My Dad

I have been thinking a lot about my dad lately. I am not sure exactly why, except there have been two instances in the last couple weeks when I have run into former athletes that played and/or ran for my dad. They were both at Gopher basketball games.

One encounter was outside and very cold so it did not last very long. A man that ran for my dad approximately forty years ago went out of his way to say hi and tell me to tell my dad hello for him. He did not know dad passed away in 2006. Although it was cold, he stopped and wanted to know some details about dad's passing.

He wanted to tell me how much of an impact my dad had on him when he coached him in track and cross-country at Worthington State Junior College in the early 1970's. We were all in a hurry to get out of the cold, but he wanted to stop and tell me a couple stories about my dad and how he had affected his life at an early age. That kind of thing happens to me all the time.

My dad had a tremendous impact on young people he coached, taught and counseled throughout his career. He had a tremendous relationship with his student athletes, that sometimes did not to his own  children. That was the conundrum in his relationships, both personal and professional.

Here is a picture of dad at age thirty-five just after he had been named to coach in Worthington in 1968:

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It is hard for me to believe I am now twenty-two years older now than he was then!

The second encounter happened inside Williams Arena, when a woman put her arm out in front of me to stop me. I looked up at her and knew I should know who she was, but could not come up with her name on the spot.

She identified herself, as Brenda Stoel. it was not ten seconds later when her husband came up and embraced me with a huge hug and a little ketchup. Leroy, better known as Punky, played basketball, baseball and football for my dad in Edgerton in the early to mid-1960's.

We shared some fun stories and Punky told me how much of an impact my dad had on him in the short time he was his coach. He said hardly a day goes by he doesn't think about something my dad taught him.

Their son, Mike, also had a spinal cord injury, and is doing very well. His injury is lower than mine and he is actually able to do some walking. They told of how my visiting them when Mike was in Sr. Kenny Institute had such a positive effect on their entire family. So much so, when Brenda was a United States Postmaster in tiny Leota, Minnesota, she volunteered to introduce me to her peer group. Brenda is terrified of public speaking and yet she wanted to be the one to introduce me to the group. It is the only time Brenda has given a public speech!

Whenever I speak, I provide a written introduction. It is a humorous piece meant to get my audience ready for my presentation. Brenda strayed from the script and gave her own introduction I can only say was very touching! She had the group of postmasters in tears. Now I had viewed up there and make them laugh! It was not easy for me to do that; but it was especially difficult for Brenda. She told me that night in Williams Arena how petrified she was that she gave that speech, but she really wanted to give it!

There have been countless times when I have run into someone and something happens that relates to either my accident, my dad and all the people he touched with his coaching and mentoring or one of my siblings or my mom. They all have their own stories about how dad affected our lives. I miss him tremendously!

Here is a picture of him teaching me how to keep score with a basketball scorebook when I was only five or six years old:

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He was teaching me at an early age. That picture was taken in McLaughlin, South Dakota when I was the team mascot. Their mascot was the Mighty Midgets! Doesn't that image just strike fear into your heart?

I have a picture of me with the team when I was five in my book, I Still Believe I Tomorrow.

In fact, let me include it right here:


Again, click on it to make the image larger:

I was a CK, commonly referred to as a coaches kid. I got to hang around with my dad all the time, and thoroughly enjoyed my childhood getting to be involved with the big boys in every community we lived in.

My dad played a big part in my development. I miss him every day, as I am certain some of you can relate.

Please feel free to comment.

Later,

Mike

Tell Me It Ain't So, Oscar!

Last summer, Oscar Pistorius had the world cheering for him to qualify and compete with able-bodied runners from around the world. If you remember the Olympics, and two weeks later the Paralympics, you remember the name Oscar Pistorius.

He was on top of the world with people adoring and pulling for him to do well since he was the first double-amputee to run track in the Olympics. There have been other athletes with various kinds of disabilities compete in the Olympics before, but never a sprinter on two artificial legs! His story is one of great inspiration and determination of what someone with a disability can do! He became a role model for many people with and without disabilities!

It seemed everyone wanted Oscar to do well. It turned out he was not fast enough to compete with the best in the world in the sprints; however, he stayed in London and competed in the Paralympics when he set new world records.

He became known as the Blade Runner. He qualified for the Semifinals in the 400 meter dash, and his team qualified for the finals in 4 x 400 meter relay. His performances catapulted him to one of the best-known Olympic athletes around the world.

According to numerous reports Oscar had a dark side and had been in trouble before. I choose not to take much credence in sensationalizing those types of articles. One never knows what goes through the mind of other people and how they handle their successes and failures.

As we all know from past experiences, stories like these can change from one day to the next. I imagine as more information comes out this one will change too!

What we do know is a beautiful young woman, Reeva Steenkamp, lies in a Pretoria morgue, and Oscar is waiting in a jail cell in Pretoria, South Africa waiting for his bail hearing on Tuesday.

What a tragedy for two young, talented, successful peoples lives to end in such a horrible manner. It it is just another example of how an instant in time can change everything.

As always, I look forward to your comments.

Later,

Mike

Help Me Celebrate Ed Roberts

If you know me, or have read my book, you know I went to the University of California at Berkeley in 1974 through June 1975. It was not a long time, but my time in Berkeley changed my life. The week between Christmas and New Year's 1973, my dad flew with me to Oakland where we were met by the Physically Disabled Student Program's van (PDSP). the van already had two riders. They were Hale Zukas and Ed Roberts.

They were both actively involved in the Independent Living Movement on and around the  campus. I just read an article about Hale who is still active in the movement today.

However, we lost Ed in 1995. Ed Roberts was literally the first person I met when I moved to Berkeley. Little did I know what a huge impact he would have on mentoring me and becoming an international advocate for civil rights for people with disabilities. There is a nice piece on Ed's contribution to the movement on the California.gov's website. You may read it by clicking here. There is even a fully accessible building located in Berkeley called the Ed Roberts Campus which is home to several disability-oriented, non-profit organizations. You may learn more about it at their website by clicking here.

Ed and I became fast friends and spent a lot of time together watching sporting events including several baseball games, football games and the 1975 USA–USSR track meet. I talk about Ed and his influence on me in my book I Still Believe In Tomorrow and how much our friendship meant to me.

