Today Would Have Been My Father's 83rd Birthday!

June 6 is an important day in our history because 48 years ago today Robert Kennedy was taken from us all too soon. I often wonder what the world and our lives would be like had the 1960s been different on so many occasions.

The 1960s brought tremendous amount of change for me as a young boy moving from five different communities and learning to adapt to five very different environments. It was also a decade in which my relationship with my dad changed dramatically as I grew up under his tutelage.

I have written about his birthday on several occasions and other times I wrote how he affected me as my mentor, coach and friend. I was my father's shadow in many ways and as I grew older I came to realize just what a wonderful relationship we had.

There was an alternate side of my father I did not know much about until much later. I choose to focus on the positive side of our relationship. That is why I miss him tremendously since he has been gone almost ten years already. I have several pictures of him at various stages of his life on my Screensaver and see him for seven-second intervals every so often.

Attached is my first photograph of him playing with me and teaching me how to blow bubbles in 1957 when I was only two:

Click on the image to make it larger:

Recently, I wrote a blog post that has become one of my most read ever about him coaching me in the summer of 1968 in Sibley, Iowa. After that summer, he accepted the track and cross country coaching job as well as a counselor position at Worthington State Junior College (WSJC) where he stayed for eight years until my family moved again where he took a similar job at Rochester Community College (RCC). He retired after seventeen years in Rochester. 

Several years ago, I was in Worthington in mid-September for the annual King Turkey Days celebration. I took some time and went to visit and give a brief speech for my long time friend Joel Krekelberg who was teaching a class entitled "Prevention and Care of Athletic Injuries." Krek as he is appropriately known in Worthington was teaching his students how to wrap ankles. Every time I get an opportunity to watch him deftly wrap an ankle is a treat because he is so good at!

After his class, I wanted to go over to the athletic building and see if any of my dad's track and cross country teams pictures were still there. We went over there and there were only a few photographs left. The athletic director was there and asked me if I wanted those photos because since track and cross country were eliminated from their sports options, eventually they would be thrown away when the football team pictures crowded them out. I gladly took them and want to share a couple with you now of my father's very successful track and cross country program in the eight years he ran the program that he took over when Bruce Traphagen turned over the program to Dad in the fall of 1968.

I am attaching a couple photographs and their yearly haul of trophies:

As always, click on the images to make them larger:

Some of you may recognize yourself or someone you know. One of the members of the track team, Jerry Schnyders, back row, second from right, I have known since we lived in Edgerton and played baseball together in the mid-1960s!

Roger Schipper who is on the far right in the second row lived with my family for a while when he first moved to Rochester to become the trainer at the Community College. Later, when he was finishing his student teaching, he stayed with Dave Bisbee and me in my first apartment in Minneapolis.

This is fun for me to look at old pictures of not only my dad but also friendships that have lasted many years. I wrote a lot about that in my book.

I look forward to your comments.

Later,

Mike

One Pitch Can Change Everything!

One pitch can change everything from a walk off home run in the bottom of the ninth in game seven of the World Series to keeping a young Iowa junior high school team from going to the state tournament.

Iowa, unlike its neighboring states, of Minnesota, South Dakota and Nebraska has run its baseball program in the summer. The Iowa High School Athletic Association feels it is necessary so young boys can participate in their summer months and run track in the spring if they choose so. In Iowa, I could play four sports. I played baseball in the summer, football in the fall, basketball in the winter and ran track in the spring. I only did that one year as I started going to school in Worthington and commuted with Dad who had started coaching and counseling at Worthington State Junior College in September 1968.That was in my eighth grade year. We stayed in Sibley until our house was completed in February 1969.

The first picture I want to show you is when we were getting ready to go to the 9th District Tournament Championship game to qualify for the Iowa State Tournament:

The next picture is the rundown of our game as it appeared in the Sibley Gazette:

 

The next picture was our practice picture and does not have all the team members at practice.


I want to show you our team of student/athletes at our practice field, which doubled as a demolition derby on weekends at the Osceola County Fairgrounds. It was an all dirt field with very little grass in the outfield. My dad was our coach, bus driver, groundskeeper and third-base coach. He had to reinstall the pitching rubber every Monday after a demolition derby that weekend and performed any other tasks deemed necessary. He is standing on the far right. He also coached the high school team.

Our loss came on one pitch in the bottom of the seventh when Mark Huisenga hit a smash up the middle and the pitcher blindly snagged, which abruptly ended our rally and our season. It was a sad ride home that day.

Baseball was fun to play and watch. I miss being able to play catch with my dad with a baseball, football or shoot baskets with him teaching and mentoring me all the way.

The regulations that govern Iowa baseball state your birthday has to come before a certain day to be eligible to play on that team. We were lucky because our three best players all have the same birthday falling into the parameters in the rulebook. Bob Wahl, Dan Pomerenke and Mark Huisenga were those players.

I built lifelong friendships with that team and still keep in touch through Facebook with a few of them, their friends, sisters, wives and other people from Sibley. We only lived in Iowa for two and one-half years; but it was an active, carefree, fun existence for a young boy in a quiet, little town in northwest Iowa in the late 60s!


I often think about what other memories we would have made if that pitcher had not made that one pitch!

Now, I get my coaching and mentoring fun by watching the Minnesota Twins and the University of Minnesota's Gophers men's basketball team. Both of them have been hard to watch lately.

As always, I look forward to your comments.

Later,

Mike

Dean Kamen Has A New Project

You may recognize the name Dean Kamen as the inventor of the iBot, the wheelchair that stands up and works on gyros to place paraplegics in a standup position as well as doing things like climbing stairs. He is also the inventor of the Segway.

