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It was heart-wrenching. The whole world seemed to be talking about Brittany Maynard's medical death sentence. It happened some years ago, she was a young wife, in love with her husband, and looking forward to having children. And then she was told that her incurable cancer would, after a painful decline, take her young life.
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Our daughter has been a married woman for a while. But there's one thing about our conversations that hasn't changed from when she was a very little girl. One of us will call the other one, and I might be real busy, but I'll just dive right into the conversation. At which point my daughter might say, "Wait, Dad. You didn't say it." I know what she means - "Hi, Princess." See that started when she was a little baby in my arms. I will almost always say to her, as I did when she was a little baby, "I love you, Princess." To this day she wants to hear that name.
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The movie opened in theaters on Valentine's Weekend. It was called Fifty Shades of Grey. A hundred million copies of the book had been sold. It was known for its portrayal of a young virgin seduction into sado-masochistic sex in a charming man's "room of pain." I know, gross. A friend told me that it was the talk of all the women in her office; 40- and 50-year-old women "giggling like schoolgirls." Dying to see it. To see a woman submitting to sexual violence in the name of "exploring her dark desires."
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I love the view of Manhattan when you fly into LaGuardia Airport. The view around the runways? Not so much. Water on three sides. The thought has crossed my mind, "A plane could end up in the water some day."
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I've had a number of young women complain to me about a condition they find rampant in young men these days. You could call it "commitment phobia." Or as one author did, "Peter Pan syndrome - I don't want to grow up." A guy's willing to show interest, he's willing to court you, charm you, agree with you, spend money on you, and you reach this level of mutual compatibility. That's good. And then you're on the edge of commitment and he's gone. That's pretty frustrating. And if you're thinking of a name...well, let's keep moving on.
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I ordered out for lunch and of course it came on a paper plate. Guess what I did with the plate when I finished lunch? I didn't wash it, no, I didn't save it for later. In fact, I've never done that with a paper plate.
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I had the cutest little guy join me on my hike. I was in the country exploring a trail that wound along the creek and at first I just saw this little flash of black and white fur toddling along through the grass not far from me. He was all black, except for a nice white stripe all the way down his back, a big bushy tail, a cute little almost kitten-like face. Yes, it was a skunk!
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It wasn't my idea to get a dog. But, I did get pretty attached to little Missy. She became a part of the family; a little shih tzu dog. Now, I never called her Missy Hutchcraft. I mean, I didn't make her a member of the family, but she was cute.
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There's that old country song "Country Roads take me home to the place I..." Well, you know. Sometimes I thought that was my wife's national anthem. She grew up in the Ozarks and boy, she had the memories. Most of them were down some country road, unpaved, rutted, rocky and dusty. With a standard rear-wheel drive vehicle, you'd begin to wonder if you'd ever get back from some of those roads, especially if the weather had been bad.
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I had just finished up a great conference in Canada, and Michael, our Field Director, was there with me. We were walking back to our hotel to pack up and leave. I was really tired and pre-occupied when he handed me this envelope. I noticed a phone message written on it, and I distinctly remember Michael saying something when he handed it to me, but I was concentrating on that message that had been written on the envelope. I looked at who it was and I said to myself, "Oh, I already made that call." And since I was finished with the message, after I got in my room I threw the envelope away.
