Some Friendships Last A Lifetime!

I had a great experience yesterday when three of my close friends from the dorms I lived in in Berkeley during the 1974-'75 school year flew in for a few hours of sharing old memories and making new ones. Karen "Smalley" Bixby called me a couple days ago and asked if she could fly from a conference in Chicago for a few hours and then go back later yesterday afternoon.

I replied, "Of course, that would be great, but I could not come to get you at the airport. Maybe Mike Ross could pick you up and take you back when you needed to fly out?"

Kathy (Keen) Mancuso lives in Houston now and when Karen proposed the idea to Kathy, Keeno was ready to come if she could get good flights with corresponding times.

Here is a picture of the four of us, as they were getting ready to leave:

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

Mike had me order some Chinese take-out food for lunch, which they picked up on the way to my apartment. Karen helped feed me with chopsticks, which she was very adept at using! There is no way I can use those sticks!

The year I was in Putnam Hall was the first year the Physically Disabled Student Program (PDSP) started integrating students with disabilities into the general student population. UC Berkeley was way ahead of its time! The program has since dropped the first word, Physically, from its title and is now known as DSP. It is housed in the Ed Roberts Campus, which is located a few blocks from campus and was started to honor all of the work Ed did around the world for the disability community. I have written about him before and you can find that post by clicking on his name in the labels at the end of this post.

Karen was a Resident Assistant for Freeborn Hall. She went out of her way to make friends with the three students with disabilities that lived in Putnam. It was no easy task since Greg was unable to speak and had to spell everything slowly on his lapboard. Gary lived on the other side of me and spoke very slowly and non-discernible by most people. I became his interpreter and when anyone new would join us at lunch, they would look to me to tell him/her what Gary was trying to say.

Another story everyone remembered fondly was getting my mail because I could not open the mailbox, which was high on the wall and down one floor. When my mother would send pictures of my little brother, Chad who was just a few months old when I moved to Berkeley and he was learning to walk, she would send a half dozen pictures a week of Chad as he grew and changed every week. Mom would write "Do Not Bend" on the envelope in several places!

Whomever got my mail would run up the stairs screaming, "Mike, you got another, 'Do Not Bend'" We all knew what that meant so several people would gather in the lush courtyard right outside the cafeteria and pass around a half-dozen more pictures of Chad looking left, Chad looking right, Chad sitting up, Chad standing up. You name it, Mom will deny this but she was encouraging me to come home in her subtle ways! The funny thing is, it worked!

I tell everyone that asks what was the best thing I have ever done? I tell them, "The second best thing I ever did was move to Berkeley." 

Their response is always, well then what was the best thing you ever did? I always reply, "I moved home." I say that not because of my friends I made in Berkeley and the growing I did on a personal level, but rather how my life has grown in so many ways since moving back, finishing my degree at the University of Minnesota and the changes my life has taken since I left Berkeley in 1975.

Another irony in this move was several years after I moved back and Chad graduated from college he moved to Southern California and has been there for many years now! It was fun for Kathy and Karen to see pictures of Chad now as a forty-two-year-old entrepreneur living in Southern California!

We shared stories of our memories of the fairly short time in our lives where we were actually together and how that school year has made lasting friendships that have lasted more than forty years!

I want to close with a picture of the three of us men who attended our dinner at Trader Vic's Restaurant in San Francisco when I took eight other friends and myself to a four-hour dinner for $150! We had a blast that night and stories abounded about who remembered what from that treat. I like this picture because the three of us all had cool 1970s hair!

Besides Mike Ross In his flashy velvet jacket and me was Doug Hamblin, Mike's roommate.

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

Like I said earlier, the four hours just flew by and I wish it could have lasted longer. I do not believe a minute went by when somebody was not talking, usually while somebody else was telling her or his memory of a particular story!

