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Month: February 2018

“Hey Butch…Get Me a Beer”

“Hey Butch…Get Me a Beer”

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Fourth of July, 2000.

“Pop” had his bedroom on the first floor, down the hallway from the kitchen.  He would smoke his cigars by shoving them down in the bowl of his pipe.  When he wanted a beer he would holler:

“Hey Butch, get me a beer,” in his “Jugoslavian” accent. That’s how he said it, “Jugoslav.”

Pop was Butch’s grandfather.

Butch was my dear friend Joe.

I spent a lot of time in that house, with his family; his mom, his dad, and a whole bunch of sisters.

It’s weird.

It seems like one day you are growing up 11 years old, then the next thing you know you are 20 and you’ve learned everything about life within a ten-mile radius of a little Jersey shore town called Oceanport.

And then the next thing you know you are 61 with life smacking you upside the head reminding you that you aren’t young anymore and the party can be over abruptly.

What happened?

Where did those forty some years go?

What did I miss?

What could I have done differently?

 

For that which, then, I thought was right…

Have Mercy God.

For that, which now, I regret…

Forgive me God.

For that which, hence, I know not what to do…

Guide me God.

That was from church today.

Today, that resonated with me

 

Before I went to church today I read something on Facebook that resonated with me as well. As I thought about starting to write today I thought what I had read on Facebook would be a good reference, would have some place in these thoughts.

But then I learned about Facebook time.

Like those forty years I just lost, four hours in Facebook time can be just as harsh.  That experience I had at 7 am this morning was now just a cloudy memory of something I know was worth remembering and worth experiencing,  but now lost.  I tried to go back to experience it again but I couldn’t find it, you can’t go back, it is lost in time.

But I recall it had a message that went something like this:

Life is a daily exercise in learning lessons. Mainly because we learn a lesson one day, but because life is what it is and we are what we are, flawed, we have to learn it again and then again, and again and maybe sometimes we never learn.

I think whenever we lose someone we wish we could get a redo, take a mulligan.  The “if I had a chance to do it again” syndrome.

There are songs written about it; I’ve written about it with Donny; now I am writing about it again.

I know this all too well.  It’s like being 60 and making fart noises in walkie-talkies. There are some things I wish I would have done differently.

We don’t always learn lessons well… well, at least I don’t.

We treat our bodies like they are indestructible only to find out once we are older and wiser, that they are not.

We treat our world like it is indestructible only to find out maybe too late,  that may not be true either.

But there is one thing I think I have learned that is true.

Some friendships are indestructible, no matter how hard they are tested or how much time is lost.

And worrying about what I did right or wrong; and what I now regret, is a waste of energy.  It’s in God’s hands now.

And like Facebook time, the remembrances of my experiences forty or fifty years ago might be cloudy and I will never see them as clear again. And even though more recent memories for me were fewer and farther between I can still smile when I think of them all, and still feel good knowing that even after many years, I got messages like this:

“A Very Merry Christmas and a Very Happy and Healthy New Year. I Love You All!! Butch”

We all love you too Butch.

 

Postscript:

My friend Joe died suddenly and unexpectedly last Friday.  We experienced growing into young adulthood together and shared many things in common, especially our love of music (though as instrumentalists,  we were only proficient at air guitar and air drums); and many of life’s lessons that made our relationship one that was comforting; at times funny, sometimes sad; and always in the end, supportive.

It was indestructible.

If there ever was a song written that I always associated with my friendship with Joe, it was this one:

Now young faces grow sad and old and hearts of fire grow cold
We swore blood brothers against the wind
I’m ready to grow young again
And hear your sister’s voice calling us home across the open yards
Well maybe we could cut someplace of our own
With these drums and these guitars

Cause we made a promise we swore we’d always remember
No retreat, baby, no surrender
Blood brothers in the stormy night with a vow to defend
No retreat, baby, no surrender

(From No Surrender by Bruce Springsteen)

Here is a great version if you have a few minutes that puts it in a perspective close to home for me, we did a lot of dreaming too.

