Category: Family and Social

How to plan a family reunion
When it comes to how men view family gatherings — specifically, how men view extended family gatherings — there are three common stages that we pass through.

First, we have the carefree days of youth; stage one. This stage runs from birth to sometime in our teenaged years. This is when we are excited to be part of this distinctive, kinetic family group and we look forward to each and every time all the aunts and cousins gather. These are the times when the best possible place to be, is right next to Uncle Don when he tells the boomerang story, or be at bat just before Amy; because she has a wicked cleanup swing. This is the time period when all your grandfather’s jokes are hysterical and all your aunts are beautiful. And the absolute saddest part of the day, the only bleak aspect, is when the cars begin to pull out of the driveway. And when all the cousins are gone.

Then we move to stage two. These are the dark days and run from our teenaged years to sometime in our late twenties to early thirties. These are the thin skinned, chip on our shoulder, lots to prove and little show for it, angry days. When we grit our teeth every time Uncle Mike asks us how long we’re going to keep this job. This is when Vick and the other cousins smirk when we talk about our multi-level marketing plans — right before they ask how long it’s been since Jennifer dumped us. And even though she didn’t dump us, it was mutual, we watch the clock and cannot wait for everyone to leave — so we can catch our dad alone and discretely ask if he can help with part of this month’s rent.

Then comes the third and final stage. The best stage. The last stage. Stage three. This occurs from your late thirties on until you die. This is when we show up for family gatherings in that twelve year old car — and are actually proud of it because it runs and is paid for. This is when your uncle challenges you to an arm wrestling match and you let him win. This is the time when you want to listen to the stories so much more than you want to tell any. These are the days when humility and pride both exist together and where you bounce your child on your leg and give a secret look to your cousins as your nephew describes how he’s going to make an absolute killing in real estate. These are the days you’ll enjoy the most and these are the times when you will work the hardest to keep the extended family together.

Which means continuing, or beginning, those family reunions.

HOW TO PLAN A FAMILY REUNION

It’s a good idea to plan a reunion four to six months out — this gets the event on everyone’s calendar and locks everything in. It also gives you half a year to organize everything and work it.

6 Months Before
- Choose a date — check with folks that are traveling the longest distance and make sure it fits their schedules as they are making the biggest sacrifice.
- Choose a length of time — is this over a Saturday afternoon or an entire weekend?
- Choose a general location.
- If over 50 people, create a reunion committee — determine person in charge of finance, food, entertainment, clean up, lodging, etc.
4 Months Before
- Lock in your location — if it’s a park or outdoor event, reserve the pavilion or fields if needed. If it’s inside, give the deposit needed or reserve the spot, etc.
- Plan the menu — create the food assigning dishes and other food items to each family. Arranging for extra cooking and/or grilling facilities. Or finding a caterer.
- Create a schedule — determine activities and entertainment, is there going to be a family softball game or contests. When do you want to schedule this?
- Build in family history portion — start doing some research on the family tree or a huge white board/chalkboard is great for everyone to build a family tree together.
- Photography and/or video — with everyone carrying cameras on their phones, hiring a photographer or videographer may not be necessary, but what will be is to find a place to store all those images and video. Create a reunion Facebook page or website where everyone can dump all the pictures taken — you can use this in the organization end as well to post updates and schedule.
- Marketing — are you going to create postcards for the event or design t-shirts? Now is the time to plan those.
3 Months Before
- Finance — if large, determine cost per person.
- Send out invitations — include times, locations, schedule, maps and costs or side dishes that need to be brought.
- Committee sign ups — depending on the size there will be needs in each area. This is the time to get people to sign up for; set up teams, cooking committees, entertainment teams, etc.
- Reserve items — do you need to rent a tent, chairs, portable grill? This is the time to reserve all of that stuff.
2 Months Before
- Create a stocking location — you’ll need a place to begin to store things.
- Make nonperishable purchases — order the cups, table cloths, condiments, craft items, decorations, etc.
- Send out e-mail or social network posts to keep the momentum going and stay on everyone’s thoughts
- Arrange/place deposits on large food items — will you need 200 pounds of burgers? Now is the time to arrange this and to shop around for the best price.
1 Month Before
- Confirm, confirm, confirm — with family on food items, with reservations and with lodging.
2 Weeks Before
- Contact restaurants with a final guest count if necessary.
- Contact volunteers with specific tasks to confirm times, locations, and the final guest count.
- Review your final to-do list.
- Buy last-minute decorations and supplies.
- Create signs and banners.
2 Days Before
- Review reunion minutiae with committees.
- Pick up any rental equipment — chairs, tables, grills, etc.
- Prepare final payments and tips
The Day Before
- Set up and decorate.
- Sleep.
July 27, 2016
The New Year’s resolution hack
It’s a pretty well known fact in the health club and fitness Industry that the best time of year — their season — is January. No doubt about it. This is when health clubs, gyms, personal trainers; diet supplement companies and home gym equipment manufacturers, all see the bulk of their business for the entire year. It’s their market. It’s New Year’s resolution time.

And these same health club and fitness professionals will also tell you that the busiest time of that month is the second week of January; when they will see the largest single week of the year. And after that — things begin to taper down. Each week. Until the second week of February when the season is officially over.

Now at the end of that four week period, 80% of the people who have bought their Super Stepper 9,000 or joined a gym, have stopped. Over the next two months — until the second week of April — an additional 12% will stop as well. Leaving 8%. Which is the average percentage rate of people who reach their New Year’s resolutions.

8%.

Now as far as health clubs and gyms go, they love this trend — they will never tell you this, but their accountants will. Because what is a better customer than one who pays for an entire year and then doesn’t use up valuable is resources or equipment. And — here is the best part — those same people will be back again next January convinced that this year things are going to be different. And they’ll sign up again.

Now fitness is only one of the goals we set at the beginning of the year — financial is another big area, career, artistic goals of music or of finally sitting down and writing that book, there are many.

So why do New Year’s resolutions fail? Well, there are many reasons. Here are a few …
1. Because they are fueled by motivation only — motivation is short lived and usually lasts only about a month by itself.
2. Because we set unrealistic goals.
3. Because we need the goal to fix something in our life; to make it all better.
4. Because we don’t have a plan, we just have an end result.
5. Because we are now in panic time. It’s not important that it took us 3 years to put on that extra 60 pounds, it must be off by summer!
Yup. All of these are true. But there are two other reasons — the two real reasons — why most New Year’s resolutions fail. And if you address these two other areas, your odds go up substantially. In fact, you will double your chance of success if you only focus on these two areas.

Ready? Here they are.

The real two real reasons why 92% of all New Year’s resolutions fails — are this.
1. Because we get something out of where we are now. If we are overeating, overspending, drinking too much, out of work or have our finances way overextended, we get something out of that. Either a pleasure or an escape and until we identify what that is — really spend time with it — then it will continue to run silently in the background; quietly and under the surface, and will derail any minor motivation fueled trend we are running on the top.
Because if we never turn the program off. Identify it and replace it with something else. Then that beacon — that we ourselves put into motion — is enough to make us one of the 80%. If we don’t turn it off an replace it, motivation alone will not break through it. We are wishing to go north but we are steering south.