It always amazes me how all the stages of my life keep coming back in various ways by people who made a difference in that particular piece of my life. At 61, I have a hard time believing I have managed to live in so many places and acquire so many friendships on levels I cannot describe. I have managed to live more than forty-four years with a high-level spinal cord injury and I am feeling the aging process along with everything that goes with my injury. Yet, there are many days I feel like I can turn those numbers around and I feel 16!

As always, I look forward to your comments.

Later,

Mike

Flip Saunders Had Everything But Time!

I met Flip at an event on the University of Minnesota campus called Campus Carni shortly after he had been named the head coach at tiny Golden Valley Lutheran College. Of course, he was with his then girlfriend, Debbie Hoeft, his constant companion until yesterday.

For those of you who were around the University in the 60's, 70's and into the 80's, you probably remember Campus Carni. It was a big Greek fundraising event with lots of loud music; scantily clad dancers and an eight-minute skit between the loud music and dancing. It was a fun time for all and Debbie was dancing with the University's Dance Line.

I worked up the courage to go up to Flip and congratulate him on his new position. I also volunteered to be an assistant coach if he liked the idea. He told me he was interested in learning more about me as we had a great conversation.

The next three years during my assistant coaching position at GVLC were a lot of fun. I made some lifelong friends and learned to play backgammon and chess from Flip and his roommates, Dave Winey, Mike "Bones" Cervony, Brad Cosgriff and Kevin McHale.

I am attaching our first team picture when we had the youngest college coaching staff in the country! Flip, Bones and I were only twenty-two, and Dan Kosmoski was only twenty-one! One of our players, Doug Moore was twenty-three and fresh out of military service. All of the coaching staff were still in college ourselves!

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

Bones is in the back row right behind Flip and Kos is immediately to the left of Bones. Several of those players went on to become very successful businessman in their own right and Dan Kosmoski has been the head basketball coach at St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota starting his twenty-second year. Last year he took his Oles to the Sweet 16 of the NCAA Division III Basketball Tournament for the first time in school's history!

I am proud to say we never lost a game in that tiny gymnasium that was overflowing an hour before each game to watch our pregame, synchronized warm-up program inspired by Bill Musselman in Flip when he played at the University of Minnesota.



Flip told me once, that he believed outside of the University of Minnesota's college basketball team, we were the greatest draw in the area for college basketball! I think he was right! It was fun being in that tiny gym for the three years I helped develop some fine young men. Two of them became All-American Junior College players and number 11; Hurdis Burns led the nation in scoring most of his sophomore year! He ended up in second or third averaging just less than thirty points a game. That was before the three-point shot!

Later that year, we won one game 144-68! Our last five players scored 44 points in 10 minutes because we were already at 100 and let them play for an extended period of time.

It was a fun time for me because I knew I was learning from a good coach who was on his way to the NBA one way or another. He took a long way in getting there, but Flip finally was putting the pieces in place to make the Minnesota Timberwolves a contending team.  He was putting together a winner he just needed a little more time.

He took a chance on me and I loved every minute of it. Flip's favorite story about me he has told many times was in one game he was arguing at an official's call and the referee told him to sit down and not argue anymore calls. If he stood up one more time the referee was going to throw him out of the game!

Flip turned to me and said, "If I get upset again, you go out and argue with the ref because you can't stand up!" He laughed every time he told me that story. 

I never thought I would be writing this blog because Flip was one of those coaches who was going to retire late in his life after the fire in his belly was gone. I do not think that fire would have ever left him. I know he was excited about his new draft choices, returning veterans and trades he had made.

I know Sam Mitchell will be a very good replacement. It will just not be the same.

I believe this picture Kevin Garnet posted says it all when he stated, "Forever in my heart."

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

My best wishes go out to Debbie and their four children. It is still hard to believe he is gone!

I look forward to your comments.

Later,

Mike

Is Intelligent Conversation Dead?

