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?

I took a drive last October that lasted 4100 miles without a scratch or a ticket.

The accurate total is 4090 miles since my wife needed to take the wheel before I shook us silly in Monument Valley.

Somehow she knew how to drive bad road better than me and she grew up in LA driving freeways while I grew up where people travel to for the bad roads, and sand dunes.

Can I get a vote for the Driving Hall of Fame? Of course not.

All I did is what the famous Snow Birds do every year, and they’re not in.

About travel, you’d think every astronaut is in some hall or fame for having the guts to sit in the chair attached to a huge bottle rocket.

Every pilot who has landed on an aircraft carrier, at night, in high seas? Hall of Fame material, every one.

Anyone who makes an Olympics Team? Enshrine them.

But what about the rest of us?

 

North Bend Hall Of Fame

A high school Hall of Fame is where the stars get started.

If your school has one and you’re in it, congratulations.

But not all deserving of the honor gets in.

A kid with state championships, national championships, and a full ride to a college where their team won the national championship their first year isn’t in? Yet? (Hey Mark)

We like to think that wrongs get righted, but it doesn’t always work out that way.

I’m happy for anyone who makes the cut. After all, I didn’t.

My claim to fame is joining the group I had the most respect for in my sport.

Since the coach was a nationally recognized figure who led Junior World Teams to meets around the world, and his forte was Greco-Roman Wrestling, I wanted to win a Greco title.

All people pleasers understand the motivation behind seeking an ‘attaboy.’

I’ve never been considered a people pleaser, but I’m happy to have wrestled and joined the likes of Rich Gabbert, Robin Richards, and Mark Mullins.

Being a Greco guy helped when my kids wrestled. They weren’t impressed, but it still helped.

 

Blogger Hall Of Fame?

I saw a post on twitter from a writer who asked, “I have a manuscript that will never be published, and if it is no one will read it, but I keep putting time into it because I can’t let it go. Is this crazy?”

It sounds like a post I could write about boomerpdx. I can’t let it go, and here’s why:

Writing every morning organizers my brain for the day.

Writing? Check. Now I can go about the rest of the day expecting the results I’m working for.

Not writing results, but life results.

There’s a saying in wrestling that goes like, ‘Once you’ve wrestled, everything else is easy.’

I say the same thing about writing. Once I’ve got a post of the day up, everything else is easy.

But is it Hall of Fame worthy?

In my mind, yes. In reality? Not so much.

How would a blogger be rated to get into the Blogger Hall of Fame?

A legacy of time on the job?

A career used to be twenty years. Then it jumped to thirty-five years. I’m about fifteen years all counted, maybe a few more but none less.

Money made and money spent?

Like gamblers who love telling about winning, but no how much they lost getting there, a blogger paying for clicks seems weird.

Effective? Sure, but still weird. Where’s the word of mouth from enthusiastic fans?

We’ve all got endless email from dubious sources until we click one just out of curiosity.

Then we joined what was being pushed and sent money? No? Good.

My work here isn’t filling a void, answering important questions, or seeking to shit talk far and wide.

If I do make the Bloggers Hall of Fame, this will be on my plaque:

 

He tried to show the extraordinary in the ordinary by lifting up the commonplace to greater heights.

In place of self-promotion, he worked to promote good people doing good work.

If there were a Husband Hall of Fame, or a Fathers Hall of Fame, he would rather be there than here, but the work isn’t done.

The work is never done for a blogger with an interest in people and places.

 

I’m still not done.