And the second reason is this …
1. Because we think we need to fight. That there is something inside of us that wants us to fail and we need to fight, it, Defeat it. Instead of realizing that it is a program that we put there, to protect and help us — http://543skills.com/skill-529-the-truth-about-self-discipline/
So here is the single thing you can do — the very best action — to drastically increase your chance of reaching your New Year’s resolution.

Ready?

Here it is.

The best way to achieve your New Year’s resolution is —-.

Don’t set one.

At least not right away. Instead, spend this month — four solid weeks — in getting to know yourself and getting to know how you got to where you are now.

Oh and cop-out answers don’t count here. Answers like, I took my eye off the ball or I wasn’t motivated enough to change — are bull. You get something out of overeating or avoiding those work projects. You told yourself to keep you safe or keep you protected. You get something from it otherwise you wouldn’t be doing it.

What do you get?

So, spend a solid month in getting to know what that is. Now, I now, but the gym, the office, the life you are going to organize, it will be there waiting for you. Consider this month basic training, getting you ready for it.

And here are the two best ways to do that. Here are two ways to get into that programming and see what that code really is.
1. Write. Just start writing, every day, in a journal of everything you think and feel. Start to write about why you want to change and how you got to where you are. Keep digging and digging for a solid month.
And …
1. Go into the silence. Now this one will take a little getting used to but it is amazing the results. What it is is take an hour — yeah, it seems like a long time but it’s worth it — where you are completely unplugged. Step into a a quiet room, your parked car, the woods, whatever. Turn your phone off and just sit — motionless, don’t move — for one hour.
The first twenty minutes of this will be hell. Then calm will come over you. And then — things will begin to click. Doors will open and you will begin to think pure thoughts. Pure code. You will see clearly.

Do this — do all of this. And when your four weeks are up, then set your goals. And you’ll not only be one of the 8% but you’ll get there easier and you’ll get more joy out of it because you’ll be in sync with what you really want.
July 26, 2016
How to say grace over a meal

There are many words in the English language that have changed meaning over time. For example, the word artificial originally meant artistic or crafty. The word decimate meant to reduce by one tenth and in the original Latin the word nice, meant ignorant or unaware.

Just since the 19th century the words for dinner and supper have changed, when dinner referred to the large meal of the day — often in the early afternoon — and supper meant the smaller meal later at night — often after 7:00 pm. Now, both dinner and supper are interchangeable and refer to the evening meal.

In the modern world, many other words have changed meanings. Spam, a processed and canned meat, now refers to the mountains of junk e-mails we receive daily. A cursor was the word for a running messenger and now means the movable indicator on a computer screen. The the word friend once applied only to those people we have a close personal bond and connection with, but now refers to anyone on our Facebook or Twitter page.

But in my opinion, one of the most interesting word changes involves the word offensive or the phrase to offend. These words have long been in existence — for hundreds of years — but only in the last decade the meaning become altered and is now even confusing.

During the Vietnam War, American television announcers warned viewers when upcoming footage from the war, would be offensive; when it would contain graphic images of war and violence. And we knew what the word offensive meant then — even without seeing it, we knew.

At that same time, domestically, we were a country divided by race and hate and fear. A man with dark skin now had the right to fight and die as a soldier along with his white counterparts — a first in US History — but he could not attend the same church or use the same public restroom.

To say these events were offensive would be a great understated truth.

Then, in 1968, Brown vs. The Board Education, would allow black and white students to actually sit in the same classroom together. And there was more violence. And more fear.

Slowly — over the decades — the race walls began to crumble. Slower yet, the hate and fear began to fade.

Then came the events of September 11, 2001; a world altering event where a radical group of Muslim extremists plotted attacks that took thousands of American lives.

And everything changed.

Religion now became the new race. We were frightened and angry and confused and were told that a world split by religion could only be mended by understanding and tolerance. And fueled by a desire for healing, we embraced this word; tolerance. And there were more words that were added to our lexicon. And the more words mixed in, the more vague and confusing it all became.

Instead of kindness we were asked to be objective. Instead of understanding we were encouraged to be respectful. Instead of being neighborly we were told to be civil. And above all things, the ultimate focus was to never say or do anything that might be ever be perceived as — offensive.

And because we never truly understood the new meaning of this word — offensive — we did not understand what it truly was to offend. So, we simply took the easier path and avoided any and all areas that even might offend. And that meant anything religious or spiritual.

And the new segregation began.

Which bring us to this. To the ultimate irony and the ultimate truth.

I believe in God. I believe in a God that created me and watches over me and who is with me on earth will be with me in Heaven. There is no need for me to apologize for this because there is nothing offensive about it.

As men, we need to work less on being tolerant and more on being generous.

We need to be less objective and be more helpful.

And we need to be less unbiased and be more forgiving.

And above all things, we need to be grateful. Grateful to our God. Grateful to our family, our neighbors and grateful to all that is on loan to us for the short time we live in this world.

And during that Thanksgiving or Christmas or Easter or that visit to someone else’s home, if we are extended the honor to say grace over the meal, we should embrace it.

If you’ve never publicly said grace over a meal, the rules are simple.

We are thanking God for the meal. We are thanking Him for the chance to be at that table with family and friends. We are grateful to live in a place where food is plentiful and we can live and work without fear or danger. We will work hard to show love and kindness to all we come in contact with.

And we are grateful.

July 24, 2016
How to pitch horseshoes

Back in the days of the Roman Empire, the horseshoe — the one we think of now with the U shape — hadn’t been invented yet. So instead, they used round iron rings that were nailed to the horse’s hoofs to protect them. Now, when the soldiers had some down time — you know, when they weren’t busy sacking and pillaging — they were always on the lookout for ways to keep busy, so they would pitch these round iron rings towards stakes in the ground. And from this the game of quoits — which would later evolve to the game of horseshoes — was born.

The game grew and continued to be played for thousands of years, but not always by full-time soldiers or farmers or other “hardworking” laborers of the time — they would never have had the free time needed to play such a game. It was truly more of a volunteer soldier’s sport because the trained soldiers would have tasks to complete during every minute of the day. In fact, after the Revolutionary War, a beaten and bitter Duke of Wellington could not believe that his great English army was brought down by “pitchers of horse hardware.”

After the wars came peace, and as soldiers returned home they brought the game of quoits with them. Soon it was not uncommon for every village and farming community to have their own pitching court.

In 1869, eager to organize the game, England set up rules to govern it. It was determined that the distance between stakes would be 19 yards. The player would pitch his quoit with one step, the ground around the stake would be filled with sand, etc. Even with these rules in place, it wasn’t until 1910 in the city of Bronson, Kansas, that the first World Horseshoe Pitching tournament was held.

