True Friendships Make Life Special

You are considered blessed in life if you have one true love, one true passion, and one true friend.

Recently one of those came to town for a visit. Not any friend – the one I first met while the Mayflower moving truck sat parked in the driveway unloading my family’s belongings into a new home in a new town. First grade waited patiently a few weeks ahead of me.

Between the pumpkin colored sofa, four metal kitchen chairs, and a dozen brown cardboard wardrobe boxes, he and I first met. His mother , younger brother and sister in tow, had walked through the green space separating our houses. A large plate of cookies proved the perfect icebreaker as we kids mingled in the ankle-high grass.

Nearly half a century later, we remain the closest of friends but rarely see each other. We’ve not lived in the same ZIP code let alone in the same state in decades. Yet we still find ways to remain close and making opportunities to get together.

Our friendship is like most – filled with highs and lows. We’ve fought, cried, and experienced many of our greatest memories together. Some of the moments I am proud of; others downright ashamed. But the one constant is that they happened with us an arm’s length apart.

I remember us rolling in a front yard, arms locked, punching, spitting, biting until we finally gave up. A few days later we didn’t remember why we ended up in the dirt in the first place. We, as they say, walked it off, letting the episode blow off into the summer dust.

We were battery mates on the little league baseball diamond, me on the mound and he behind the plate. We climbed out of windows and scaled dangerous rooftops to check out the views. We even skateboarded competitively together – a thread that altered our lives forever. As teenagers, we even drove a car with broken alternator thousands of miles because we wanted so badly to go camping on a beach. For a week or so we each took turns pushing the small car down flat coastal roads while the other sat inside ready to drop the clutch.

Fast-forward a half-century. We both have experienced marriage, parenthood, and can legally claim a senior citizen discount at McDonald’s. But we’ve never let time or distance keep us from remaining the closest of friends. We are joined by time.

Friendship is like an investment – an investment you make with your heart. Today the word can simply mean you accepted an invitation on an emotionless social media platform. To me, friendship is paid for with love, pain, and shared memories.

This past weekend my wife said she thought was watching two 10-year old kids. He and I went to the local skatepark, rode bikes, and even went surfing a couple days. We were, for all practical purposes, the same kids who shared that first plate of cookies in the driveway. And for that I consider myself a blessed man.

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Bracelet Invites Belief In Mystery

With the clever misdirection of a seasoned magician, a small woman made a tiny beaded bracelet appear on my wrist.

Below the towering skyline of Chicago, I am speaking with a woman a few inches south of five feet tall. Cloaked in a red and gold silk jacket, oriental golden calligraphy covers the surface. Her somber face reveals the scars of a lifetime of first-person stories I’d love to hear.

She speaks softly, nodding repeatedly. Her broken words reveal she is most likely a long way from her birthplace. Or, maybe not.

I look down at my wrist where 22 red wooden beads rest around my wrist.

The woman gently turns my wrist, my palm now open to the sky. She places a small golden foil card in the center. With a Buddha-like image on one side, the reverse offers me the blessings of a lifetime of peace.

The woman continues to nod and opens a spiral notebook with small print. The bracelet and card are a gift, but a donation will help rebuild a temple in Southeast Asia. The notebook shows a black and white photo of what, to my eyes, shows what appears a temple in great distress.

I reach into my pocket and pull out a few bills. The woman invites me to add my name to the list of people who’ve done the same ahead of me.

And with the same sense of invisibility she arrived, she nods, takes three steps backwards, and fades back into the crowd of busy tourists.

Looking down at the bracelet and card, two pathways become apparent – each offering contrasting emotions and outcomes. First, I can resent the fact I handed a few dollars to a woman who is working a crowd, handing out costume trinkets for dollars. The other pathway is to absorb the moment and default to the wisdom of the universe and knowing there is a chance – however slight – my actions may pave the way for good things to come my direction.

The red bracelet probably carries a cost value of less than a dollar – the foil card most likely a few pennies. But, I wonder, what is the value of the human experience of meeting the woman? And like the ever so brief belief we put in stage magician, what about the similar feeling washing across me while she and I interacted?

Much like a child, I’m increasingly open to enjoying the mysteries of life. The rational side of me knows most of the stories I was told as a child were nothing but well-meaning tales designed to inspire and shape my actions. And for the most part, I was especially careful in the weeks leading up to Christmas.

So if I could then, why not now? What is the harm in letting a bit of harmless mystery and serendipity into my life? After all, I now know I have a lifetime of joy and peace on my side – and the card to prove it.

