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I think barbers ought to get, like you know, honorary degrees in psychology. They end up listening to everyone's problems and oftentimes they end up giving counsel. Every once in a while I get to hear some of a barber's feelings, and that's when you kind of get the psychology degree. You see, we sort of turn the tables, or the chair as the case may be in the barber shop.
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Someone finally started looking at us Americans and realizing that a bunch of us are a whole lot bigger than we ought to be. I don't mean we're too tall! No. Well, look, I know what the weight battle is all about and I know it's hard, and I know your weight has nothing to do with your worth. But it can have something to do with your health. I guess all the talk about our weight and our health has even affected some of the fast-food restaurants - who might conceivably have something to do with the "widening of America." Oh, they're changing. They're trying to have healthier offerings and reducing fat and sodium. And then, not too long ago, they got rid of something they had started. Remember the "supersizing" thing? We'd go in and they would ask you after you'd placed your order, "Would you like to supersize that?" They might as well have asked, "Would you like to supersize you" in many places? Well, guess what? Now there's no more supersizing.
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I once met a man with a painful illness, and actually we were in a very beautiful place. He owns a charming inn and it's furnished in every room with this great antique collection. It's quite a place to stay. Let's call him Art. Now, his inn is probably one of the most highly praised inns in the country, and it's not just another place to stay. I mean it gets rave reviews in every tourist book you read.
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When I consider today's young people and even my own kids when they were teenagers, I realize that their generations are about to lose some of civilization's greatest wisdom. Some of those old clichés that we were told, well, maybe they've never heard. How about this? "Early to bed, early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise." Well, we have to make sure they get that wisdom. Or probably not, huh?
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I used to think that the more I got on planes and went places the easier it would get. Wrong! It always got tougher to be away from home.
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Where is Malaysia Air 370 and its 239 passengers? Boy, a few years ago, that question obsessed people around the world and in the news day after day after day. I can't remember a time when so many nations (I think there were something like 26 at some point) mounted such a huge search-and-rescue effort across such a wide swath of the world. It was incredible. Why? Well, to search for and, if possible, try to save the people who were lost.
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Ah, sunset! It must be one of the favorite times of the day for photographers and for couples going on a romantic walk. Actually, for just about all of us. I've had the privilege to see the sun sinking beautifully into the horizon of the Atlantic Ocean, the Pacific Ocean, over many of America's majestic mountain ranges, the flaming desert sunsets, and even from many parts of this world. It just doesn't matter where you are on this planet, sunset is just plain beautiful.
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It was April in the mountains of the West, which means you can experience any or all of the four seasons in just one trip. We'd recently started our journey in warm temperatures, but by the time we hit that mountain pass, it started to snow - I mean the thick, big flakes kind of snow. You know what? Actually all of us started singing Christmas carols - even though it was just a few days before Easter. We were racing a deadline, so the snow was a mixed blessing. It was incredibly beautiful, but it was almost blinding at times, and it made our trip slower; it made it more treacherous. And then we saw it - this thin line of sunshine between the bottom of the snow clouds and the tops of the mountains ahead. We were excited because that was our future.
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I don't think this is a surprise to anybody, but high school athletes are pretty impressed with their own bodies. You know, they lift, they work out, they admire their new build, and they compare how much weight they can bench press, and how fast and how far they can run. And that's fine. But the problem is you begin to think that manhood is that physical strength. Well, listen, manhood goes way beyond that. But men of all ages, not just high school athletes, seem to believe that conquest is what shows you're a man: the conquest of a woman, of a goal, of a competitor. Actually there are some very little boys in some very big bodies, and there are some people we might call wimps who are really in the winner's circle. See, we might be missing what manhood really is.
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Lois Lane and Jimmy Olsen! Recognize that? Well, maybe not. They were reporters of The Daily Planet newspaper in a city called Metropolis. At least according to the story of the "man of steel" called Superman. He was, according to the old Superman TV show, "faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive, able to leap tall buildings in a single bound." (I've got to calm down here.) He had been sent here as a baby from the planet Krypton by parents on a dying planet. And he came to earth with, as the announcer used to say, "powers far beyond those of mortal man." So when Lois and Jimmy faced a situation that no normal person could possibly resolve, they would invariably say those words that always precede an amazing solution, "This is a job for Superman!" (I'm okay now.)
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Our dog, Missy, was easily entertained. We just threw her a plastic bottle. That was accidentally discovered one day when a two-liter soda bottle fell on the floor in the kitchen. She pounced on it, grabbed the bottle in her mouth, and shook it viciously. You could tell from three rooms away she was fighting with one of those bottles, because she'd throw it in the air and then she'd try to catch it with her nose. And then it ended up bouncing all over the kitchen. Are you imagining this? You should have seen her ten minutes later. She's sprawled lifelessly on the floor - a blob of fur, totally exhausted from that fight with a plastic bottle. It's amazing how much energy she put into a battle that didn't matter.