Today, the game of horseshoes remains the ultimate backyard game. It’s a perfect blend of skill, risk, and tactics. And although Corn Hole is a portable game that works well while tailgating and waiting in line for concert tickets, the game of horseshoes will always remain as the ultimate gentlemen’s recreational activity.

HOW TO PLAY HORSESHOES

The game of horseshoes includes four shoes — two of each color — and two stakes. Regulation horseshoes require that the two stakes be 40 feet apart, with each stake in the center of a sand-filled pit.

If you have some space in your yard, the horseshoe pit is very easy to be made permanent by framing the two stakes with some scrap lumber and filling with playground sand. If you’re going to do this, toss a little cement in the hole with the stake so that it doesn’t move when the horseshoe hits it. Or, you can keep your game portable and bring them with you to every picnic and family reunion.

Horseshoes can be played by two individuals or two teams of two players. The most common version of the game involves “innings.” During each inning, each player pitches two shoes. The goal is to get the horseshoe around the stake. This is a “ringer” and it is determined by the ends of the horseshoe being hooked on the stake and both ends of the shoe clearing the stake. When pitching, you must stay behind the foul line, which is 3 feet in front of each stake.

Scoring:

1. A ringer — the stake is completely encircled by the shoe — 3 points.

2. A leaner — the horseshoe is leaning against the stake — 1 point.

3. Closest — if there are no ringers or leaners, the person with the shoe closest to the stake gets 1 point. In addition, if your two shoes are closer than both of your opponent’s shoes, you get 2 points. If you get a ringer, and you have the closest shoe, it’s 4 points.

4. Cover — if a shoe is thrown on top of your shoe as a ringer, your ringer is cancelled.

The goal is to be the first to score 15. In another version of the game, you can determine that you’ll both have a set number of pitches, and whoever has the most points at the end wins.

Remember the goal is to not only get more points, but to stop your opponent from scoring. Sometimes the best tactic is not to pitch for the point but to cover or knock over the opponent’s leaning shoe.

A backyard set of horseshoes will run you about twenty bucks. If you look around, I bet you’ll find some public horseshoe pits near you and probably a league looking for members.

July 23, 2016
The 10 greatest guy inventions of all time

There are inventions and then there are guy-inventions — these are the gadgets, tools and innovations that are so deeply embedded in our man-lives that the idea of going without them is completely unthinkable.

Here are the top 10 guy inventions of all time.

10. Ramen Noodles

Whether you buy them now or not, at some point of your life you have consumed many bowls of Ramen noodles, cup o soups, or similar products. Why? Because it’s completely a guy thing; cheap, simple and portable. We lived on this stuff in college and we still buy them when no one is looking.

9. Dish sponge and soap dispenser

If you are not familiar with this one yet, stop what you are doing and run to the store right now. I’m not sure who to thank for this dish washing miracle but it is a clear handle filled with dish soap and a sponge at the end. That’s it. But now you don’t need to fill a sink with water — which men hate — instead you can wash a cup, a bowl, a dish with just the dispenser. Run some water, soap up the dish with it and rinse. Done.

[amazon asin=B00HWL9AR4&template=iframe image][amazon asin=B005BFZ5N6&template=iframe image][amazon asin=B00J7KM5X4&template=iframe image][amazon asin=B00ET5VMTU&template=iframe image]

8. Digital Video Recorder.

This innovation still amazes me. The ability to pause and rewind live TV should be a candidate for The Nobel Prize. Now, we can pause anything we’re watching, get a drink, take a call and come back and not miss anything — as well as skip through the commercials. Also it’s great for those ‘what did he say?’ moments when you can rewind and settle a TV bet.

7. Energy drinks

Sure women buy energy drinks — in fact the largest demographic of energy drink consumers are young mothers trying to get through the day with as much steam as possible. But the idea of energy drinks is completely a guy thing. It’s fast, cold, comes in a can and gets the motor going.

6. Microwave Oven

Microwaves are everywhere men are; construction sites, break rooms, garages. They are these inexpensive little boxes that you plug in, press a buton and within a minute or so your food is hot. What’s not to love?

5. Global Positioning System

The GPS system was the freedom rally-cry for all men. Never again, do we need to hear the words, just stop and ask someone for directions — which in the guy world is equivalent of wearing a dress. And if we keep the volume down and just look at the pretty directions, we actually feel like we’re getting there by ourselves.

4. Safety razor

When is the last time you walked into work and saw a fellow co-worker with those little pieces of toilet paper stuck to his face to stop the bleeding from shaving? For some of you, probably never. That’s because it rarely happens anymore but it used to happen all the time. New razors are so well developed that it’s almost impossible to cut yourself shaving any longer and the shave is close and fast.

3. Cordless drill

When the cordless drills first came on the scene in the 1980’s they were very expensive and the only group that could afford them were professional contractors — while the rest of us looked on with lust. Now, the technology has been so well developed and the price point has dropped so much, that everyone has one. And the new 20 volt models keep their charge forever — months without a recharge.

2. Duct tape

Duct tape is a pressure sensitive tape coated with polyethylene. It was first developed in World War II to seal ammunition cases and make small repairs because of its water resistance. Now, we use duct tape for everything because it’s fast, easy and it works.

1. Television Remote Control

Yes, it’s a cliché, but the truth is the remote control is the greatest guy-invention of all time. It puts the world in our hands, caters to our short attention span and lets us bounce all around the TV universe increasing our programming productivity. In fact, for most of us, if we can’t find the remote — what’s the point of turning the TV on?

July 22, 2016
REVIEW: Film: Snowpiercer.

One of the simplest questions we all get asked is one that I have difficulty answering. It’s one of those in the icebreaker category — you know, not a; where are you from? what do you do? where did you go to school? but the personal tastes and interest question of — what’s your favorite film?

That’s tough. And is absolutely impossible to answer.

See, when I find a film that I like — one that is so good that I just can’t get it out of my head — I will watch it about — well, ten gazillion times. I’ll just keep watching and watching it, over and over; experiencing each scene from the beginning in one continuous loop. I’ll look up deleted scenes. I’ll delve into the life of the actors. I’ll download the actual script and look at how it was first written compared to how it was shot. And when I have reached the ten gazillion mark — when every last bit of emotion and beauty has been wrung out of it and all that’s left is the husk — I’ll discard it. I’ll never watch it again. Ever.

When it comes on TV, I’ll flip past it. When it becomes a topic of conversation, I’ll wait for it to pass. Because I’ve taken too much of it I’ve overdosed. It’s over.

This is the first reason why we’ve not done a film review on 543skills so far. The second reason is that I can be kind of a jerk when it comes to movies — I admit this. But hey, when you give someone 100 million dollars to do something — which is the average price tag right now to make a feature film — you expect a quality product. A better than quality product. With 100 million dollars you should be able to make something unforgettable, that changes lives. Every time.

