543 Magazine

Category: Social Skills

  • How to promote your event — the opposite way that everyone else is

    pole

    In the days before the internet — this is when the earth was still cooling and bread cost a nickel — telephone poles near intersections and on busy streets were often covered with rusting thumb tacks and the gummy residue of old tape. Why? Because this was where people passed by regularly, which meant that this was an ideal area to get information to those people.

    These poles became the holders of cheaply copied signs for garage bands, bake sales and fundraisers, along with the desperate pleas to find lost pets. Some poles held a poster or two, while the prime locations would be so covered with old staples and nails that the surfaces were now more metal than wood. These were the go-to spots for grassroots marketing; when you didn’t have a budget, when you just needed to get information out to a select group of people quickly without cost.

    Now there was no way to track how successful this method actually was — few people at the garage sale passed out how did you hear about us, surveys. But the poster-on-a-pole system was easy, it was free, and it was what everybody else was doing.

    Now occasionally you will see these telephone poles being used this way today, but they are somewhat rare — you’re more likely to see signs in the grassy parts near stoplights offering to get you out of debt quickly or to buy that old unwanted house, but that’s not the same. The garage band and the yard sale have now moved on to social media.

    Social media has become the telephone pole of the internet; a way to get the word out about your stand-up routine at an open mic night, or when the Little League is having a car wash. Why? Because it’s simple, it’s free, and it’s what everybody else is doing.

    Now, all of us eventually will need to do some kind of promotion — whether it’s to get the word out about the church’s Easter play, or to help increase membership in the dart league. At some time in our lives, we all need to promote — something. And it’s very easy to think, hey I am never going to do this again, I just want people to know that we are having a chicken barbecue for The Lions Club — so let me put in on Facebook and be done with it.

    Yup, you can do that. In fact most people do.

    But here is an example.

    Next time you are on Facebook, in the search bar type the words WRITERS GROUP. When you do, many Facebook groups will pop up — some from your area, your region, and others will be large country wide groups — some of these will be large groups of 50,000 members or more.

    Now if you go on one of these groups, this is what you’ll see. There will first be a description for the group that will say something like — this is the Tralfaz Writers Group. We are dedicated to the craft of writing and of supporting each other develop the skill of storytelling.

    Okay, great. Then scroll down and look at the posts. The first one you’ll find will be from a middle aged women showing her face and her book jacket. She will tell you that her book, Vampire School, is now on sale for only .99 on Amazon. The next post will be from a young man talking about his book Space Sylum, and that it’s free all this week with Amazon Prime. The one after that, will be from a college student stating that she is willing to give away a copy of Wispy Danger, to anyone that will give her an online review.

    And so on.

    And so on.

    And so on.

    There will be no discussion on prose, or of storytelling, or of crafting a character. In fact, there will be no discussion of writing at all; it will simply be one message over and over, from everyone there — buy my book, buy my book, buy my book. A message that quickly becomes white noise.

    But it actually goes beyond that because these people are trying to sell books — to people who are trying to sell books. That’s like going up to people at a bus stop and asking for a ride.

    So why do writers to this?

    That’s easy. Because it’s simple, it’s free, and it’s what everybody else is doing.

    It’s like the old joke where a man sees another man under a street light looking for his lost watch. “Where did you lose it?” the man asked.

    “Oh, I lost it way over in that alley. But the light is better here.”

    We tend to promote, the way that is easiest — even if the results will be affected.

    And when it comes to events, the irony of social media is that it’s great to get information out quickly, but it’s more difficult to track a call to action that involves attendance.

    You could have 400 people commit on your Facebook Poetry Reading Event, but that doesn’t mean that 400 will show up, because there is no connection. It’s not a commitment; they just clicked YES on a Facebook page.

    So what’s the answer?

     

       THE FOUR PROMOTION METHODS THAT WORK EVERY TIME

     

          1. Don’t publicize. Promote.

    There are very few things in life that will make you react — just because you know about them. We don’t hear about a new movie coming out and suddenly want to see it — oh, there’s a new movie? Let’s go. No, we need more information; what’s the movie about, who is in it, what type of film is it? The same is true about grassroots events. If there is a yard sale this Saturday, so what. There is a yard sale every Saturday. How big is the yard sale? How close it? How rare are the items? What does this yard sale have that the one closer to my house doesn’t?

    Now that’s a yard sale, what about hearing of events you have no connection to. What if there is an Opera coming to town? So what. I know nothing about Opera and have never been to one — and am probably a little intimidated by then — so hearing about an Opera would have no effect on me.

    However, if a friend had tickets and asked me to go along, I might. If there was a promotion for people who had never been to the Opera, to get a reduced ticket, maybe. If the Opera Company approached my employer and offered a special rate for us, I might go. If a radio station gave me tickets and then was going to interview me right after and ask what my first experience with Opera was like, yeah. Or if I knew more about the Opera itself, if by going I felt connected to something I wasn’t before, then yeah, I might go.

     

         2. Nose-to-nose.

    There was an old phrase in business back when I started thirty years ago. It said, a face to face meeting, is much better than a phone call. That same rule has changed. It’s now — a phone call, is much better than an email.

    We are getting further and further away from our customers. Which means that those marketers that do make a direct connection, have a clear advantage.

    An example here is, how many times have you seen kids outside of Walmart asking for money for their Little League team or their town basketball team? All the time. Those fundraisers have a low cost and bring in a lot of needed money for the group.

    But how many times have those kids or parents — asked you to come watch a game?

    Probably never. They most likely just thank you for your donation and move to capture the next person leaving. They have that great opportunity to market directly to you — to tell you about their organization and get you involved — and they pass it by.

    Even if they invite you and you never go — you are now connected to them, simply because you were asked.

     

          3. Create an event — to promote the event.

    As much as the word stunt can has a negative connotation to it, stand out events work — walk down Broadway in New York anytime and see how many actors in full costumes, hand you a flyer and ask you to come see them later in the show.

    At the Sundance Film Festival, there is a VIP and celebrity shuttling service that actually creates an event in the vehicle on the way to the film. These are sponsored by various companies, so on the way to the film, there will be truth or dare questions and winners are given Ray Ban sunglasses as prizes.

    Why does it work? People want to experience new things, they want to see something cool and tell people about it.

    Don’t believe me? Watch the Macy’s Parade this Thanksgiving. This event has taken this idea to the extreme, in fact the parade itself has become a very small portion of this event — the bulk is dedicated to the promotion of the latest Broadway shows, and singer’s new albums. It’s presented as if it’s all part of the parade, but in reality this is now one long infomercial.

    But one area that actually does a very good job with this concept, are County Fairs. If you go to a fair and go in the areas where nonprofit groups display, they will have interactive events, games, contests, all to tell you about what their organizations do but also getting you quickly involved in it.

    Having a community theatre event? Get the actors in full costume to the mall and hand out flyers. Having a penny social? Have an event to try and guess how many pennies in a jar. Having a bake sale? Create a free class where you make your favorite cookies in front of people and give them the secret recipe.