Mr. Kamen has never found a project he did not like to try and solve. He owns more than four hundred American and International patents on various things from medical devices to now a water purification product that could save millions of lives!

Now, at 63, Dean Kamen is working on what may be his biggest problem! He is certainly not slowing down just because of his age, and is truly a lifelong learner and teacher.

I just read an incredible article that was originally published in June 2014 in Popular Science magazine and is now available at this website: http://www.popsci.com/article/science/pure-genius-how-dean-kamens-invention-could-bring-clean-water-millions

It is an informative read and the numbers are staggering about what our world can be if we simply had clean water!

To think over one billion people, that is almost one-seventh of the world's population, does not have access to clean drinking water on a daily basis. I had heard about Kaymen's most recent adventure in a news story on the radio on my way to acupuncture yesterday.

After doing a little research on Dean Kamen and knowing him from his past adventures, I found this article. According to the article, “Fifty percent of all the people in the developing world suffer from waterborne pathogens,” he says. “We’d empty half the beds in all the hospitals in the world if we just gave people clean water.” The Slingshot won’t be the solution for all of those people, Kamen says, but he sees no reason not to strive for that.

It seems the product has been in development as far back as 2004, but is only now coming to fruition. The thing I like about the project and its implementation is the involvement of Deka Research and Development (Kamen's company) and his partnership with Coca-Cola. Coca-Cola was on board from the very beginning after Kamen gave his pitch back in 2004.

The device is known as the Slingshot after the mythical slingshot, which with David slew Goliath. He is literally trying to rid the world of people getting sick and dying from drinking water. If you are reading this, chances are your water is safe. Imagine being able to hook one of these Slingshots up to a hose and getting clean water from contaminated water filled with all kinds of waterborne impurities!

Here is a Slingshot, which appears at the end of the article:

As always, click on the image to make it larger:

The article explains much better than I can how the Slingshot works.

Like many inventors before him Dean Kamen sees a problem and then finds a solution. I am fascinated with people like that! He is a modern day Thomas Edison or Nikola Tesla.

Imagine if we could empty hospitals by one half and save millions of lives every year simply by giving people good, clean water!

I look forward to your comments.

Later,

Mike

You Can Go Home!

We have all heard people say, "You can't go home."

That simply is not true, at least for me. I did it again last weekend when I went home to Worthington, Minnesota for their annual King Turkey Day celebration. I love going to Worthington on Turkey Day weekend because I always run into people I knew both before and after my accident.

Plus, there is always the added attraction of meeting new people at any turn. I had another goal this year and that was to sell more of my books and schedule speaking engagements. That way, I could deduct my mileage, lodging and related expenses for my trip.

My goal was achieved before I even checked in to the local AmericInn where I stay pretty much every year. I booked my room a year in advance every time I check out, so I am set for next year.

I no sooner got in the door and a gentleman standing in front of me turned and asked me, "Are you Mike Patrick?"

I chuckled a little bit, and replied, "Yes I am. How do you know me?"

He replied, "I've heard you speak a couple times and you are very good."

I chuckled again a bit and said, "Thank you. When and where did you hear me?"

He said, "I've heard you twice. I heard you at teacher workshop in Mankato when I was teaching in Wells. You also came and spoke at our high school when I was still at Wells. I'm retired now. But, I often think of things you said and remember many of your direct quotes."

I thought that was pretty cool he remembered some of my quotes!  I was at Wells-Easton High School April 17, 1990! He was quoting me from a speech I gave more than twenty-four years ago! I thought that was pretty cool!

Then he said, "The problem isn't the issue, the issue is how you deal with the problem." That is my quote verbatim!

Then he told me he is retired now and is a member of the school board. I told him it was time to come back. Since he has heard me before, I gave him one of my books "I Still Believe In Tomorrow" and asked him to give it to the superintendent and/or principal at their new high school. He asked me how much he owed me for the book and I told him nothing since it was a promotional piece and I gave them away if I was going to get a speech out of giving away a book. We chatted for a while and the story could fill the rest of this post.

When his wife had finished the check-in process, I came up to the counter and the woman behind the counter told me she was at the game the night I got hurt and remembered it like it was yesterday! She wanted to know if she could get one of my books. She wanted it for personal use and said she wanted to pay for it!

I have not even checked in to my room and I had already accomplished my goal of booking a school and selling a book! I was off to a good start!

Once we got checked in, Robert, my personal care attendant, (PCA) and I went to get something to eat so I could take off and start my quest to build on my early success.

I started towards the Nobles County Fairgrounds because they have a beer garden and other King Turkey Day activities in the facilities. I stopped in to the Activities and Antiques building just to look around and kill some time. Before I got there, I ran into Worthington's mayor, Alan Oberloh. I tease him because he is not your typical small-town mayor. He has a beard that could fit him right in as one of the guitar players for ZZ Top! He invited me to come to the Mayor's Brunch the next morning at 9:15 AM and he would give me a couple minutes of microphone time to pitch my book.

I told him I did not know if I could make that because of the timing and wanting to be downtown for the 10K race at 10 o'clock. As it turned out, I did go to the brunch and gave him a hard time about making me kiss a turkey when I spoke as their guest speaker two years ago. There is another blog post back two years that talks about that whole traumatic experience and the lasting affects it has had on me!

I had brunch with my favorite Worthington detective and his wife, and then took off early to get downtown. I got to see several friends, family members and long time, lifelong runners as they started the race and watched them finish after running around Lake Okabena.

My day was just beginning and I spent a good time in the early fall sun which gave me a nice red face, large forehead and rather sore top of my head!

I spent the evening crashing the Class of 1974 and 1964 reunions connecting with many old friends who many wanted to tell me stories of how my accident affected them.