But there are very, very few absolutely amazing films made. And the even worse part is that we seem to be okay with that.

Which brings us to Snowpiercer.

Now, I first heard of the film when Tim Ferriss recommended it (and I am allowing a few seconds to build up so you think that Tim and I discussed the movie during a racquetball game; that this is the type of movers and shakers I associate with, but actually I read it in his newsletter.) In fact, Tim Ferriss raved about the film. So did a lot of people and Rotten Tomatoes gave it a 95%. So, I watched it.

Now the premise of Snowpiercer is this. The world tries to stop Global Warming by introducing this super chemical into the environment. This chemical is a really bad idea and the entire planet freezes over but not before a genius named Wilford builds a mega train where the last of humanity can be saved and travel around the world at breakneck speeds while the frozen planet lies around them.

There are two classes in this train. There is the first class who spread out among the majority of cars and live a life of luxury and extravagance. And then there are the lower class who in the back and are kept in a crowded windowless car and fed only protein blocks that look like black Jello. But one brave soul from the back named Curtis, has finally had enough of this poor treatment and organizes a rebellion to get his lower class brethren further up in the train where all the food and good stuff is kept.

Now besides the ridiculous plot holes of Snowpiercer — instead of building a train that travels at 90 around the world with no stops and no real purpose to travel, why not take that technology and build a bigger structure that’s stationary — it’s is not a bad film. Not really.

It’s not a good film. But it’s not a bad one. Actually, I’m not really sure what it is.

The end of the film doesn’t leave you with any more answers than you had in the beginning. In fact, the answers that you are given are disappointing at best. You don’t really care about the characters or what happens to them and the few, oh my gosh you’ve got to be kidding, plot twists, don’t work.

What you do have is some visually appealing scenes and some fairly good acting — but with a flat script it really doesn’t matter.

Snowpiercer is worth seeing for the imagery. I guess. But that would be it. There are too many plot speed bumps to count and the end of the ride is — well, just plain silly.

But hey, Tim Ferris said it’s good.

July 21, 2016
The lost art of pickled eggs
There are several symbols of life that have pretty much vanished from the American landscape. These include payphones — you still see a few once in a great while, but they are becoming increasingly scarce — Western Union Telegrams, video rental stores, and gone are the days when you would go to the hardware store to use the machine to test your television tubes; in order to determine which ones needed replacing — eliminating those expensive TV repairmen that charge and arm and a leg.

Yup. Those days are pretty much gone.

And another casualty of modern living is now missing from the neighborhood bar. At one time, there, back by the cash register, near the packs of cigarettes and the book where they kept track of your weekly sign-in — you would always see — it. That gallon jar of pickled eggs. Beautiful, inviting and glimmering in its vinegar glow.

The bar pickled egg had been a staple for decades and often provided the only solid food a working man would have before heading home after a hard day. Originally the bar egg was simply a hardboiled egg; offered free to patrons like pretzels are today — in order to make the customer more thirsty and also to keep them from getting sloppily drunk. But health concerns grew and this practice migrated to selling just the pickled version; which could last longer and removed the need to clean up all those egg shells.

The pickled egg first showed up on the American scene in the 1700’s and although many believe this to be a British transplant, it was actually the German colonists that brought it with them. It was popular with Hessian mercenaries and then migrated over to the Pennsylvania Dutch. It was a very simple practice, where the egg — or the cucumber or the beet — were placed in a jar of spiced vinegar and left there.

If pickling hasn’t become a lost art, it has definitely become a niche one and is often lumped in with canning. Which is not accurate.

Canning is the act of preserving food for storage. Pickling is when the vinegar and spices infuse it and alter the structure.

Can a tomato and you still have a tomato. But pickle and egg and you get something completely different.

Pickling is pretty easy and does not require canning pots and jars and can be done with just a few leftover glass jars and a pot — I mean you can use all that fancy stuff if you have it, but it’s not required. Because you can easily pickle eggs — or sausage or anything — with items that are just lying around the house. . It’s easy. It’s fun and it’s one of those cooking areas that everyone believes is a lot more difficult than it really is. And you can be very creative with pickling because the flavor is changed with not only the spices, but also with what else is pickled with it — hot peppers or fruit you whatever else you add in.

Plus there is this unique effect when you bring homemade pickled eggs to a barbecue or an event that moves you up the unique-ladder — it’s possible that depending on how narrow minded and culinary-retentive your friends are, that no one may eat them, but I guarantee there won’t be three other jars of pickled eggs at the tailgate.

Now the one down side to pickled eggs, is that they do not preserve the food long term like canning does — commercial pickled eggs can be kept on a shelf for years, but homemade ones need to be refrigerated, even before opening.

And the very first — and really the only rule — of any pickling endeavor is, don’t use the prepackaged pickling spices. I have used these before and they are basically salt with some salt added in for flavor. You can create a much, much better brine on your own.

Now, the most difficult aspect of pickling eggs has nothing to do with the cooking part, but has everything to do with getting those eggs out of their shells. Unpeeling hardboiled eggs is tedious and yields completely inconsistent results, so here are a few tricks that work pretty well.

HOW TO PEEL HARDBOILED EGGS
1. The Baking Soda Method
If you increase the pH of the water you are cooking the egg in, the shell will actually break down. So add in 1/2 teaspoon baking soda for every quart water you use. Boil the eggs. Let cool and peel.
1. The Lung Power Method
Here’s how it’s supposed to work: First, crack the shell at the very top and bottom of the egg, then peel off about a dime sized hole on each end. Then, place your mouth over the hole on the top of the egg, and blow. According to some very cool Youtube videos, this should work — but I have only made it work if I use the baking soda method first.
1. The crack all over method
If you take the egg and crack both top and bottom, then, on a paper towel, roll the egg around and crack the entire surface — you’ll know you’ve done this when you stop hearing the cracking sound. Then, if done right, the shell should come off in large pieces. I’ve had this work many times — and not work many times, and the key seems to be that older eggs peel better. Newer ones — especially the ones my wife gets directly from her friends who have chickens — are a pain to peel.
1. The Swirl Method
So the philosophy here is, you cook the eggs, remove them and place in a pot with a few inches of cold water. Then in the pot, swirl they eggs in a circle, letting the eggs bump and crack and slam all over each other. Then when you take the eggs out they should be partially unpeeled and easy to finish. I have tried this method and it works sometimes, but it does make a mess — but you get a great forearm workout.
1. The Glass of Water Method
This is my go-to method for unpeeling hardboiled eggs and I use it all the time. You place the egg in a glass with an inch or so of water in it. Cover the top with your hand and shake it and swirl it. The eggshell will take on small cracks over the surface and the water will get in between the shell and help it slip right off.

HOW TO MAKE PICKLED EGGS

So step one is to find a jar that can be sealed tightly — leftover pickled jars or anything with a wide mouth and a lid that seals. A quart-size canning jar will hold about one dozen medium sized eggs. Clean the jar thoroughly.

