The Four Horsemen of the American Apocalypse

"Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to be free"

"Give me your white, your rich, your hate-filled racists yearning to discriminate"

Where to even start?  This has been going on for years, this country has been gradually sliding backward, and while there are many of us who can take credit for it, I think these four hate groups probably should get their fair share of credit.  Again, not sure where to start, but I'll start at the top, and I'll keep it brief, since I'm sure many of you don't want to listen to me rant:

Moms for Liberty

Similar to many hate groups, this group hides behind the premise that they are just looking out for our children.  But some of their methods and rationale are really quite questionable:

• Bullying teachers and administrators into resigning if they don't acquiesce to their ideals of proper teaching.  One of their major topics is teaching compassion and empathy in school because we wouldn't want our children to have any compassion or empathy for their fellow students.
• Book bans and book burning.  There is a wealth of great literature they are opposed to, but they are particularly focused on any books that relate to the LGBTQ+ community or the history of racism in this country.  A sampling of books that they've had banned:

I've not read two of the books, but I have read "The Bluest Eye" by Toni Morrison.  She is one of my favorite authors and is an exceptional writer.  But yes, she does use the framework of our racist heritage quite a bit in her books.  Maybe if we ignore it, it will go away....

Just a reminder, book burning was a major tool in Nazi Germany to suppress critical thinking, but then again, we don't seem to learn from history.  You'd have to read, of course.

Christian Nationalists

"Organized religion is the cause of most human suffering and evil"

I can't take credit for that line, it comes from Charles Russell Lowell in the 1800's at the height of slavery.

I'm still baffled by this one.  I remember years ago, Sandy McConnel preaching at Westminster Presbyterian Church and saying the American flag does not belong on the altar at church, no flag belongs on the altar.  

Quite frankly, mixing religion and country is un-American, this nation was built on religious freedom, and more importantly, it's blasphemy and sacrilege.  Anytime I hear about "God and Country" services or Christian Nation, I cringe.  I would have thought that we would have learned from Nazi Germany, which also espoused "God With Us", but then again, as noted above, we don't really seem to want to read books, particularly history books.  

Unfortunately, we seem to want to use the Bible as our weapon of choice against anyone who we don't agree with.  It would appear that Christian Nationalists never turned the page once they got to the end of the Old Testament and read about Jesus and particularly what he said in the Beatitudes.  Might be worth a Google.  No, they'd prefer the God of the Old Testament to smote those who don't look like us or worship like us.

Fox News

Easily the one of the four that I despise the most.  As I've noted before, you'd have to put a gun to my head to get me to watch Fox "News".  While there really isn't any real news anymore, it's all slanted to whatever side the news outlet is on, Fox News has to be the lowest of the low.  They don't just mix in propaganda to support the current administration and the far right, they blatantly push racism and hatred for anyone who is different from white, Christian America. 

They start most segments with catch phrases like "This is going to make you angry!" to get the base riled up.  Years ago, they declared that there was a "War on Christmas" to stir up the Christians in this country.  They jump on any news item featuring a transgender athlete to tell us about someone who won a 100 yard dash in Bumfuck, Nebraska, and how our children will never be able to compete in sporting events ever again because of the proliferation of transgender athletes.  They try to tell us that immigrants are running rampant in gangs, killing people and eating our pets.  The sad part is, as we've seen where we live, old, white people sit around all day watching Fox News, and they believe the shit that the talking heads tell them.  

You know, it would be great if they'd ever supply some facts about the overwhelming majority of mass shootings are committed by white males in this country, not any minority or immigrant.  Yeah, I'm pretty sure you won't ever hear that on Fox News.  Instead they make killers like this, heroes in our country:

While immigrants in this country live in fear of deportation, we allow people like this to roam free.  If we really cared about a safer America, we would be deporting white men instead.  Oh, wait....

The good news is Fox News has become the training ground for the current president's cabinet.  There are at last count 23 former Fox News personalities in government, I'm sure they are all very qualified.  They recognize that wearing brown suits, eating Grey Poupon, and going to the Met are bad, but taking bribes from foreign countries and stealing from the American people are good.  Check the box, they are qualified to run our government!

Republican National Committee

This one is probably the hardest one for me.  I spent all of my adult life until 2016 as a devout Republican, pretty much voted straight party for 36 years or so.  I'm not sure if they changed or I changed, but I doubt I ever vote for another Republican unless some of the good ones like Adam Kinzinger or Liz Cheney come back.  Still not a fan of Democrats, but they at least seem to care about their constituents.

I wish I could say that the Republican Party I voted for has changed, but I'm not so sure, maybe I was just too naive.  They obviously are owned by the NRA, so we will never see any type of gun legislation in this country.  Again, worth a Google, take a look at which politicians the NRA funds and how much money they give.  And they are clearly beholden to the rich in America as evidenced by the tax laws and spending bills they propose.  

What I find really interesting is that many of them make no bones about it, they come out and say that they really don't care about the poor or even the middle class.  I'm not sure how people are going to be able to live a normal life with the wages they are making and the cuts to health programs like Medicaid.  There have been some recent public comments that are truly amazing to me, by Republicans like Joni Ernst and Mitch McConnel.  Funny thing, when I heard Joni Ernst say, "Well, we are all going to die", I imagined her channeling her inner Creasy (Denzel Washington) from the movie "Man on Fire".

So many people want to blame the current president, but let's be real, he is obviously who we want.  He's a racist, he's not very bright or well-read, he throws temper tantrums like a child, he insults people like a middle-schooler, he is corrupt, he has no regard for women, but he is who we decided should be our president.  While we rooted for Ralphie in "A Christmas Story", we voted for Scott Farkus.  If we look in the mirror, he is the one who is looking back at us.  As my dear friend Dave Carr quoted recently from the cartoon strip "Pogo", "We have met the enemy, and he is us".