    The only limit is what you are willing to do.

     

          4. The side push

    Now if there is one method that works better than all the methods combined, it’s the side push.

    Here is a perfect example. My publisher recently sold the film rights to a novel I wrote to a film company that is packaging the book as a feature film. The novel is set in 1992 and the story is presented as if the events really happened; the book is only the journals that finally tell that story. In fact, Amazon called the book — the novel that you have to Google to see if it really happened.

    The film company wanted to capitalize on this and set out to have a small companion book written; documenting the events as if they were facts  — sort of the way that The Blair Witch Project promoted that film. They went out to get some bids from writers on getting a small companion book made that they could give out to potential investors, as well as used to market the film.

    So what happened?

    Book sales went up. Drastically.

    Why?

    Because all the writers that wanted to be a part of this project, went out and bought the book to familiarize themselves with it — they didn’t do it because they were told to, but for research. But once they did, they felt a connection to it because they wanted to be the writer chosen. Now their creative work — the companion book — was connected to the novel itself. There was a bond and they not only bought it and read it, they began promoting it — writing reviews and telling others.

    So how can you create this effect that happened by accident?

    Let’s say that your Garage Band is playing an event you’re trying to promote. Post that you need a new logo designed — don’t go to a logo company, post on social media and craigslist that you want to find a local artist that can capture the music in that perfect image, and that you want to have the logo in place for this specific event.

    Now promote your new logo search. Post on social media, ask people to give their opinion, give certain designers a plug and provide links to their work and ask for feedback.

    What will happen is, that there the artists will first research your music to get an idea of who you are — promotion — then they will go to work and their creative efforts are now tied to your creative work.

    Having a community theatre event? Post for a singer to perform at the intermission. Offer to promote that singer on the website and the playbill, and then do the same thing — promote the search.

    The key is to choose something slightly different than the event you are promoting. For the garage band, promoting for a singer may not work, because of the competition between musicians. But a graphic artist would want to help the band to help himself.

    So however you promote — your yard sale, your band, or your community car wash — do it differently then you have ever done it before. Different is remembered.

    And different works.

    Why?

    Because it’s smart, it’s low cost, and no one else is doing it.

  • The bomb shelter diet

    The bomb shelter diet

    bomb

    Klaus Fuchs was extremely smart.

    He was born in 1911, in Rüsselsheim, Germany, and from a very young age demonstrated a clear gift in mathematics and the sciences; breezing through his primary education and then being accepted into The University of Leipzig.

    Klaus studied mathematics and physics at the University, and this is where he first became involved in student politics; joining both the Social Democratic Party of Germany, as well as the Reichsbanner Schwarz-Rot-Gold, the Communist Party’s paramilitary arm.

    Now, while Klaus was still in school, on February, 27, 1933, a Berlin fire station received an alarm for the German Parliament. They quickly responded and found that the entire Chamber of Deputies was engulfed in flames — and because of the size of the fire as well as its political location, arson was suspected. So fireman fought the fire, while the police surrounded the complex to look for evidence.

    What they found, was Marinus van der Lubbe, a young Dutch Communist, inside one of the buildings. Lubbe was arrested and confessed to being involved in the arson. Soon three other men were arrested — Georgi Dimitrov, Blagoi Popov and Vasil Tanev — all Communist Party members and all confessed to the crime. They were tried and later executed.

    The event became known as, The Reichstag Fire, and here is where things really get interesting. Only a month before this, a man named Adolf Hitler had been sworn in as Chancellor of Germany. Hitler was outraged at this attack, and saw the fire as solid evidence that communists were plotting against the German government. Hitler urged President Paul von Hindenburg to pass an emergency decree that would suspend all civil liberties in order to counter this ruthless hostility. He did. And when this occurred — Nazi Germany was born. Almost overnight, the Nazi Party went from a political entity, to a dictatorship. With Adolf Hitler at the wheel.

    So the question is, did Hitler orchestrate The Reichstag Fire?

    Well historians have been trying to prove this for decades without much luck. It’s very possible that he did. And it’s also possible that he only took advantage of this opportunistic moment — to use fear as a vehicle to seize control of the government. But either way, Germany quickly become a Nazi controlled country, as well as one where being a card carrying Communist, could be extremely dangerous. So Klaus Fuchs went into hiding until he could get out of the country later that year.

    In September of 1933, Fuchs fled to England where he worked as a physics research assistant at the University of Bristol, and in 1937 he received his Ph.D. in physics. After this, he worked at the University of Edinburgh, where he earned a second Ph.D. in Science.

    Then World War II broke out.

    After spending some time in Canada, Fuchs returned to England where he began working on The Tube Alloys Project — England’s covert atomic bomb group. And this is where Fuchs began his career as a spy. He immediately began passing detailed information on the project, directly to The Soviet Union.

    In 1943 Fuchs went to New York City, to work on the Manhattan Project and then in  1944 to the Los Alamos Laboratory — where he developed the calculations relating to the first nuclear weapons as well as early models of the hydrogen bomb.

    Then came Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the end of the war. Klaus returned to the UK and worked at the Atomic Energy Research Establishment as the head of the Theoretical Physics Division.

    Five years later, on January 31, 1950, President Harry Truman announced his decision to develop The Superbomb. A hydrogen weapon that would be one hundred times more powerful than the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki — with Klaus Fuchs having a front row seat to the project. And on November 1, 1952, the United States successfully detonated Mike, the world’s first hydrogen bomb. This ten megaton thermonuclear device, was detonated the Pacific Marshall Islands — it vaporized the entire island and left a mile long crater behind.

    Fuchs’ luck ran out later that year.

    While passing some sensitive information to a Soviet contact, American intelligence followed and arrested him. He was questioned and confessed; which led to his trial and eventually lead to him being sentenced to fourteen years in prison. But the damage had already been done — the Soviet Union now knew everything we knew, about the hydrogen bomb.

    On November 22, 1955, the Soviet Union detonated its first hydrogen bomb; based on the same principle of radiation implosion as Mike —- with the same results.

    Which meant that both superpowers were now in possession of what had been called — the hell bomb.

    Two of the most powerful nations in the world, both had a weapon that could kill millions on both sides. And they didn’t like each other very much.

    The US announced that it would use massive retaliation to any Communist aggression, and for the first time in history, the world lived under the threat of thermonuclear war.

    Movies, films, books, television, newspapers — all echoed the fear of nuclear obliteration. And on October 6, 1961, President John F. Kennedy addresses the American people, and asked them to — build bomb shelters to protect themselves and their families against nuclear fallout.

    The President of the United States — one of the most powerful men in the world — asked his people to — dig a hole and get ready to hide in it.

    It wasn’t now a question of — if it would happen — it was now — when would it happen.

    Bomb shelters began to pop up everywhere. These ranged from a corner of the basement, built up with sandbags and food and water, to elaborate underground rooms with ventilation and water purification systems.