One of my long time friends, Sheila Hawkinson, took the bull by the horns, grabbed several books and worked both rooms to sell dozens of my books! She was tremendous! Many photographs were taken on peoples' iPhones and Androids with lots of smiles and even some tears as cameras were in my face all evening.

I asked many people to send me photographs for my Screen Saver Collection and if you are reading this, please send those photographs either to my email address or put them on my Facebook page. Thank you.

There are already several photographs on my Facebook page. One of them is this photograph of Cindy Taylor-Moll and me at the 1974 Reunion: 

Click on the image to make it larger:

I could go on and tell you many more stories about going home and what a pleasure it always is to go to Worthington. This is a long post, so I will not keep you any longer. Let me say, "Don't believe people when they tell you can't go home."

Sunday morning found us stopping at one of my favorite TACO JOHN'S eateries to load up with plenty of calories to drive two hundred miles back home with another great King Turkey Day experience behind me. It is always hard to leave Worthington because there was people I wanted to see and did not and the conversations I did have were never long enough.

As always, I look forward to your comments and pictures. 

Later,

Mike

The Latest News On Tammy!

As my frequent followers know, I am a proud big brother of all the accomplishments my youngest sister, Tammy, has been doing these last few years. Her most recent position after being a member of the Presidential Commission on Election Reform was announced on Thursday she will be working for the Bipartisan Policy Center located in Washington, DC.

Tammy and her husband, Jeff Farias, have relocated to a huge house on the Maryland shore for the next year to year and a half while Tammy works for the center.

To read the press release from the Center, click here. If that does not come up, you can get it at this URL: http://bipartisanpolicy.org/news/press-releases/2014/08/bipartisan-policy-center-presidential-commission-election-administration.

I especially like this paragraph taken directly from the press release: "BPC will focus on these key recommendations in the year ahead: reducing polling place lines, addressing the imminent voting machine technology crisis; online registration; cross-state data sharing efforts; improving the Department of Motor Vehicles registration process; ensuring that schools can be used as polling places; and creating opportunities for voting before Election Day."

I am so proud of the fact she is making a difference for the entire country. Voting for everyone is a right and she is helping to see everyone's vote gets counted. I believe that is a huge step forward in light of recent scandals we have had where people were not allowed to vote and laws have been written to exclude certain classes of people.

When Tammy was working on the commission, they often met with top officials in the  Executive Branch of the government including the president and vice president. I am attaching a photograph of one of their meetings when President Obama And Vice President Biden are looking at Tammy. I get a charge out of it every time I look at it: 

You can tell the President is talking to her because Tammy's name placard is in the lower right hand of the screen. Click on the image to make it larger:

This is the fifth post I put up about Tammy. If you click on her name below, you may read the other posts. Yes, I know I posted this picture in one of the other posts; but I am so proud of her and love this picture so much I cannot get enough of it!

Have I said yet how proud I am to be her big brother? Oh wait, I guess I did that in the last paragraph. Just pretend this paragraph does not exist.

Right now, my mother is visiting Jeff and Tammy for a two-week, well-deserved vacation. Tammy is getting back at her by taking lots of pictures of grandma doing everything from taking pictures when they visited Monticello to taking pictures of her with her toes in the sand of the Atlantic. Yes, mom had a book at Monticello and she took pictures of flowers.

Jeff's mother, Nancy, will be joining them soon, and the two grandmas will have lots of stories to tell each other. That is if they can keep their noses out of a book. Mom wrote in one of her threads how she had finished two books and was working on the third. I am sure that one is done by now and it is on to number four.

I am going to close this post with a picture of my mother relaxing and reading through her eyelids. If you know my mom, you know she loves flowers and books. She always has two or three books going at any one time. At seventy-seven she is living proof that lifelong learning is going on in her head.

Click on the image to make it larger:

As always, I look forward to your comments.

Later,

Mike

Football Season Is Here Again!

Once again as summer gives way to fall, our annual rite of football season is upon us. The National Football League has already had its Hall of Fame game with a full slate of preseason games coming up this weekend.

College football teams are working diligently twice a day to improve on last year's records. High School teams are preparing in some parts of the country, and others are getting ready to start practice either next week or the following.

Young boys and girls as young as six and seven years old are dragging mom and/or dad to the local sports shop to buy equipment for their rapidly growing bodies. I have a real problem with that!

Parents all over the country believe they need to start Little Johnny or Janie in these athletic programs at earlier and earlier ages all the time. I do not believe these programs should start until these young bodies are a little more developed. I have had that feeling for many years and now with all of the injury studies being done with older college and professional athletes we are seeing the damage all of the hitting is taking on people's bodies as they age.

The concussion epidemic we are seeing now should have been made years ago. There is too much money in all levels of not only football, but all the other sports as well. I do not believe these young boys and girls need to start at such a young age when their bodies are growing so rapidly and changing literally day-to-day.

For my Prevention and Care of Athletic Injuries class at the University of Minnesota in the late 70s, I did a paper on severe neck injuries in football. I will never forget some of the research I did mostly in a magazine published right here in the Twin Cities called The Physician & Sports Medicine Journal. Remind you, this paper was done almost forty years ago.

Before I start to talk about some of the numbers, let me tell you about the professor and my grade. She handed back my paper with not one red mark on it! Out of a 20-point possible score, she gave me a 19.7! Her note read, "This paper is perfect. You did an excellent job in your research. I wouldn't change a thing."

Mind you, I was only twenty-two or twenty-three and I took exception to her comment and not giving me a perfect 20 if my paper deserved it. After class, I went up and after why I did not get 20 if she would not change a word of my paper?

Her reply was, "I don't believe in perfection."

I asked, "Then why did you write on my paper, "It is perfect. …"?

