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Every New York television station you turned to had the same bold graphic, "Blizzard of '96." I still remember it. It was barely 1996; we were only six days into the new year when anywhere between 20-30 inches of snow unloaded on the Metropolitan New York area. It was like a mega-ton snow bomb hit the area, and it literally drove the Big Apple to its knees.
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I always ask for a window seat on the airplane. Usually aisle seats are more popular because you can stretch your legs a little more. Mine are so short they have plenty of room, no matter where I am. And you can get up when you want to, and when you don't want to, because the two guys on the inside want to get out. Actually, I always have so much to get done during a flight that I like to just set up a little nest there by the window where I can work without getting up or passing food. Unfortunately, I'm so busy sometimes I miss some things that are worth looking at out my window, which is right there. I was flying recently with one of our team members and I was really missing the beautiful scenery of the rocky mountains below me; I didn't even think about them being there. My colleague got my attention, not by reaching over and pointing and shouting, "Hey, look at those mountains, man!" No, he did it with a simple little observation. He said, "You know, mountains sure look a lot smaller from this perspective, don't they?" And I took a good look.
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We were trying to teach some young leaders the importance of teamwork. One of the exercises I used was to have them put together a puzzle. (I thought it was a bright idea.) You tear off a page of a magazine, tear it into pieces, dump it into the middle of each small group, and see who could put their pictures together first. It didn't work too well. See, I forgot one little thing. I forgot to give them a copy of the complete picture so they could see what it should look like when it was all together. Duh! Now, I've tried to work on one of those big, many-pieces puzzles myself, and I've had the same frustration because I didn't know where the top of the puzzle box was. It was really hard to put the pieces together when the complete picture wasn't there.
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When historian Stephen Ambrose wrote the bestseller about their amazing adventure, he appropriately titled it Undaunted Courage. It's one of the many accounts of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, the daring group who explored America's new Louisiana Purchase 200 years ago. As they made their way along the Missouri River, traveling from St. Louis all the way to the Pacific Ocean, most every bend in the river revealed sights and wildlife that no white man had ever seen. One of the many critical moments on their two-year expedition was the point in Montana where they encountered a fork in the Missouri River. There was no map to guide them, and a wrong choice could exhaust their resources for a very long journey. The river to the right was muddy like the Missouri had been. The crew wanted to go that way. But Captain Lewis and Captain Clark assessed the situation, and led their reluctant men down the left fork. When the expedition reached the massive waterfalls that Indian friends had told them they would find, they all knew they had chosen the right way.
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When I was in junior high school, we usually bought one copy of the local newspaper every day. Until the day I won the County Spelling Bee! Yeah, I can do autographs later. I'm sure you're very impressed. Well, that day my parents bought about 20 copies of the local newspaper. What was the difference? Well, my name was in it this time!
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I was at my friend Dave's house, meeting with a group of teenagers, and it happened. We had been eating together out on his porch when the sky suddenly turned really nasty. We hustled inside, just before the skies started dumping rain and thunder and lightning - big time thunder and lightning we're talking here. I wanted to continue our conversation under the dining room table, but no one wanted to join me there, so we went to the living room.
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I really hate it when a five-year-old makes me feel dumb, especially when it's my grandson. I mean, he didn't mean to make me feel dumb. He didn't know he was making me feel dumb. But he is really smart, and he knew a lot about a lot! Like the solar system. He had the planets down cold along with all kinds of facts about the universe. Things I either have forgotten or never knew. Another thing our grandson was really mastering was numbers. Man, could he count! He was working on thousands, millions, billions, and his favorite quantity, a google! When it comes to our universe, he was never going to be able to count that high!
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Joey's story really touched me. Joey ran in the handicapped Olympics that were held in conjunction with the Olympics in Seoul, Korea some years ago. Of course it was at a separate location, and in his particular track event there were only two people competing. Well, Joey got off to a good start, but of course because of his handicaps, his arms and legs were flailing and he wasn't very graceful. The announcer was heard to say at the beginning of the race, "I'm glad I'm not like Joey."
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It was exciting the first time I landed at LaGuardia Airport in New York City. There's the skyline of Manhattan out the window, and water all around us as the plane touched down on the runway. It was only after I had landed that my host in New York told me how they built LaGuardia Airport. He said, "Oh, they built it on the garbage of New York." Landfill in the bay created a base on which an airport could be built.