I remember years ago, one of the funniest episodes of "Modern Family" had Phil Dunphy committing a huge error in judgment, clearly not realizing what a faux pas he committed.  Of course the episode was meant for humor.  It wasn't meant to be a rallying cry for this country.

Editor's Note:  I have a follow-up post coming, highlighting what I'm thankful for in this country.  Of course, none of the Four Horsemen.

In Celebration of Le Grand Orange

 Editor’s Note: As he is affectionately known in Canada, of course we know him as His Royal Highness, the Great Emperor Donnie, or more recently, the Great Orange Softshell TACO

Since we are celebrating Le Grand Orange on his birthday with a big military parade, I thought he should have some talking points to highlight some of the more memorable points in his career.  

He’s gone off the rails in so many different directions lately, that only the most rapid of the MAGA cult are happy with his shtick. When he was campaigning, he was talking about Hannibal Lecter, the size of Arnold Palmer’s penis, windmills, or sharks, his ramblings were nonsensical.  

But now, it’s much worse.  He’s talking about real issues like tariffs, the economy, global warming or grocery prices, he just isn’t very bright, and he really doesn’t have much of a clue of how these things work.  While the late night talk show hosts have a field day with how ridiculous he sounds, and many of us get a kick out of his gibberish, he is the president, he’s making us all look like fools around the world.

I’ve come up with a solution, and for the good of our country, I’m going to offer up what I believe will keep him focused, on track, and hopefully not spewing crazy comments about topics he knows very little about.

I’ve developed some crisp talking points, they’re short, and even with his apparent dementia, he should be able to get through them without digressing, as long as we keep the teleprompter in front of him.  Plus, they are focused very much on him, which is by far what he likes talking about the most, so he should be able to stay on course.  I’ve developed four, I can come up with plenty more, but I homed in on some of the most important topics that he can address and at least make him sound somewhat presidential.

The first one is to highlight his great respect for those who served our country and the sacrifices that were made to protect our country:

“Back when I was in ‘Nam, I was flying in a helicopter with Bob Duvall and Marty Sheen, and I could tell they were scared, they were white as ghosts.  There were missiles flying all around us, I got it, I could understand why they were scared.  Me?  Hell, no, I’m not a loser, I knew the VC’s could never shoot us down.  I tried to lighten them up, so I said, ‘Don’t you love the smell of napalm in the morning?’  Bob looked at me, and said, ‘Donnie (Bob always called me Donnie), that’s a great line, can I use it?’  I said, of course, just give me credit for it.  He never did, but that’s OK, everyone knows it’s my line.  It was a great day, we destroyed the VC’s and made Vietnam a much safer place.”

The second focuses on catch phrases, key talking points that people can remember.  Think, “We’re going to build a wall, and Mexico is going to pay for it”:

“Back when Martin Luther King was going to give his big speech in Washington, I could tell he was really nervous.  It was a pretty big crowd, nowhere near the size of my crowds, but still, for him a big crowd.  I said ‘Doc, you got to grab them from the beginning.  Get them excited.’  He said, ‘Donnie (he always called me Donnie) what would you do?’  I said ‘You need to come up with a tag line, something that everyone will get excited about.  Doesn’t need to mean anything, doesn’t matter, just a line.’  Out of the blue, I thought, “I have a dream!”  Came to me just like that.  I told Doc, ‘Say I have a dream!  Immediately, people will start dreaming, some about a juicy Big Mac, some about having sex with Ivanka, doesn’t matter, they won’t hear another thing you say.’  They loved it, crowd went wild, nothing like one of my crowds, but it was a great day.”

 

The next one is really strategic, it’s about golf, and everyone knows, old white guys love to talk about golf, almost as much as playing it:

 

“Back when Tiger Woods was the captain of the Ryder Cup team, he came to me and said, ‘Donnie (Tiger always called me Donnie), I know we could win the Ryder Cup if we had you on the team, but there are so many whiny babies on the PGA tour, they would complain if I put an amateur on the team, even though you’re a better golfer than any of us.’  I said, ‘Tiger, I understand, it really wouldn’t be fair for me to do it, it would just create too much controversy.’  Did they win?  Hell, no, I knew they couldn’t win without me.  But, I gave Tiger some advice, and he used it.  I told him, if you lose, just say the match was rigged.  And keep on saying it over and over and over again.  Doesn’t matter if you have any evidence, the more you say something, the more people believe it.  And they did, everyone said that America got screwed in that Ryder Cup match.  It was a great day to be an American.”

 

The last is the most important, it speaks to his love of God and his close and deep relationship with God:

“I was lying in bed the one night, all alone, and I was starting to doze off, when I heard a voice, ‘Donnie, it’s me, God.’  Well of course I knew it was God, He always calls me Donnie.  He said, ‘This country is going to Hell in a handbasket, and we need to do something.  I tried sending a couple hurricanes to destroy a bunch of liberals, but they diverted them, and it only hit a bunch of good, Christian Nationalists.  I’m thinking about sending down some she-bears to rip some people apart.’  I said, ‘God, I know what you mean, but I think I have a better solution.  How about I put together a Bible.  But not just any Bible, a Bible that has my name on it.  I’ll call it the “God Bless the USA Bible”.  With your words, and my name on it, we can get people reading the Bible again.  The best part is I’ll have it made in China, so I’ll make a small fortune on it!’  God loved the idea, He said, ‘Donnie, you are amazing.  Don’t you ever worry, if anyone ever tries to assassinate you, I’ll always be there to redirect those bullets.  You’ll always be just like a son to me.”

OK, I may have taken a few liberties with the truth, but really, nowhere near the liberties that he takes.  Plus, it’s really quite entertaining, and no one gets hurt.  No more discussions on real issues that he knows nothing about, and no more hate-filled racist rants.  Very simple stories, easy for him to repeat over and over, and the cult will love them and eat them up.  