I put a post up on my Facebook page the other day and I received several comments telling me they love to engage in intelligent conversation! One friend, Deborah Roberts posted, "I totally rock on a stimulating convo. I find it completely absorbing to find a conversationalist who keeps my interest piqued and my brain engaged. Talk with me about my favorite things and we could go for days. …"

Another person Shared my post and wrote, "But its so rare. We have gotten to the point that if we dont agree then we cant be friends. Its BS"

To which the person who Shared it, replied, "True Buck, plus it is harder all the time to find an intelligent conversationist."

I replied, "It's too bad you guys feel that way because I get into intelligent conversations all the time and they can last for hours! I met a friend on Facebook and one day we talked on FaceTime for six hours and the time flew by. The very next day we talked for four hours! We talk on FaceTime all the time. Whenever I talk to a friend from the past we can talk for hours and the time flies by! I'm convinced you get out of anything what you put into it. It's all about your attitude. I run into people all the time who want to talk to me and we can talk for 15, 20 minutes or longer before they have to go. I had this conversation with my acupuncturist last week, and he didn't want to leave. He had patients to go to, but he said, "It's you Mike, people are interested in what you have to say and they want to share what they have to say. You're willing to listen and its conversations like this that makes you fun to be around." It was spontaneous and I'll see him again on Monday and we won't want to end our conversation again. Just sayin'!"

The interesting thing about these two who were putting down my post was their grammar and spelling was terrible. I am sure they did not think of thing about what they were writing!

Here is my post:

Click on the image to make it larger:

My contention is that anyone will get back what he or she puts in to something. I can tell you story after story after story about how I get into live, telephone, Facebook, FaceTime and Skype conversations that can last for hours.

My first FaceTime intelligent conversation was with a woman I had never met, Laurie Thiboutot and I chatted for six hours the first day and had another intelligent conversation for four hours the second day. Her husband, Peter came by several times and introduced himself and got so enticed by all the time Laurie was having fun on FaceTime and all of the other activities she was doing with Facebook, he decided to join himself. Now, they are both on Facebook and I FaceTime with him as well! I have never met either one of them and we carry on great, intelligent conversations!

If you read my last post when I talked about my Uncle Bob and how he liked to tell stories you know whenever he would tell stories, I got a few of mine in as well.

I believe I got my storytelling abilities from both sides of my family. The Smith side came from Bob, his uncles and father, and I would have loved to have heard my maternal great-grandfather, William Young tell stories. Unfortunately, he died three years after I was born. There are some incredible stories from him my uncles have told me about how he used to tell living through and after the Great Depression.

Here is a photograph of him in his liquor store that was adjacent to his barbershop which had a back room and high-stakes poker games took place after hours and the windows were covered with black sheets so no one could see the games that involved high stakes as deeds to farms. Grandpa Young took home several of those deeds and gave one to each of his children. That is how my maternal grandmother, Erma got the farm Uncle Bob owns now!

Again, click on the image to make it larger:

My Patrick side of the family had great uncle Stanley. He used to tell me incredibly detailed stories about how he accumulated farms during the Great Depression and never admitted to it, but he was also a great beneficiary of the Great Depression because he knew how to play the system.

Here is a wonderful photograph of my paternal grandfather, Benjamin (far right) going from right to left in the lower row were my great-grandmother, Mabel, then my great-grandfather Thomas and lastly, Stanley. The back row from right to left are Hazel, Mabel, then Florence and Alice. The children are all in birth order.

 

This is a very large photograph. If you decide to enlarge it, be prepared to wait a while because of its size:

My grandfather, Ben was killed by lightning in 1942. He was only thirty-seven years old! My great Uncle Stanley used to tell me incredibly detailed stories. His goal was to live to be one hundred. He reached that goal and three weeks later passed away. He had reached his goal and it was if it was time for him to join the rest of his family.

I can only guess he got his storytelling abilities from his father, Charles! I wish I could have listened to stories my grandfather Ben would have had. I'm sure great-grandfather Tom would have been quite a storyteller in his day as well.

Like I said earlier, I get my storytelling abilities from both sides of my family. I have tried to carry on a tradition I love to tell. As many of you know, I tell stories that can last for quite some time; just like this blog post!