Add inside the jar the eggs and the extras — extras can include cut up onion, sweet peppers, hot peppers, garlic cloves, whatever you want.

In a large pan add in ¾ cup of water, 1 ½ cup of apple cider vinegar, 3 tsp salt, 2 tsp sugar, 1 clove garlic, some dill, mustard seed or any other spices you want — remember; there are no rules.

Bring the pot to a boil and then let it simmer for 5 minutes.

Right before you are ready to pour everything in the jar, run hot water over the outside surface of the jars you are using to warm them up.

Pour the mixture into the jar and cover with the lid.

That’s it.
July 20, 2016
Fame

Since the beginning of time, man has been coming up with wise things to say to each other. Pearls of wisdom. Proverbs and sage advice. The best of these insightful phrases are remembered and passed on.

     Two wrongs don’t make a right.

     Necessity is the mother of invention.

     Absence makes the heart grow fonder.

King Solomon — often touted as the wisest man in the world and the author of The Book of Proverbs, in The Bible, penned over a thousand ‘songs’ or wise sayings about God and life. Great stuff such as: A soft answer turns away wrath. Don’t run too far from your problems, you’ll only have that same distance to return. And; A good name is more desirable than great riches; to be esteemed is better than silver or gold.

Accurate statements. All of King Solomon’s writings are sound and solid but there is big difference in The Bible between the word of God — I will never leave you or forsake you — and the words of wise men like Solomon — train a child in the way he should go and when he is old he will return to it.

Because King Solomon’s words are only wise guidelines and God’s words are where the pure truth of The Bible lies.

We often forget this and therefore the phrases themselves — those motivational words of encouragement that dot our Facebook walls — become our perceived truth. But these phrases can only contain the refection of the truth, not the truth itself.

An example is the phrase is: Do what you love and the money will come.

Cute. But wrong.

If taken literally, this means that if you do only the things that you love and enjoy, you will become wealthy doing it — or at least be able to support yourself doing it. That by going after those areas that we have done before and know that we love, we will be successful and content — so all you need to do is to focus on those things you get pleasure out of and leave the things that you don’t, alone.

I love eating Oreo’s but not only would it be difficult to find someone to pay me to eat them, I guarantee that after a few weeks I would stop loving them.

So the phrase is limited. It doesn’t allow for growth and hard work. A more accurate edit might be: Love what you do and the money will come. Yeah, that’s closer. But, if you drill down deeper into what is around the proverb, what supports it, you will see additional flaws.

So what do we enjoy? — and not only what do we get pleasure out of but why do we get pleasure out of. Because the world is divided between pleasure and pain — we either turn towards something or run from it — yes, that’s true. But there is also the gap factor.

Pleasure is great, but sometimes pleasure can be pulled from one area into another when needed, which is where gaps occur. The obese woman with immaculate hair and makeup has gaps. The short man in the Hummer has them too; pleasure in one area being syphoned to decrease pain in another.

This occurs a lot in The Performing Arts where people become hooked on the adoration, the attention, the notoriety, and not the work.

Here is an example. Think of how many people you know whose dream it is to become one of these three things: a writer, an actor or a musician. Start counting in your head of all the people you know, or have ever known, who have dreamed of becoming well known in one of those categories — to catch their big break, land that perfect roll or simply be discovered.

Got a rough number?

Good. Now, do the same thing and think of people you know whose dreams, who’s very passion, is to break into three completely different career paths. A puppeteer, a juggler or a camera operator.

Got that second number?

Okay, so why is the first number so much higher than the second? According to logic it shouldn’t be. If artistic talent and passion is the true driver, then those numbers should be the same because it takes just as much creativity in making a marionette come to life as it does to pretend to be someone on stage. It requires as much skill to work a TV camera as it does to sing. So why do we not know a single kid who wants to be a juggler when he grows up? Why don’t we have a few dozen friends who after a few too many Budweiser longnecks, pine over the life they should have had with puppets?

Tom Hanks was interviewed once and was asked when he first knew that he was a success. He laughed at this and said that he was a success when he first got out of college and was performing Shakespeare in the Park. He was doing what he loved to do, was happy and probably would have been content performing in that way for the remainder of his career. It wasn’t the fame that drew him, it was the craft.

Kevin Spacy has turned down several film rolls because he doesn’t really like making films. But he loves the theatre and spends as much time performing in theatrical productions as he can.

If your dream is in one that fits in that first category, then here’s the question. How will you know if you are successful?

If the answer is — if the true answer, the one you only tell yourself — is when I’m famous, or when I’m rich, then you are heading towards the shadow of this dream rather than the dream itself. It’s a lie, a trick and a gap.

The Ancient Greeks had a phrase called The Golden Meen. Nothing to excess. Finding the balance. A life with balance is great life. It is strong and solid and cannot be tumbled. But a pursuit where there are only two levels; fame and failure, can never be aligned.

Breaking in. Catching a break. Being discovered. What does that even mean?

If you want to write, to perform or to make music, then do it. Get good at it. Hone your craft. Write plays for your church Christmas play, make music at a retirement home and do standup for Veterans. Use your gift and your passion and give it away. Get good at it.

And find the balance.

July 20, 2016
How to simplify your digital life
On June 5^th of 1883, at the house that stood on 6 Harvey Road in Cambridge, England, John and Florence Keynes gave birth to their very first child. A son they would name John, after his father. Young John, was bright and happy and had the advantage of being raised by a prominent English family that highly valued formal education.

A few years passed and shortly after John’s brother Geoffrey was born, John was enrolled in the Perse School Kindergarten — but was absent a great deal due to illness and was almost held back. And by the time his sister Margaret was born, Keynes was a student at Saint Faith’s Preparatory School, where he excelled in mathematics and algebra and was recognized for the breadth of his vocabulary.

In 1894, at the age of eleven, John Maynard Keynes rose to the top of his class. It was a place that he would stay for the remainder of his education.

1897 came and Keynes won a scholarship to Eton College where he continued to excel in mathematics, and in 1902 he left Eton for King’s College, Cambridge, where he was given another scholarship as well as began to specialize in economics.

Now, if you’ve studied economics, you know the basics of Keynes. He would end up changing the standard economic views of the time; as well alter the way we look at governmental roles. He created in depth theories of business cycles — all of which would be later called Keynesian Economics — and in the 1930’s, he began to seriously challenge world economic concepts. He disagreed that free markets would always provide full employment, as well as the idea of demand leading to periods of high unemployment and argued that governmental regulation would need to closely monitor boom and bust cycles.

Then came World War II and Keynes’s ideas began to be adopted by the leading Western economies, which lead to the creation of The World Bank. And even though Keynes died in 1946, he actually became more influential after his death — as the governments and economic systems that had adopted Keynesian practiced were now booming — which created real life success to support his theories. Time Magazine listed John Maynard Keynes as one of the top 100 most influential people of the 20^th century.