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Ferris Wheel Rolls Back Time

From the top of the Ferris wheel, I could clearly see over 35 years into the past.

The other night my wife and I are at the base of a tall Ferris wheel. Colorful lights chase each up against a dark night sky. Blues, reds, greens spray down on us like mist an evening shower.

I don’t know why, but I was nervous about what came next.

“Do you want to ride the Ferris wheel?” I said.

My words felt like those of a teenager on a first date – clumsy, unsure, and tentative.

She said yes.

I don’t know why I was nervous. We’ve ridden dozens of Ferris wheels together. Add to the formula we’ve been doing this since we’re still figuring each other out as clumsy teenagers. The truth is, she still makes me nervous.

What makes someone nervous to ask someone else to share a ride in an amusement park after 35 years? Together we’ve raised two wonderful children, laughed and cried into each other’s shoulders. There is no home like being in the arms of each other.

But for some reason, she can still send me back in time to where I am unsure if she will say yes if I ask for a second date.

The ride operator waves us onto the ride, his voice fighting for air in the loud music swimming around us.

As the car rises into the air, she smiles at me. Again, I am unsure of myself. I’ve been here with her before and the feeling is always the same. I am in love.

She playfully swings the car knowing my discomfort with heights. I hear her laugh, the one she reserves for a time when the moment is shared only between the two of us. I love that laugh, drinking in the sound in like cold water on a hot Texas afternoon.

The car climbs into the air and stops at the top. Before us, we look out across a sea of lights. The world is small before us, below us, around us. The car gently rocks in the wind. I am nervous again, only know because I know I’m out of my comfort zone. I put my arm around her, not for show, but because I need to.

Suddenly it is 1980 something. We’ve stopped at a roadside carnival that sprung up unannounced alongside the highway. It is dark and we are tired. We pull over for a break.

Soon we are on top of an old Ferris wheel. She knowingly rocks the car. Her laugh dances around us. The smile is knowing, playful, but I trust it all the same.

I put my arm around her, pulling her to my side. The moment becomes magical – one where you realize it is okay to let someone else in, to share your deepest fears, your grandest dreams. And then it happens – my life is changed forever. We plunge more deeply into love.

I hope she’ll continue to say yes.

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Crossing Over to Vintage Humbling

Apparently, I am now considered vintage. Let me explain.

In something like a twisted episode of an old Twilight Zone I left on a week-long road trip as a what I considered a middle-aged guy and somehow and, inexplicably, returned old man. The for one week, the universe seemed to have it in for me – kicking at and shaking my ego onto its knees.

Strike one came early. While stopping at roadside gas I walked in to grab a bottle of water. Walking up to the counter, a young girl, roughly the age of my own daughter, looked up.

“Wow, I like your hair,” the young girl said. “Not too often when you see an older gentleman wearing taking an interest in his hair and wearing it with style.”

For a moment – ever so briefly – I wondered who the young girl might be speaking to. And then, like the revealing payoff moment in each episode, the iconic theme music dancing a terrorizing jig between my ears. The older man was me.

We all like to think we are perpetually young or at least immune to the march of time. Old is always for someone else. We even manufacture life preserver-type phrases hoping to distract us from the face changing the mirror. This list of greatest hits includes “you’re only as old as we act” or “age is only a number” and other well-meaning but hollow phrases.

None of these turn of words rescued three days later. Riding a small bus, a young lady stepped aboard. With seats filling up I instinctively heard my mother’s voice. Rising up I offered my seat to the late boarding passenger.

“Oh no,” she said. “I’m young. Thanks all the same.”

Strike two hit me with the force of a Nolan Ryan fastball to the ribcage – even taking away my breath and another piece of my already bruised ego.

Sitting down, I wondered what I did to piss off the universe.

Strike three came later that night when a young man walked up, did a double-take, and stopped.

“Dude, awesome vintage watch,” he said. “What’s the story here?”

Again, I found myself momentarily confused – what vintage watch I wondered.

Looking down I saw my favorite watch, one accompanying me from mountain hikes to diving into teal blue waters. A traveling partner of tens of thousands of road miles and a survivor of being whacked into walls and submerged into cold mountain streams, the watch is practically a part of my being.

Then I did the math. My watch began traveling with me before the young man could grow a beard.

Leaning in, the young man admired my timepiece with reverence – as if seeing a rare fossil from a time long passed, from a time when watches told time and phones only made calls. To him, my watch served as a cool reminder of authenticity.

I cried uncle. If age plus authentic equals vintage, then count me in. Just don’t call me old.