I look forward to your comments.

Later,

Mike

I Am 60 Today!

I have a hard time believing I am 60 years old today! I do not know where the time has gone and how I reached this age!

Before I talk about my age, I want to tell you about my new pacemaker. I told you I would keep you informed as to when the date will be. I will be getting number four on Friday, April 17th at noon. Chances are I will check in, have them insert my new pacemaker and go home that afternoon. 

I did something I had never done before and that was to put a two-sentence status post up on my Facebook page. I simply wrote, "I just found out I will be getting my new pacemaker April 17th! That makes number four." 

For me, the response was overwhelming! I know other people get much larger numbers for posts on a regular basis, but that was incredible. I received more than 100 Likes and more than 50 Comments! That is the second-highest number I have received for any post on my Facebook page except when I posted a Profile picture from last summer when I gave the keynote speech for the University of Minnesota's Physical Therapy's Commencement Ceremony. I had 163 Likes!

The Comments and Likes came from people I have known my entire life and six of the eight towns I lived in before I was 14! I also received notes from all three colleges I attended. They also came from people I knew from giving a speech or met in an unusual way. As if anything is usual for me!

Now, it is back to the point of this post. I want to show you my first birthday cake and see what you think:

I was already using my left hand at an early age! Scroll ahead thirteen years to my 14th birthday, and notice how I am using my left hand as well to light my birthday candles.

 
Click on the images to make them larger:

It was only two more birthdays after that I stopped celebrating my birthday. Let me explain why. When I first got hurt September 3, 1971 my goal was to be walking by basketball season. When that goal obviously did not arrive, I set a new goal of walking by my 17th birthday. Obviously, that did not happen either. It was then I decided my birthday was just a reminder that I was still not able to walk. That did not seem like a reason to celebrate.

That is until this year! I have been getting a number of reminders from unlikely sources reminding me that 60 years is a long time and deserves a celebration. First of all, I have had reminders at my acupuncture receptionist, the receptionist at my wound clinic a week ago, a social worker, one of my personal care attendants and two women from my past lives who are both my age.

On April 8th, Karen (Smalley) Bixby who lived in the women's dorm next to my dormitory the second year I was in Berkeley called me and wanted to be the first to wish me a happy 60th birthday. Karen and I have been lifelong friends and she is smiling right now as she keeps track of me through my blog posts and I am writing about her!

She called to remind me my birthday was April 12th and I would be 60 years old! Since Karen's birthday was April 9th, a full three days before mine I asked her to tell me what it was going to be like since she is so much older than me. We have discussions on our cell phones every once in a while, although they are not frequent enough, but we had a great thirty-minute conversation before she had to go. I am sure we will have another talk soon.

About an hour later I was chatting with a new Facebook friend who I played baseball with her brothers when we lived for a brief time in Sibley, Iowa.  Mind you, we were only in the seventh and early part of eighth-grade when Susan (Streit) Wheeler moved to town with her family. I had never talked to her when they lived in town because of my fear of girls at that stage of my life. I am over that fear now. I believe I was afraid girls would bite me if I spoke to one back then. Little did I know if one did, I might actually like it!

Susan and I had a forty-five minute conversation that only had to be cut short because she had to be someplace. I am certain we will have another conversation again soon. It was like we had been lifelong friends and in reality had never spoken before. I find myself in conversations like that all the time.

I have no problem meeting people now and finding things to talk about. Often times I will end up finding something in common from one of our past lives. That also happened to me several times last week while I was either in the hallway or in speaking to a therapist or physician. I love stories like that.

If you did not know it already, you might think I am a bit of an extrovert!

I am not sure what I'm supposed to feel like now that I am 60? I have had people tell me I  do not feel old to them because I do not act old. What is the definition of old? When does a person become old, or is it just a feeling? There are many questions I have about the aging process and the attitude one takes as he or she ages. I know people who are younger than me and feel much older to me. Do you know people like that? 