The reason the California Department of Rehabilitation is celebrating is it is its 50th Anniversary and they are making a list of their fifty most notable people in their history. Guess who the number one person on that list is?

When Ed first applied to go to school at Cal, he was denied entrance because he he did not get a high school diploma. He did not receive a diploma because he failed to take and pass two classes, physical education and driver's training. Through his persistence of never backing down or allowing the system to say no, he eventually earned an undergraduate degree from UC Berkeley. He became the first student with a severe disability to ever be admitted and graduate from the University California at Berkeley! He certainly was an amazing, inspirational person!

Once Ed got in, that opened the doors to more students. At the time, I did not realize when I went out there the residence program I lived in the first year was only a few years old. Had I known that, now I wonder if I would have even gone. I tell people the second best thing I ever did was going to Berkeley. The inevitable question comes back then, "What was the first?" 

My response is always, "Coming back to Minnesota." 

Berkeley was a great place to go to school with an ever-expanding accessible campus, but I got homesick and came back to Minnesota where I eventually earned my bachelors degree in School and Community Health Education. 

I want to close this post after telling you one more Ed Roberts story. Besides helping to coordinate PDSP, form the first Center for Independent Living, of which there are about six hundred of them now around the country, he was also instrumental in forming the World Institute on Disability (WID). Its work is now reaching worldwide communities. Shortly after I left Berkeley, Governor Jerry Brown named Ed to head California's Department of Rehabilitation. I have always found great irony in the fact the department that once refused to help pay for his college education was later being run by him.

Here is a picture of Governor Brown making the appointment:

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As always, I look forward to your comments.

Later,

Mike

Super Bowl XLVII

Who are you picking for the Super Bowl? Me, I am going with the Harbaugh team. I cannot go wrong with that pick. Can you imagine what Jim and John' s parents must be going through emotionally right now?

Their father, Jack, played one year, 1961, in the old American Football league for the Titans of New York. He has his own share of national championships as a coach. Wikipedia has a nice history of his playing and coaching career. You can read it by clicking here.

I have mixed feelings about which team I want to win Sunday's big game. On one hand, I would like to see Randy Moss win his first ring despite what a jerk he was as a member of the Vikings. He certainly was fun to watch! Hopefully, he has grown up a little bit since his days of wearing the purple and gold. It always amazes me how some athletes behave when they have outrageous egos and large sums of money in their pockets!

Randy Moss will be in the Hall of Fame one day, and when he goes in I hope he gives some kudos to the Vikings for taking a chance on him and allowing him to play despite his childish antics both on and off the field. He played at an incredibly high level the bulk of his career as a Minnesota Viking. Despite his behavior, and the lost games he sat out or did not give one hundred percent, he will still go down as one of the best wide receivers in the history of the National Football League. Had he listened more to his mentor, Cris Carter, he would have quite possibly had better career numbers then the great Jerry Rice.

On the other hand, I would like to see Ray Lewis go out on top. He too, has had a career filled with less than outstanding behavior. However, in recent years I believe Lewis has also matured and become a mentor for his younger teammates. He is a very emotional, high-strung, tightly-wound player. He definitely wears his emotions on his sleeve!

Besides Ray Lewis, there are two more ex-Vikings I would like to see get a ring. They are center, Matt Birk and left tackle Bryant McKinnie. Matt Birk had a great career for the Vikings and he and Bryant McKinnie opened a lot of holes for Adrian Peterson.

Either way, I will be happy to just watch a good game. I love watching good football, as long as nobody gets hurt.

I just wish the halftime show was not going to last a half hour! I guess the bottom line is it is all about money and that frustrates me. As always, a big part of the game will be the commercials. It will be interesting to see which ones are any good. They could play the Michael Jordan–Larry Bird HORSE Game McDonald's commercials from many years ago and I would not mind. They were always fun!

All that is left now is waiting a couple days for kickoff.

As always, I look forward to your comments.

Later,

Mike

Happy Grandparents!

My regular readers can testify to the fact I often point out my material for these posts comes to me in one way or another. Oftentimes, I do not have to go looking for appropriate material. Such is the case with this post that has very special meaning for my cousin, Dale and his wife, Kay. They are the proud, happy grandparents of their first grandchild, Reed John Patrick, born on Friday, January 18, 2013 to the proud parents, Jeremy and Kelli Patrick in St. Cloud Minnesota. Both parents are doing well and excited to start raising their young son. Their Facebook pages are filled with pictures, Likes, comments and well wishes from many friends and relatives.

The reason this healthy birth is so special is because one of the grandparents carries the gene that causes pediatric kidney disease, previously known as infantile polycystic kidney disorder. You may learn more about it by clicking on the Mayo Clinic.org's website by clicking here.

This news is especially exciting when one considers Jeremy was Dale and Kay's first born child. They were told there is a one in four chance of a child being born with the disorder. Since Jeremy was a healthy child, they tried three more times and lost all three babies within a couple of days to the disorder. I cannot imagine the heartache that had to give to them.

Dale is my first cousin and five years younger than me. He was always a little younger, slower and not quite strong enough to keep up with his two older brothers, Gene and Gary and me. Now, he is my closest cousin. In fact, one time at a family reunion many years ago, Dale accidentally beat me in a game of chess. Now, he will not play me in a rematch. He just gives his big smile and says something like, “Why would I want to ruin my perfect record against you?” Then he laughs and teases me every opportunity he gets. I digress.

Back to the reason for this post: Reed John Patrick. Here is a picture of the newest member of our extended Patrick family:


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Both Jeremy and Kelli are 2005 graduates of North Central University in downtown Minneapolis. They were married July 19, 2008 in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Kelli's degree is in youth ministry studies and she works as a youth minister in St. Cloud. Jeremy's degree is in youth development studies and he works a couple of jobs, one of which is utilizing his degree. I always like to see young people using their post-secondary training in the field they were trained to work.

Congratulations once again to the proud grandparents and parents of young Master Patrick!

As always, I look forward to your comments.

Later,

Mike

You Turn Away For A Second ...

When I was young, my parents would take me to my mother's parents farm. Grandpa raised pigs. I have two pictures when I was about two years old of me chasing grandpa's piglets. I was not supposed to be doing it; but, as so many times when one of my siblings or I got into trouble, mother would have to take a picture or two of the offending party before she stopped the behavior or cleaned up the mess!