Now there is no doubt of the intelligence and vision of John Maynard Keynes. It’s clear that he was absolutely correct in many of his theories of economics and financial projection, and his understanding of business and world market trends is probably better than anyone’s ever. But — there was one area that Keynes was incorrect about.

In fact — he was dead wrong.

Keynes began to map the growth of technology in the 1930’s. He saw that with the rate of the development of useful tools and innovations being created, that this would eventually affect society as a whole. He factored in the advances he was seeing in communications, manufacturing, transportation, all areas, across all industries, and in an essay entitled Economic Possibilities For Our Grandchildren, Keynes made a statement that would be tied to his name from that moment on.

“By the time my grandchildren are adults,” Keynes had said. “They would be working a 15 hour work week.”

Technology would free us. New machinery and modernization would be the tools to take on most of the burden of our average work week.

Keynes stated that over time, with the help of machines, technology and new concepts, people would become more productive. Machinery and the modernization of the work place would be able to take on the burden of most of our work week and an hour of labor would produce more and more stuff as time moved on. So we would be able to work less and less. Technology would free us.

And Keynes was —- so wrong.

Well — that’s not true. He was right about the development of technology.

Since his death in 1946, mechanical and computer innovation has changed every aspect of our lives. We can now send information around the globe, in seconds. We can communicate with anyone we want to in a written, video or text format. We have access to information on any possible subject instantaneously and can bounce signals off satellites to track our location and get us where we need to go faster and more efficiently. We can sort, organize or trend data. And we have successfully made the world a much smaller place by opening access to every part of it.

But Keynes was wrong about how this would affect us. It didn’t free us. Not at all. It only lead to the bar being raised.

According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, an average individual needs to work 51 hours per week today, in order to produce as much as someone who was working 40 hours a week in 1950 — so a team with email, spreadsheets and cell phones, needs to work more than the team with typewriters, carbon paper and messenger services. And in 1990, MIT completed a study that predicting that with the current rate of technology growth, mixed in with the productivity rates; we will need to increase our work by 120% more in the next 50 years to capture the same current production rate. So we will need to work 15 hours more each week in fifty years, in order to be as productive as we are today.

The technology that is available now is not creating less work. It’s creating more, by constantly raising the competitive need. So we end up doing more because we need to do more.

And not only has technology simply raised the minimum standard of work production, it is completely altered how we think and react. We need to be wired, to be connected — all the time. If we hear that ding or buzz of our phone, we have the Pavlovian need to see what it is — no matter what we are doing or where we are.

Here are some interesting facts.

84% of people use their cellphones as alarm clocks, so their phones are right there with them, even when they sleep.

A Health Club chain recently had to post signs asking members not to use cell phones — in the shower.

Lifeline and Link-Up provides free smart phones to those on state welfare programs, as texting capabilities and wireless internet access is now seen as a basic human need.

We are 34% more likely to misplace our car keys, than we are our cell phones, because we are on average away from the less.

Municipalities are now adding signs on rural roads that have limited cell phone coverage to prepare drivers for the fact that their phones will not work for several miles.

Phones, tablets, smart watches and whatever is next in the technology line, are deeply embedded into our lives. So how do we use these tools — as tools and not leashes? How do we take back our lives and unhook the electronic collars?

Well, there are a few ways.
1. When is it ego and when is it priority? Yes, there are times when that phone needs to be glued to your hand — if you’re on call, working out a customer emergency, someone in your family is ill. Yes. You need to work the phone. But those are rare. Most of the times that we respond to an email during dinner, is so we can be the first one on the email chain to do it. To save our place. To let our customers, or co-workers, or the guys on The Little League Committee know that we are on this. And this is just ego. If you are not getting further information or adding information to the conversation, then you are just electronically thumping your chest to show others that you soon will.
2. Respond with data — anytime you send a work email, text, voicemail without new information, you are wasting time. Especially on long email chains where the world is being copied. Determine what the goal is and work towards that.
3. Batch tasks. The most productive people out there, batch there electronic chores. The answer emails in the morning or late afternoon. They respond to texts at lunch and return voicemails only in the car. They get more done in a shorter period of time and actually get real work done, offline, with real people, face to face.
4. Turn off notifications. Just because your aunt posted a video on Facebook or your neighbor put her goulash recipe on Pintrist, this doesn’t make it news. Those notifications are only distractions. So turn them off and look at them later.
5. Leave it in the car. If you look at an organization’s highest ranking individuals, thye almost always never arrive at a meeting, presentation, lunch or discussion, with their cell phone. They almost always leave it in the car. These are the people that want to be focused and want you to know that they are. The reverse side of that is, when you are meeting with high ranking people from other companies, they won’t have their’s either. And they will respect those that give them the same respect.
The simple rule is you want walk around all day with your hammer or a spatula. You use these things when needed then put them back. The same thing is true for your phone, tablet watch or whatever other magical electronic gadget you have. Use the tool and master it. Then put it away.

Confidence is found when you can distance yourself until needed.
July 16, 2016
The bar

On Sunday February 4^th of 2007 — the day of Superbowl 41 — our house in Vestal, New York, was empty.

The wooden floors — that had been protected by rugs and furniture for over a decade — were now shiny and bare. The walls — including the ones that Debbie had made me paint twice when she changed her mind on the color — were now only decorated with outlines of where picture frames had blocked the sun. And rooms that we once knew every noise and bump of, now bounced strange sounds through empty spaces.

The new job I had accepted, came with a complete relocation package, which included a team of packers and movers that marched in and took our entire life — beds, bicycles, furniture, the kids toys, clothes and ten years of living — and squeezed it all into one single truck; into 208 square feet of moving space. Or 52 square feet per person. Or 19 square feet, for every year we had lived there. And all that life, all that stuff, was now parked in a storage lot for a week, until we could close on our new house, two states away.

But we would need to move out now, in order for the new owners to move in. So we would leave the town where Debbie and I had first met — at Energetics Health Club, just three blocks from our house — and where our wedding reception was — The Vestal Steak House on The Vestal Parkway — and we would leave the area that we had known for years, leave the neighborhood, the family, and the familiar.

But first, we would go to the Superbowl and going-away-party at Jennifer and Dave’s next door. The entire neighborhood would be there and we would say our goodbyes and then we would come home for one last time. We would climb into our sleeping bags that were spread out on top of air mattresses and we would sleep. And then in the morning, we would leave.

And the house at 317 Frey Avenue in Vestal — the place that had been home for eleven years — would belong to someone else.

Now, when we first bought the house — this was back in 1996 — that move was so much simpler than this one. Going from our small apartment to that big house was incredibly easy and only took my cousin Brad and I a few hours. Plus, we were only a family of three then — Nick was a toddler and Alex hadn’t been born yet and we actually wondered how we would ever fill that big house.