Is it about being positive, realistic or negative?  Can healthy relationships be built at any stage in life? Can they be built between people with drastic age differences? I could go on but this is already a long post. I will save more of my questions for another post.

Now, I believe it is time to watch the Masters Golf Tournament for a while. Does that make me old?

As always, 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

Talk About Going Viral!

In the grand scheme of the Internet and when a YouTube video, statement or Tweet goes viral, this is probably no big deal. However, to a small town in southwestern Minnesota where I lived when I had my accident this site has grown by leaps and bounds in a matter of a few weeks!

If you know anything about my history before my accident, you know we moved a lot. My dad always got a better job with a little more pay in a slightly larger town, in an area of the upper Midwest in South Dakota, Iowa and Minnesota. Each coaching and teaching job gave him challenges and opportunities the previous one did not.

By the time we moved to Worthington, Minnesota in February 1969 when I was partway through the eighth grade and not yet fourteen years old, we had lived in seven other communities and sixteen different locations. We never lived in one spot more than eighteen months! Six of those years were in two different trailer houses in five of those towns, and I use the word towns loosely as one little community, Farmer, South Dakota had only seventy residents!

Worthington was by far the largest small-town we had lived in and offered all the amenities a young teenage boy could want. There was a YMCA complete with a pool, basketball and paddle ball courts, and weight room, Dad taught and coached at the local junior college and I had free-run of the athletic facilities when Dad would take me with him to his workplace, a lake across the road where I could go fishing and swimming at one of the beaches, a bowling alley, a movie theater, a local famously named drive-in, an A&W root beer stand, a golf course and even a daily newspaper. Worthington also has a beautiful park system with a bandstand that had Wednesday night concerts all summer long and a wealth of attractions for my growing interests. We did not have a McDonald's, but we did have a Quick Stop!

A few weeks ago, someone started a Facebook page entitled "Growing Up In Worthington, Minnesota What Do You Remember." As of right now, there are 4,343 members with 162 new members. When I joined about ten days ago, there were roughly 2,200 members!

People are building new relationships, rekindling old friendships that went away as people went their separate ways after high school, learning facts and long forgotten pieces of their past. It is creating a community of its own. Personally, I have had more than two dozen people asked to Friend me on Facebook. Some of them are people I never knew, and others are folks who had fallen out of touch over these many years.

People are putting their high school graduation years after their names and posts are drawing hundreds of Likes and Comments. Yesterday, for instance, was my B squad basketball coach's seventy-ninth birthday. His son put it on the site and it grew to having well over two hundred Likes and about the same number of Comments from his former students wishing him a Happy Birthday and sharing their experiences from having him as their teacher.

People are posting pictures of historic buildings that no longer exist. One friend posted a thank you note to all the patrons he has had at his business and within a few hours there were several hundred Comments about his store!

Here is the current Cover Photo of downtown Worthington circa 1900:

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I know this is nothing compared to when a video goes viral and gets one million hits in one day, or Ellen sets a record for retweets of a picture from the Oscars and over two million hits in one day, but this site has been fun for a lot of people to learn and relearn the history and share memories of people from one small town in the southwestern corner of Minnesota.

As always, I look forward to your comments.

Later,

Mike

P.S. I am guessing someone will put this blog post on the site, and it will be interesting to see what sort of reaction I get to it.

Little Girls And Daddies

I received a great article from a friend who saw it on The Huffington Post on February second. The title of the article was "What Little Girls Wish Daddies Knew" and was written by Tara Hedman. It was a very good article and I will give you two ways of going to the article in the next couple paragraphs.

Ms Hedman was sitting in an auto repair shop waiting room when she experienced a father playing with his four-year-old daughter. She found their play very rewarding and came up with these twenty-five points little girls wish their daddy's knew. Go to the link by clicking here.

If that does not work, try this link: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tara-hedman/what-little-girls-wish-daddies-knew_b_4581782.html One of them should get you there.

The reason I am posting this is I am a member of a group of men and women called The Good Men Project. I have written about them before, and we are trying to help men help boys transition into manhood.