Parenting is a hard business! When parents have a young one, the child can do something in a heartbeat that changes the entire situation. If you are a parent you know exactly what I am talking about! Hopefully, the incident in question does not result in a tragedy of any sort.

My mother took pictures of all of us in situations we should not have been in. But, like I said, she would have to document the situation before cleaning us up. In a lifetime of taking pictures and collecting over seventy photo albums of not only our lives, but of the lives of the people around us. She is currently going through all of these albums and taking out favorites to give to her brothers, sisters, my siblings and her grandchildren. What a wonderful gift!

In early 2006, for some unknown reason, she and I were looking through some of these old photograph albums. We started picking out photos we wanted to keep, and scan to make an online family album. There was no particular reason for it, we just decided to do it. Little did I know the reason for us to do it would appear a couple months later when my father was diagnosed with mesothelioma.

I designed the program for his memorial services and made a collage of some of the pictures we had started scanning just a few months earlier. It appeared on the back cover of his program. Since then, I have made several collages for members of my family to celebrate birthdays, anniversaries and one other life. They were fun to do, therapeutic and enabled me to express my artistic side in another way. I have had several people tell me they look at their collage every once in a while and see a picture they have not noticed before! That is fun. They have also told me other people have commented favorably on their collage.

I wonder what the situation was that allowed this young boy to kiss the snout of this pig? And then, have the wherewithal to snap the photo while the boy was making a new friend?

I have seen this photograph before several years ago. In fact, I use it in a slide show for the opening of conferences. I wonder if the family knows their cute little boy is all over the Internet being used as fodder for adults to laugh at?

As always, I look forward to your comments.

Later,

Mike

Knowledge Is Good

If you ever saw the movie Animal House, you may remember the opening scene and the statue of the founder of the fictitious Faber College, Emil Faber. They slowly panned to the bottom of the statue where the words Knowledge Is Good were inscribed.

Of course that was just the first of many jokes throughout that wonderful movie and it's spoof on higher education. This post is not about Faber College, Delta House, Otter, Boone or even Bluto, played by John Belushi, who I believe was one of the best physical actors of all time. He never had to say a single word and with just his body language, eyes and facial expressions made audiences laugh hysterically! It is still being watched by a whole new generation.

This post is about higher education and the amount of post-secondary degrees my immediate family have achieved. While cleaning the other day, my mother gave me an article she found in a box. I have attached it to this post. It is from the tiny town of White, South Dakota where my parents grew up on farms a few miles out of town. The title of the paper was The White Leader. It was published in the spring of 1980. White, South Dakota is a tiny town of about five hundred people located fifteen miles northeast of Brookings, South Dakota.

Between my parents, my five siblings and myself we hold three Associate of Arts degrees, six Bachelor of Arts or Science degrees, three Masters degrees and one Juris Doctorate degree. My father, Arlin Patrick is in the lead with one Bachelor of Science degree and two Masters degrees. His Bachelors degree is in education, as are Kathleen's, Chad's and mine. You could say the apples did not fall far from the tree with us.  

In fact, my dad's undergraduate degree is in physical and health education, and my degree is in school and community health education with a minor coaching. You could say I followed in his footsteps. I literally grew up in his footsteps as he was always coaching once for or another I was following him everywhere. I have one photo of him teaching me how to use a basketball scorebook when I was six years old. I was a Gym Rat from the time I was old enough to walk.

I have many great stories about growing up with a father whose job it was to play. He coached and mentored me until the night of my accident. Then, he helped carry me off the field and kept me from going into shock. I tell several stories about him in my book I Still Believe In Tomorrow. I also have pictures of him at my accident scene on my website. You may see them by clicking here, here and seeing one in the book.

Here is the article I mentioned earlier:

Click on the image to make it larger:

As always, I welcome your comments.

Later,

Mike

Happy New Year!

As 2012 comes to a close, I want to take a moment and reflect upon my year. My year was full of many highs and many lows. I am guessing you can say the same thing. Besides wishing you a wonderful 2013, I want to take a minute and tell you about one of my highs and one of my very low points.

The best thing that happened to me this year was getting my book published and actually selling a few copies. Between the ebook and paperback sales I have managed to sell about five hundred copies. It is not where I wanted or hoped to be by this time, but without help in getting a good marketing plan executed, I guess it's been a pretty good year. I am hoping to get help marketing this year, which will bring in more sales, which subsequently has proven to get me some speaking engagements. By the way, I have seen several speaking engagements as a result of book sales. That was the whole point. I believe the book will sell my speeches and my speeches will sell my books. In fact, I did one program for a group of social service agencies, and as part of the contract they bought one hundred sixty books, one for each person attending my workshop.

Definitely the low point of 2012 was losing my long-time friend, Jeff Farnam in April. Over the last thirty-seven years, he and I became great friends. In fact, you can read my April first blog post and see what I wrote about our last meeting. We were two old quads who spent a lot of time together and he taught me a lot about photography. He was the person who got me interested in taking pictures and finding a way to express one of my artistic sides.

I miss our lunches and long conversations at BLB (Bryant Lake Bowl) and Lucia's. We would also spend time at his house or in Calhoun Square talking for hours.

I was honored to be one of the people who gave eulogies at Jeff's Memorial Service in June. When he and his good friend, Steve, were planning for the service and deciding who they wanted to give eulogies, they decided if I was going to be one of them they better put a time limit on it! As it was, I gave the last eulogy and went a little bit over my limit! Basically, I read my post from April, with a few extra anecdotes that brought both laughter and tears to the people in attendance. 

With that, I will say it once again, “Happy New Year, and I hope it brings you joy and much happiness.”

For the final time this year, I welcome your comments.

Later,

Mike

What Should Bob Costas Do Now?

A week ago, Bob Costas stirred up a hornets nest in the social media when he quoted and paraphrased an article written by Jason Whitlock of Fox News on the shooting of his girlfriend and subsequent suicide of Jovan Belcher, a linebacker for the Kansas City Chiefs. His comments were made at halftime of the Sunday Night Football game he was broadcasting for NBC.