Then a discussion ensued, and of course I did not get my grade changed because the professor was right (in her own mind) and she was not about to change my grade. That still bothers me to this day! Can you tell?

One of the most glaring statistics that came out of that paper was 70% of all high school players would get hurt in a year, 90% of all college players would get hurt and 100% of all professional football players would get hurt in the upcoming season. Their definition of getting hurt consisted of missing one or more plays due to injury in a game.

I am not sure if that is a very good parameter for considering an injury in a football game. But, who am I to question the scientists? Remember, those were numbers from the 1970s and included all injuries.

I hope today's equipment, rules and coaching techniques have changed dramatically to protect the athletes, especially the younger ones.

One of the problems I see with older athletes is the sheer size and strength they possess. The recent NFL lawsuit is showing some staggering statistics on the toll these repetitive hits are doing to players from head to toe. Is the state-of-the-art of football equipment adequate to protect these larger, stronger and faster players?

That goes right down to the younger players. Another fact I learned from researching my paper was — the neck musculature is the last muscle mass in the body to develop. No wonder I got hurt! I only had a small neck to protect my extremely large head! (I know that will bring some snickers to some of my readers). Here is my individual photograph from a couple weeks before my accident:

Click on the image to make my head even larger:

I am not trying to make this a negative post. I love football! I love watching football; I just do not like watching all the injuries. It physically sickens me when I watch a player who has to be strapped onto a body board and carried off the field. I loved playing football! I regret one play, that is it! I learned a lot from all the competitive sports I competed in as an adolescent. I made lifelong friends I still see today, both teammates and players I competed against. I would not be where I am today if it were not for all of the competition and cooperation I learned in competitive and cooperative team sports.

I like to tell people, "I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for football, but if it wasn't for football, I wouldn't be here." What I mean by that is if it were not for football I would not have gotten hurt. However, if it was not for football, basketball, baseball, track, tennis and golf, I would not have learned to compete. I compete today not against another team; but rather, against myself.

One of my goals is to make myself better every day. I try to learn at least one new thing every day. Imagine what you could do in a lifetime if you did that! If you are in school they would like you to learn more than one new thing a day! But, if you are an adult think how much you will learn in your lifetime if you are learning one new thing every day. It can be powerful stuff! It is all about your attitude!

As always, I welcome your comments.

Later,

Mike

A Motivational Story

Two words can change everything! I often tell you I never know where my inspiration is going to come from for one of my posts. That happened again for this one. Yesterday, I posted this motivational story on my Facebook page:

Click on the image to make it larger:

I like that, short, sweet and to the point. Four words tell the whole story. Or so I thought. I received several Likes and a Comment; then, Tim Doll wrote this comment:

 "I can. I will. I did. End of story."

Two words changed the whole story for me. It was so simple and yet changed the way I looked at my entire project. If you are a longtime reader, you know I am all about education and lifelong learning.

Two words had me thinking about this for several hours last night and all day today. It was not until I called Tim to discuss what exactly I was going to write.

Let me tell you a little bit about my friend, Tim Doll. When we lived in Sibley, Iowa, I was a member of the Boy Scouts. Tim is a couple years older than me and his father, Al Doll along with Chuck Uzzo were our troop leaders. Chuck's son, Brent was also in our troop.

Little did I know how our lives would intertwine more than forty-five years later after we moved away from Sibley in February 1969.

It turns out Tim came to college at Worthington State Junior College shortly after my father became a coach and counselor there. Tim just told me when he was in high school and felt lost, my dad became a mentor and counselor for him and was one of the guiding influences in his life as a teenager with no focus. He holds my father in high esteem. I did not know that until our conversation today.

I cannot begin to tell you how many times people have told me over the years how much of an influence my dad had on them in their formative years. I have posted other stories about my dad you can find on my calendar.

When I was a freshman and sophomore in high school, I was the vice president of my class. Michele Naab was our treasurer. In the fall of 1973 Michele met Tim at the college. They were married shortly thereafter and have been together ever since.

They now run a vineyard entitled Villa Rustica just outside tiny Dunnell, Minnesota. To visit their Facebook page, click here.  If that does not get you there, click on this URL:https://www.facebook.com/pages/VILLA-RUSTICA/237844439595886  I absolutely love the idea they are making wine in southwestern Minnesota!

Besides that, they have made more than forty trips to Greece where they take a small group of people on a working vacation and made their own little cottage industry to make virgin olive oil for their clients. Creativity and entrepreneurship is alive and well in that household! I am very happy to count them as my friends.

I was not sure where this post was going when I started it. I believe my purpose has turned into showing how we can take our passions and make a life worth living. You have heard the old saying, "If you love what you do, you will never work a day in your life." I am guessing here, but I will bet Tim and Michele will tell you they do not feel like they work at all when they are in their vineyard or making olive oil in the Mediterranean.

I want to close this with a photograph from one of the activities we did as Boy Scouts in Sibley.  We were collecting free clothing and I love the look on our faces as volunteerism was a part of my life from an early age.

Again, click on the image to make it larger:

I look forward to your comments.

Later,

Mike

Good Grammar Part Two

Last year in my March third and my September thirtieth posts I wrote about how I believe good grammar is going the way of the dinosaur. I mentioned several examples of how people who should know better are using poor grammar. I still believe that is wrong. I strongly believe we are dumbing down not only our youth in schools, but the adult population as well. In my September 30, 2013 post, I stated, "Those are just two suggestions. I have many more. I will save those for another post." 