    Civil Defense agencies provided canned drinking water and water packaged in milk cartons, to citizens. Fallout drills were exercised in schools and public buildings. We were preparing.

    We had a plan and we knew where to hide and wait it out. And we had a stockpile of the basics — canned goods, dried goods, food stuffs, water. We just wanted to survive. That’s all. Nothing fancy. We just wanted to — live.

    And we waited.

    And we watched.

    And the bombs — never came.

    And that was good.

    And the bomb shelters remained unused. And then they became root sellers and playhouses and storage. And that was good too.

    But along with all that good —- came one bad thing —.

     

    WHAT IS A BOMB SHELTER?

     

    A bomb shelter is a safety net. It’s a place where the basics can be taken care of. It’s the fallback plan. The retreat point. It’s a ready area  where you and the people you care about, can go to get the basics taken care of and to be safe.

    Talk of bomb shelters today are rare, unless you are referring to the trend of Doomsday Prepping or simply Prepping.

    Prepping is similar to the movement of bomb shelters in the 1950’s and 1960’s, in that it is the preparing for a particular disaster to occur — a governmental collapse, massive chemical warfare, an electromagnetic pulse that will wipe out all electronics — but there are two main differences between preppers and those who built bomb shelters during the cold war.

    The first is, that modern prepping is more individualistic and less community based. You see evidence of this in that during the cold war, the list of items to include in your shelter contained many things, but weapons were never one of them. With modern preppers, weapons and ammunition are high on the list — in fact, many preppers have small arsenals set aside to protect their stockpiles.

    And the second difference is, that the modern day preppers are almost hoping that the disasters they are preparing for will occur. They are highly invested in them. So when the government does collapse, when modern currency no longer has value, when the world is left unprotected and vulnerable, then we will be on top of the food chain — simply because we will have the most food, water and guns.

    So bad things can’t happen?

    Oh absolutely they can — and probably will. But you are much more likely to lose your job, than you are of having your home attacked by a biological weapon.

    You are much more likely to be in a car accident, be hurt at work, or have a major health issue, than you are of experiencing a governmental collapse.

    And you are much more likely to go through a career downsizing or industrial shift where your current skill set is worth far less than it once was, than you are of experiencing a nuclear attack.

    But all of these things are life altering — a layoff is not as sexy as an asteroid, but it can still do some damage if you’re not ready for it.

    It was good that cold war didn’t escalate to something far worse. But the casualty of that time period is that sense of preparation didn’t migrate forward. That sense of simplicity, of basic need, didn’t trickle down through the decades.

     

    MISSIONARIES

     

    Many years ago, a missionary couple from Africa was traveling through my hometown and was going to speak at our church. While they were there, my parents had them stay with them and while giving them a quick tour of the area, my mother stopped at the small grocery store to pick a few things up. In one of the aisles, the man just stopped talking. He froze.

    “What —?” he asked, pointing at all the colored jars. “Is this?”

    My mother looked to where he was pointing and answered. “Jelly,” she said. “And jams.”

    He stood there. Unable to take his eyes off all the different flavors, styles and sizes of jellies and jams.

    “Why,” he asked. “Would anyone need — twelve flavors of jelly?”

    And he wasn’t mocking her, he wasn’t judging her. He was only asking a question — to something that he couldn’t understand.

    Why would something as luxurious as jelly, something as rare as jam —- not a necessity but a true delicacy — why would you care, what flavor it was?

    But we do. We do care what flavor it is. And we care how much if it we have. And we care what brand it is. And what it looks like and how we look holding it.

    In Africa — food is survival.

    In Europe — food is social.

    In the US, food — has become something so much more.

     

    FOOD IRONIES

     

    • 32% of all homeless people, are obese. (Boston Health Care Study, 2008).

     

    • In a 2012 study, 42% of the time that we eat, was done because we are — afraid of being hungry later

     

    • 27% of all the food we buy, we end up throwing away — 160 Billion pounds of food each year in the US alone. And still, 75% of us are overweight and 36% of us are obese.

     

    • The average American spends three hours a month, staring into a refrigerator; trying to determine if he is hungry or not. And during peak times, we average fifteen to twenty minutes wait time to get into a restaurant. Yet — ‘not having enough time’ is listed as the key issue for most Americans.

     

    • A dinner in France averages two hours, and a dinner in the US averages forty minutes. Yet the obesity level in the US is twice of that in France.

     

    • A 2011 University of Michigan study asked, how long could a person live without food? The most common belief was — 37 hours. (With water a person can live three weeks or more without food).

     

    • The cost of eating one (1) lunch out, is equivalent to the cost of six (6) packed lunches from home. Yet the most common reason listed for people that don’t bring lunch to work is, — I don’t want to look poor.

     

    • A Cliff energy bar has 280 calories. A Snickers candy bar has 215.

     

    • 23% of all high income homes, eat at a restaurant once a day. 78% of all low income homes eat at a restaurant once a day.

     

    • The average food markup at a restaurant is 300% — for a meal priced at twenty dollars or less. The average food markup for fast food is 400% — for a meal priced at six dollars or less.

     

    • We are seven times as likely to eat at a restaurant, then we are of inviting someone to our home for a meal, or to going to someone’s home for one.

     

     THE BOMB SHELTER DIET

    A bomb shelter is safety. It is a vessel that contains the basic needs — food, shelter, water, medical supplies.

    The food in a bomb shelter will have several things in common.

     

    • It will be able to be stored for a long time — rice, pasta, oats, dried beans, can all be stored for thirty years or more.

     

    • It will require no refrigeration.

     

    • It will be able to be cooked in a creative and unique way.

     

    • Each meal will cost pennies.

     

    • It will contain little chemicals and preservatives since it will contain the basic food groups.

     

    STEP ONE: The Bombs fall

     

    The alarms sound. The bombs are coming. This is it.

    When crisis occurs — when something bad happens — we react. We get the people we care about to safety and we get out of danger. At that point we are focused on survival and protection and we will allow nothing to get in our way.

    Think of a time when a crisis unexpectedly occurred to you — the sudden death of someone close to you, a fire, a car accident, a layoff; any catastrophe that happened s quickly and without warning. When this happens — in the heat of the battle — were you thinking about food?

    You could be starving only a minute before the truck veers into your lane — thinking you can barely wait until you get to the drive thru — and then wham. Six hours later you remember that you haven’t eaten.

    What happens when you realize that you haven’t eaten? You are suddenly hungry again. Starving.

    How many times do you see photos of people outside of their burning building with a cheeseburger in their hands? Or being treated by paramedics as they grab the last of their fries? Never. Because at that point, food is not important. At all.

     

    • Make a list of ten (10) things you are worried about, trying to get to, concerned with or trying to achieve. These can be work goals, financial worries, family situations, or aspirations. When you have this list, keep it close to you; on your phone, in your bag — so you can get to it quickly, review, edit and add to it.

