Tell them today...

 

I’ve attended too many funerals lately. No…that’s not right. Funerals are something that we do to honor those that have died. It’s not an obligation. It’s a sign of respect.

If you live long enough, you’re going to find that this is something you do more and more. I know I fight the notion, but I am old and, hopefully, getting older, so I find myself attending those things.

Each of us grieve in our own way. Some public, some private. Funerals, to me, are more about those left behind. The family. The spouse.

I counted up recently how many times I’ve been back to my hometown.  Of the 10 or so times I could remember, only a couple were for anything but a funeral.

I missed the funeral of my high school football coach, Coach Bert “Chig” Ratledge. I was traveling. Same thing for Dr. Gary Dutton, another football coach and mentor.

I was able to see both of them not long before they died, and they knew very clearly how important they were to my life and my successes.  They both always told me they were proud of me. I don’t think they could understand how important that was to me. 

And that’s lesson number one for today. Tell those that have been important to you, at whatever stage in life they were present, what that meant to you.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again—teachers and coaches have a profound influence on who we are, who we become, even how we see the world.  I was blessed to have many of those in my life.

Always, those coaches.  Mrs. Smith, my physics and chemistry teacher. Dr. Barrett, English teacher at UT.  Dr. Ed Headlee, senior English teacher at my high school and Explore Post director. Ruth Mulvaney, my favorite teacher in PT school.

My little Daddy.  Quiet. Uneducated. Hard working. He taught me to love education.  He taught me to aspire to be a better man. He instilled in me integrity, trustworthiness, and dependability.

Those Boy Scout leaders, too many to mention. I wish I could remember which one of them selected me at 12 to be a Patrol Leader of a new patrol, because that is what set me on my path of leadership.

That opportunity taught me the value of teamwork, that you lead from the front, that the team is greater than its parts.  It taught me that leadership was all about service to others, even though we never expressed it that way. The concept of “servant leader” was to come along much later.

The Boy Scout motto: Be prepared. The Boy Scout slogan—Do a good turn daily.  I can still recite the Boy Scout Law. A Boy Scout is trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, reverent.

The Boy Scout oath: “On my honor, I will do my best….” If you know, you know.

Tell somebody today that you love them. Tell those that have made a difference in your life how much you appreciate them and what they did for you. It might be your last chance.

The Demise of the Team

 

You might have figured out that I’m a sports fan. Not like, always watching it on TV or knowing the statistics of favorite players. Like, I believe in the value of sports and how important they can be in personal development.

Oh, I’ll watch my Clemson Tigers when they’re on TV and I like to keep up with how my friend Alan Hardin’s Texas Longhorns are doing. Or Randall Cobb’s team when he was playing.

I can’t tell you who all the players are on any team and goodness knows I’m not going to be listening to sports radio shows.  But I believe in the value of sports. 

I wanted my kids to be athletes yet I never cared much what games they played—they just had to play something.  That’s pretty much the same thing with their kids. 

You’ve heard it before—lessons learned on the fields of strife and all that.  Life lessons.  Lessons about how to be coached.  Lessons learned from seeing the results of good effort.

Lessons learned from being on a team.

Anybody that knows me knows that I’m an especially huge fan of high school sports, particularly football.  There is really nothing like it.  Playing for the love of the game. Representing your school, your community.

At a lot of places, your high school team is made up of kids that you grew up with.  Friends that you’ve had since t-ball or biddy league.  That sort of thing.

That makes it extra special. There is a different kind of love in the love for your teammates.  I still have friends from high school football. Lonnie Hawkins. Mike Bivens. Greg Cagle. Ricky Alexander. Gordo Watson. I visited with JL Millsaps the Tuesday before he died on Saturday of ALS.  People that I might not see often but that I still feel a closeness, a brotherhood if you will.

But sports are changing. NIL money. The portal. The money seems to be driving everything.  The best team money can buy.

Yeah, that’s the college game right now, but it’s just a matter of time until it hits the high schools (and yes, I do know that some high school athletes get NIL money).

Now, don’t get me wrong—I’m not against college players getting paid something. I can remember one of my son’s teammates at Clemson. We saw him coming out of a store empty handed once and asked him if everything was OK.  He said he was just inside paying on the lay-away on a computer.

I remember lay-away. That was what you did when you wanted to buy something but didn’t have enough to pay for it. You would pay a bit at a time until you had paid enough in that they let you take it home.

Nick had it better than most. I always made sure he had spending money. Many of his teammates didn’t have that kind of support system. They couldn’t afford to go out to eat with their buddies.

So yes, pay them.

But millions?  And the opportunity to leave a school at any time and transfer to the highest bidder? It’s gonna kill the game as we know it. 

And one of the things that is suffering?  The team. When TV announcers need a scoresheet to list all the places somebody has played, it’s sad to me. No loyalty. No team. A sad day indeed.

I did a thing...

 

I have a confession to make. I did a thing recently that will draw criticism from some folks. I bought an e-bike. That’s a regular bicycle with an electric motor to help with the pedaling.

Now, bike purists might look down their noses at those on an e-bike. I’m sure I have some biking buddies that might think less of me because of that. I can live with that.