One of the interesting discussions we have in our weekly, hour-long conference call has to do with men not only helping little boys succeed, but also what we can do to break some of the stereotypes about men and little girls. Some of those stereotypes are good, and as stereotypes go, some of them are bad.

I have always contended there is a reason for stereotypes, both good and bad stereotypes. That reason is because people fit the stereotype. That is where the stereotype comes from. We all know the squeaky wheel gets the grease. When a man does something wrong to a child, it makes the news. Too often in our society today, we are not recognizing positive experiences men have with children. I believe that is wrong. That is one of the goals The Good Men Project is trying to address.

The Good Men Project always has interesting posts from many different perspectives and on a wide variety of subjects. For instance, right now one of the leading stories is about divorced fathers raising their sons. It is an interesting read.

Whether you are a parent of a young child, teenager or adult, I believe you just might learn something by reading some of the posts on our site. It is growing exponentially and has a wealth of information in helping us all become better citizens, whether we are parents or not. I strongly encourage you to check us out.

As always, I welcome your comments.

Later,

Mike

Happy Thanksgiving!

As we all know, Thanksgiving is a time to stop, reflect and give thanks for everything we have been given this last year. I cannot express the good things that happened to me this last year without stopping to take a moment and think about the things I have lost as well.

I have lost a couple good friends to the dreaded "C" word, cancer. It seems the more time goes on, the more we experience different forms of grief in our lives. We have all been there and we will all be there again when we need to mourn the loss of someone dear to us for any one of a number of reasons. As the saying goes, "Time marches on." How true that is! For instance, it is hard for me to believe my father has been gone for more than six years already. I miss him every day.

I have run into several people this year who ask what my dad is up to these days. When my reply is, "He died of mesothelioma July 23, 2006." The usual reaction is one of shock and wanting to know how we got his cancer. That happened several times in September when I was in Worthington for my fortieth high school class reunion and the annual Turkey Day celebration. It also happens when I go to Gopher basketball games and someone who knew him will ask me how he is doing. It happened the first game of the season as I ran into a newly retired man who played basketball for my dad in college.

I also found out one of my friends from Worthington lost his life, as did two extended family members.

That is enough of the sad news.

Some good things happened this year I would like to mention. The first, and biggest news I would like to share is my little brother; Chad got his Drum Wallet patented on April 2, 2013. That was exciting news and his prospects are growing exponentially as sales are picking up and the word is spreading worldwide about this exciting drum accessory. If you are interested in learning more about the Drum Wallet click here. If you cannot get there with that link, click on this site: thedrumwallet.com. If you are a regular reader of my site, you know I have written about Chad and the Drum Wallet before. I am his biggest fan and very proud big brother to see all of his hard work start to pay off in getting the patent approved. 

I have also seen a steady rise in book sales of my book entitled "I Still Believe In Tomorrow" which is available on my website at patcom.com. FYI: they make great gifts for the upcoming holiday season if you happen to be interested. If you order them through me, I will make a personal signing to the intended recipient.

Some of you know of my Mom's brother Bob who is renovating the barn on the home place where mom and her nine siblings were raised. The barn was built in 1901 and for the last six years Bob has been commuting at least twice a year to do work on his man cave/hunting lodge to the point where now it is livable and every November he comes up from Louisiana and other family members come from as far away as Alaska to hunt pheasants and work on Bob's barn.

This year, he brought his wife, Linda and her grandson, Matt and his wife, Felicia. Whenever the barn is full of people, it is difficult to concentrate on any one conversation. However, Matt managed to read a good book in the middle of all the chaos with a conversation going on right behind him. Here is a picture of him focusing intently on his read:

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It was the first time in several years I have been able to make it up to the farm for a weekend of listening to stories and watching memories be made. It is always a great deal of fun listening to family members share memories of growing up in a different time when the barn was used for milking cows, feeding calves and housing horses. Of course, after a hunt, there are always stories of the day that sometimes are debated quite loudly about how someone actually shot or missed a coveted ringneck pheasant! Whenever I take someone with me who has never witnessed time at the Robert Michael Smith Private Game Preserve, they come away stunned and not quite sure of what just happened. However, they always want to go back another time. It is a unique experience!