As noted, if this works, I can come up with many more of these, I just want to make him sound presidential rather than like a babbling lunatic, since he is the president, so it would be good for him to sound at least semi-intelligent.  If that’s possible of course.

And if this offended you, I’ll paraphrase His Royal Highness, the Great Emperor Donnie, “You can’t take a joke”.  Well of course we can, you’re the president!

There But for the Grace of God....

All the young dudes

Bam!

“You need to go faster!”

Bam! He smashed into my bumper again.

“I’m going to kill that son of a bitch!”

I pulled my car to the side of the road, jumped out and screamed, “I’m going to kick your ass!”

Just then I saw the knife flash in my face as he backed me up against my car. Then I saw two more guys, both with knives, all of them bigger than us, and the one in front of me, ugly as ugly could be. He didn’t have much to lose.

I started talking quickly, “Can you please put the knife down, please put the knife away.” He started pushing me backward, I had nowhere to go, I was between my car and him and the knife. We were on an old backroad, nothing around, no one coming anytime soon.  I talked faster and faster, “Can you please put the knife away” over and over and over.

As noted, they were all bigger, the one looked like Grizzly Adams (I know, too old for most of you), he was huge. My friend Kevin started mouthing off, and I yelled, “Kevin, shut the hell up!”, just as Grizzly pushed him in the ditch.

I eventually talked the guy in front of me to put his knife away, he offered to fight me straight up, but I politely declined, I would have most likely gotten my ass kicked, and I was still shaken, envisioning that knife in my face.

They eventually got back into their car and drove away. Somehow, crisis averted.

That’s probably my most vivid “crisis” memory from my teenage years or early 20’s, I think the rest weren’t quite as intense, or my brain was under too much influence to remember some of the parts or even all of the parts. Lord knows, I wasn’t the best citizen back then. Somehow, miraculously, I survived without getting killed or arrested. But sadly, not all of us did.

I recently completed teaching a course at Marion Correctional Institution, I taught a class on “Personal Financial Planning” to eight of the inmates there. I taught this class as a part of a program through Marion Technical College, who provides a great number of courses for the inmates. While I thoroughly enjoyed the teaching and interacting with all the people involved, I don’t plan on returning at least in the near term.

There are several reasons for this, and I’ll raise them in the order that they came to me as I debated returning or not. The first:

The red tape to get access to the facility

First of all, I get it. We are talking about a medium-security prison, and all precautions are necessary to ensure the safety of everyone. The facility is about 40 minutes away from where I live, and over an hour from my main teaching location, Ohio Dominican University. So, it’s not a short commute for me to pop in for whatever is needed.

There was a great deal of red tape to go through to get access to the facility. It all started in the Fall, I had to go through a background check, training, get a badge to get into the prison, various processes and procedures to just be able to get in. I went through various starts and stops, I’d drive up, and for whatever reason, the person I needed to see wasn’t there, I had to turn around and go home. Even once I was supposed to start teaching in January, I didn’t have access on my own, I had to be escorted in and out. The whole process of getting to and into the facility was painful, I had to always plan extra time to account for whatever might go wrong.

The course setup

Marion Technical College sets up the course in their learning system, which typically leaves it to me to purely teach the course. OK, I’m making this sound easier than it is, but I taught a course in the Fall at MTC on campus, and it went quite well, the course was set up incredibly well. As I said, all I had to do was teach.

The issue in this case was that they were transitioning the Learning Management System from Canvas to Brightspace, and the transition wasn’t complete. This was the last time this course was being offered at the prison, and the course just wasn’t set up very well. I don’t blame anyone for this; it was just the circumstances led to a very difficult teaching experience for me. In this case I wasn’t purely teaching the course, I had to fix a great deal of issues each week

Plus, and I did know this up front, you’re not allowed to bring any paper or anything else into the facility. Apparently in the past, drugs could be smuggled in by spraying something on the paper for inmates to be able to inhale from the paper. This makes no sense to me, but that was the situation, and so I had to plan ahead, send files to the administrative personnel ahead of time and hope to have copies for my class each week, which was hit or miss.

It's not them, it’s me

As I made the decision not to return after the Spring semester, I blamed the red tape, I blamed the poor course setup, and as noted, in each case, I understood why it was the way it was, I just didn’t have the time or energy to deal with it while having a full-time teaching job already. It just wasn’t feasible, for once, I had to say no to something, which is a whole other story for me.

But then, reality slapped me in the face. I was at graduation at Ohio Dominican, and I was talking to Shawn Zerby, he’s the father of one of my students, Liz Zerby. He and I were discussing my time teaching at Marion Correctional Institution, and I forget exactly how he phrased it, but he asked me if it bothered me teaching at the prison. It finally dawned on me, yes it did, it did greatly, but maybe not the way he meant or the way many people would think.

As the semester went along, I got to know each of the students, at least to a certain extent. It was a bit of a menagerie of people, but the one thing they had in common was they had been institutionalized for many years. You’d get into situations where you were talking about things in modern-day life, and they really hadn’t experienced them, they had been in for so long. Driving, cell phones, shopping, normal day-to-day experiences we take for granted, they had no real clue about. I never knew what any of them did to be incarcerated, I didn’t want to know, and I really didn’t know for sure when any of them were getting out, or if they ever will be.

But I would get snippets along the way. I believe most or all of them had been in prison for 20 years or more. The one young man talked about turning 40, and having spent half of his life there. There were several stories like that, but the one that got me the most was what I heard on my last night. One gentleman talked about his senior year in high school, it was his last week, he was going to graduate high school with honors that Friday, but he never made it, he was arrested and had been in prison ever since. He had just passed his 26th year in prison. He always carried mala beads with him to stay calm, to “not lose his shit” as he would say.