Well, this is that post. You may reach those sites by clicking on these URLs:

http://iamnotdoneyet.blogspot.com/2013/03/what-happened-to-good-grammar.html

http://iamnotdoneyet.blogspot.com/2013/09/are-we-dumbing-down-our-young-people.html


A few days ago, I posted this graphic on my Facebook page in the form of a test, and asked people if they had passed it. I received several comments agreeing with me and giving me examples. I would like to share both the graphic and some of the comments made in response to it:

My comments started out with one from Laurie in Maine with this, "… I see them all spelled wrong every single day but I have learned to let it go! I realized it was making me crazy to see it … now it just doesn't. All I have to care about is if I spell it right!  Makes for much less stress inside me!

Amy from Worthington wrote, "I also notice it a lot. My Mom was a stickler for good grammar, and now, so am I. I still cringe when I hear it spoken!"

Then I stated, "I have learned to pick my battles." What I meant by that was there are certain times I will correct someone because they have told me they want to change and they appreciate my teaching them. Other times, I just consider the source and have given up on trying to change someone's bad speech patterns. I figure they will learn in due time; and it may sink in sooner or later.

Another situation will happen when I do not know the individual and figure I am not going to change his or her behavior by correcting her or his grammar. Like I said, "I have learned to pick my battles."

Amy then followed with, "I never say anything to the offender, but I mentally thank my Mom."

Jeanne commented, "An advantage of working at school, I passed easily! However, I agree with you about picking your battles!"

Angela from Ireland, then stated, "Thank you Mike! Please send this to everyone everywhere; these are all errors that make me unreasonably upset on a daily basis. Becoming pedantic in my old age."

Eric, is now teaching in Egypt for two years along with his wife, Donna, wrote this, "Don't you guys get it ... Mike will NEVER stop picking this battle. And he shouldn't! …" He followed that with,  "Us old farts have to keep the language alive if we possibly can."

Eric also said, "Teaching in the Minneapolis public schools for 30 years has caused me to take a hit being able to speak proper English … but keep on fighting the good fight my friend!"

There were a couple more, longer quotes from Eric and other teachers; and I started talking about other grammar mistakes that bothered me until I got a quote from Di in New Zealand who stated she passed my little grammar test with flying colors!

My last post was this, "Another grammatical faux pas that really bothers me is when people split their infinitives! I get especially annoyed when professionals on the TV news or sports broadcasts say something like, "They play that way, still." That is just wrong! One would think professional journalists never took English Composition 101."

The thing I found remarkable about my Facebook post was how I had received Comments from three different continents and Likes from approximately fifteen states. I love the fact the Internet can teach all over the world! I have Facebook friends from five continents and I do not know how many countries are represented by people that read this blog either on Blogger, Google+ or other means of Internet transmission. I do know my website has been visited by people from well over one hundred countries!

I also do not know how many people have bought my book that live outside of the United States. I believe that is kind of cool, and incredible to think someone halfway around the world is reading this post right now!

I look forward to your comments and any grammar related issues that cause you pain to hear!

Later,

Mike

I Upgraded To An iPhone

Several days ago, I received a notice from Verizon telling me I was eligible to upgrade to a free iPhone. I was skeptical at first because I have tried using them at other times with no success. My manual dexterity just is not good enough to touch the buttons with my fingertips, and I did not think I could use one.

I know they have voice recognition, email, a camera, the Internet, and several other useful apps. It also has hundreds if not thousands of apps I will never use; but, the offer was too good to turn down so I decided to go for it. Does anyone use their level app on a construction site or to hang a picture? When I got it home and looked for the operating instructions, there were none! How am I supposed to know how to run my new iPhone if I do not have any directions? Everything comes with directions. I even got directions with my new toaster! A toaster is much easier to use than an iPhone!

You know how men never ask for directions when driving and never need instructions on how to do anything, which is why there are always a couple nuts and bolts left over after you have put your child's new bicycle together at Christmas! Well, I am not one of those men. I thought I could at least get some things right on my own; but it was not to be. So far, I did get a cover because I could hook my lanyard in to make it easier for me to hold and pick up if I drop it.

There was already a phone call on it when I managed to turn it on; however, I cannot figure out how to answer that voicemail. I will get it; it is just going to take some time. I have not had a chance yet to go to the Apple site and see if they have directions on how to operate an iPhone with voice recognition. That is coming right after I post this blog. Wish me luck!

I liked the flip phone I had just fine until it stopped working last week and I was unable to take part in a weekly conference call I usually do from 11 a.m. to 12 noon on Fridays. I found my phone was not working on Thursday and decided I may as well take the plunge and get with the newest technology.

Besides, I think a $750 phone for free is a pretty good deal, even if I cannot use it. I could not use my old phone anymore either. What do I have to lose? If nothing else, I will ask some teenagers to help me figure it out and have them show me how to use my newest toy.

At least now I will look cool carrying around my new iPhone! I just hope no one asked me to make a call for them!

I always talk about lifelong learning, change, growth and development, critical thinking and all the skills I am going to need to figure out how this thing works. If anyone has any suggestions, or helpful  tutoring sites, please leave a comment at the end of this post. I would appreciate it.

I look forward to your comments.

Later,

Mike

P.S. If you have not read my last post and the very moving comments, you really should take a few minutes and read it by clicking here: http://iamnotdoneyet.blogspot.com/2014/05/witnessed-killings-at-kent-state.html

Intuition

When you read the word "intuition" what do you think? Do women hold the exclusive rights to intuition, or do men have intuition as well? It is an interesting thought.

We often hear about women's intuition, but rarely do we hear about men's intuition. Why is that?

Several years ago, I gave a workshop at the University of Minnesota's Landscape Arboretum for a group of about thirty social workers one morning. I was done with my section at noon as the group broke for lunch. I could have gone home, but something told me I wanted to stick around and listen to what this woman had to say in the afternoon session on intuition. I was very glad I stayed.