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Mountain Town Perfectly Imperfect

“Don’t try to ride an elk and don’t shake hands with a bear.”

I’m standing in a small Montana town scratching out a life between two different mountain ranges. With river water as clear as the air pulsating in my lungs, it cuts a gentle, but jagged line through town. Above, rocky peaks act as shepherds watching over the herd below.

I’ve stopped at the town newspaper to say hello get some local advice.

A man approaches the counter. He offers a firm handshake and directly tells me his name.

He smiles, his face artfully and handsomely chiseled as if from the stone looking down from above. His eyes are bright like the blindingly blue canopy above.

As we shake hands I share my name and that I too, carry black ink in my veins – only mine from Texas. Instantly we are trusted brethren.

I’d asked my new friend about advice as a first time visitor to his state. The reference to staying clear of the wildlife is not fully in jest. Days before a man was arrested for trying to wrestle a buffalo.

My friend’s personality is as unique as this soil where he planted his feet more than 40 years ago. His pink ribbon tie playfully contrasts against the blue oxford shirt. His jacket is neat yet hangs comfortably from his trim shoulders.

Quiet confidence and being true to your self is a respected trait in this corner of the world.

He tells me about the town, the history, and what he sees going on hidden from the unknowing eyes of a visitor. I’m standing in a old town facing down the new in a not so quiet battle for its soul.

The town is in an interesting sliver in time. There in not a chain hotel or franchise restaurant within shooting distance of where we stand. A block over an old hand-painted Coca-Cola advertisement whispers from above in a red brick alley. Others faded signs mark once prominent businesses and family names forever part of the town’s lore.

I think back to my hotel room to where chipped plaster walls and decades of paint welcome me. Tall, narrow wooden doors with imperfectly brush stroked numbers lead me to my room each day. Where each morning 114-year old floor joists bark as I walk across their backs. Oddly, I feel at home in this place I’ve never been before.

Everywhere you turn you see a world stubbornly trying to hold on to its roots as a steady stream of outsiders continue attempt to remake the town into their vision of perfect. Art galleries are popping up and a custom watchmaker offers his handmade timepieces starting at $3,100 a pop. Ironically, most vehicles populating the side streets do not carry enough book value to trade for a locally made watch.

There is a timeless beauty of this corner of the world – a place where man, nature, and man’s restless drive to improve the other never stops. I’m pulling for Mother Nature.

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Train Plays Role In Slowing Down Time

My friend’s son lives at the far end of a 1,497-mile trail of iron rails. For him, the distance might as well be a million. Divorce can do that to a man.

“We’re hopping the Amtrak to California,” my friend said.

Church services are over and we’re standing outside giving hugs. He looks down, I can see his head shake thinking about his son’s visit time coming to a close.

“Yeah, we’ve driven it lots of time, but the train kinda slows things down,” he said. “All about making the memories these days.”

They are hopping the train in Houston. The end of the line, ironically, finalizes at the Pacific Ocean – four blocks from his son’s home.

“He can literally walk from his house to the train station.”

While I’ve only known my friend for a few years, I feel as if somehow, we known each other for decades. Maybe that happens as you get older, the ability to see through the murky veneer of people and more quickly recognize what makes them tick from inside.

“We’ll get to sit in the double-decker car, play games, and just talk,” he said.

I think my friend is more excited about being locked on an island on iron rails with his son than anything else.

My friend is a good man. He works long and hard. He loves his kids and he hurts for having to live apart from them. I’ve seen smiles as large as the Pacific Ocean cross his face; I’ve seen tears roll off his strong and deeply tanned checks only to be wiped away by his pride. He’ll freely admit he is not perfect. But he’ll also freely admit God is always working on him and he’s listening best he can.

If you know the make up of a good man odds are you pretty much already know my friend.

What is so moving to me is how my friend’s priorities, even with half a continent separating him from his kids, are so solidly grounded in them. Never are they far from his thoughts or far from his actions. He is all in.

We never really know what life will deal us. But what we do know is, most times, life must be embraced and measured between sunrises and sunsets. Bank accounts run empty, fancy cars eventually wear out, and big houses get sold. But what really matters in life is the blood we share with others.

Families, genetic or by choice, are really the only things that matter. From them we reward our souls like ice water on a hot Texas afternoon. Droplets make deposits in memories, our hearts, and in help keep our internal compass from being pulled from our true north.

My friend is on this journey – one where his compass in now aligned to invest in his kids and making the best of a difficult situation. But I also know my friend is just the man to do it and he is not alone.

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Success In Life Requires Falling

A friend of mine recently said 90% of surfing is paddling, only 10% surfing.