I am very thankful to my uncle Bob for his commitment, and dogged determination to bring the barn back to life for its new purpose. It is truly a labor of love for him and we all appreciate it greatly! 

I am also thankful for my siblings, their children and my mom for the Thanksgiving celebration we will have tomorrow at Mom's house. All of my siblings will be there except for Tammy. Fortunately, she was just in town for a few days and got to spend a weekend in the barn.

Before I leave I want to share with you a joke I have had for many years and posted it on my Facebook page last year. I hope you enjoy the humor in my cartoon:

Who said turkeys are stupid?

I hope you all travel safely, eat too much good food, enjoy your company, get in at least one tryptophan induced nap and have a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday.

As always, I look forward to your comments.

Later,

Mike

We Did It!

In my last post, I told you I was going to my forty-year high school class reunion. A week ago tonight we had a good turnout and everyone had a wonderful time. We started with a tour of the newly renovated high school and saw just how much things had changed in the forty years since all my classmates graduated.

Before the tour, I spent about ninety minutes with the high school principal learning about all the good things happening besides the bricks and mortar changes. Their enrollment is growing, they are offering new classes, students may now get college credits for some of their coursework and several other highlights were just gushing out of his mouth. He is truly excited about the direction the school is taking! That was a fun conversation for me.

After the tour, we gathered for a social hour and then banquet. It was great fun seeing some people I had not seen in forty years! It was a challenge recognizing some people and there were only a few I did not recognize. One of my former teammates came up to me, did not say anything and I just looked at him. I was drawing a blank, and then I asked him to smile. As soon as he smiled, I blurted out, "Kevin Johnson!" I did not recognize the bald head, but I certainly recognized his smile!

The entire evening went by far too quickly, as they always do at events like this. At one point during the social hour we were all asked to go outside for a group picture. I am going to put a photograph here of someone trying to organize all my classmates. It was like herding cats!

Click on the image to make it larger:

Someone had lined up a row of chairs that was supposed to be the front row. So, I had someone move the middle chair, parked myself and waited for people to fill in around me. It seems simple enough to me, but it proved a little more difficult for a group of middle-aged people!

Saturday was the big hometown festival called King Turkey Day. There is a whole other story to that which I will not go into, but suffice it to say there are all kinds of activities for just about any demographic group's interest. The big part of the day is always the parade. We had a Class of '73 float which consisted of a flatbed hay rack with bales down the middle for people to sit on, and we opened up a spot in the back for me to sit.

Here is a photograph of me getting on the float using a front-end loader, which is the same one they used to get me on the podium when I spoke at last year's Turkey Day:

Once again, click on the image to make it larger:

Notice I am wearing a black poncho Deb (Bourassa) Peterson graciously lent me as the rain was just starting to come. Randy Haack, Bill McCuen and partially hidden Dave Baker all helped get me onto the float. I do not plan on riding on another float anytime soon!

Seriously, I was in no danger. It is always just a little scary being put in a situation where I am completely out of control. That comes from experience!

After the parade, they were more events that ran long into the night. Unfortunately, I only lasted until about 9:30!

All this week I have been collecting photographs, as I am sure many of my classmates have been of the weekend events. I believe I can safely say everyone enjoyed himself or herself.

Now it is back to all parts of the country from Florida to California to Oregon and all over the Midwest to resume our lives and rekindle our memories of our forty-year high school class reunion.

One more thing, I would like to thank everyone on the committee who organized the tour, evening's activities, slideshow, parade arrangements and anything else I may be forgetting. Also, thank you to the guys who helped get me on and off the float.

As always, 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

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:

Click on the image to make it larger:

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:

Click on the image to make it larger:

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