My own intuition was telling me to stay, and I listened to it. We were sitting in a large circle in one of the beautiful conference rooms they have at the conference center. I cannot find the woman's name who was leading the group, but she started talking about both male and female intuition. I was sitting next to a young man of about twenty-five.

At one point in the discussion, he asked her, "Would intuition be like if I was playing football and I didn't feel quite right, so I asked to sit out a play, sit down on the bench, put my head down between my legs and wait for this feeling to go away? Would that be intuition?"

Now mind you, I was sitting right next to this young man who was in the same position I was in about twenty years earlier. After he finished, I looked up and everyone was looking at me including the instructor. I looked at her and said something like, "Why did I stay here this afternoon? I could've gone home at lunch. I was supposed to hear that, wasn't I?"

The instructor said, "Yes, I believe you were."

I honestly believe my intuition was telling me all day long the day of my accident something was not right. I did not listen to it! Instead, I chalked it up to nerves. I was just nervous because it was my first varsity game, and I was nervous.

The irony in this entire experience for me was a month before that I spent the first two weeks of August at my aunt and uncle's farm near White, South Dakota helping on the farm like I had done for several years before I was old enough to drive. That summer from August first to August fifteenth I spent helping my aunt and uncle at their farm and spending some time at my grandma and step grandfather's farm doing whatever I could to help. I loved my time each summer I spent working on the farms and working out in the evenings preparing for football. I would run around the section which was four miles each night, do wind sprints in the yard, exercised, stretched and prepared for my upcoming football season.

When I went to leave that day and go back to Worthington, I had this strange feeling something was not right. I drove down the road about fifteen miles and the feeling did not go away, it just got stronger. I turned around and went back to the farm. When I entered the house my aunt asked me what was going on. I told her I had forgotten something and I believe I had left it in my room. I went upstairs, sat down on the bed for a few minutes and the feeling went away.

I believe my intuition was telling me something was going to happen on my drive home. I listened to my intuition that day, and that pit in my stomach went away. Two and a half weeks later, on September 3, 1971, I did not listen to my intuition and I broke my neck. I believe that with all my heart.

Do you always listen to your intuition when it is telling you to do or not to do something? Do you believe in intuition? Do you believe women have it and men do not?

What would have happened had I not gone in to the game that night because I told my coach, "I don't feel right,"? Would the feeling have gone away if I had sat out that play? We will never know because it never happened. Intuition is funny that way.

Before I close, I want to tell you how I came upon writing this post tonight. A little more than a week ago, someone signed me up for a new Facebook page titled "Growing up in Worthington, Minnesota." I did not sign up for it because I did not really grow up in Worthington. Worthington was the eighth town I had lived in before I was fourteen years old. We never lived in any town more than three years and any one location more than eighteen months. My dad was always getting a better job so we were constantly on the move to the next place that was a little bigger, had a few more amenities to offer a young boy growing up and paid my dad a little more money. I believe all of the changes I had to go through as a young boy prepared me for the life-changing moment that happened to me when I broke my neck. It was preparing me to deal with all of the changes I have had to adjust to since that night. It set me on my path of lifelong learning.

Someone signed me up for this page and I started getting friend requests immediately. I noticed a woman was commenting and liking several of the same posts I was responding to. So I looked at her profile and decided to see if Cathy wanted to be my friend. Her acceptance was almost immediate. I had never had someone respond to a friend request so quickly. I rapidly found out there was a reason for my intuition to tell me to become her friend.

We have become fast friends, chat quite often and have spent several hours already talking on the telephone. My intuition told me to friend her and I am very glad I listened to it. She is the one who recommended I do this post on intuition tonight as we both shared stories of how intuition has affected our lives numerous times. So, Cathy this post is for you. Thank you.

As always, I look forward to your comments.

Later,

Mike

Seventy-two Years Ago Today

Seventy-two years ago today, America was waking up to the news of the worst attack on American soil in the history of our nation. Pearl Harbor had been bombed by Japanese pilots in a raid that murdered thousands of Americans stationed on that tiny island of Oahu in the South Pacific Ocean.

The mission was simple: destroy the American fleet in the South Pacific and gain military dominance to control that entire section of the world.

Shortly thereafter, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt declared war on the Japanese and brought us into World War II.

It had only been a little more than twenty-three years since the Great War had ended on November 11, 1918 with the Treaty of Versailles that ended the "War to end all wars." After what is now known as World War I ended and the United States became the greatest isolationist country in the world, we were thrust back into war that would take us to Asia, Europe and North Africa.

We fought against three dictators and allied ourselves with one. In very short time, the American fighting forces have become the largest and best-equipped military in the history of the world.

Notice in my description I used extreme terms like worst, greatest, largest and best. I did that for a reason. Granted, today marks the anniversary of what President Roosevelt called, "A day that will live in infamy."

It was only sixty years later when we had a new greatest attack on our country when more Americans were killed on September 11, 2001.

The problem I have with all these hyperboles is they are overused in our everyday speech and writing. How many times have you heard someone say something like, "This is the worst cup of coffee I have ever had."?

Another one is when a reporter is describing a story and he or she will say, "This is a parent's worst nightmare." Another one is when someone is describing a problem and they say, "This is the biggest problem I have ever had to deal with."

With our ever-changing technology and people writing and saying things that can go all over the world instantly, I believe we need to take a look at just what it is we are saying. I want to attach I hand out I have often used in workshops I call "50 Words I Never Use":

Click on the image to make it larger:

You may notice some discrepancies in my list. Please note this list is done purely with my tongue lodged in my cheek. I am positive there are many more words that could go on this list; I just thought fifty was a nice round number.