Fast-forward just five days and we have had two school mass suicides. What do you suppose Mr. Costas will have to say on the events of last week? Or should he say anything? When are we as a nation, going to wake up and realize something needs to be done about the proliferation of legal handguns on our streets in our cities and small communities?

Now, Adam Lanza is suspected of killing his mother and then gunning down more than two dozen people, twenty of them children, in a Connecticut grade school before taking his own life. We are being told the weapons were purchased legally by his mother. According to several sources I read today, she bought the weapons for her own protection.

Way back in 1994 I was asked by the University of Minnesota's athletic department to give their staff a presentation on violence. In doing my research I learned some interesting facts from a book entitled Deadly Consequences/How Violence Is Destroying Our Teenage Population and a Plan to Begin Solving the Problem written by Deborah Prothrow-Stith, M.D. in 1991. Doctor Prothrow-Stith worked in an emergency room in Philadelphia and one other Eastern city. She based her conclusions on her experience in those two emergency rooms.

I would have to go back and look at my notes from those presentations but the one statistic I will never forget is a new handgun is made every twenty-two seconds! Those were 1991 statistics. I have not done any research today to see what those numbers are. I do not imagine they have gone down much; if anything I would guess we're making more. I am not saying if we don't make the guns there will be no shootings because there are already over 300 million guns in America today. That is almost one for every person in the country.

One of the things many people are writing about today is the mental health of Adam Lanza. Part of the problem comes from the fact mental health funding is being cut and often not covered by insurance companies. I believe we should be going in the opposite direction and putting more money into mental health programs.

As I see the issues of gun control being discussed from both sides, and the cutting of funding to mental health programs, I believe we need to step back and recognize as rational people we cannot understand how irrational people think.

I am anxious to see what Bob Costas will say or not say during his broadcast tomorrow.

I welcome your comments.

Later,

Mike

12-12-12

As if you have not already noticed, today is a significant number, 12-12-12. Does that have any significance, or is all of the attention being paid to the number just a waste of time? After all, we had 11–11–11, 10–10–10, 09–09-09 and so on in the last decade, and nothing happened of great significance on those days.

According to the Gregorian or Christian calendar, the next time three numbers will lie like that will not be for almost another century, as they did on 09-09-09, 10-10-10 and 11-11-11, will be on January 1, 3001, or 1-1-1.

I did a little research on what numerologists believe is the significance of numbers like these and received a number of different opinions. Surprise, surprise! Some even talked about the significance of the Mayan Calendar and how the world is supposed to end in nine days. I am among the people who believe it is not going to happen!

Personally, today has not been of very good day for me. Between all of the snow we received the other day, the entire parking lot being shoveled except for my spot, being threatened because of a mix-up in required paperwork I may have to go into a nursing home and not being able to pick up my van which is in the shop, and my medical insurance being suspended until all of the paperwork is found, I cannot pick up prescriptions, get my personal care attendants paid, or even be seen by a doctor.

I just got off the phone with my social worker who has assured me she will do her best to get everything straightened out tomorrow. In the meantime, I am without a ride, no way to get it, will probably miss my acupuncture appointment tomorrow and have a few more things I could whine about but I will spare you the details. 12–12–12 sucks! But, that's just my opinion.

As always, I welcome your comments; and please feel free to share your own 12–12–12 stories if you wish.

Later,

Mike

Is Extending The School Year A Good Thing?

Many studies have shown students lose a good amount of what they learn in the typical nine-month school year over their three-month summer vacation. That three months has been a huge detriment to their retention, and causes a goodly amount of time to get back to where they were before their summer break.

That is one reason why many schools across the county are moving to year-round schooling. If you do not know, in year-round schools, they never have a break of more than six weeks.

I just read an article that originated from the Associated Press telling of a pilot program in five states and forty schools that will extend the school year by six hundred hours. According to the article, Colorado, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New York and Tennessee will take part in the initiative, which is intended to boost student achievement and make U.S. schools more competitive on a global level.


You may read the article from USATODAY.com by clicking here. I could not find the original article on the Associated Press's website.


I believe this is a good step towards catching up with much of the rest of the developed world. The United States has continuously been falling backwards in our ranking for many of the education benchmarks which we have historically led the world. This pilot program will only last three years and then evaluated.

I am guessing we are going to see marked increases in these schools' results.

Of course, there are detractors to the idea and believe it is not the way to go because countries like India and China have shorter school years and are getting better results. Is it a question of quantity versus quality? Is it a question of prioritization? I am anxious to see what the results will be with their students with severe disabilities, all their students with special needs for that matter, low-income students and all of the round students that do not fit in the square holes.

Something needs to be done to get all our schools educating as many of our young people to the highest degree we possibly can. I certainly do not have the answers.

As always, I look forward to your comments.

Later,

Mike

LINCOLN

My friend, Mike Ross, said several times as we left the movie yesterday evening, That Steven Spielberg sure knows how to make a movie. After we had a great Thanksgiving dinner prepared by my mom, he and I decided to go see the movie so many people are talking about. 

He was not wrong in his assessment of the movie that will surely be one of the most nominated movies for Academy Awards this year. I would not be surprised to see it take home all the major categories as Daniel Day Lewis, Tommy Lee Jones and Sally Field gave extraordinary performances. I highly recommend it.

One of the things I particularly liked about it was one thing Mike told me as we were driving to the theater. He said Daniel Day Lewis told Steven Spielberg he would be happy to play Abraham Lincoln but he wanted Spielberg to wait a year so he could properly learn all he could about Lincoln right down to his limp so he could accurately portray our sixteenth president! Now THAT IS commitment! If I were put in that position, I wonder how I would have handled it? Would I have had the courage to tell Steven Spielberg to, Wait a year?

Regarding the historical perspective of the movie, President Lincoln was a very hated man by a large number of people, especially in the South where they had formed the Confederate States of America. Obviously, some people hated him, one to the point he assassinated him!

Today, we think of Abraham Lincoln as a very revered, and beloved American President. Many people rank him at or near the top of all our presidents. I find it interesting there are many people today who hate our current president the same way they hated Lincoln while he was in office. I would like to be able to look back in one hundred fifty years and see what historians have written about President Obama and what people feel about him after these next four years.

Our conversation went in many directions, as they always do; but he brought up a fact about the day no one has been talking about. November 22, 1963 mean anything to you?