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There are five Gospels - Matthew, Mark, Luke, John - and the Christian. Most people never read the first four. That observation, made a long time ago, could not be more true today.
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Boom! Suddenly all the lights went out in the conference center where we were staying, just as we were all making our way out of our rooms and down this long hallway to breakfast. No windows. The hallway was longer than usual that morning because it was totally dark. Turns out the entire region experienced a power failure that morning. Because a squirrel got into a relay station and gnawed through a cable. That's fried squirrel and lights out.
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The Indy 500 is probably the most exciting American automobile race of the year. I mean, you can almost feel the anticipation growing during the time trials and the qualifying events that lead up to the big race. And then, on the day itself, the engines rev, and the fans and the promoters cheer, and the cars make their first drive around that legendary track in Indianapolis. But there's really no race until that first lap.
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Well, several years ago it was our turn again for the cicadas to pay us a brief visit. You can't really complain; they only drop by every 17 years. What a life these critters have! They suck on a root in the ground for a while, they finally emerge, they climb a tree, they make a lot of noise for about three weeks, and they die. You talk about "get a life!"
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Marty and his Great Puppy Adventure. That was the lunch time talk around our office when one of our team members became the proud owner of eight new puppies - thanks to his trusty dog, Sister. Each day seemed to bring a new episode; especially as Marty would compare the way of the puppy with the ways of people. He told us one day about trying to replenish their food. His intention was to load up their container with a lot of good things. But they really made it very difficult. See, the puppies were too busy fighting over two little pieces that were left in the corner.
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This could surely come under the heading of "You know it's going to be a bad day when..." Yeah, my wife and I were stopped at a stop light during the rush hour one morning. We were on a local street that intersects the busiest highway in the area in that town. There were two lanes. We were in the left one - the left turn lane. The light turned green, I started turning left. Well, I noticed another car next to me on my right turning from the right lane. Well that's not allowed. You're not supposed to do that; it's illegal, and it's very dangerous at this intersection. Well, suddenly, I guess this guy saw in his rearview mirror - this blinking light behind him. He had just made that illegal turn right in front of a police officer. Needless to say, he was pulled over on the shoulder before he even cleared the intersection. I mean he's not even out of the neighborhood yet and he's been caught.
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It was a hot summer day when my oldest son and I were out working in the yard. I was doing the mowing; he was doing some clipping around the rocks; working just a little bit behind me where I had just mown. And I noticed that he was working pretty hard, and I glanced at him. I was pretty pleased with how he was doing, and I just kind of gave him a quick smile and went back to work.
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OK, so I fought it for a while, and I lived in denial for a while. I finally broke down and got glasses - mostly for reading. I had been the 20/20 kid my whole life. I just couldn't face the fact that the world was getting blurrier and blurrier. I just thought my arms were getting shorter. Suddenly I couldn't hold my reading material far enough from my eyes to make things stop blurring. So, hello, glasses! And what a difference! All those little words that were "fuzzing" out on me suddenly look big and clear, including what I'm looking at right now! It's amazing how clear things start to look when you're seeing them through corrective glasses!
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Governors' desks were vacant. Senators' offices were empty. They might as well have just put a sign on the door - "Gone to Iowa." Yep! It was the election season of 2016. We've been through another one recently but I'm thinking about that one. It had been the time when everyone goes to New Hampshire and South Carolina and on and on in the wild and crazy year when so many people were wanting to be president.
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One little light. That's all it took to render our car totally unusable. The little light in the rear of our vehicle was left on one night after we unloaded some things, and it stayed on for several days while we were gone. When we got back, everything in that car said, "I'm not starting, pal!" because that one little light totally drained our battery. But then came the hero! Yes, up came our friend in his pickup truck with his trusty jumper cables. And those cables delivered the energy that my flat old battery needed to run again!
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The love of Mary Ann's life, Tom, was coming for a visit. He lived in another state, so those visits were really special. He was due to arrive Friday night or Saturday sometime, and Mary Ann's room had been declared a federal disaster area. Finally, on Thursday afternoon, she decided she'd better get busy trying to recover her room. It was really in an embarrassing condition.