     

    • When between meal hunger hits, take thirty minutes — this will seem like a lot at first, but it will fly by later — and work only on this list. Make phone calls, contact whoever you need to, create options, but for thirty minutes you are only focusing on these bombs; these goals, these little issues that could become large, or these large issues that you have been avoiding.

     

    • Don’t set a timer — because you want to keep this flexible — and allow your focus to shift to what is truly important. But don’t stop until you have done at least one thing, one action, towards everything on that list.

     

    •  A few things are going to happen here. First, you are forcing yourself to see what is important, as well as what isn’t — getting food quickly into your mouth. The second is that you are reducing your appetite — which gives you freedom, which takes away the anxiety, which diffuses the food bomb.

     

    Now this goes directly against what many nutrition experts recommend — suggesting five or more little meals a day as opposed to three larger ones. But we’re not focused on nutrition, we are looking at why we do things. And the majority of time we overeat, we do it out of reflex or boredom.

    Sure there is the Thanksgiving dinner that we push ourselves back from the table and vow to never, ever eat again. But more often there are the dozens of times we finish an entire bag of potato chips in the car and not only don’t remember eating it, but are still hungry.

    We have made food important in our lives. We have made it more important than our families, than our homes, than our careers and then our goals. We need to analyze things every now and then, so we can prioritize.

     

    STEP TWO: Protein pack

     

    In a bomb shelter you will see a lot of rice, grains and pasta. That’s true. These are inexpensive, easy to store and last forever. But you will also see plenty of dried beans,   canned tuna and Salmon — because you need the protein. The starches are largely there to stretch out the meal — to make it last and to fill you up.

    Sugars and starches are cheap — that’s why they are in everything. These are the foods that stimulate insulin, which sends the signal to store fat in the body. The more starches and sugars you take in, the more fat that gets produced. And when insulin levels goes down — when we take in less sugars and starches — then more fat gets burned than is stored.

    The irony here is, sugars and starches make you hungry and proteins make you full. So you can actually eat less protein and feel better.

    We have bought into the fact that we need to stretch meals — to add in the majority of pasta, rice or grains to make it last. We feel like we are spending too much money if at least half of the meal isn’t a starch.

    So reverse the trend. Instead of the majority of the meal being starches or rice, make the majority of them the beans, eggs, fish or chicken. Eat more protein than you eat anything else.

     

    STEP THREE: Bomb shelters are for many

     

    The majority of time that we eat — we eat alone. Even if we’re in a separate room in a house full of people, we are still eating alone. And eating should always be a communal event.

    Add to that that we eat less — when we eat with others. European meals last for hours, with the majority of this time is spent laughing, visiting, talking and having fun. The smallest part is actually the eating part.

    So don’t eat alone. And I mean — ever.

    That may seem crazy, but think about it.

    If food goes back to being a communal event, something we do with others, then a major shift occurs. Instead of saying — what do I want to eat? We begin saying — who do I want to eat with?

    And remember, a meal is simply food shared with others. It doesn’t have to be a five course meal on Waterford china, it can be a few tuna sandwiches on paper plates.

    Take two weeks and vow to eat every single meal with someone else — and this includes eating in front of a TV alone, in your car alone, or picking out of a refrigerator alone.

    If you can’t find someone to share a meal with — then don’t eat until you do.

     

    STEP FOUR: Stock the bomb shelter

     

    When the bombs of life do fall — health issues, layoffs, downsizing, family crisis — having a stockpile of basic foods takes a financial and time burden off of you. For less than a hundred dollars, you can have a several months’ supply of dry goods stored and ready.

    The basics would include:

    • Dried beans — lots and lots of them. These are extremely inexpensive, easy to make and loaded with protein.

     

    • Canned tuna

     

    • Canned salmon

     

    • Canned chicken

     

    • Pasta

     

    • Rice

     

    • Cornmeal

     

    • Flour

     

    • Canned vegetables

     

    • Canned fruit

     

    Stock these things and leave them. Use them when the end of the month rolls around and you’re creeping up on your budget, or when the bombs fall.

     

    AND REMEMBER …

     

    A bomb shelter is a plan. This plan can take any form; a room, a group of people or an idea. But it’s a plan to give you freedom and allow you to think while the basics are taken care of.

    Food is not our bomb shelter.

    Food is just one of the many things we put in it.

  • You Choose

    You Choose

    chose

    In Oneonta, New York, on the corner of Main and Church Street, there once sat a bar called Red’s Filling Station. Now this was a great place. The outside was covered in red painted stone. The inside had walls and ceilings filled with vintage gas pumps, motorcycles, and license plates — this was long before the TGI Friday style became so common. Red’s wasn’t named for the color but for the owner, a crotchety upstater who breezed in once a week to complain about the ice usage and sign our paychecks. It was the most loud, crazy, and popular watering hole in that part of the Catskills, and was where several of my friends and I worked as bartenders one summer.

    Now one night — this would have been somewhere in July or August of 1985 — my roommate Kurt and I realized that, well, not only was our rent due the next day, but collectively we were $84 short. So we came up with a plan — a quick and creative plan that had only one moving part. We would make all the money we needed that night in tips. And we would do this by simply telling the customers what we wanted them to tip us.

    The doors opened, our shift began, and soon the bar was two feet deep with summer college kids and townies, all clamoring to get drinks.

    I went first.

    “Okay, two beers,” I sat the drinks down on the bar in front of a guy in the Sammy Hagar t-shirt. “That’ll be a buck-fifty for the beer and a dollar tip. So two-fifty total.”

    And Sammy Hagar dropped the cash and made way for the next customer.

    “Okay,” Kurt yelled out. “Here ya go. Two vodka cranberries and a Molson. Four-fifty and with the tip that will be six bucks.”

    And it went on like this. For an hour. Until we had made the $84 we needed — then we went back to allowing the customers to decide what to tip us and the remainder of the night wasn’t as prosperous.

    What’s interesting is that no one, not one single person, questioned us. No one complained. And no one tipped less or more than we told them to.

    Now this is just a story told at barbecues and over lunches, but it’s important here because it frames the next story — the important one.

    Fast forward about fifteen years. I was now married, we had bought our first house, and we were raising our two small sons in a town called Vestal, NY. And for ten years I made a living in industrial computer electronics — which is a fancy way to say that I befriended corporate buyers and tried to talk them into buying more from me and less from my competition. And life was good.

    Then, as the electronics industry began to shift heavily offshore, the pinch was felt. And in May of 1999 I received my first of two career layoffs.

    I wasn’t really concerned about this layoff because I had received job offers from competitors fairly often, so I contacted them. But the shift was being felt by all, and these very contacts were scrambling for their own jobs.

    With the severance I received, along with unemployment, we could just take care of the essentials if we tightened our belts a bit. So we did. And I made the job hunt my full-time position, leaving early and coming home late.

    During this time one company made me an interesting proposal. They, like everyone, had a hiring freeze. But if I could work for commission only — covering my own hotel, gas, and expenses and receiving a commission on new business — I could start right away.