I thought about his words and how relatable they are to life in general whether work, home, or in relationships. Without a significant investment up front, the opportunity for the payoff rarely presents itself.

Earlier this week I found myself sitting on the beach watching a young surfer offshore. Hearing my friend’s words, I decided to see how close his words applied to the reality in front of me.

With a cross-shore breeze and the waves breaking to the left, the surfer found himself repeatedly paddling his board back to where the breaks began. And many times, after paddling what could amount to half a football field, he’d stand up only to lose his balance to the wave within seconds. Hardly a fair payoff for the minutes it took him to get into position.

But then again, and it could be five minutes later or 45-minutes later, he’d hit the right wave and dance along with the violent water as if he were a master dancer.

And what follows his moment of joy? More paddling, more scrutinizing the approaching sets, and more preparing to be in the right spot at the right time. In other words, back to the 90%.

I began to think about this in my life and how true this formula seems to play out.

In my relationship with my wife, we cruise along each day, both living life and doing our best to keep our world moving forward. We are making deposits in each other’s life by complimenting, supporting, and listening. But then come those moments that will always remain as fresh as if they happened only yesterday, the moments you realize a life shared with someone you love deeply is one of most powerful experiences in life. The payoff might be the birth of a child, navigating raising children, or simply finding yourself standing in front of a beautiful sunset, your fingers entwined.

In our professional lives, the people who tend to move ahead are those who never sit still on their existing skill or knowledge sets. They are always self-learning or exposing themselves to new experiences, unafraid of what they do not know. And to them, a new set of waves is always coming and they want to be prepared.

The surfer offshore continues to fall, his footing not quite right for the wave. But again, with each attempt, he is preparing for the moment he can see in his mind. Learning anything difficult in life is to understand you will need to put in extraordinary amounts of time before you can ever realize the reward.

The surfer offshore falls yet again and is quickly back to paddling. But, importantly, he is not discouraged.

Thomas Edison never considered how many times it took to get a light bulb to work – considering it the necessary preparation to the successful outcome.

Do not be afraid of the 90% for inside it lays the important ingredients for success.

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Childhood Memories Taste Like Darwinism

Summer always brings to memory a phrase my mother would say to me my brother.

“Remember, you boys be sure to wipe off the end of the hose before you drink from it – your dad sprayed weed killer on the lawn the other day.”

Yes, that was the world I grew up in and somehow survived.

By today’s standards the world I experienced as a child seems like a twisted suburban version of Darwinism. With little direct supervision and the light-handedness from our parents at the time, we were left to learning lessons from our childhood experiences.

To this day I can detect the taste of weed killer in my drink. Now that might not sound like a life skill, but if you considered every neighbor’s garden hose a free drinking station as a kid, you’d better learn fast. Far as I’m concerned, if the zombie apocalypse arrives one day, I’m ahead of the game.

Our parents cared for us. But in my childhood the term nanny-state had yet be uttered. Honestly, we didn’t even know what a nanny was in the first place.

Our parent’s didn’t have email or smartphones, but they all seemed to operate with the same playbook. While one might be grumpier than another, there were certain universal understandings between them.

1. Being outside was the default for kids during the day.
2. If kids happened to be at your house at lunch, you fed them.
3. Don’t get hurt or in trouble, and be home when streetlights came on.

Believe it or not, those rules encompassed about every situation.

Each house was a local ER station, complete with Band-Aids, and ice water. And when it came to eating, no one ever balked at a peanut butter sandwich because of a nut allergy. And after you ate, you said thank you and quickly got back outside.

We crawled beneath neighborhoods via’ underground storm sewers, pushing up manhole covers like Christopher Columbus discovering new worlds. We jumped into flash flood waters, riding them hundreds of yards without ever a concern of drowning. And we engineered plastic bats with small cutouts to allow us to shoot bottle rockets at each other with deadly accuracy.

And for the most part, our parents simply viewed these activities as within the universal parameters outlined.

It was a remarkable time. We’d fight and make up without the need to a therapist asking us how we felt. If hurt, the default was to walk it off – that is unless blood was evident.

To us this world seemed remarkably normal. That is until I began telling my wife about what we did as kids. Apparently not all kids climb out of second story windows and across steeply pitched rooftops simply to take in the view. And apparently finding a bag of gunpowder did not lead most other kids to make small exploding bombs out of glass Gerber’s baby food jars.

But I do know if the zombie apocalypse does arrive, my childhood skills will come in handy.