That first night that we spent in our new Vestal home, back in 1996, Debbie and I had sat in the living room together. We had put Nick to bed and were watching Aladdin — the cable wouldn’t get turned on until the following week and we only owned kid’s video tapes — and it was then that Debbie made the announcement.

“Go get us wings.”

Now in Endicott, where our old apartment was — clear across the river — there were plenty of places to get chicken wings and Debbie and I had become complete Endicott wing snobs over the years. But we were in Vestal now.

“Where?”

“I don’t know. Go find a place.”

Now finding a place for good chicken wings in upstate New York is not as difficult as you think. It’s like trying to find a good show in Vegas, or a great fishing spot in Maine. The corner bar-and-grill always had the best food and there were hundreds of them around. So I got in the car and drove.

And that’s when I found The Terrace.

It was packed inside when I walked in but I made my way up to the bartender.

“You look lost,” Lynn spoke over the noise of the jukebox and the crowd, but she was smiling.

“Yeah, I might be. How are your wings?”

She gave me a look that was a combination of — what, are you stupid? Mixed with — don’t insult me by asking. So I ordered two dozen wings to go, and sat at the bar and nursed a beer.

I would stay there for the next eleven years.

At least once a week we got wings, or sandwiches or some other food from The Terrace — and of course you have to go there to order it. And I became a regular. The Terrace became my bar and I became a part of it. Now I never stayed late, I was always home by six o-clock, plenty of time for dinner with Debbie and the kids, or I brought dinner with me from there — and I was rarely there on weekends. Just once or twice a week for a few hours; the minimum amount of time required to hold my place in the pack. Just enough to keep the bar a part of me and me a part of it.

Now, everyone has a roll to play at a bar. You have your experts on everything — Mike. You have your big shots — Chris the lawyer and Jimmy the broker. You have the pack leaders — big Frank and Remmy. You had borderline criminals — Newt and the haircut guy, and you had a potpourri of assorted bar characters.

And at The Terrace, I got to play the part of the writer; a fun roll that required very little work and absolutely no writing. You just needed to talk about writing once in a while and as long as there wasn’t another writer that was already accepted as part of the group — which happens a lot — then you get to be it.

And then you can cool phrases used about you, like — you should tell Everett that story, he’s the writer.

I cried at The Terrace. But I laughed there too. And I always left before I really wanted to. And I did this for eleven years; from 1996 to 2007, and during that time I belonged to The Terrace and it belonged to me.

And then 2007 came and we moved away.

And although I thought about the bar — a lot — I had never been back. Not even when I’d be passing through that area — I guess I was afraid of not wanting to see something spoiled or ruined. So I never went back.

Until last month.

I was in town heading to Syracuse for a meeting and didn’t want to drive any further, so I checked into The Hampton Inn in The Vestal Parkway and then headed for The Terrace for wings.

It’s humbling to go back to places that were once important to you. Just because you left, you expect them to wind down and stop but they continue. And there are all new faces. With all new groups, that come with a different pecking order and a new gauge of respect and esteem. And you want to grab these people and tell them that you were part of this once too. That you sat where they sat and you passed the same tests they did. And that there was a time when your group — not there’s — were important to this place.

It’s sad when time moves on without you.

But it’s even sadder when it doesn’t.

I had just walked through the door of The Terrace and was working my way towards one of the many empty barstools, when I heard my name. Then I heard it again. Then again.

After nine years — they were all still there. Mike. Sam. Big Frank. Remmy. Lynn. All of them.

They were all still there.

And I sat at the bar and ordered my wings. And the back-slaps and the handshakes started. And then those little blue plastic chips began to build up around my beer glass — this one is from Mike. This is from big Frank. And I took my position back.

The great crowds are now gone from The Terrace. The once strong blue collar area has dwindled, with most of the coveted high paying factory and manufacturing jobs all but vanished. And many buildings are empty, some with broken windows and grass growing through employee parking lots that once held hundreds of cars and trucks. So the large crowds had moved on, but the people at The Terrace who held court over them, have remained at their post.

Since I moved, I found the time to finally finish that book I was always talking about and it had been out for a year. And although they all knew about it, they teased and congratulated me, those accolades didn’t give back the emotional dividend I always dreamed it would.

Because it wasn’t that I moved on from The Terrace. I didn’t. I just — moved. I cheated. I didn’t graduate or wake up one day and no longer need it. I just took the bar out of the equation. And if we hadn’t moved, if I hadn’t evaded that decision, would I still be there too?

I never found a bar in Dover — where we live now. I remember looking for one when we first arrived, but I didn’t look very hard. And I don’t regret my time at The Terrace, but I don’t yearn for it either. That might be maturity, but I doubt it.

It’s just that — over time you begin to see the beauty in the unassuming parts; work, writing, the house. Because older men crave all of those things — we thrive on it. We hunt it. Older men need results.

Younger men don’t.

They need bars. Where all you need to do is dream it. Brag about it. And promise to one day — claim it.

And if your do that — then it’s real.

May 16, 2016
Velma

Velma invented the Egg McMuffin.

This would have been around 1957, at a business she owned with her father called The Gem Diner.

The Gem Diner was a little place in Sanitaria Springs, New York — which in itself was a little place near Binghamton, New York — that sat on the side of Route 7 and sold sandwiches, shakes, burgers and fries to travelers who would stop by for lunch or an early dinner. But few people came in for breakfast.

“They stop and get coffee,” Velma said to her father.

“They get coffee,” Grover corrected. “To go. They don’t want to be late for work, so they fill their thermos and leave.”

So Velma began thinking of a portable breakfast that could be made quickly. She came up with a fried egg, slice of Canadian Bacon and cheese served on a toasted English Muffin.

“What is it?” Grover felt the warmth of the English muffin and egg flow through the wax paper that covered the sandwich.

“It’s breakfast,”

“Well,” he unwrapped it. “We’ll give it a try.”

They sold out the first week. The item was named The Gem Diner Special and it cost thirty cents.

“Don’t forget The Gem Diner Special tomorrow,” Grover would remind every customer he rang out.

Now, on the road from Bainbridge, New York to Binghamton, New York, there were over fifteen places to stop and get a cup of coffee on your way home from work — twenty if you weren’t picky. But none with a prettier waitress. So every day Larry De Morier stopped at The Gem Diner. And every day he would talk to Velma. And every day he would leave — only after he made her laugh at least twice.

He proposed to her on the porch steps of Grover’s house in Sanitaria Springs — the big house that was once the town’s hotel — just around the corner from the diner. They were married in January of 1958. Grover rented the upstairs rooms out to people, so he moved to a back bedroom of the house, and the newlyweds took the first floor.

Life went on.

Four years later, two days after Christmas in 1962, Velma awoke suddenly and knew it was time to deliver her child. She woke her husband who carried her bag out and scrambled to get her into the car. Larry jumped in — it was ten miles to the hospital but the roads would be clear at this hour — but when he turned the car key, nothing happened. He tried again. And again. But without even a click from the starter to signify effort, the car did not start.