There but for the grace of God, go I

You know, I know I don’t have the answers, and I guess none of do. I just struggle with this is the life someone gets for making whatever mistake it was when their brain wasn’t fully functioning yet. Making the wrong decision or choice at 18-20, and your freedom, your life is over. It was devastating for me to imagine that, and I felt so much sadness and empathy for those gentlemen, but again, I have absolutely no idea what they did to get into that situation. I just feel so lucky and blessed that I somehow didn’t make the same mistake. I did some really stupid things as a teenager, but I survived, I made it through.

A couple weeks ago, Laurel and I were in Gallery 22, a volunteer-run gift shop. They always have some form of eclectic art, and it’s a great experience to see what they have. It was a “perfect” signature moment for my prison experience. The one display is shown below, it’s an art project that shows various stories of women who are in prison, and what they miss the most about being incarcerated. As I read each of the stories, I started crying. The simple little things we take for granted in life, they missed the most, “having a dog”, “late night drives with the music blaring”, “being able to call home whenever I want”. Some of the same things I would miss, and am so thankful that I have.

Will I go back? I’m pretty confident I will. I believe people who do this really serve a greater purpose, and I applaud them for doing it day after day, semester after semester. I just didn’t have the time, or more importantly, the strength, to do it right now. I need to focus less on the sadness I experience for them, and more on what I can hopefully do to help them if and when they ever get out. I kind of feel like I owe it to them.

But I Can't Meditate!

A few months ago, I read Dan Harris’ book, “10% Happier: How I Tamed the Voice in My Head, Reduced Stress Without Losing My Edge, and Found Self-Help That Actually Works”. I learned about the book on Nadia Bolz-Weber’s website, and she highly recommended it for anyone, but particularly those of us who journey with those voices. Plus, I loved how she noted that Dan’s wife said the book should really be titled “90% Still an Asshole”.

I read the book, and I fell in love with it. I felt like Dan Harris and I were kindred spirits. OK, I was never a famous journalist and TV personality, and I’ve never worked in dangerous war zones to cover a story, but I’ve lived so many of the other pieces, the anxiety, the voices, the drug use, I could relate to what he was saying, and on a certain level, I was living his stories while reading them.

The crux of the book is to help his readers find the power of meditation and how it can transform your life, and once I was done with the book, I was sold. I had done some meditation at times, but never really that successfully. I decided I was going all in, and I subscribed to his app, so I could get emails, access to his website with various meditations, I was going to start meditating every day.

That lasted, I think, one day? I started out with an “easy” meditation, I had done this one before, it’s called “Loving Kindness Meditation”. There are some variations of this, but essentially you go through a list of people, someone you love, a mentor, an acquaintance, someone you don’t like, and then yourself, picture that person, and then say to them:

“May you be happy

May you be safe

May you be healthy

May you live your life at ease"

As noted, I think I made it one day. But then, it got much worse. What is amazing and incredible about Dan Harris is he truly believes in the power of meditation. Because of that, he sends almost daily emails with new meditations, advice, information, all sorts of helpful hints about how you can enhance your meditation practice. It was stressing me out….

I would let the emails sit in my inbox, unread, and they would pile up. Once I’d get about 10 in there, I’d take them all and move them to a separate folder, so I wouldn’t have to see them anymore. I’d tell myself that I’ll go back when I have time and read them all. I think I currently have 42 unopened emails in the folder, hanging over my head like Damocles’ Sword.

Thankfully, a few weeks ago, I got an email from Dan Harris that was titled something like, “Feeling guilty about not meditating?” This one I opened and read, and it was well worth it. It talked about all of those ways we are already meditating, even if we don’t sit in a lotus position, back straight, eyes closed, completely focused on our meditation. As he notes:

“No matter how little meditation you’ve done, you’ve almost certainly had moments where your anxiety and self-referential chatter naturally subsided somewhat. So just tune into those moments.”

That’s when I realized, I’ve been meditating all this time. No, not in a traditional way, but in my own way, and quite frankly, if for once I can say something good about myself, I think I’m doing it really well.

I started a morning routine, several years ago of doing plank and boat each day after getting up. It varied for a while, but now it is exactly the same, every morning, at least five days/week. I turn on YouTube, I watch and listen to two songs, Hillsong United’s “So Will I” and Casting Crowns’ “Nobody”. In many cases, I can’t actually see the videos, I can only listen, but it’s OK. What really struck me as I thought about this routine, is it has a certain amount to do with the music, it has a certain amount to do with the exercise, but the overwhelming part of it? The breath. Everything is geared to the breath. While this may bore you to tears, bear with me, there’s a reason for showing you this:

My Meditation Practice

Hillsong United – “So Will I” 

7 minutes, 2 seconds

·  Forearm plank – 18 breaths (OK, why 18? Who the hell knows, but that’s what it is)

“God of creation

There at the start

Before the beginning of time”

· Side plank, left side – 10 breaths
· Side plank, right side – 10 breaths
· Plank – 5 breaths
· Side plank, left side – 5 breaths
· Side plank, right side – 5 breaths

Casting Crowns – “Nobody”

3 minutes, 52 seconds

· Reverse plank or reverse table – 10 breaths (OK, one variation to the routine)
· Boat to low boat, back and forth – 10 breaths

“Well the moral of the story is

Everybody’s got a purpose”

· Low boat, scissor legs back and forth (10 breaths)
· Low boat, feet go wide, tap heels together (10 breaths)
· Low boat, swim the feet (10 breaths)
· Boat, rotate arms back and forth, right, center, left and back (5 breaths)

It took me such a long time to figure out, it wasn’t about the exercise, although I do need it. It’s not about the songs, although I do love both songs and the messages in them. Quite frankly, there are several songs I could easily substitute. It’s the breath. Finding the breath each morning, and consistently staying with that breath.

· Time – 10 minutes, 54 seconds, but really irrelevant
· How long am I holding the various plank or boat poses? – No idea
· Number of breaths – 108. To be honest, I just did the count right now as I was writing this. The number 108 is considered sacred and is associated with various aspects of divinity, wholeness, and the universe. OK, most likely this happened by dumb luck, but then again, maybe it didn’t….