    It wasn’t ideal. Money would go out before it came back in and even if I sold something that first day, it would be months before a commission followed. But it kept me in front of customers, making new contacts, and in the industry, so I agreed.

    A few months went by and a little money was trickling in, but not much. Then, the Vice President of Sales was retiring and had hired his replacement. They were both flying into Rochester to introduce the new VP to one of our largest customers. My job was to make the three-hour drive to pick them up at the airport, go to the meeting, and then get them back to the airport. And I could tell by the coolness of the past week that our relationship would soon end.

    When the plane landed I was there to pick them up.

    “Well, we should probably start with the real reason you’re here and get that out of the way first,” I said, in a friendly tone.

    But they both laughed this off. I was wrong. They had no interest in making any changes like that, and in fact I was doing a great job. And the hour and a half drive from the airport to the meeting was light and friendly.

    We had our meeting. It went well, as did the working lunch after. Then we began the long drive back to the airport.

    When we had reached the halfway mark, with about forty minutes left to the airport, the mood changed. They started talking about how their expectations were higher than I was hitting. Was I really giving this my full attention? The new customers I had set up were not as many as they were hoping. They weren’t sure that this was working for them. So, they were canceling our agreement — which would have been fine, except they then started to get angry. The mood started to intensify and even become threatening.

    As the anger built up on their end, I felt myself move into defense mode — to listen and apologize, to brainstorm, to offer to work harder, to make sacrifices and…

    Then something clicked. In one of those brief moments of clarity, everything snapped into place and became absolutely clear.

    I then knew the difference between what I had to do and what I didn’t have to do. Everything stopped and I knew what my options were. And without anger, without emotion, I put my turn signal on and worked the car towards the far right lane.

    “What are you doing?” the VP snapped.

    “I’m going home,” I said. In a calm and almost sleepy tone. “So I’ll let you guys out here.”

    There was a moment of quiet, then a laugh. “Very funny,” he pointed down the road and then gave the new VP in the backseat one of those, don’t worry, I’ve got this under control, kind of looks.

    But I continued to move the car to the right and then to the side of the highway. Then I stopped.

    “Okay, okay,” the new VP joined in from the back. “I can understand you’re upset. So let’s talk about it. Let’s head back to the airport and sit down and…”

    “I’m not upset,” I put the car in park. “I’m not upset at all. This isn’t working for either of us. But I also don’t have to take you to the airport.”

    This idea confused them. What did I mean? Of course I had to take them to the airport. What kind of a lunatic was I? I did have to take them to the airport. Didn’t I see that?

    “You have to…”

    “No, I don’t,” and still there was not a single trace of anger in me. “I don’t have to and I don’t want to. So I’m not going to.”

    Several moments of frustrated silence followed before anyone spoke.

    “Well,” the current VP finally said, with a cocky smirk, “then we have an issue because we’re not getting out of the car.”

    “That’s fine,” I replied. “But I’m turning around at the U-turn spot right up there. And then I’m heading the three hours home, in the opposite direction. So if you want to get to the airport, this is the closest you’ll be.”

    More silence. More looks back and forth. Then I pressed the button that popped the trunk. They both sat there. Quietly. Then the old VP got out and the new one followed. I let them get their bags from the trunk and shut it. Then I pulled out, turned the car around, and headed home and I never saw or heard from either one of them again.

    Now, do I feel bad for leaving a 65-year-old man and an overweight VP on the side of Highway 90 in the middle of the summer?

    Nope. Not at all.

    They both had cell phones, granted back then they were the size of hoagie rolls and cost about three dollars a minute, but they could have called someone. And I have no pride in the act of leaving them, only in clearly seeing what my options were. The point was that I didn’t have to drive them to the airport, and I didn’t want to. So I didn’t. I made a choice instead of followed the momentum.

    And I also have no bitterness or anger towards them — I didn’t then and I don’t now. Because it’s not about anger. It’s about options.

    Because there is nothing in life, and I mean absolutely nothing, that we have to do.

    We don’t have to go to work. We don’t have to make our car payment. We don’t have to pay taxes and we don’t even have to get out of bed in the morning. We choose to do all those things.

    Now are there repercussions if we don’t do them? Yes. Of course there are. But there is a cause and effect in all things.

    There is nothing in life that we have to do. We choose to do it all. And yes we can make bad choices and we all do. Every day. But the challenge is to make sure they are our choices not just our reactions.

    Choose to do it, or choose not to. These are the only options. But never respond simply because the bartender tells you to, or the guy going to the airport needs a lift —it’s not your fault those two idiot bartenders didn’t budget for their rent and neither is it that the two business men didn’t want to spring for a rental car.

    You determine if you want to tip them or give them a ride.

    You decide. And then you choose.

  • Narcissus

    Narcissus

    boston

    For a few months, in 1985, Kirk and I were in Boston. Starving. Well, probably not medically starving, we did have the olives and slices of lemons we stole from the garnish tray whenever we could. Altogether, I’d say we ate every two or three days.

    When we first arrived in Beantown we were eating pretty regularly. This was partially due to the fact that YMCA on Huntington Avenue gave you a breakfast voucher to their cafeteria every day; one egg, any style, toast, and coffee. So every morning, with the $35 room that Kirk and I split, we ate. And it was a great beginning to the day. But you can only stay at the Y for two weeks so we had to move on. Later, when breakfast had to be removed from the budget, we would miss that voucher and would actually taunt each other with the chant — one egg —any style—toast and coffee.

    The shoeboxes of food my mom gave us at the Greyhound bus station in Oneonta, NY, oh man, they were long gone; the ham sandwiches on croissants, the plastic jugs of Kool-Aid, (frozen to keep them cold longer), the apples, the crackers, the pepperoni, the boiled eggs, the cottage cheese containers filled with macaroni salad. All gone.

    Now in Oneonta, yeah it was my idea to leave. I admit it. But it was Kirk’s idea to go to Boston.

    “I’m taking off,” I said as I looked out of his apartment window that looked down on Market Street. “Come with me.”

    “To Binghamton? Why?”

    “Because there’s nothing for me here and there’s nothing for you either.” I said. “C’mon, it’ll be a blast.”

    And I made it sound like the beginning of a film. As if we were two desperados. Two beaten men who would head out to make their fortunes and leave the place that had mocked them behind. Me? I was nursing a seriously broken heart and damaged ego and didn’t want to be around when school started back up again. And Kirk had flunked out last semester and couldn’t re-enroll until the spring semester anyway.

    “I’m taking a semester off. I’m leaving. So come with me.”

    “Maybe,” Kirk flipped the channels until he got to an episode of MASH. “But not to Binghamton. If we’re gonna go, let’s go.”

    And we toyed around with different locales. Chicago. Miami, we even thought of L.A. But once we landed on the idea of Boston, Kirk was sure that this was the place for us.

    “Boston?” I asked.

    “Yup. That’s where we need to go.”