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Heaven Gets A Great Journalist

My friend is dead. Rear-ended while parked at a red light, the impact crushed his Ford F-150 and pushed him into the intersection. He died a few days later from complications resulting for head injuries. Already the world feels a bit less exciting, a little less complete.

I first met my friend inside a small conference room without windows. Sitting across from each other, his resume in my hand, we looked at each other. He needed a job and I was unsure the mysterious ball of nervous energy sitting across from me. To this day I’m not sure he could ever sit still for longer than the brief spit of time between flashes of a firefly. His strong hands, tightly clasped in front of him, seemed to be anchoring him to the table.

“I know you don’t know me,” he said. “But if you will give me this chance, I’ll work harder than anyone you’ve ever met. And I’ll promise I’ll work to be the best journalist you’ll ever hire.”

Out of most people’s mouth this would sound like someone trying to blow dust into a place it should not go. But something was peculiar about the man. Maybe it was the twinkle in his eyes – a twinkle like I imagined I’d see if I’d ever ran across Santa Claus.

And then there was his voice. Something was different. Nine-nine times out of a hundred your gut says walk away. And generally that is the right call. All I can say is that day must have been number one hundred because I put my trust – and comparatively smaller hand – into his and we shook.

I was sitting at home last week when the text came though about my friend’s accident. Details were sketchy but you didn’t need to be a doctor to know he needed God to be at his side. I prayed out loud repeatedly.

My new editor soon proved his word. Many times I asked him if he was sleeping in his office. He denied it, but that darn twinkle in his eye told me I shouldn’t press my luck. Within days he was teaching me what a real journalist was – the kind born, not made with a university degree. Over the course of the years we worked together we banged heads over deadlines, filing Freedom of Information requests, and his unorthodox manner of conducting business. I remember him once confronting a district attorney with damning information while they were out alone fishing on a nearby lake. Right there, with God and 213 striped bass as witnesses, the two of them negotiated an early retirement for the district attorney.

That was how my friend did business. If unorthodox is not considered a compliment, it ought to be. Watching my friend do his version of journalism was like witnessing naturally brilliant self-taught pianist play as Beethoven originally heard it in his head. You don’t see that twice in a lifetime.

The next day a call brought the news I knew I might hear. God called my friend home. From what I hear, St. Peter waved him through. Something about heaven needing a man of true character and a penchant for the unorthodox. Score one for the good guys.

[Mitch Sneed passed away on Sunday July 1, 2018.]

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American Dream Driven By Drive

“It is a lot harder than I expected.”

I’m riding in a small black Honda along well-lit streets of a large city. The Uber driver is young, polite, and borderline shy. The car is clean and well kept.

She is in her early twenties, born in Saudi Arabia, and relocated from South Africa with her mother a few years ago.

I ask her about her thoughts of living in America and how it compares to what she expected.

“When I first arrived, everything was so beautiful, clean, and exciting. There is everything in America,” she said. “But then I found out how much it costs to live here and you have to work hard all the time.”

She tells me she is in school to be a radiologist and drives when she is not studying or in class. She and her mother came to the US together. Soon afterwards, her mother became ill and passed. The bright light in both her voice and eyes dims. I ask about her car, hoping to bring her back.

“I was a waitress for 2-years and saved all my tip money – cash money. Each night I’d come home and careful stack the dollar bills with the others until I had enough to buy this car,” she said. The spark, reignited by pride, returns to her voice and eyes.

She tells me about how a friend took her to a local auto auction.

“Guess how much I paid for this car,” she said. She is proud.

I toss out a number.

“Ten thousand,” I said.

She looks over, flashes a full, prideful smile.

“No, only $7,000.”

She is beautiful from the inside out – her spirit and commitment to make a life for herself in her adopted homeland. She tells me about how hard her studies are and I remind her they are supposed to be.

“If you’re my radiologist I want you to get it right,” I said.

She tells me of how she has traveled to California – her accent making the word melodic and magical.

“San Francisco is beautiful,” she said. “I want to one day live there.”

She can’t be much older than my 23-year old daughter, but she is in a different world – one where she lives without the safety net of parents in the background. Each decision carriers the potential for making a broader life change, each action she makes potentially leading to a dramatic change in her delicate ecosystem, her schooling, and future. I can’t help but admire her for her maturity.

As we drive she is even-tempered, never barking at other drivers, and exceedingly polite. To her, inside her car is an extension of who she is – and how she wishes for the world surrounding her to be.

We pull up to the curb and I exit the car. I wish her well on her studies and her dreams of California. As the car pulls away I know, eventually, she will find her way west and the American Dream.

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