I just got an email the other day from Anne Weidinger, an incredibly gifted yoga teacher. She loves hummingbirds, and she was espousing all of the great qualities that hummingbirds show and can teach us. The one I gravitated to was “abhyasa”. She had a definition in her email, but I wanted to explore further since it captured me.

“In the context of yoga and spiritual practice, abhyasa refers to consistent, dedicated, and sustained practice. It’s the effort and willpower needed to maintain a steady practice, not just in the physical sense of asanas, but also in the mental and emotional aspects of yoga, such as quieting the mind.”

I’ve found that my mornings, those 108 breaths, center me, allow me the ability to quiet my mind, and at least start the day in a good way. I’ve found when I go more than a day without this routine, I get out of sync, and I can’t wait to get back to my breath.

OK, I may have bored the shit out of you with the minute details of my daily practice, but as Casting Crowns would say, “Everybody’s got a purpose”. I hope that this will awaken in each of you what you’re doing each day to meditate and ground yourself. Dan Harris gave various examples, a walk in nature, holding a baby, watching a sunset, cuddling with your cat, give yourself credit! Think about the ways you are already meditating and embrace them, expand them, see where you can find your grounding. And breathe.

Where Everybody Knows Your Name

Sometimes you want to go

Where everybody knows your name
And they’re always glad you came 
(Excerpt from Cheers theme song)

Over the past few months, we’ve had some truly awful customer service experiences with some fairly large purchases.  One was a new vehicle for Laurel, and the other was new flooring in our home.  In each case, the treatment we received was almost comical, we had to laugh at times, because it was so incredibly bad.

I planned to write a blog post about each incident, probably titled “Customer DISservice”, and I believe I need to write them as a form of catharsis, to release the anger and irritation we experienced, and also to inform the public about the horrible service we received from these two companies.  But, as those of you who read my blog know (Laurel and my Mom), I love to write about great customer service, which brings me to Standardized Brewing.

For several years when we lived in Georgia, Laurel and I would frequent Slow Pour Brewing Company.  It started with Sundays, we would go to church, go to yoga, and then finish off the day at Slow Pour.  Soon, we started going on Friday also.  When I started taking Laurel there on Saturdays, she said, “We can’t come here all weekend!”, to which I replied, “Why not?”

We moved to Ohio a little less than five years ago, and we’ve tried various breweries in the area, but none of them quite captured us like Slow Pour did.  Then, I think a little over a year ago, we discovered Standardized Brewing.  The beer is great, but many breweries can make that claim.  What captured me initially was they had hot pretzels, which may take me back to my days going to baseball games and getting a hot pretzel at the game.  Whatever the reason, we started going to Standardized every Friday evening.

We then discovered their coffee.  As many of you know I’ve had an insane obsession with Starbucks for many years.  I have a Starbucks gold card, dated 2008, which I still use, and I oftentimes would go to Starbucks at least once a day, sometimes twice.  Thankfully, I’ve cut back on my coffee drinking, but we now go to Standardized at least each Saturday for our coffee, and also for whatever donuts they are serving that day.  They have a standard coffee menu, but they also have a special coffee selection that rotates periodically.  Their coffee is really good, and their personnel put a lot of time and love into each cup of coffee.  I can’t remember the last time I’ve been to Starbucks….

 

It All Started With Caroline

To be honest, though, it’s so much more than beer, coffee, pretzels and donuts.  Most of you aren’t nearly as old as me, but the excerpt from the Cheers theme song above is from a comedy show that ran mostly in the 1990’s (or as my students say, the 1900’s).  It was about a bar where people regularly frequented, and part of the appeal was, you knew everyone, and everyone knew you.  The running theme each show would be Norm coming in the front door, and everyone yelling “Norm!” when he entered the bar.  OK, no one yells “Steve!” when I come in the door, but it’s pretty close.

After we had been coming every Friday to Standardized, one evening, Caroline asked us our names.  We told her, and we learned her name.  She gave us both a big hug.  Do you know how that felt?  In most cases, especially as we get older, people really don’t notice you or care about you, I sometimes think I’m wearing Harry Potter’s invisibility cloak, but Caroline wanted to know our names, she asked about our family, she was genuinely interested in us.

And it didn’t end there.  There are various people who work there, but because of our religious Friday nights at Standardized, we are most often seeing Caroline, Tim and TJ.  They have our routine down pat, although we’ve been switching it up periodically with them, getting different beers or different snacks.  They always ask how our week has been, and they even notice if we’ve missed a week or if we’re in on an “odd” night.  A couple weeks ago, we were out of town on the weekend, and the next time in, Tim said, “Were you guys here on Friday?”  I still can’t believe he noticed.

The same holds true on Saturday mornings.  Most of the time, we see Wes, Emma and Melissa.  We

receive the same type of greetings, the same friendliness, the same great customer service.  They’ve grown to know our routines, and similarly, they notice us.  The one day I was in there, Melissa looked at me, and said, “Didn’t I just see you yesterday?”  As a matter of fact, yes.  And the one Friday when we were sitting having a beer, Wes just happened to be sitting at the bar, he looked over at us with a big smile and waved to us.

Built by neighbors for the community we love

While I believe that friendliness and a caring nature are inherent in each of these people, I also believe the attitude and great customer service always starts at the top.  Oftentimes, we will see Mark and Jason, the founders of Standardized, hanging out or working when we’re there.  They are always friendly and acknowledge us and several times have let us sample something that they’ve newly developed.  I pulled the line above from their website, it’s obvious that they live this in their business.