    So, Boston it was.

    We had taken the seven-hour bus ride from Oneonta to Boston a week before, to scope everything out — to see how difficult jobs and apartments were to find — and by mid-morning of that very first day, at our very first interview, we both walked out with two jobs in our pockets. And not just any jobs; for two college kids from the sticks, they were dream jobs.

    Kenmore Square is the intersection of Beacon Street and Commonwealth Avenue and was the heart of Boston nightlife. It was behind Fenway Park and Boston University and Narcissus was a huge nightclub where students from Harvard and B.U. came to spend all their money. And Kirk and I were hired to be two of their newest employees.

    The place was huge and actually held three clubs in one: Narcissus, Celebration, and Lipstick. But Narcissus was the gleaming, Studio 54 jewel of the crown.

    Since it happened so quickly, Kirk and I went to the club that night to see if the crowds really did bring pockets full of tips for their favorite bartenders, as we were promised. And they were.

    “Well, my friend,” Kirk clinked his beer glass to mine and screamed over the sound of a thousand college kids. “We are gonna to be rich.”

    We were ecstatic. And as soon as we got back to Oneonta we tossed everything into a few bags and jumped the next bus to Boston.

    Finding an apartment was the first challenge. With all the fees added up between first and last month’s rent and the security deposit, we would need to come up with $3,200. Which we didn’t have.

    We were earning a little bit of money, but the challenge was that there was a pecking order at Narcissus and we had not earned the plum bartending slots yet. Because we worked during the day, Juno scheduled us for a lot of corporate parties and band things where we worked the service bar and our tips came from the waitresses who were supposed to give us a percentage. Which they never did.

    And because there were so many bartenders at Narcissus, if we worked a night, Kirk and I would come home with $35 to $45 each — hardly the $100 a night we were hoping for. The good news was that the work was easy and the place was completely mobbed; we only had a few feet of bar space to cover.

    Unfortunately, what money we were earning was going straight into Terry’s hand. He waited behind the door where we lived, and would pop out like a sentry as soon as our feet hit the wooden landing.

    “Well?” Terry scratched his chest through his Talking Heads t-shirt and held out hand — like we had tried to sneak out of a window a thousand times before this. And without words we’d hand over the forty bucks — or however close we could get to it. If Kirk and I were both working that night, our combined tips would make it with a few bucks to spare. But if just one of us was on that night, we’d be short, unless we saved from a night when we did both work.

    Forty dollars would get rid of Terry until the next day, since that’s how much the room cost per night. Thirty-five dollars would lead to a tirade on how he wasn’t a bank and we were the most worthless rags he’d ever met.

    I don’t know if rags was a Terry phrase or a Boston one, but he was the only one that we ever heard use it and he did so  often.

    By October we knew we had lost a lot of weight — each time we got dressed it seemed like we had shrunk a pant size — but when the junkies on Washington Street took interest in our new ultra-thin frames, probably thinking we might have a connection or a hit to share, we knew that food had to become a bigger priority.

    That’s why the envelope was such a big deal.

    The envelope — and I can still see it after all these years — Kirk had found on High Street. It was in the shape of a small paper rectangle and had Asian lettering on it and since we were pretty close to Chinatown, this made sense. Inside the envelope was a bright red foiled liner and a small card. The card had more lettering, stuff we couldn’t read, but inside of the card, pressed between the thick paper folds, were two crisp ten dollar bills.

    Kirk kept punching my shoulder. “We could of walked by it,” and he continued to punch me all the way to a Burger King, where we ordered two Whopper meals. We dove into the burgers and could only finish about half before our shrunken stomach’s gave in.

    “I know what’s for dinner,” Kirk smiled, as he wrapped his leftover sandwich back in the foil. And we sat there for a long time. Happy. Happy because not only did we have a meal, but we actually had the next one covered too.

    From the remaining money we bought crackers, peanut butter, and beef jerky — stuff we could easily hide from Terry, since food in the room was forbidden and he checked regularly.

    We had a certain routine, Kirk and I. Northeastern University had bought a huge apartment building near us and was converting it to dorms. We went exploring one day and found that the laundry room was never locked and within the room was an ironing board and iron. So every day that we had to work, we would stop there and iron our black pants and white shirt before getting on the train to Kenmore Square — we didn’t have an iron and had been yelled at a few times for coming in with wrinkled clothes.

    There was this very cute girl in the dorms with red hair that we would see every now and then. She never paid much attention to us but when Kirk went alone to iron his clothes, he would always come back telling me of how she stopped to talk to him and flirt. But then when we went back together, she ignored us again. Kirk was like that. The nights I didn’t work, he would come back with stories of how the owners would buy him shots and pretty bartenders would hit on him. And then when we worked together, we were invisible.

    That’s why the shooting probably didn’t happen. Looking back it doesn’t matter if it did, but it most likely was made up.

    It was the second week of November and I was off for the night but Kirk was working. He came home excited. He told about how there was a robbery and a guy shot one of the bartenders. Then the shooter came back behind the bar, robbed the cash register and then headed out — only to be shot by cops before he hit the street.

    The story probably didn’t happen. But I never had a chance to verify it. The shooting was my excuse. I was going back to New York.

    Kirk was sitting in the chair by the door as I threw my clothes into a bag. He looked at me with a mixture of fear and pain as I said goodbye. From Brookline, I walked to the bus station where I used my last $22 — my half of tomorrow’s rent — to get a ticket to Schenectady where a friend picked me up and took me the remaining two hours to my parents’ house.

    And I left Kirk there. Alone and broke in a city that didn’t want him.

    There are two kinds of bad decisions. There is the mistake. And there is the regret.

    A mistake is a miscalculation. An error. Bad data and bad calculations.

    But a regret is when a moral or ethical line has been crossed. When you have the chance to do the right thing and you don’t. And most regrets come from the wrong answer to one simple question. Do I stick, or do I run?

    A life filled with mistakes is not a bad life at all. It’s one of excitement and energy and fire. But one with regrets will weigh you down because regrets don’t have shelf lives and their backup batteries never run dry.

    I never saw Kirk again. I have no idea what happened to him, since I transferred to Cortland the next semester. I do know that he didn’t have any family — his mom had died when he was young and his father a few years after he graduated High School.

    So here is the question. How hard would it have been to get us both to my parents’ house? To get us both someplace safe until we figured out the next step? How difficult would it have been to have thought of my friend even a fraction of the amount that I thought of myself?

    Probably not very. It most likely would have taken the same energy it took to leave him behind.

    The irony that Narcissus is the Greek god of self-love, isn’t wasted here. And neither is the fact that I have very few good memories of Boston — most likely because it represents the ugly parts of myself that I want to forget. But I would like to think if this happened today, thirty years later, that the man I am now would react differently and show just a little bit of loyalty and grace.

    I’d like to think so. But I’ll never know.