I will miss him and will always be grateful for the friendship we shared.

Super Sunday…It’s All About Me…and You

Super Sunday…It’s All About Me…and You

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I woke up this past Sunday morning and didn’t want to go to church.  Instead of the typical three services we were just having one because of the holidays so I thought it would be a good day to stay home and watch Joel Osteen on TV. 

 But my wife said: “No….. We are not going to start out the New Year the wrong way”. 

 “Yes Ma’am” and off I went.

 When I got to church I was even more convinced I should have stayed home because it turned out the Preacher was on vacation and the sermon was being delivered by one of the Lay Speakers, a member of the church trained to do such things. 

 His sermon was called “It Is about You” and immediately I was put on the defense… as a Christian I am taught that it is God you put first, family second, and I am somewhere beyond that.  But the lay speaker’s point was that nothing happens without me… first.  The process has to start with me, it has to start with what is in my heart…… it is in fact about me, it has to be about me!

 Of course you may not be a Christian and you may not even believe in God …but I was reminded again very nicely this Sunday how important I am and you are.   Everything you do successfully starts with you! 

 The Bible teaches us that we all have different gifts.  If a man’s gift is prophesying let him use it; if it is serving, let him serve; if it is teaching let him teach; if it is encouraging, let him encourage; if it is contributing to the needs of others, let him give generously; if it is leadership, let him govern diligently; if it is showing mercy, let him do it cheerfully.

 We all have our different specialties, our different talents, different jobs, different contributions to give; and  individually it is up to us to be successful at what it is we do best;  how we use those gifts given to us. And your desire to do the best and to be your best comes from within.

 It’s got to be in your heart. 

 The Lay Speaker went on to make other points that are important to living well and just as important to a successful organization:

 Remaining positive even when you don’t want to;

 Not judging one another (let he who has not sinned cast the first stone);

 Not criticizing one another (Don’t pick a speck out my eye when you have a board in your own).

 We aren’t perfect people, we make mistakes.  The important part of this however is that you are striving to be perfect, you want not to make mistakes if you can help it; and you want to be successful at whatever it is you are doing.  You are doing it for you because you want to, and in doing the right thing for you, you will be doing the right thing for me and the rest of us.  

 Can you imagine what 50 or so independently motivated, independently successful, independently entrepreneurial people can do collectively?

It would be awesome.

 So as this year ends and we reflect on what we accomplished this past year collectively and in some cases individually, think about where you are.  Remember it is all about you and it is all up to you.

 

I wrote that in early January 2009 as part of an end of month/end of year email for the company I worked for at the time, reporting results and sending some message as I had done at the end of every month.

I am surprised I got away with this one.

I was reminded of this writing recently by a conversation I had with a friend at the memorial service for my friend Forrest who I have also written about recently.

The person who delivered the sermon I had referred to nine or so years ago was named Steve. Steve passed away in 2014.  Like Forrest, Steve was a pillar of our church, a writer, a historian, a great speaker, and just a real interesting guy.   The friend I was speaking to was Steve’s wife Beth.  I told her it was one of the best sermons I had ever heard and at the time I had even written about it.

These pillars of my church like Steve and Forrest were examples for so many of us for so many years and so much more to family members like Beth.

We can all relate to someone in this way I am sure.

Maybe it was a pillar of your family; your father, your mother, grandfather or grandmother, brother or sister; son or daughter.

Or maybe it was someone in your church, workplace, or other situation.

How do we replace them?  How do we fill that void?

We don’t.

We don’t replace them and those voids don’t go away.

But like Steve’s sermon taught me, it is about me.

It’s about what is in my heart and what I can do that might impact the lives of others positively.

It’s about all of us.

We can step up.  We can live as examples too.

What’s my legacy going to be?

What’s yours?

Can you just imagine hundreds of millions of independently motivated, independently successful individuals; using their different talents, their different specialties; using the gifts given to them; using what is in their hearts; to help one another?

It would be awesome.

It would be super.

Happy Sunday.