You can tell that community is at the center of Standardized, anytime we are in there, there are families, and children of all ages everywhere.  For me, that’s a huge part of the appeal, community has been lost virtually everywhere these days, but community has been created, and thrives, here.  I love to see all of the families gathered and enjoying time together, and the range of children laughing and playing, it’s non-stop activity.  And even the little ones notice us, as the toddlers go waddling  by, we’ll get a smile and a wave, and the parents appreciate that we acknowledge their children.  Laurel and I are probably not “officially” in the community that Standardized serves, we live about 10-15 minutes away, but we’re more than happy to share in what that community offers.  Great beer, great coffee, and outstanding customer service, not sure how we could go wrong.

Take it from a brewery connoisseur, you will love it there.  We sure do. 

 

My Word for 2025: Surrender

I thought it was just me (but it isn’t) – Brene Brown

Nah, it’s me – Steve McCullough

Before I start, just a brief recap of the past four years and words to guide me:

2021 – Faith

2022 – Forgiveness

2023 – Gratitude

2024 – Kindness

I would consider all of them successful, at least on a certain level, the biggest shortfalls typically come when I turn them inward.  I haven’t gotten very good at forgiveness or kindness toward myself, but I still strive to get better.

In regard to surrender, this will be yet another lesson in “do as I say, not as I do”.  Well, hopefully I can

change that, and that is my goal.  I’ve spent most of my life, like a salmon, continually swimming upstream.  While I can’t complain about my life, it has really been incredible, it all could have been done so much easier.  As I continually fought the rushing currents against me, I could have just surrendered, and let the currents take me wherever they wanted.

Now, surrender isn’t giving up, surrender is just allowing what is to be.  I constantly have this mantra, that I really need to follow, do the best you can, and don’t get wrapped up in the results.  You can only do the best you can do.

It comes so much easier though when you just surrender.  Let me give you a prime example from where I learn most of what I learn – yoga.  When I just let the pose happen, it turns out so much better than when I tense up and work my ass off to get into a pose.  Just surrender, let it go, and if it happens, it happens, and if not, there’s always next time.

In all the other parts of my life, the story is the same.  I prepare and over-prepare for everything I do and pour my soul into whatever it is.  Best example lately is teaching classes.  I spend hours preparing, work weekends, try to design the perfect class.  In the end, I think for the most part, the classes go well but I can’t just accept that I did the best I could do.  I live and die based on the tests, and when my students don’t get perfect scores, or at least A’s, I go into a funk and try to figure out, where did I go wrong?

“We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors – we borrow it from our children”

On a much larger scale, this issue is tormenting me greatly.  In my mind, my generation is failing at this miserably.  I believe those who came before us gifted us with a better world than the world they started with, but through our greed, our selfishness, our hatred, those who follow us won’t see a benefit. 

 
Just a few snapshots of then and now that provide some perspective of where I’m coming from:

Back in the 1950’s, Jonas Salk invented the polio vaccine, which eradicated one of the worst epidemics in modern times.  He refused to patent the vaccine, giving up substantial profit and making it accessible and affordable to the world.  When asked, why didn’t you patent it, he replied, “There is no patent. 

Could you patent the sun?”

Today, we glorify the billionaires who, for the most part, have no moral compass and would gladly capitalize on any opportunity that came their way, no matter who suffered for it.  The lack of ethics that pervades business today is astounding, and quite frankly, I don’t think we care, we’re just happy if our stock prices, and retirement plans, keep rising.

Back in the 1970’s, Roberto Clemente, one of the greatest baseball players of all-time, died in an airplane crash while on a humanitarian relief effort to Nicaragua, after a devastating earthquake there.  His highest salary in his career was $150,000 (roughly $1m today with inflation).  One of the quotes I loved from him was “Any time you have an opportunity to make a difference in this world and don’t, then you are wasting your time on Earth”. Even though he didn’t make huge amounts of money based on today’s standards, he gave back and ultimately gave his life to help others.

The current minimum salary in Major League Baseball is $740,000 and there are several players making over $40m/year.    These types of salaries are spread out over all of our sports, and for those who say they watch college sports because of this, I’ll remind you that Texas A&M is paying Jimbo Fisher $75m not to coach.  I don’t begrudge the players, but I do begrudge us for pouring so much money into sports that allows this while there are so many in the world suffering, who we bluntly don’t even give a shit about.  Give us our luxury boxes, fuck the people starving throughout the world.

Last one, and this one is very close to home.  Back in the 1970’s, when we had an energy crisis, fuel was at a shortage, and gas prices were exorbitant.  My Dad had always bought and drove huge Oldsmobile’s, but he chose to do the right thing for himself, his family and the world.  He bought a Datsun 310, manual everything.  It was a tiny car, no air conditioning, no nothing, but it got fantastic gas mileage.  He recognized what the right thing to do was.

Now, even though we have global warming and issues with climate change, we go out and buy massive trucks for huge amounts of money that get maybe 15 miles/gallon of gas.  When the topic of global warming comes up, we put our hands over our ears, and like little babies we go “la-la-la-la-la” and ignore it.  We just keep on saying “Drill baby drill!”  Who cares if there’s a planet left for our children.

The worst part about all of this to me?  We still bitch about how bad we have it.  We constantly moan about the economy, and I don’t disagree that the economy isn’t great for the younger generations, I’m really not sure how they’ll ever be able to afford homes, but I have no earthly idea how my generation complains.  A couple of generations back was labeled “The Greatest Generation” made famous in a book by Tom Brokaw.  They lived through the Great Depression and World War II, which shaped them and made them more resilient.  Maybe too many episodes of “Keeping Up with the Kardashians” shaped my generation …..

Ultimately, while I’m disappointed and embarrassed about how my generation has lived our lives, there’s nothing on a large scale that I can do about it.  There are some people who have changed the world with great efforts, such as Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela and Martin Luther King, Jr., and there are some people I know like Jimmy Shafe, Dave Carr, MK Rogers and Jessica Woodside who work hard to change the world on a smaller scale.  We need people to continue to make these efforts, the world needs it.