We found it ironic how we had just watched a movie about a president who was assassinated on the forty-ninth anniversary of the assassination of another president.

I look forward to your comments.

Later,

Mike

Happy Thanksgiving, Everyone!

I have had this cartoon for several years, and use it in slideshows for openings of conferences when I keynote in a ballroom. I just found it the other day and cannot help but share it with you. It is a classic example of clean humor and creative problem-solving.

Who says, Turkeys are stupid!?

Enjoy your tryptophan nap tomorrow as you try to watch your favorite game or other show through your eyelids!

I look forward to your comments.

Later,

Mike

Interesting Conversation

I had an interesting conversation yesterday with a wide variety of opinions on the importance of education and how important a college degree and/or an advanced degree was to people. Then, my favorite show, 60 Minutes, ran this piece on the very subject we were discussing. They put the topic in a very good perspective for me. If you missed it, check it out. Just click here:


I find it interesting we have millions of highly-skilled jobs available and not enough people who have the skills to fill them. There are programs available to teach people who are trying to learn these new skills, but they are few and far between. Some of the resistance is coming from an older group of people who are resistant to change. We all know how difficult change can be, but we all need to accept it and adjust to the jobs of the twenty-first century. If that happens, I suggest you get at least one mentor to help you along the way.

Remember, even the buggy whip manufacturers needed to change once Henry Ford and his ilk came along and rendered the buggy whips extinct!

If you are losing your job to downsizing, or robotics, are you ready to step into another job? What if you are over fifty, or do not have the savings to support you while you get training to prepare for that new career, or you cannot live on the salary you will make in that new position? Have you thought about any of those possibilities?

I read a survey of employers several years ago that stated when they look at new hires, they said more important than your GPA were three things: Your ability to be an effective communicator, cooperate well and are a creative problem-solver.

Of course, every job is going to have additional necessary skills, but I believe it is a good start.

I look forward to your comments.

Later,

Mike

Tuesday Was A Good Day

Tuesday was a good day for me. It actually started on Monday, as I had to run a few errands that got my trip started late. I put my watch on and quickly realized it was only correct twice a day, so that was one stop I needed to make.

My doctor's office called with two prescriptions I needed to start taking right away for yet another infection I had growing in one of my wounds. Since I was already taking two antibiotics for different bacteria growing in my urine and another wound, that brought the total to four antibiotics I will be taking for an extended period of time. It seems there are several different bacteria trying to take over my body and they are tough to kill.

It took several hours and numerous phone calls to get the nurse and the pharmacy hooked up, so by the time we finally got on the road it was 2:00 p.m. The good news is the antibiotics are winning, I am feeling better and my watch is correct all the time!

I had recently bought a new iPod but did not know how to hook it up to the stereo, so it was another trip to the Superstore where I bought it, and a sales representative came out, got it running and we were finally on the road.

I was taking a new attendant who had no idea what the next twenty-four hours were going to be like. Robert has not stopped talking about how much he enjoyed every aspect of the trip. He has not done a transfer on his own yet, so my good friend, Joel Krekelberg, better known as Krek, came by our room and transferred me into bed that night and into my chair in the morning. He saved the trip!

Now, let me get to the point of this post. Terry Morrison hired me to do a two-and-a-half hour workshop for one hundred sixty social service professionals from agencies all over Southwestern Minnesota. They worked at all levels of those agencies from direct service professionals to agency directors. Terry gave me free range to cover the issues I wanted. He just told me it was their seventh annual feel good fall meeting.

So, I had fun with my opening hour, took a nine-minute break and spent the remaining time doing exercises I had put together specifically for this group. Here was page 1: Click on it to make it larger:

There were several things that made the experience fun. Here are just a few:

• having at least one audience member who was at the game when I got hurt
• several people who remembered that time and followed me through articles in the Worthington Daily Globe
• one woman told me she listened to the game on her tractor radio while she was working in the field
• many people told me they could relate to my story
• reading the Evaluations and Comments on my presentation — there were many good ones

As part of the contract, everyone got a signed copy of my book, and several people bought more for gifts after my workshop.

After a long drive home, I was exhausted. Yes, Tuesday was a good day!

I look forward to your comments.

Later,

Mike

The End Of An Era

Imagine you are Karen Aho and you recently married Tom, the love of your life. You are having a conversation about having a family and he asks you how many children you would like to have? Would you say, "four, five, six, seven, — no, let's have fifteen, and twelve of them will be boys who love to play football"?

She goes on to say, "In fact, let's space them apart so we can go to a high school football game every fall Friday night for about a quarter of a century. Yes, let's do that!

"We'll name the Alpha male 'Steve' and have him so he can start playing in about 1989, and go to 'Seth' the Omega will finish in 2012. Yes, I like that!

"Twenty-four years of high school football games, Homecoming dances, parades, countless highs and many lows, winning seasons, losing seasons, even five of them good enough to go and play college football. That is how I want to spend about half of our married life. Yes, Tom, sign me up!"

Does that sound like something a Hollywood screen writer could come up with? I do not think so! But yet it happened in a small consolidated school in Central Minnesota at Dassel-Cokato High School. Read more about the Aho family and their amazing story by clicking here. That Yahoo! Sports article leads you to a good article from the Dassel•Cokato Herald Journal, which you may reach by clicking here. The family picture appears in both articles. The article shows the years the boys attended DCHS. Since I was there in 1989 and 1999, I wonder if Steve or Joel remember anything I said in my assembly?

It would not surprise me if they did remember something. Just today, I came across a woman who remembered my speech from a presentation at her company sixteen years ago!

It is a story of commitment, family, teamwork, mentoring, communication, love and so many more positive family values. This was a fun story to learn and write about. I first learned about the Aho family watching the news last night.

I laid awake thinking about the family and all the lives the boys experienced, including all the other sports they competed in and thought about just what I was going to write. Turns out, as I read what I have just written was not at all what I was going to write. I wonder how many writers experience that phenomena?

As always, I look forward to your comments.

Later,

Mike

I Feel Bad Today

Let me start this post by saying, "I LOVE BASEBALL! I loved playing the game. I love the strategy, I love watching good baseball, even if it can go rather slowly sometimes. In the matter of one swing, a whole game, series or even an entire season can be changed."

