrialization with mighty oil, steel, and railroad barons casting their deepening shadows across the land. Writers found other virtues to extoll other than common frailties. The western frontier needed stories of valor and sacrifice […]

TRUST, HOPE, THEN EXPLOIT

If you believe in the power of trust, hope, and faith, and you should, what could go wrong? Do it right and you’ll find yourself in the company of others with the same beliefs. At first. Then time reveals other plans.