That’s not me.  I will raise another great leader up, Mother Teresa, and as she once said, “Not all of us can do great things.  But we can do small things with great love.”  While I wish I could do more, I wish I could change the world, I will do my best to be content with the small acts I can do.  As I tell myself, I’m just a nobody.  With a purpose.  In the words of Saint Francis of Assisi, my daily goal is to “Preach the gospel at all times, and when necessary, use words.”

Do what is yours to do; don’t do what is not yours to do – Swami Rama

I recently went back and re-read Ishvara Pranidhana (Surrender) in “The Yamas & Niyamas”, and I found the quote above.  It falls in line with the Serenity Prayer, and I’ll close this blog with a beautiful and modernized version of the Serenity Prayer that Nadia Bolz-Weber posted recently. 

 

Serenity Prayer – Nadia Bolz-Weber’s version

“Dear God,

There’s so much to fear right now that I’m sort of losing track of what to worry about most.

So I’m gonna need some help focusing.

Show me what is MINE to do.

Then grant me the strength to do it, and the humility to rest knowing it is enough.

Help me remember that even if there is more to worry about in life right now, it does not mean that there is less to love in life right now.

So protect every inch of our joy, Lord.

And if you could help me stop reading shit on the internet, that might really help too.

Amen.”

 

The Beatitudes - My Version

One of the most beautiful messages in the Bible comes from the Gospel of Matthew, versus 5-12, where Jesus teaches the Beatitudes during His “Sermon on the Mount”.  While there are so many parts of the Bible that are inspiring, the Beatitudes encourage us to live a life of humility, compassion and with a strong desire for justice.  They are simply a way, or THE way, for us to lead our lives.

I recently created a prayer for my students, stealing from Jesus and the Beatitudes, with my own twist to it.  Of course I give Him full credit, and to ensure it’s abundantly clear, that’s not a picture of me delivering this message.  In the age of AI, you can never be too careful, there are probably some who would post the Beatitudes verbatim and take credit, but that’s for a whole different blog post.

Without further fanfare, here is my version of the Beatitudes that I pray for my students (with deep gratitude to Jesus for what he said, and also apologies for falling far short of His beautiful message):

Blessed are the students who absolutely nail my tests

They make me giddy inside

Blessed are the students who nitpick everything I say or write

They make me more precise and detailed

Blessed are the students who aren’t the best and brightest, but they listen, highlight, draw arrows, and do everything possible, and they get a good grade

Blessed are the students who barely come to class, do very little work, and somehow pass, because they remind me of me

Blessed are the student athletes, because someday they will be as enthusiastic and dedicated to their career as they are right now to their sport

Blessed are the students who say “I don’t understand” in class, because probably no one else does either, they’re just willing to speak up and it helps everyone

Blessed are the students who show up at the end of the semester and have done virtually nothing, bargaining for a grade, because it reminds me I’m not a counselor, coach or savior, I’m their teacher, and it may be the best thing for them to fail my class

Blessed are all the students, in every gender, shape, size or personality, because it takes all of us to make life so interesting, special and magical

Life Lessons

 Unfortunately, you’ll probably have to learn these on your own

I recently posted one of my teaching techniques, “50 Shades of Fraud”, which I also expanded into another segment “What Would You Do?”  I use these as real-life examples of work situations, and I allow the students to tell me what they would have done in the situation before I tell them how I addressed the issue.  As I noted, in many cases, my students had a solution that I found better than how I handled it, but I obviously can’t change history.

Another technique I was planning on utilizing was telling my students “Life Lessons” that I learned over my life and career, but I deferred this one simply because we really need to learn our own life lessons for them to be most effective.  I can tell them all I want, what I learned, how I learned it, but I truly believe for a life lesson to be most effective, you really need to experience it fully.  There is one I do share because I believe it’s an important one for them to hear, and I’ll leave that one to the end. 

There are many more I could highlight here, I’ve unfortunately had many painful moments that have taught me a lot, and a few not so painful, but I’ll stop at the top ten I can think of:

Every Life Experience on the Journey is Valuable, Even the Hard Ones

The best illustration I can give of this one is working for a horrible boss.  I’ve had a few, two in particular, and it was extremely painful to work for them.  They were narcistic, habitual liars, had no respect for their employees, and really weren’t very kind or considerate people.  Most days, I dreaded being around them or having to work with them.

What I learned though is how I didn’t want to be treated, and I learned how not to treat people who work for me.  To be honest, I probably learned more from these bad experiences than anything else.  They were the antithesis of good bosses, or even good people, and it gave me role models not to strive for.

Ignorance is a Better Option than Bullshit

When I was at Barco Simulation, my supervisor in Belgium was Michel Vandeplas.  Michel was brilliant, a very smart person, who really knew our industry well.  Michel would ask lots of questions, and after a while, I figured out that in most cases, Michel already knew the answer, he wanted to see if I knew the answer.

Once I got smarter, I learned to just tell him, “I don’t know, but I’ll find out”.  I’d go back, research the issue, and give him a proper answer. 

Not everyone learned this lesson unfortunately, and it could be really difficult for salespeople in particular.  Michel would ask a question, and I’d be dying to advise the salesperson to defer on an answer, but they couldn’t help themselves.  They just had to answer.  The most painful was when one of our salespeople said he was working on a project with a university, and Michel asked what state was that university in?  The salesperson answered, he picked the wrong state, and of course, Michel knew the correct state and knew that the project was bullshit.

People Are Watching You

One of my less favorable traits is that I carry my emotions in my expressions.  When you are in a leadership role, that isn’t necessarily a good trait to have.

There were times when I was a Chief Financial Officer or General Manager, when I was deep in thought, and I would be walking around the building, scowling, thinking or worrying about something.  The next thing you know, there would be rumors or concerns about what horrible tragedy was happening in the company.  Eventually the rumor would work its way to me, and I’d have to assure everyone that the world wasn’t coming to an end, I just looked like it was.