    Because that’s why they call them regrets.

    http://www.thecrimson.com/article/1993/7/6/narcissus-fuit-or-the-death-of/

  • The lost art of eye contact

    The lost art of eye contact

    eye

    My son’s best friend practically grew up at our house. He eats here a few times a week. He sleeps over once or twice a month. When we go on trips we usually take him with us and when his parents are looking for him, the first place they check is our family room — where he and my son Nick will be laughing through some interactive battle that requires headsets and game controllers.

    Then one day — for about a week — he just stopped showing up.

    Nick was still in the family room — talking to unseen people in the world of X-Box Live — but no one else was there.

    When my wife asked where Austin was, Nick gave us a confused look, then answered. Home. And it was then that we understood what happened.

    Austin had been saving his money and just got his own X-Box. So, now Nick and his friend were spending the same amount of time together — talking on headsets and playing the same interactive games, blowing up the same creatures that exploded party favors out of their heads when killed, only now, his friend was plugged in at his house and Nick was plugged in here.

    And the frightening aspect of this was — they were both fine with that.

    The key was to be together in the world of Minecraft. They didn’t need to physically be in the same room, just as long as they were both in the game at the same time.

    Now, Austin s sixteen and has a girlfriend. She lives in Canada. He lives in Delaware. They e-mail, text and talk during the week. They get each other Christmas presents and birthday presents and have been dating now for over a year. However, they have never met. They discovered each other through — well, I’m not sure what internet introduction — and for the last year they both consider themselves in a serious relationship.

    Now the fact that they have never met is not a concern. And when I ask how can you be dating someone you have never physically seen, he smiles and give me that patient, wow, you are so old, look.

    The point of all of this is, you and I live in an extremely unique point in technological history. For the first time we can discuss, fight, negotiate, schedule, console, beg, mend and comfort, without actually needing the person we are communicating with to be anywhere near us.

    On any given day, we text, phone, e-mail, Facebook, Bluetooth, chat, play interactive games and Tweet more then we directly interface, face-to-face, with other people.

    The process is, we interact with a device — a cell phone, a keyboard, an I-pod, a game controller, a Bluetooth headset — and then wait for the person we are corresponding with — someone we cannot see — to interact with their device and reply back. The gadgets we are using are near us. The people we are transmitting to are removed.

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    Now, before you roll your eyes and think that this is a rant against technology, it’s not. It’s simply demonstrating two things. The first is that we are now becoming extremely comfortable in communicating without human contact. Through a device. And secondly, that given the choice many of us will often choose to communicate in this fashion.

    Now, my son’s best friend is a smart and good looking kid — tall, blonde, on the school swimming team — and is content with a girlfriend a thousand miles away that he can date through a keyboard or a cell phone, rather than one that he has actually met.

    Here is another example.

    You are in a restaurant and see a group of people sitting at a table together — and this is not necessarily always a younger group, I’ve seen people of all ages do this — and at least one of these people are speaking into a cell phone to someone that is not at the table. And we’re not talking about a quick five or ten second conversation, where there is crucial information that needs to be passed on. I’ve seen — and heard — thirty minute casual cell phone conversations between people, during dinner, while these same people are sitting and eating at a table with different people.

    Which means that these individuals had a choice. They could talk directly to those sitting in front of them, face-to-face, or they could use a device to communicate with someone removed.

    You see this on a massive scale at any airport in the country. Here you will see thousands of people all plugged into cell phone conversations, completely oblivious to the other people that are inches away from them, who are also plugged into other conversations.

    So maybe they’re busy? Maybe these are busy business people closing crucial and important deals.

    Maybe.

    But it’s not hard to listen to samplings of most of these calls — many people on cell phones don’t realize that sound travels — and they are in the large part mundane and simply chatty. Actually, most of the times these calls simply seem to be a way to kill time.

    And even though the content of the calls are usually non-critical, the need to stay connected to another individual is extremely great. The first time I was in a busy airport men’s room and saw a man continue his cell phone conversation as he stepped into a bathroom stall — or better yet, take the call while he was already in there — I was amazed. Now it’s so common that I don’t even notice.

    And a month ago, at the gym, there was a man who had stepped into the shower and hung his shorts — with his cell phone in the pocket — on the hook outside the shower curtain. His phone rang and he reached his wet hand out to get his phone — and took the call while in the shower.  

    So, what’s the point of all of this?

    It’s simply this. We are so accustomed to — and the need is so great to—  communicate with people without seeing them that we no longer see them.  

    The ancillary people — the toll both operator, the cashier, the waitress — simply become white noise. A disjointed voice — and we are now very accustomed to talking to disjointed voices. We say hello, we say thank you and we leave and we rarely — and I mean rarely — make eye contact.

    Up until recently if you entered a crowded room of strangers, that room, those strangers, became your world. Until you left that room, those people are now connected to you simply because you are sharing the same space, the same situation and the same time.

    No more.

    Now we can be in the same room but be texting someone else, making a phone call or sending an e-mail from our phone. We are no longer in the same room as the person a few feet from us because we are now connected to someplace else and therefore disconnected from the people next to us. The physical space we occupy is no longer important.

    I think this is one of the main reasons that we no longer talk to the people  sitting next to us on airplanes. We used to. We would introduce ourselves, give a brief bio and then chat for the next few hours. Now we avoid saying anything to the person sitting next to us and in fact try to avoid having anyone sit next to us at all. We linger to the end of the boarding line so we can get inside the plane after everyone and see if there are unsold seats where we can spread out and sit alone.

    So wait, all of this has to do with eye contact?

    Yes.

    Because for men, eye contact is a tricky area anyway and now — due to the change in technological culture — it is becoming even more complex. As men, we use eye contact to seduce as well as to intimidate. We use it to calm and to  ignite. The wrong look at the wrong time can lead to battle. The right look at the right time can lead to love.

    For men, eye contact is a tool. A weapon. And instead of learning to use that weapon properly we are allowing it to get dull and acquire rust.

    Those people around us every day — the waitress, the store greeter, the bank teller — are people. They are not screen savers or extras in a film. We are missing something by not connecting to them — even for a second — by making eye contact. And they are missing something by not taking that second to connect to us.

  • How to Play the Harmonica

    How to Play the Harmonica

    miller

    The harmonica — also known as the mouth organ or the blues harp — is a great little instrument. In fact, the harmonica is the great equalizer of all musical instruments because you don’t need to read music to play one — you don’t even need to have any true musical ability. It doesn’t take years of dedication to master the harmonica — actually, you can bang out a few tunes in just twenty minutes or so and unlike the hundreds or thousand of dollars that many musical instruments cost, you can get a decent harmonica for about twenty bucks. And a harmonica does not take up a great deal of space —  I often carry mine in my shirt pocket.

    Also, the harmonica has the distinction of being the only musical instrument that I know of that you can play one handed while driving — I am not confirming or denying that I have ever done this, I’m just saying it can be done.

    And in the category of harmonica-trivia, though I have no proof, it is very possible that a harmonica may have saved my life.

