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BETTER LISTENING SKILLS FOR BETTER UNDERSTANDING

If practicing better listening skills isn’t a life goal, it should be.
How hard is it to pay attention?
You did it in the classroom with the encouragement of a teacher.
I still remember Mr. Kraus singing ‘Toot toot tootsie goodbye’ when he tossed little tootsie rolls to students with the right answer in algebra.
Maybe we need more of that? Instead we get more of this:

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RETURNING REVERENCE TO IT’S RIGHTFUL PLACE

There’s a scent of reverence in the air, of returning reverence after a long pause.
It started in my doctor’s office where I’d been called to sit on a panel with others.
One of the others was Roy Pittman, one of my personal heroes.
The next time I saw the doctor he told me he was surprised at the way I acted, that I showed reverence to Coach Pittman.
If I did, I didn’t know it. What I remember is feeling awe-struck. Maybe it’s the same thing?
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NBA CHAMPION CROWNED, AGAIN

Becoming an NBA champion is a lifelong goal for every basketball player in the world.
The best want to play the best, beat the best, to tell themselves they’re good enough.
It’s that along with contracts and money and fame.
All of that goes along the wayside when you stop playing in ninth grade like me, or in high school.
Do I blame the coaches that I didn’t become a star, a substitute, or even a benchwarmer?
Noooooo, but . . .
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CLEAN LIVING FOR A QUIET LIFE

Clean living is an art form, and like all art it takes practice.
Yes, we’re talking about practice.
It takes practice to talk without a particular tone, without too much edge.
Do that and you may have a productive conversation.
Go ahead and save the tone and edge for people you don’t know, who don’t know you.
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I READ THE NEWS TODAY OH BOY

The news today is all about world events.
News organizations deliver it every day with the same hype and urgency.
News hounds consume every detail and load it onto the pile they carry in case someone asks them ‘what’s up?’
That’s when you brace yourself for the headlines as if they’re coming from an anchorman. Or woman.
That’s the big news story you NEED to know.
The small news, the stories that make us step back, come out another way.
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toughen up

HEALTHCARE BULLY PREYS ON THE WEAKEST

  Any coherent healthcare bully debate needs to go beyond the numbers, the insurance companies. Beyond drug company research and development that puts the BIG in Big Pharma. It’s about who the healthcare bully reaches for in the debate. The most vulnerable, of course. The population currently undergoing severe medical treatment. I’ll use cancer treatment […]

CANCER TREATMENT: 5 THINGS I KNEW BEFORE STARTING

    I will submit to the cancer treatment sequence of events that may or may not do what is predicted. Like a lamb to slaughter, I would submit to whatever it took to kill the shit out of hpv16 throat cancer.   In the writing world we all dream of that one ‘YES’ that […]

Miranda Dating Rights For The New Era Of Rising STD

    Have you ever asked someone out on a date?   Probably.   Did you read them the ‘Dating Rights’ questions?   Going out on a limb here with probably not.   Why would you?

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boomer years

BULLIES AND BITCHES: BORN THAT WAY?

Genetics no excuse for bullies and bitches. Some time ago in the Baby Boomer fog of age, like grade school in the mid-60’s at Bangor Elementary, voted the cool school by all former Bearcats, bullies and bitches came in all shapes and sizes. Turns out the time of day also mattered for them. A kid […]

IF MILLENNIALS SUCK, WHO ELSE SUCKS

A recent poll questions whether millennials suck as bad as everyone else. Too many times you hear about the new ‘biggest ever’ generation in negative terms. You’d think millennials suck worse than any other generation. Baby boomers enjoy dragging the youngsters around by their arm and reminding them they suck. Millennials seem to enjoy the […]

A MAY WEDDING AND ONE LOUD, “I DO,” LATER

A May wedding in a Fir Cathedral and still in the woods thirty one years later. Doesn’t every married couple have a theme song? They should, and it doesn’t have to be the same song forever. Just make it a song older than your marriage. And no Beatles. This ought to be the common default:

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buckle up

THE OREGON BEER TRAIL TO PORTLAND

Oregon Brewers Festival Fans’ Points Of Origin. Courts of law rely on evidence. They need proof. Nothing helps close a case like proof. How do you prove Portland is a big draw, that the recent Brewers Festival draws huge numbers to Portland, who then go home and tell others? Put a map up with push […]

PODUNK TOWN, OR YOUR HOMETOWN

Nothing Explains Feelings For A Hometown, Your Hometown, Than Traveling Though Others. Drive down I-5, Highway 99, 101 down the coast, or 97 east of the Cascades, and you roll through one podunk town after another. You don’t even have to go far off the road to see them. Just drive by, take a look, […]

Travel Bans From History, Who Should Be Banned

    Travel bans tend to be specific in terms of where to go and where not to go.   Travel bans say one thing: Don’t go there, girlfriend. Stay away, pal.   Like a dress code in the NY disco dancing prime time of the late ’70’s, while punk rock was getting ready to […]

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