Thankfully, the one person who worked for me for a great deal of time, Nancy Cox-Lupori, wouldn’t put up with it.  She’d come in and tell me, “Wipe that Snoopy-look off your face!”  It’s always good to have someone who can be brutally honest with you.

If You’re Trying to Prove You’re the Smartest Person in the Room, You’re Probably Not

When I was at WIKA, there were two individuals, we affectionately called Yogi and Boo Boo.  They used to love to pontificate on whatever the topic of the day was, going on these meandering speeches, using big words to impress, and never really coming to a point.  As our eyes would glaze over, one of my colleagues would often say, “What’s your solution?"  They never had one, they just liked to hear themselves talk and show us all how incredibly smart they were.

One of my other colleagues used to say, “If they think they’re the smartest person in the room, they’re obviously not, because Felix is.”  Some may disagree, but most of the time, Felix was either the smartest or one of the smartest, but you wouldn’t find him trying to prove it.  He didn’t need to.

Politics Unfortunately Do Matter

I’ve seen many examples of this in my career, but probably the best one is Michael Gerster, who was then the President of WIKA Instruments in the US.  In 2014, we were in the midst of a record sales year, record profitability year, we were just crushing it that year. 

Easter weekend, I was out of town visiting my son Sean at college, and I got the call that Michael had been fired.  The shock and sadness were devastating.  I couldn’t believe it, but in a way, I could.

I was copied on all of the board minutes from WIKA Headquarters in Germany, and when I read them, there was always a negative spin to everything we were doing.  No matter how good our numbers were, something was said to rain on our accomplishments.  I would bring the minutes to Michael, I would express my concern, but Michael would brush it aside, he said there was nothing to worry about.

And that was just it.  Michael just didn’t play the political games.  He did a great job, he was a great leader, but he didn’t manage his boss, and he didn’t manage his peers.  He had no clue he was in trouble, and he didn’t realize at that level, politics do matter.

Yogi Berra Was Wrong, It’s Not Deja-Vu All Over Again

Again, I could give various examples of this, but the best one I can highlight is when I took over as

General Manager at WIKA Sensor Technology.  It was virtually identical to when I took over as General Manager at Barco Simulation.  My time at Barco Simulation was probably the most fulfilling experience of my career, and I thought I was heading for a repeat performance.

Sadly, it was very far from the truth, and there were so many reasons for that, but part of it was probably my attitude going in.  I had an expectation from my prior experience, and I thought I could duplicate it, and even do it better based on my past experience.  Wow, was I ever wrong, it was a different situation, different company, different people, different industry, and really, a different me.  You can’t just go into a situation thinking it will be just like something you’ve done previously, there are way too many variables to take anything for granted.

Words Are Like Bullets, Once They’re Out, You Can’t Get Them Back

Another one where I have so many great examples, but I’ll pick the best, and it happens to be a personal one with Laurel.

Years ago, we were trying to sell our house, it wasn’t going well, and I was losing my mind.  OK, that’s a common occurrence for me, but I was desperate to control our financial situation.  So I developed an incredibly brilliant plan.  I would introduce a Purchase Order Policy within the home!  I think I’m already hearing sounds of horror coming from anyone reading this.

The one Sunday morning, it just happened to be Mother’s Day, I introduced the concept to Laurel.  As I did, and I saw the look on Laurel’s face, I was visualizing reaching my hands out and dragging those words back into my mouth, so that she wouldn’t hear them and wouldn’t have that look on her face.  No, too late, the words were out, they hit the target and exploded.  There was no getting them back.

Set Realistic Expectations for Yourself and Everyone Around You

I wish I could say that I’ve learned and improved on this one, but for the most part, I haven’t.  In so many instances in my work and personal life, I set conquering the sun, the moon, the stars as my goal, and when I only conquer the sun and moon, I’m disappointed. 

I was never satisfied with what I, or more importantly we, accomplished, and I always wanted more, to hit those unrealistic targets I set for my team and me.  If you always set your sights too high, you’ll never hit the mark, and you will forever be disappointed.  I’m trying now, but still, I’ll be grading tests, and when the grades aren’t quite where I’d like them to be, all A’s of course, I dwell on what did I do wrong teaching this topic?  Still, a work in progress.

No One Went to Their Grave Wishing They Worked More

This is the one I share with my students, because I believe it’s so valuable for them to hear.  At various points in my career, I put work first and foremost above anything else.  This was particularly true when I worked at Barco Simulation.  There was at least one year, probably more, where I pitched a shutout.  I missed all four children’s birthdays, Laurel’s birthday, our anniversary, and my birthday.  I was out of town for every special moment, and that doesn’t count all of the games, concerts, Halloween or whatever else I missed along the way.

Of course, you can’t get those back.  I tell my students, don’t be like me.  Live your life, have a balanced life, enjoy your life.  Don’t wait until it’s too late.  

You’re Never Too Old to Learn.  And Change.

When I finally figured out that I bled Barco red, but that really didn’t ultimately matter in the big scheme of life, I changed.  Sure, I still worked hard, but I worked on balancing my life.  I spent time on the important things in my life, not just trying to outwork anyone and everyone.  I’ll bring Felix back into this, once I told Felix, “I can outwork anyone!”, and Felix replied, “That’s really not a good thing.”

And after watching Laurel practice yoga for many years, I finally took it up about seven years ago, and it has been one of the greatest life-changers I could experience.  And finally, about two years ago, I learned to breathe.  For those of you who know how to breathe, you get it, and for those who don’t, it is one of the greatest gifts you can give yourself.  You’re never too old to learn.

I’ll stop at 10, for those who know me, you know I have many stories of screw-ups where I learned a very valuable lesson, but I figure 10 is enough.  And as noted, we typically have to learn these on our own.  I can tell you what it’s like to try to introduce a Purchase Order Policy to your spouse, but you may have to learn that one on your own.  Seriously, don’t do it, it’s a bad, bad idea.  Trust me on that one.