Larry jumped out of the car — leaving his wife inside — and disappeared. It was cold and silent in Sanitaria Springs at this time of night. Velma sat — trying to remain calm — until she heard the roar of a large engine in the distance, then a car raced towards her; a copper colored Ford Fairlane. Larry jumped out to transfer his wife inside.

“Who’s car is this?” she asked, through shallow breaths. .

“A friends.”

Larry shot out of the stone driveway.

On the clear back roads, they made good time. They got to the hospital and their child was born, and fifteen hours later — when his head had now cleared — Larry decided he’d better find out who’s car he had taken — since he had ran up the street and looked inside of every car he could find until he came across one with the keys in it. So he and Grover made some phone calls, identified who owned the car, described the situation. The police were contacted and they stopped their search for the stolen Fairlane.

The Gem Diner did well for a few more years but the hours were long and demanding. And Grover decided it was too much for his daughter and her young family, and too much for him. They closed the doors. So Grover paced the big house trying to determine what do next — especially since Larry and Velma would soon have another mouth to feed with their second child. He had to come up with a source of income for her where she wouldn’t have to be away from home as much.

“A fish store?” she asked. “You mean, to eat?”

“No. Tropical fish,” he said excitedly. Pointing to the area that was once the bar of the old hotel. “Right here. You wouldn’t even have to leave the house to take care of customers. You would here the buzzer inside the house when someone came in that door, and you would just walk in through the house. Simple.”

So Grover got to work on The Mermaid Aquarium, Sanitaria Springs first tropical fish store. He bought display cases and shelving, hose and tank decorations and filled over a hundred different tanks with water, gravel, pumps and exotic fish.

“Do people care about tropical fish?” she asked.

“You’ll make them care. And a fish tank is cheaper than one of them color TV’s, remind them of that.”

Grover walked out to his car, motioning his son-in-law to help him carry something back in.

“What is it?” Larry lifted his side of the box but something inside moved.

“Alligators.”

“What?”

“Baby ones. Put them in that tank right next to the piranhas.”

Preparation for the store continued. And two days before the grand opening of The Mermaid Aquarium, Grover Bennett died. Velma opened the store without him. And a week after that, she named her new daughter after her father’s favorite song; Laura.

The Mermaid Aquarium provided a solid second income to the family and with the rent of the tenants upstairs and Larry’s small salary, they squeaked by. In fact, there were even a few dollars to spend on a new trend: kids birthday parties hosted at McDonalds.

In 1972, as Velma helped kids into the basement of the Front Street McDonalds — where they had games, music and cake set up for her son’s tenth birthday — she passed a large poster announcing McDonalds newest food item. The franchise would now start serving breakfast and they invited all to try the new Egg McMuffin.

Velma smiled.

And time moved on.

Velma is 93 years old now and I thought of these stories as I helped her pack last weekend. I thought of how when my dad went on medical disability in 1978 and his small salary would now become even smaller, Velma became the oldest College Freshman at the State University of New York at Delhi’s Nursing Program. She was 56 years old and she combined classes and graduated in one year. She then went to work at The Delaware Valley Hospital in Walton for almost thirty years, where she won nurse of the year in 2002. A plaque still hangs there with her name on it.

We continued to pack.

“Not everything,” she said. “We don’t need to take everything, just a few things. I’ll be back.”

“I know.”

And we would be back. A few times probably to get the house ready to sell.

“Your heart is strong, Velma,” Doctor Freeman had said, only a few days before when he examined her. “Very strong. So are your legs. But your balance is terrible.”

So Velma would go to Ohio. To Laura’s house. Where there was a room waiting for her and a city that had senior centers and groups and organizations and she wouldn’t be alone in a big house.

“I’m not just going to twiddle my thumbs,” she said.

“No one is asking you to.”

“I need to do things.”

“We know.”

And we packed her bag and got her medication. We took a few of her pictures and I checked the lock twice. We got in the car and then went back inside for her cane — she didn’t think she would need it. Then we adjusted the heat in the car to volcanic levels — just the way she liked it — and we headed out for the five hour drive to meet my sister half way between Walton and Columbus.

“I didn’t get breakfast,” she announced, as if a serious crime had been committed against her.

“We’ll stop at McDonalds on the way out.”

“Okay.”

And we did.

January 23, 2016
The broken gauge

From the moment we are born — when we are a minute old, right to the day before our eighteenth birthday — we fall under a specific legal category. We are minors.

Now, the dictionary definition of a minor is one of lesser in importance, seriousness, or significance. Which in the legal state is somewhat untrue. Yes, as minors we cannot vote, buy tobacco, we cannot serve in the military and we cannot make legal decisions on our own. But as far as importance, we have the very highest priority of legal protection and safety.

But at eighteen years of age this changes. We leave the state of minorship and enter the legal age of adulthood. This is the line. There are the things that happened before we are eighteen — our childhood — and then all that occurs after — as an adult.

Now, there is no clear reason why eighteen was chosen for the age of adulthood. Many historians will say that it is tied to the end of the public school system and the beginning of college enrollments and most kids complete high school at the age of eighteen. An age had to be chosen and this one made sense.

So the normal path of life is tied directly to this age.

Before eighteen, we are a minor.

At eighteen we are an adult.

By twenty-two we should be done with college or have our career path chosen.

By twenty-five we should be living completely independent and be financially established.

By thirty we should be married.

By thirty-five we should have kids.

By forty we should be hitting our career stride, making a good income and raising our children.

By forty-five we should be upper management.

By fifty we should be reaching our area of peak income potential.

By fifty-five we should have our kids in a good college.

By sixty we should be looking towards retirement and the good life.

This is the path. This is the gauge we should measure ourselves and others against. If we are ahead of the curve, we are successful. If we are behind it, we are failing. And all of it is based on the fact that — we are adults at eighteen. And this is when it all begins. This is when the grading starts.

But there is a major issue with this type of reasoning. The biggest one is that the human brain — the device that has complete control over all we think, reason, decide and do — is still developing until the age of twenty-five. This is true. It’s also the reason why our car insurance rates begins to go down at the age of twenty-five because we are finally done cooking and can now think clearly — at eighteen the rates are the highest and at twenty-five they begin to go down.

So at twenty-five we first have all the mental equipment we will be given. But according to the scale we should be seven years into our path. And if we’re not; if at twenty-five or thirty we are just opening our eyes and seeing clearly for the first time — we are a failure. And worse, we have missed the boat. We realized too late. The opportunities have left us and we’ll just have to get by someway else.

And this is absolutely not true.

Life decisions do not have expiration dates. You don’t go back to college to finish, you go to college. You don’t go back to your old profession; you just decide that is the industry you want to make a living at.

Fifty is as perfect of an age to begin a business as thirty is. Twenty is just as good a time to go to college as forty. And learning to play the guitar, to speak Spanish, to dive or to juggle, has no age limit at all.

There is no back.

Because there is no gauge.

May 16, 2015