My oldest son wrapped up his football career this past weekend, on Senior Day at his high school.
He had never played organized football before his sophomore year. His school is small to begin with, and the number of players trying out for football keeps shrinking (the specter of CTE looms large, plus lacrosse and club soccer are gaining in popularity), so during his sophomore year they couldn’t field a JV team. That meant he spent his entire first season busting his butt in practice with zero chance of ever being on the field. In his junior year, he played for the JV squad. It would be easy to get discouraged when you’re older than most of your teammates, but he kept working. Off-season lifting. Two-a-days. Practice virtually the entire year… in addition to holding down two jobs this summer.
This past season, he started at right tackle for the varsity, played every offensive snap, and wound up making 2nd team all-conference. I’ve always been a bit anti-football as a parent… I DO worry about concussions and other injuries. But I have to admit that his football experience will serve him well in the game of life… you have to be patient, you have put in the hard work before you can reap the rewards, and there will be setbacks along the way… the ol’ “nothing good comes easy” adage. And I’m sure some of the friendships he formed on the gridiron will last a lifetime.
I’m super-duper proud of him (but not proud of the fact that I just used “super-duper” in a sentence). And I look forward to seeing what the future holds for the kid who was #76 in the program, but #1 in our hearts.
Gordon “Gord” Downie passed away this week. It’s OK if you’ve never heard of him. Most folks in the U.S. haven’t. He was the lead singer of a Canadian band called The Tragically Hip… they were beloved in Canada but never really made much of a dent on U.S. radio or sales charts.
Gord was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer in 2016. He could have wallowed in self-pity and shut things down. Instead, his response was to tour… to keep doing what he did best – sharing his art with his fans, his friends. And to continue to support reconciliation with Indigenous people in his home country.
Canada is in mourning over the loss… watch this heartfelt speech from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and you start to get a feel for the impact he had.
Here’s to you, Gord. Not just in the Great White North but across the world, there are millions of folks that appreciate your music and admire your courage.
Confession: I’m 52 years old, and I still read the comic strips first when I get the Sunday newspaper. (Kids, ask your grandparents what a ‘newspaper’ is.)
This past Sunday, there were two comic strips that I found quite profound… tucked in among the usual banal suspects like Beetle Bailey and Hi & Lois.
Pearls Before Swine is consistently very good, and Stephan Pastis really struck a nerve with this one:
Non Sequitur is another standout strip, and this one was outstanding:
You can keep your philosophy books… I’ll take my life lessons in nine panels or less, thank you very much.
I go to a lot of concerts every year. Yesterday I saw a different kind of rock star. Seth Godin is marketing wizard, a best-selling author, a brilliant blogger and one of the best public speakers I’ve ever seen.
Yes, this guy rocks!
He was in Cincinnati yesterday to give the keynote speech at an event called “Brandemonium” (because all of the good names are taken, apparently).
His presentation was ostensibly about how consumer brands can better connect with customers in the digital age. But really it was about life. About generosity. About art. About connecting. About overcoming fear.
His presenting style should be required viewing for any public speaker. Way too many folks try to cram a bunch of bullet points, charts and graphs onto their PowerPoint slides, and they wind up being a huge distraction to the audience… and a crutch for the speaker. Seth uses compelling visuals (one per slide) and a sprinkling of text to move his narrative along, so you can focus on the story instead of the charts and graphs.
I set up a blog a few years ago, and created a whopping total of about five blog posts in the first 18 months of its existence. Then Seth issued a “blog post a day for one week” challenge via his own blog, and that was exactly the kickstart I needed. (So if you don’t like dubbatrubba.com, blame Seth, not me!) He taught me that if you keep waiting for “perfect” you’ll squander your talent (using that term very loosely). “Ship your product” in Seth’s parlance means creating something and putting it out into the world.
I highly recommend you subscribe to Seth’s blog. You’ll get a daily email containing his latest blog post – most posts take just a minute or two to read, but the food for thought will sustain you all day long.
I know I sound like a fanboy. Because I am. You should be too.
Oh wait, guns DO kill people. Especially semi-automatic assault rifles that have been modified with a legal “bump-fire stock” that allow shooters to fire up to 100 bullets every minute. And even more so when there are 23 weapons in the possession of a single person, allowing him to rain down bullets indiscriminately upon an unsuspecting crowd, slaughtering 58 and wounding hundreds.
Yes, more stringent background checks probably wouldn’t have helped in Las Vegas… but they would have in Aurora, CO, Charleston, SC and Washington D.C., and other cities that have experienced this hell. So would banning large magazines, outlawing bump-fire stocks, instituting mental health screenings and terrorism watch list bans, and shutting down online sales and gun shows. And if you believe that a nationwide registry wouldn’t have raised a few red flags when one man purchased 33 semi-automatic weapons and a mountain of ammunition over the course of just 11 months, then you’re delusional at best. How about biometric trigger locks while we’re at it? I’m just spitballing here, trying to save the lives of innocent people who were just trying to enjoy a concert, or a movie, or attending church services, or going to kindergarten. (As well as the lives of hundreds of kids who die from accidental shootings each year, and perhaps some of the 21,000+ people who use a gun to commit suicide.)
There’s a huge gulf between “I own a handgun and a hunting rifle” and “I own weapons designed to mow down dozens of human beings in the shortest amount of time possible”… Can we find some common ground in that chasm? Use some common sense? If not, these massacres will become even more common.
Kevin Sullivan on Life advice from a man who lived it: “A good one Damian. Bring our lens into focus after the long weekend or our long life journey.” Jul 7, 09:38
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