I feel bad because I will not get to watch three more games of the American League Championship Series (ALCS) because the Detroit Tigers swept the New York Yankees in four straight games. I feel bad because two hundred million dollars cannot buy a pennant let alone the World Series. Actually, I don't feel bad about that at all, I rather like it!

If you know me, you know I do not like the Yankees and the way they acquire the best talent by having the deepest pockets in the largest market, and they are expected to win the World Series every year because they put the most talent on the field every year with a team payroll over two hundred million dollars! I believe that takes away from the game.

I am glad to see Detroit sweep the Yankees with a former Minnesota Twin, Delmon Young, play such an integral part and was named the MVP. I did not like to see him go, but I hope he gets his ring now.

I know there are Yankee fans out there who disagree with me, and that is okay. They are by far the most successful sports franchise in all four major sports, MLB, NFL, NBA and the NHL. They have been buying championships since they bought Babe Ruth from the Boston Red Sox for one hundred twenty-five thousand dollars on January 5, 1920.

I like to see the underdog win, and Detroit was definitely the underdog in this ALCS. The Tigers won every aspect of the game and never trailed in the four-game sweep. The vaunted Yankee hitters only batted .188 as a team. That is the worst team batting average in Major League Post-season History! That is extraordinary!

I know their Captain, Derek Jeter, and their best player, went down with a broken ankle in Game 1, but very few of their other players stepped up at all, let alone critical times in any of the three remaining games. To top it all off, the ace of their pitching staff, C.C. Sabathia, was knocked out in the fourth inning. That was not supposed to happen either.

Now, I am going to watch Game 5 of the National League Championship Series and see if San Francisco can come back on the defending Champion Cardinals, or if Detroit will play St. Louis in the World Series. Such a dilemma to have while the Yankees clean out their lockers and head for the golf courses in Florida, or the winter leagues in the Caribbean.

I look forward to your comments.

Later,

Mike

Add Me To The List

We all know someone who has had cancer of some sort. In fact, I believe is it safe for me to write we all know someone who has died from this insidious disease in one form or another. We also know survivors, some even two or more time survivors of cancer.

I am now a member of that second group. As cancers go, I had the kind to get, the easily curable kind. About a month ago, I had a skin cancer tumor removed from my abdomen. It was not very big, but it had been there for years and only in the last few months had it started to grow. My dermatologist, Dr. O.J. Rustad, removed it right in his office while I simply tipped back in my chair. It took about ten minutes.

They tested the tumor and found a basil cell carcinoma. That needed to be removed, so I went back in and he scraped away all of the cancerous cells. His office called a few days later and told me I was cancer-free! It all sounds kind of silly now as I write this because of the ease of which this last health issue has come and gone.

But, I cannot do that. As I say in every speech I give, The problem is not the issue, the issue is how you deal with the problem. It came abundantly clear to me when the visiting nurse took this picture of my cancer site this morning:

Click on the image to enlarge it. I will warn you, it is not pretty:

My nurse said it looks great! I have another word for it.

Supposedly, skin cancer is primarily caused by exposure to the sun. According to the MayoClinic.com site, skin cancer can be caused by excessive exposure to radiation. With the hundreds of X-rays I have had on my abdomen over the last forty-one plus years, that may very well be where mine came from.

I will never know and it really does not matter. I am just glad this episode is over and I am free of any cancer cells. I have been telling people for many years, I have stopped thinking about the future issues, because I know they will keep coming. I just wonder what the next one will be?

As always, I look forward to your comments.

Later,

Mike

The Referees Are Back

When I started this blog, I stated I was not going to get controversial in my posts, but since this is my blog, I guess I can break the rules if I choose to do so. I am about to go on a bit of a rant here, so be prepared.

As many of you know that follow the NFL, the NFL Referee's Union was not on strike, they were locked out by the Owners. From my understanding, there was a huge gap between their stand and the Owners' position. This lockout could have lasted a while. 

Then, Monday Night Football happened!

The replacement referees did not seem to be doing a very good job! Just ask the Vikings' head coach, Leslie Frazier, about the ref's giving San Francisco five timeouts towards the end of Sunday's game. Or, better yet, ask the Packers' head coach, Mike McCarthy, about the way their game ended.

I get a kick out of all the uproar from not only Packer fans in Wisconsin, but people all over the country are outraged at the fact we cannot get these union members to resolve their differences and get those good, union referees back on the job! I mean, come on people, we're talking FOOTBALL here!

Are they the same people that voted for Governor Scott Walker so he could bust the unions in Wisconsin for teachers, firefighters and police officers? I mean, come on people we're only talking about educating our children and taking care of the public safety here!

I do not see the national outrage over the way Walker handled those situations. I grew up in a teacher's union household. That union helped my dad and our family many times.

They went on strike once and things got tight for a short time, but with some give and take, the strike was settled and the teachers went back to teach.

Ultimately, the Owners got big-time pressure to settle their differences with the referees; now, we will be able to whine about the blown calls they make.

Of course, that is just my opinion. Feel free to leave yours.

Later,

Mike

P.S. There, I feel better after I got that off my chest. My next post will be back to what you usually expect from me. Thanks for letting me vent! Now, I am off to acupuncture. After that, I will not be able to put up this post. In fact, I will not be able to do much of anything!

My Trip Last Week

I went home twice last week and had many memorable moments. I saw lots of former classmates, teammates, teachers and coaches. I met new friends, had so many great conversations I cannot begin to count them all, relived experiences back to 1963, spoke a couple times and even rode in a parade for the first time since 1966!

We drove to Worthington on Wednesday and had a 5:00 am wake-up call to get to Edgerton where I had two classroom visits and an assembly for middle and high school students from four schools, Edgerton Public Middle and High School, Southwest Christian Middle and High School and several adults from the tiny town where I went to third, fourth and fifth grades. Included in the audience were my second cousin, Darlene Bailey and her husband, Bob, and Annabelle, Ernie and Trudy Schellhaas. Annabelle was the other den mother with my mom for the three years I was a Cub Scout.

I had to drive by our old house to see how much the trees had grown my dad planted. I was pleased to see the service door and handle were the original items from when our garage was built almost fifty years ago! They were proudly made in America. I spent about an hour with a former neighbor, Rick Vanderstoep, at his furniture store, which he co-owns with his brother, Curt, who played basketball, baseball and football for my dad. I drove around town and thoroughly enjoyed seeing houses, stores and points of interest I remembered as a young boy.