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    It was about ten years or so — I had a twelve-state sales territory back then — and I was driving through the great state of Texas when I saw a man hitchhiking. Now hitchhikers were rare in my part of New York so I decided to stop and give this traveler a ride — help out a stranger kind of thing — as well as swap a few stories. As I pulled over and the man started running toward me, I realized that I might have made a mistake.

    The guy was real rough — tattoos everywhere— including every knuckle— and several piercings, which really didn’t concern me. But what did send up some warning signals was the panicked expression on his face. The fact that he kept looking nervously behind him and the way his hands were shaking uncontrollably.

    My instincts were screaming by the time he reached the car but before I could think of a safe way to bow out of this arrangement, the man stuck his head in the passenger window and looked at me. Then he looked at the cup holder where my harmonica sat. Then he looked back at me. Then back to the harmonica. Then a moment of silence passed before he spoke.

    “No thanks,” he said. And walked away.

    Just like that.

    A few minutes later I was back on the Texas Route 273.

    Now, I’ve always wondered what that hitchhiker thought when he saw my harmonica — maybe his instincts were screaming as loud about me as mine were — or maybe he had never dealt with the kind of sociopath that would travel with a harmonica in his cup holder. But from that day on I always keep a harmonica in the car and I am proud to say that I have never been murdered. Not even once.

    Coincidence?

    I don’t think so.

    HOW TO PLAY THE HARMONICA

    The harmonica is an instrument that creates different notes when you blow in than it does when you draw out. The key here is not to think of sucking and blowing, but just of breathing. Practice breathing in and out while playing the  harmonica — play a few chords out, then draw back and breathe in.

    Oh Susanna.

    For some reason, the song Oh Susanna, is the great beginner harmonica song. Practice breathing in and out on the harmonica while playing by ear, the song Oh Susanna — just practice on the chords; which is playing several notes at once. This will give you a larger margin of error.

    Single notes.

    Once you have the basics of Oh Susanna, on chords, focus on playing it on single notes. Single notes are played when you move your lips so air is only moving in and out of only one single path of the harmonica, rather than several. This is a little more difficult then playing chords, but it will start to give you muscle memory on where the individual notes are.

    And those are the bare bones on playing the harmonica. Pretty simple, huh? Because the harmonica is one of those rare instruments that can easily be self taught.

    Now, I found this great website that focuses on learning to play the harmonica and it was created by a man named Dave Gage — http://www.davegage.com/tips.html  . So I contacted Dave and he gave me permission to use it here.

    Dave does a great job of not only explaining the basics of playing the harmonica, but he covers purchasing a harmonica, what different types of harmonicas there are out there, and he has actual harmonica lessons. You can use the site to learn just the basics. Or you can treat it as a format for actual harmonica lessons and become quite accomplished quickly — Dave even has a paid section of his site for you gifted harmonica aficionados.

    So pick up a cheap harmonica today. Toss it in your pocket, your backpack, your tackle box or if you are in West Texas, place it in the cup holder of your car.

    You won’t regret it.

     

  • The midlife review

    The midlife review

    review

    It has been fifty years,

    Well, no — that’s not true.

    Once you carry the seven,

    It’s been fifty-two.

    And in fifty-two years,

    No vast rise, or succumb.

    Slower than many,

    But brighter than some.

    _____

    So now, halfway through,

    Time, the older man’s chore.

    To weigh and assess,

    All I need answer for.

    Not a trial, inquisition,

    Or a stern talking to.

    But a chance to appraise,

    It’s my midlife review.

    _____

    So I found a nice tie,

    A clean shirt and a coat.

    And I drove to the place,

    Spelled out there on the note.

    To a part of the city,

    Not been to before.

    I walked to the building,

    And right through the door.

    _____

    Once inside the office,

    I strode down the aisle.

    Where a man at a desk,

    Sat there reading my file.

    He stood and bowed, hi,

    Rolled to me, a chair.

    Walls the photos of all,

    Those before me, hung there.

    _____

    Then he spoke with a smile,

    Well, I’ve good news to tell.

    On your choice of a spouse,

    You did quite very well.

    She is loving, supportive,

    And in church, volunteers.

    Did not kill you, not once

    In all twenty-three years.

    _____

    Then stirring through papers,

    To find the right page.

    On your kids, here again,

    Mostly high marks to gauge.

    Sons are happy and strong,

    Tender hearts they have grown.

    Both to soon make their marks,

    They can think on their own.

    _____

    But now, that part over,

    Smile fading from face.

    He shuffled the papers,

    Let’s back to your case.

    In the asset department,

    You must surely know.

    That your financial levels,

    Are shockingly low.

    _____

    I smirked and replied,

    Mine, more lofty pursuit.

    Don’t you know that with evil,

    It’s money at root?

    As you see, it’s my family,

    The center for me.

    Not the stocking of wealth,

    Here in this life, agree?

    _____

    Then he took off his glasses,

    He then rubbed his nose.

    I think there confusion,

    We should here dispose.

    See, the standard for this life,

    Not to wealth be driven.

    But be the good stewards,

    Of all we’ve been given.

    _____

    And I see by these files,

    That you’ve wasted a lot.

    Some, they make more of,

    But time — they do not.

    So the question remains,

    Although here not bereft.

    Now what will you do,

    With the twenty years left?

    _____

    Just twenty? I mocked,

    That seems a bit lean.

    Well, he said, rounding,

    It’s more like eight-teen.

    You will die on a Wednesday,

    The fifteenth of May.

    Which is eight-teen years,

    One month, from today.

    _____

    What? I said, shocked,

    As I let this sink in.

    I know, this news hard,

    But we must now begin.

    You need to make plans,

    To ponder in thought.

    So what will you do,

    With the years you still got?

    _____

    And I sat in that chair,

    With my heart in a twist.

    ‘till I finally did speak,

    Well, I do have a list.

    But before I could finish,

    He stopped me there, true.

    This gift you’ve received,

    It’s not about you.

    _____

    You’ve been handed this grant,

    Not to ski down a slope.

    Not to climb up a mountain,

    Or zip down a rope.

    You came into this world,

    With nothing you own.

    And all that you have,

    Is simply on loan.

    _____

    And soon on a day,

    Eight-teen years from now.

    You will stand before Him,

    To answer your vow.

    And when that linking,

    From this world is free.

    What for the kingdom

    Did you do for me?

    _____

    He handed me pamphlets,

    And wished me good luck.

    And I dazedly shuffled,

    Right back to my truck.

    And I sat there inside.

    Letting set that review.

    So little time,

    And so much to do.

  • How to plan a family reunion

    How to plan a family reunion

    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.
  • How to pitch horseshoes

    How to pitch horseshoes

    shoe

    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.

  • Fame

    Fame

    actor

    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.

  • How to simplify your digital life

    How to simplify your digital life

    digi

    On June 5th 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 20th 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.

     

  • The bar

    The bar

    the terrace photo

    On Sunday February 4th 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.