My whole point in writing this post is to get people to think about the words they use and how they use them. You may or may not agree with me; however, I believe our words are very important and we need to think about how we use them before we say or write them down. Was that really the best hamburger you ever had? Does everyone have a cell phone? Is that the stupidest thing you have ever heard? Is she really the smartest person in the room?

I promise to never post something like this again.

I look forward to your comments.

Later,

Mike

Why Are We Here?

I have been thinking about this post for several days, and I am still not exactly sure where it will go. So, please bear with me as I may start to ramble; although, many of my regular readers already know that about me.

For some time now, I have been having very vivid dreams about my dad, my grandparents, great-grandparents and even extended family members. Some of them I never even knew. However, they are showing up in my dreams and I am trying to figure out why.

You may or may not know I have sleep apnea. When I was first tested, they found I woke up and went to sleep every thirty seconds. As a result of that, I never got into REM sleep. I would always wake up more tired than when I went to bed. I would often fall asleep sitting in my chair watching a movie or even talking with friends and/or family members. I was tired all the time and driving was beginning to be a problem as I had a hard time staying awake.

Once I started to wear a BiPAP machine, I got into good, deep, REM sleep and my dreams became very intense. After all, REM sleep is the only stage of sleep when we dream. I learned years ago our average dream is only about twenty seconds in length. I also learned we tend to dream about the last thoughts we had before we fall asleep.

One of the problems I get frustrated with is I rarely remember my dreams. Last night I did remember one and it was about my maternal grandfather, Joe Smith. By the way, if you were to come up with an alias, could you come up with a better one than Joe Smith?

Grandpa died at age eighty-six peacefully one Sunday morning watching Mass in the same spot in the living room my grandma died thirty-one years earlier on a Sunday morning while the rest of the family was at Mass. She stayed home that day because she had fallen and broken her leg and was not comfortable getting in the car and sitting in a church pew for an hour. They were also married for thirty-one years. There are so many serendipitous factors around their two deaths that always amaze me how they peacefully passed into the spirit world.

On the other side of my family, my grandfather, Ben Patrick was killed by lightning while working a field in 1942. He was only thirty-seven years old. He was the oldest of six children and his younger brother, my Great Uncle Stanley lived to be one hundred years old! Three weeks later, he passed away. He had reached his goal and it was time to join his siblings and his parents in the afterlife.

Here is one of my favorite photographs of my Grandfather Ben, Great Uncle Stanley and Great Aunt Hazel Patrick taken in 1911: Click on the image to make it larger:

I love Stanley's curly hair. Stanley and I would have great conversations over these last several years. He told me stories about his brother Ben and his sister-in-law Irene I did not know. He was a treasure trove of knowledge and information from his time here on earth. I loved listening to his stories. Now he is gone and that wealth of knowledge is gone with them. I believe that is sad.

I have so many pictures from both sides of my family I am having a hard time choosing which ones to post.

Now, I want to talk about my dad because I have been thinking a lot about him lately. I posted about him on June 6th and you can read that post by clicking here. June 6th would have been his eightieth birthday. Unfortunately, he died July 23, 2006. He was my best friend and I miss him every day.

Here is a picture of Dad and me in the summer of 1968 when he was coaching my junior high school baseball team in Sibley, Iowa:

Again, click on the image to make it larger:

I am still not certain the point I'm trying to make with this post. It is just in these dreams these relatives and several others are alive and are all young adults, as am I. I find myself in various stages of my life with these dreams and others. Often times I am able to do things I could before my accident, and other times I find myself in my post-accident life.

I do not know what a psychologist would tell me about these dreams with my dead relatives. I am not sure I want to know!

I just know they all had an impact on my life in one way or another even though I may never have met them. My dad was a tremendous influence on me growing up. I see myself doing things and saying things he would have said. Like many of us, we find ourselves turning into our parents. I told you earlier my dad was my best friend.

Today, my mom is my best friend. We spend time on the phone almost every day. She also does some of my attendant care and stays with me every weekend. She has had two near-death experiences, one of them just a couple of years ago when she was in a coma for twelve days!

Am I learning things from these dreams in these relatives who are long gone? I do not know. Do I need to experience life with them through my dreams? I do not know.

Besides my mother and father, the most influential individual in my life was far and away my paternal grandmother, Irene Smith Patrick Grieme. I was the oldest grandchild and grandma was alone from 1942 until 1967 when she finally remarried Leslie Grieme. He also taught me many things when I stayed with them on weekends and for two weeks every summer for about five years until my accident.

I can extend this post much longer by sharing all kinds of stories about grandma, but I will not do that. Suffice it to say, I miss her tremendously as well.

Like I said at the beginning of this post, I was not exactly sure where was going to go. I have rambled on long time here. But, I feel good about sharing these albeit brief stories. I look forward to meeting them all again one day in heaven. I am anxious to have great conversations again with Uncle Stanley, Dad, talk baseball with my Grandpa Young, and meet my Grandpa  Patrick. Uncle Floyd is another one who was a great storyteller. I have not even mentioned him yet!

This gets back to the title of my post, "Why Are We Here?" I am not sure I answered that question, but I am sure while I am here I want to make a difference, just as all my deceased relatives made a difference in my life. I am trying to pay it forward with my speeches, my book and of course, this blog.

If any of you have any ideas about what I might take from these dreams, please comment at the end of this post. If you are a first-time reader of my blog, I want you to know this is twice as long as most of my posts! If you're still reading, thank you for sticking with me.

As always, I welcome your comments.

Later,

Mike

Connections Are Made

As human beings, we never know when we make a connection with another human being. Unless, that other person lets us know through their words or behavior.

Yesterday, I was on a weekly conference call with a group of people who are all members of a group called The Good Men Project. When the topic came up about some people objecting to strictly men helping young boys and men to become better people, and how we were supposedly ignoring young girls and women in the process, I had to make a statement.