It was almost two hours after the school day had ended before I finally left Edgerton. I took a different route back to Worthington and found another quaint little town, Kenneth, population 67. There was a cute little antique store with a ramp. It is called The Backyard Antiques and More. I cannot pass an accessible antique store and not stop!

I found out from the owner the building was the former post office so it was newly remodeled, complete with a nice ramp and full of things I could not live without! Did I buy anything, you ask. Of course, I did, Silly. So did my attendant, Kelly. She had never seen anything like Kenneth and The Backyard Antiques and More. An hour later, we were back on the road to Worthington. It took us four hours to get forty-five miles from Edgerton back to our hotel in Worthington! I was in no hurry and this post will probably be the basis for a chapter in my next book!

Friday was a marketing day, so I spent it at a pep fest at the high school, sold a couple books to the media center, and made a couple other stops before going to Center Sports to make sure we were set for my book signing the next day. Then, the fun started! 

I stopped at The Cow's Outside which is a little leather goods store located in a cool, old 1901 bank building to see Bill and Lori Keitel who had played a key role in getting my book signing arranged in Worthington. Bill had already left the store to go home and prepare for friends coming over for dinner.

Since their house was only two blocks away, I drove down there to thank him, leave and get a quick meal before going to the high school football game. It did not happen like that! Bill was in the house working, saw me arrive, so we went into this well-sculpted back yard that was obviously built and maintained by two artists!

They were preparing for their good friends, Jim and Judy Brandenburg to come by. Yes, THAT Jim Brandenburg! I was privileged enough to spend the next two hours swapping stories with one of the greatest nature photographers of all time! He had great stories about his trips all over the world.

Brian Korthals was also there and he is a successful photographer in his own right. Jim is also one of his mentors. He is the third person in this picture:

Brian now has Jim's old job at the Worthington Daily Globe and has a history of taking my picture at Turkey Day. He also shot me the next day while I gave my speech. Jim insisted I hold my book, which has one of his photos in the background, and Tom Wallace, who is now a very successful photographer for the Minneapolis StarTribune, who was mentored by Jim Brandenburg, took the color photo. 
 
Click on the image to make it larger:

Those two hours were the highlight of many highlights on my trip to two of my past lives. Turkey Day was a whole other story!

Saturday started out with a quick speech at Mayor Alan Oberloh's Turkey Day brunch, then Kelly and I rushed to set-up for my book signing at Center Sports from 10:00 am to noon. We grabbed a quick bite and it was time to get me on to the stage with a front-end loader. That was a first! 

I rode in the parade tied down by the red straps you can see in this photo by Doug Jenkins:

Again, click on this image to make it larger:

After the parade, they set-up a booth for me to sell books and take orders since my publisher did not get my book order to Worthington until Monday. That was frustrating!

I spent several hours there, then moved out to the Nobles County Fairgrounds and got more orders there. I had very few times during the afternoon and evening that I went more than five minutes when someone came up and introduced themselves. 

I recognized many of the people, which surprised some folks who thought I would not remember them. I was having a great time! It was the fortieth reunion for the Class of 1972, so there were many friends I got to spend time with people like Lynn, Alan, Pete and Peg, Dale and June, Denny and Margaret, to name just a few. 

By 9:00 pm I was exhausted and it was off to the hotel. I had a great time and I would like to thank everyone who helped make my trip a success.

As always, I welcome your comments.

Later,

Mike

What do these people have in common?

Robert Kennedy, Richard Nixon, Walter Mondale, Sargent Shriver, Nelson Rockefeller, Babe Winkelman, Andre Kirkwood and Liz Collin all share something in common. Do you know what it is? 

If you grew up or live in or near Worthington, Minnesota, you might know they are some of the people who gave the keynote speech at Worthington's annual King Turkey Day celebration. 

This Saturday, I get to add my name to the list! I will let you know how it goes in a post next week. And to think some people believe you cannot go home. I am going to do it twice in three days. Besides going to Worthington, I will be going home to Edgerton, Minnesota tomorrow.

Here is the link to the Worthington Daily Globe's article from today's paper: Just click here.

I look forward to your comments.

Later,

Mike

I Am One Today!

If you are a new reader to this blog, you may not know my feelings about the two lives I believe I have lived, and the third one I started one year ago tonight. So, today I am officially one! I am attaching a photo of my first birthday in my first life. You can see I was already using my left hand!

Click on the image to make it larger:

September third is always a rough day for me. I have a hard time believing it was forty-one years ago tonight when I broke my neck and started life number two. I do not know where the time has gone.

Is time flying by for you as fast as it seems to fly by for me? I remember when I was a child and time could not move fast enough. I could not wait to grow up. As a young child, I was a gym rat. I was in the gym whenever my dad was coaching basketball.

We always had a basketball goal in our driveway which got used a lot by a young boy with big dreams. Worthington was the eighth town and sixteenth different location by the time we moved there in February 1969, before I was fourteen! I wanted to be on the big stage and play on the Varsity football and basketball teams in the worst way.

Then, when I finally got my big chance, it was all over in about three minutes. Little did I know what those final three minutes were ending and beginning in an instant in time.

Last year I wrote about finishing my ebook and trying to come up with a name. A year later, I came up with a new name; I Still Believe In Tomorrow is now available online through my website and also now published as a paperback. It may be ordered through all the major booksellers or by sending me an email at mike@patcom.com.

The book is starting to sell. I have two book signings lined up in the next two weeks, and two more in the planning stages. Several colleges are considering using it in their classes and I am trying to get a deal with a book distributor.

Most of the September third's that go by are pretty tough to get through. Today, and especially this evening because by now, I would have been in the ambulance on my way to Sioux Falls, South Dakota and the emergency room at Sioux Valley Hospital. That was the night my second life began.

I am finding some of what I have written is in the book, so I will stop here and invite you to buy the book. I am getting great reviews from readers on both the ebook and paperback formats. If you get it and like it, please feel free to let me know with your review.

I look forward to your comments.

Later,

Mike

P.S. You may read my post from last September third by clicking here. It has some good comments too.