This particular e-bike is a mountain bike. Most of my biking these days is on a mountain bike. I still ride my road bike from time to time and a gravel bike trip across Rich Mountain is a Wednesday standard.

But now I own an e-bike.  That decision to buy an e-bike was based on several factors.

First, I’m getting older. 72, as a matter of fact. And the only person that I ride with that’s older than me is Ken Bell, who happens to be (and has always been) a beast on the bicycle. Any bicycle.

So, other than riding with Dr. Bell, I’m always chasing younger people.

The thing about mountain biking is that there is always climbing. Always. What goes down must first go up.  There are no exceptions to this rule. And these old legs don’t climb like they used to.

This bike won’t pedal for me—I still have to do my part—but it will help me do this longer and better. That’s a good thing. But here’s the problem—there are e-bikes out there that are basically electric motorcycles. If it has a throttle, it isn’t a bicycle anymore. And that’s what put me down the path for today’s column.

A friend just sent me a note complaining about all these types of vehicles on the Greenbelt.  It seems that he was nearly hit on several occasions, as he walked along what has to be one of the nicest features of our communities. Almost hit by cycles that you basically don’t have to pedal. Essentially electric motorcycles.

Then last weekend, my grandson and I had a kid on a mini-bike (remember those things) buzz by us on the Greenbelt near Alcoa High School. He passed us on the bridge and then we followed him as he took off up the path that follows along the creek.

That’s got to be illegal.  And it’s for sure dangerous for those using the Greenbelt for running, walking, and cycling. And I would estimate that half the people on bicycles on the Greenbelt weren’t wearing helmets.  That’s just not smart.

One of the more serious injuries that I know of was on the Greenbelt.  A seasoned rider, hit some loose dirt under a bridge, went down, and knocked himself unconscious.  Had he not been wearing a helmet, that injury might have killed him.

The e-bikes on the same trail are a different matter, although again, if it has a throttle and you don’t have to pedal much, it’s not a bicycle.  My wife reminds me often that even if the effort is minimal, at least people are getting out and doing something. 

That's true.  Even if it doesn't take much effort, it's better than sitting on the couch binging on TV.  There are benefits to green therapy--getting outside for whatever the reason.  

I would be lying if I didn’t tell you that I think they should be working harder but I would be a hypocrite if I didn’t admit that I do the same thing. Sort of.

Anyway. Be safe out there. Don’t ruin the Greenbelt for the rest of us.

Cup of Joe: Stop and smell the roses?

 

I did something quite unusual this week. For me, anyway. I took the week off, without plans. No travels. No notes to write. Saturday thru Thursday without specific plans for anything.

Before I continue, let me state for the record that I love my home, my family, my work, my small farm, and the life I’ve built. Not bad for a country boy from Loudon whose only ambitions growing up were football and hauling hay.

And Boy Scouts. It was there that I started my leadership journey. It was there that I was first prompted to step out of my comfort zone. Boundary Waters canoe trips. Eagle Scout. Order of the Arrow.  All those helped shape the person I am today. 

But this week really forced me to slow down. Observe. Listen. Do all those things that my busy, hectic life doesn’t really allow.

Breakfast was the same. Every morning. Two eggs, half a piece of Benton’s bacon, a slice of sourdough bread that I made myself.

After that, I often retired to my basement art studio, where I painted. Yes, I paint. Often, during this time of year. Some call me an artist. I think of myself as a painter. I don’t create as much as I mimic. I love big splashes of color and am constantly on the lookout for things that others have created that I like.

Just like my blueberries, I give my paintings away. Never sell them. I grow my blueberries for the joy I get from…well…growing blueberries.  I paint for me—the stress relief is immense.

I found a way to exercise every day. It isn’t in me to miss.  I went mountain biking a couple of times. The stationary bike is there for bad weather. I hit a yoga class or two.

I ran into Meghan Cobble at one of those. She’s the wife of the new Maryville High Head Football Coach Kenny Cobble. That reminded me of how proud I am of Kenny, who is truly one of the best men I’ve known. I’m no longer on the sidelines of MHS football, that ship has sailed, but it still warms my heart to see a good man in a position to do even more good things.

I enjoyed my time with my wife. A whole week and nary a cross word. Oh, there was the one time when I though she was talking on the phone with our daughter and she was really talking to me. She came into the room and asked if I was “grumpy” because I didn’t answer. We later laughed about that one.

I cooked burnt ends according to the recipe provided by Sammy Sweetland. I took down the Christmas decorations. I cleaned up my asparagus beds. I started a really good book called Theo of Golden, recommended by my friend Patty Bell. Mundane tasks that I relished by week’s end. I reached out to a friend in Lanett, Alabama fighting cancer.  I hope to go see him soon.

And then I went back to work.  Yesterday.  Doing what I consider a privilege to do every day—help people overcome injury and deal with pain.   (And no, I’m not retiring.)                                                         

The bottom line is that nothing I did during this strange week was monumental. Maybe none of it was memorable. But as we enter this new year, maybe it’s not the epic trips, the awards and accomplishments that are important. Maybe it’s OK to slow down and appreciate the little things that make truly make a life. Happy New Year.