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Actually the TV news report was a little amusing. These individuals came into the store, waving a piece of paper indicating they had just won a free DVD player, and they were coming to claim it. What they didn't know was that notice had been mailed by the police to their last known address. See, these people were wanted, but they had disappeared. But when they checked their mail, they had news of having won that DVD player. The amusing part came when the police arrested them on the spot as some of them were actually laughing at what they thought was a joke or some kind of a TV stunt. It was no joke. They were going to jail.
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Ten pounds, ten ounces! Our grandson was born and weighed in at that weight. Man that's a lot of boy! Just ask his mama! And even though he wasn't our first grandchild, there was still something breathtaking and amazing about the arrival of a new person in this world, isn't there? I couldn't help but think of when his daddy was born. I was there in the delivery room when he arrived, and I'll never forget what the doctor said. Now keep in mind, this is a doctor who's, well, seen thousands of deliveries over a long career. As I held my newborn son, the doctor said, "You know, this is the greatest miracle known to man." He got no argument from me.
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A visit to a Baskin-Robbins Ice Cream Shop - that's one of life's simple pleasures. We used to have one near our house, and the kids always enjoyed going there as a treat. And we'd look at all those unusual flavors and then we'd have to make that stressful choice: which one shall I get? Well, several years ago I was in a city to speak, and the committee member who picked me up stopped by his store with me on the way back from the airport - his Baskin-Robbins store. It was closed, so he took me in, pointed to all the cases of ice cream with all those great flavors and said those mind-blowing words, "Take whatever you want!" Oh boy! Not just a single little scoop of one little flavor; it's all available to you, boy! Go for it!
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I've got a lot of friends in law enforcement, and usually they don't show a lot of emotion. But the Cleveland police chief said, "Yes, law enforcement people do cry." I think some of them did when three women, missing for a decade, were suddenly found alive several years ago. They'd been imprisoned. You might remember it, a nondescript house by a man who kidnapped them years before and endured living horrors that we may never fully know.
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Somewhere in the Fathers Handbook, I think it says the father gets to carve the turkey, or the ham, or the roast. And I don't mind; I feel very fatherly when I get to do that, very manly sitting at the head of the table with my super carving knife. But I have observed this phenomenon. Often I end up with an empty plate. See, sometimes at a large dinner gathering, you've got someone who loads up their own plate, starts chowing down and shortstops all the food where they are. Ever notice that it all seems to pile up sometimes in a corner and it doesn't get moved past there? I mean, they're satisfied, so some of us end up with nothing in our corner. Some lucky guy has it all in his corner. Now, what's fair is that you take what you need and then you pass it on to others who don't have any yet. That's how this system works. When you've got plenty. it's just real easy to forget those who haven't been served yet.
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October is really beautiful in a lot of parts of the U.S. It's fall; it's the time, as I told my kids, that the angels come out at night and paint the leaves red and yellow and orange. Pray for my kids. Forget the angel part. The trees really do put on a fantastic show of color in the fall, and spring isn't bad either. I love that fresh green of spring's new life. But in between fall and spring, there's this long stretch where the trees are just basically colored "dead." Well, not all the trees. There's life all year long; there's green all year long. They don't lose their color, however dead and barren the rest of the world around them may be. Hello! They're EVERgreens!
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One of our team members got pretty sick. Linda first developed a high fever, then muscular pain, and then these excruciating headaches. It actually took several tests to uncover what had caused her debilitating symptoms, but the doctor finally concluded she'd contracted Lyme Disease, which of course is carried by little deer ticks. And as Linda thought back, she remembered noticing a big red bite on her body a couple of months before. It occurred to her that it might have been a tick, but you know, she didn't think much about it...until now.
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Well, it happened three times at the Hutchcraft house. Yep, a teenager learning to drive. With all of the angst that goes with that. Not for them, but us! And three times we'd come around to that question happening again and again, "Dad, can I have the car?" I have to tell you, I had real mixed emotions about that, and I had a lot of questions about "How far are you going to go?" "How long will you be gone?" "Where are you driving?" "Who are you going with?" I was apprehensive about turning over that ton of deadly metal to a teenage son. And there's probably some reasons, right?
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I was meeting with an FAA official in preparation to speak at a meeting of private pilots. Actually, the only pilot I know much about is Pontius Pilot, but I had been asked to speak on the subject of peace and stress. Mr. FAA happened to mention to me that there were 10,000 private pilots in the New York area. That's when I became especially grateful for a special group of people called flight controllers. When you're up there in an airplane, and you think about all the other airplanes that are up there with you, it's nice to know that the pilot isn't just trying to figure out by himself where to fly. All across the country, he's got the help of that man or woman in the tower who can see the whole picture of what's going on in the sky or even on the ground. And that pilot doesn't check in, oh just every once in a while. No, he or she makes sure that they stay in touch with the tower!