I Have Started Another School Year

I got my 2012-2013 school year off to a wonderful start yesterday with a standing ovation after my staff development workshop for a great school district in Antigo, Wisconsin; so I guess they liked my presentation!

If you do not know where Antigo is, it is a nice little community of about 8,000 people in central Wisconsin located about a half hour north and east of Wausau. Everyone knows where Wausau is, right?

Geographically, they are a pretty large district where middle and high school students could live in homes as far as fifty miles apart! So, busing is a major issue for a district with about twenty-three hundred K-12 students. I spoke with their entire staff of about four hundred people. And there was only one Green Bay Packer uniform in the bunch!

I had fun teasing teachers about things like the physical education teachers not having a real job because all they do is play to getting a kindergarten teacher to stop giggling. I communicated several times before my visit with their Human Resources Director, Sarah Zelazoski about their specific objectives for my workshop and put together a fouteen-page handout together to meet those objectives. She told me afterwards my presentation was just what they needed. In fact, she said one teacher told her it was exactly what he needed to get him excited about the upcoming year!

Sarah also told me several teachers were already commenting on arranging to have me come back and spend a day with their secondary students! I love hearing stories like that.

My attendant, Kelly, and I got to eat a great lunch at Dixie's, a cool, little cafe which are my favorite eating places when I visit small towns. While we were there, a woman I met back in the middle nineties at the Wisconsin Teen Leadership Program (WTLP) came down for a quick visit before she went to pick up her seven-year-old son to bring him to my afternoon session for their athletes, coaches and several members of the community.

Please do not get me wrong, I loved my day with the staff in the morning, and teasing several football players in my afternoon session. We did a lot of laughing and hope they learned some things. I was in my element and feeding off the energy of my audience, like I always do; but the highlight of my trip was seeing my friend and getting to catch up a bit, Mary Meister, and meeting her son, Jacob! He was all excited because immediately after my presentation they were headed for his very first Packer game! Mary said he told her he would start to read his new, autographed book to his uncles and mom on their way to the game. That was cool!

Let me tell you why Mary made my day. The year after she attended WTLP as a participant, she came back as a counselor and did so for several years. At the same time, another Antigo student, Tara Wagner, was also attending our leadership program. We had great conversations at each camp and became great friends with these two wonderful young leaders.

We became such good friends, they both invited me to their weddings! An interesting note on that is, I was the only adult from those programs they invited. We formed a connection.

I love making or having longtime friends, not seeing them for a while and then when given the opportunity, reconnecting and picking up where we left off. That happened with Mary yesterday. We could have talked all afternoon.

After a two hundred forty mile drive home, I had a confirmation email for another school in Edgerton, Minnesota, where we lived from 1963 to 1966. I am going to visit the school, and the local paper is writing about my Edgerton history, memories and specifics about our time there. It will be published September fifth and have been given permission to put it in the Articles page on my website. I have read a draft and it promises to be a good article.

Yesterday was a Red Letter Day!

I look forward to your comments.

Later,

Mike

Can we learn anything from Wile E. Coyote?

Okay, please get past the foul language and imagine you are in Wile's shoes. His comment about working for twenty years is actually a lot longer dating back to 1949. According to several sources, the first of only forty-nine episodes titled Fast and Furry-ous for Warner Brothers went on the air. Yes, it was Mel Blanc's voice that did the Beep, Beep! of the Roadrunner.

What do you do when the company you have worked for goes bankrupt and you lose your 401K, your pension is gone, the paycheck you were depending on to pay the mortgage stops, your skill set is limited and you find yourself unqualified for a position you need to live on?

How do we handle adversity? What would you do if you had a new-found disability that prohibited you from performing your current occupation? Have you ever thought about it? Like Wile, trying to learn a new skill set may be very frustrating. But, did he handle his waiter's job very well? I think not. His problem solving skills were being tested.

Do you have additional skills to transfer into a new career once your job is robotized or eliminated? I do not have many skills left if I were not able to speak. I could do data entry, but I would have a hard time punching a clock eight hours a day. Physically, I simply do not have the stamina. I certainly could not do it very quickly. My typing skills are limited. 

My career is perfect for me. I cannot imagine doing anything else! If you know me, you know I like to talk and I like to meet new people. I also like to listen. I love to hear peoples' stories. You would not believe some of the things people tell me. Sometimes, it is after only hearing me for an hour or two. I guess I have a way of getting people to trust me when I speak.

What would you do if you suddenly found yourself in Wile's position? By the way, if Wile and his buddy ate the Roadrunner it would have been so tough from all that running, it would have been like eating shoe leather.

I look forward to your comments.

Later,

Mike

Attitude

We have all heard the phrase Attitude is everything. I believe that statement and try to have a good attitude every day. Unfortunately, there are days when we get tested and we wonder how our attitude is going to get us through that particular situation. At least, I do.

It happened to me again the other day. I had received orders for several books, gotten an email from a new school who was inquiring about me coming to spend a day and had a good day started. Then, my attitude got tested. 

My personal care attendant did not show up because we had a miscommunication about scheduling, my chair developed an intermittent electrical short, my computer crashed, my power door would not lock, so I did not want to leave my apartment. Plus, I was starting to get hungry. It seemed like I was getting attacked from all directions! My attitude was starting to get tested.

Well, four hours later my technical support representative in India, finally got my computer running; although my website is back, it does not have the current version showing. My attendant showed up and fixed me dinner. My power door magically started working again, and once again Mike's World was functioning at a workable pace!

The quote, Don't sweat the small stuff, was in full force. As you may know, there is a second part to that quote that reads, it's all small stuff! I had to remember that quote the other day.

I love a quote by the late George Carlin, on his perspective of optimism and pessimism. He was a realist. This is a paraphrase, but the gist of his quote was: The optimist says the glass is half full. The pessimist says the glass is half empty. I'm a realist. The glass is twice as big as it needs to be!

I put myself in that realist group. The example I often use in speeches is no matter how optimistic I can be about walking again someday, I am realistic enough to know it will not happen tomorrow.

Then, I spotted this diagram and it blew the whole analogy out of the water. (Please pardon the pun.) It shows the glass as always being full! Now, what am I going to do?

As always, I welcome your comments.

Later,

Mike