I proceeded to go on about a five-minute rant about how I made a connection with a young lady in a locked mental health unit in a hospital many years ago. I told about how this one girl came to my presentation in her bathrobe and pajamas. She had no reason to get dressed because she was depressed and suicidal.

This was back before the Internet and email. Two days after I visited that institution, I received a large manila envelope with letters from all the youth who had attended my ninety-minute presentation.

As it turned out, there was a two-page letter from this young lady who wrote she had tried to kill herself seven times, and because of my presentation she would never do it again! I have received letters like that both before and since that day. Now, I get emails from both young people and adults who are hurting and express themselves to me after only maybe hearing me for an hour. It always amazes me what people are willing to tell me after only meeting me briefly and listening to me speak for a short period of time!

I called the counselor who had arranged for my trip and told her of the girls letter. I am proud to say I return every letter or email I have ever received to the individual who has written me. In all the years I have been speaking, I have only received one hate email. In fact, I received two identical emails that day from two different students in a school I had been at two weeks prior to those Sunday afternoon emails. They were especially disturbing because they both had my photograph from my website defaced with a paint program, and the words, Your gay and a bitch. I wish you die and go to hell!

I must admit that scared me. The next day, I called the counselor from that school and told her of the incident. That is a whole other story, about how we dealt with that issue. I spend a good part of a chapter talking about it in my book, I Still Believe In Tomorrow. As I am prone to do, I am getting off topic. Please forgive me. Regular readers of my blog will understand my propensity to do that.

Back to the young lady: Through a series of phone calls with her counselor, and a couple conversations with the counselors from her high school who were friends of mine, we addressed her issues and she received some more psychological counseling. I had visited her home high school on numerous occasions; and the person who arranged for all the visits was one of her counselors who was very aware of her situation.

Then, about a year later, I was invited to the school where she had graduated that previous spring for a twenty-four hour lockdown of eighth-grade students coming in as freshmen in the fall. Unbeknownst to me, she was one of the graduates who was assisting the counselors in running this orientation.

I no sooner got into the building, when this attractive, well-dressed, young woman in a dress came running up to me, gave me a big hug, backed away, spread her arms out, and proclaimed, Look what you did!

I immediately asked, What do you mean?

Whereupon she explained, I am going to college, I got an apartment, I moved out of the abusive environment I was in, I've changed my name, I'm a new person, and I owe it all to you!

I said, I didn't do any of that. You did it. I just gave you the tools.

You should have seen the look on her face when she realized it was her and not me who had made the transformation to become the young woman she was today. It was one of those life-defining moments we all get on occasion.


The point of this whole post is to give you an example of how we can make a difference in someone's life and not even realize it. Something I said in that mental health unit affected that young woman so profoundly; she even went so far as to change her name!

As always, I welcome your comments.

Later,

Mike

It Never Stops!

My longtime readers have often read my posts when I start out by writing something like, I never know where my inspiration for posts is going to come from.

Guess what? It has happened again. I received an email this morning from a Rev. in Casper, Wyoming. He wrote how he was a new student in Worthington just starting his senior year in the fall of 1971. He also wrote how he was the student who ran our videotaping, or at that time, Super 8 mm movie camera to film our game.

He went on to write how he remembered the sound of my accident! Please indulge me and let me insert his email message here:

Mike:

While I am sure you don’t remember me, as I was just a new senior there at Worthington your junior year when you broke your neck, I was the one who was recording the game for the school.  I was also one of the many who rode our bikes over to Sioux Falls to visit you.  I do know that you know my parents Robert and Betty McGrew as it was in conversation with them that my parents got a copy of your book for me (signed by you) as they thought that I knew you. I know more about you as I was there, and will never forget the sound from that moment.

In any case, the reason I am writing to you today is that after reading your book, I was in conversation with a lady here in Casper, Wyoming, where I am currently appointed as a United Methodist pastor, and I believe that your book would be an inspiration for her as she struggles with recuperating from a major stroke. If you would let me know what I need to do in order to get another copy of your book and what the costs are I would appreciate it.

Now, mind you, he is talking about my accident, which happened more than forty-one and a half years ago. He mentioned how he will never forget the sound! He was perched high from the crowd in a crow's nest at the fifty yard line, more than two hundred feet from the play! It astonishes me how he could hear the snap of my neck from that distance!

One of my coaches told how he heard a sound; and before the whistle even blew to end the play, he was running onto the field because he knew something was wrong. He was even thirty or more yards from the play when he heard it.

If you have read my book I Still Believe In Tomorrow, you know I wrote about how Charlie Blackstead, who was running the chain gang and had a very unique perspective on my accident, constantly referred to my head bouncing just one time, it bounced just one time, it bounced just one time. He kept repeating that in a conversation we had just a few years ago.

Another friend wrote how he did not think it was any big deal, until the ambulance got there. Again, if you have read the book, you may remember some of those comments.

I often refer to an instant in time when I talk about my accident. I believe we can all think of an instant in time in our own lives that have affected not only our life but the peoples' lives around us. It is those instances in time that often define our lives. Take a minute if you will, and think about some of the instances in time in your life that have affected not only yours, but the lives around you.

I am happy to say I have already sent the book; and a woman in Casper, Wyoming who has suffered a major stroke may benefit from an instant in time in my life in 1971. Also, who knows whom she will give it to and let read I Still Believe In Tomorrow?

I could not always say this, but I believe very strongly there was a reason for my accident. That gets reinforced to me on almost a daily basis.

As always, I look forward to your comments. I especially look forward to comments from people who were at the game and what you remember about that instant in time.

Later,

Mike