The JackB

"When you're in jail, a good friend will be trying to bail you out. A best friend will be in the cell next to you saying, 'Damn, that was fun'." Groucho Marx

Archives for April 2017

Back In The Sky

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Twenty-one years ago I walked through Centennial Park in Atlanta and shook hands with Jesse Jackson.

It wasn’t scheduled or for any particular reason other than I was in town for the Olympics and the park had just reopened.

I wasn’t nervous about being there or excited to meet Jessie but I was quite happy to be at the Olympics.

It was a prize I had won through hard work and I felt lucky and proud to be there and now twenty-one years later I am going back.

Back In The Sky

To be honest it is almost unfair to say I am going back because I’ll be in town for about 32 hours or so and 50 percent will be in meetings and or at the airport.

Won’t be any time for tourism, visiting friends or getting into trouble.

Ok, let’s be honest there is plenty of time for getting into trouble but I am going to do my best to avoid it because I have too much going on now.

It is hard enough to juggle chainsaws and bowling balls, no reason to add torches and knives.

And considering I am not a huge fan of flying anymore the idea of getting back in the sky is less than thrilling.

But I have a gut feeling that things are about to turn in a positive direction and I need to follow that because I feel like I have been wandering through hell covered in gasoline.

Wish that was an exaggeration but it is not, it has been one of those moments in time I will be glad to see pass.

A Big World

I know I am not the only one going through things now so I am making a mental note to remind myself that a bunch of us are dealing with extra crap now.

It can’t hurt to try to be extra nice and not just because I hope it will be returned but because sometimes it feels really good to help others.

And with that dear reader I am off to go finish packing and then watch Fauda, love that show.

Half Naked Thursday Revisited

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You can blame this post upon my stats because several people read Jibberish, No Gibberish, No Screw the midwest.

It is an old favorite of mine starring a cast of characters that don’t show up very often around here or anywhere else I hang out for that matter.

Most of them are like ghostly memories that rattle their chains and moan in the quiet of the night just loud enough to remind me of their presence.

Hard to believe that post is almost 12 years-old now or that once upon a time audio blogging was considered cutting edge.

Half Naked Thursday Revisited

Half naked Thursday was one of those things that your mother suggested you think twice about.

“Don’t put naked pictures of yourself on the Internet” or “No one wants to see your butt/cleavage/tattoo or worse.”

But back in the day it was kind of fun to see who would do what and how much they might reveal.

Ma Steiner would have been proud of me because I never participated because I didn’t like the idea of not having control of where those photos might end up.

And let’s face it, no one really wanted to see anything that wasn’t suggestive so I just didn’t do it.

Reminds me of some other things I just didn’t do and some I should have.

Don’t have many regrets, but there are a few.

Might have to do another Audiopost or two soon. There are some pretty good ones floating around here, it just might be time.

Flying The ‘Friendly’ Skies

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People say you shouldn’t write when you are jammed for time because you might make some silly errors but I don’t follow that advice.

Mostly because I think there is a certain beauty that comes from not having time to question your muse and his/her idea for the words you’ll put on paper.

I am jammed now because I have to finish packing so I can catch a flight in a couple of hours.  Got to build in time to toss the clothes in a bag, drive to the airport, park and then walk through security.

It is not high on my list of desires, flying, that is.

I don’t like it very much anymore but I do it often enough I am pretty good with the drill. Still, post 9/11 flying is a task and it is not made any more enjoyable by seeing videos like that one from United.

Flying The ‘Friendly’ Skies

I often remind my children that our attitude has a big impact upon how our days go and am doing my best to just smile and stay loose today.

The more relaxed I am the easier it becomes or so I tell myself.

It works most of the time, but not all.

Have I mentioned how happy I am not to be flying United today. Can’t say I am interested in paying for food, blanket, ticket and a beating.

****

I didn’t get as much sleep last night as I wanted to because I had to make sure I talked to the kids before my flight today.

Since they are two hours behind me and were busy until quite late it meant I didn’t finish speaking with them until after midnight.

Most of the time I don’t think twice about that because I am good at sleeping on planes but this flight is all of an hour so I am not sure if I’ll be able to catch as long a nap as I might like.

But I’ll do my best and maybe some lucky person will get to hear me snore. 😉

I kind of feel badly about it because no one wants to listen to someone snoring and yet I need the rest. Since I am unlikely to see these people again I’ll just let it go I suppose.

That reminds me of a conversation I had with a friend who asked how many social conventions are lifted if we are with strangers.

The answer for me is not many.

You won’t catch me clipping my toenails on a plane or engaging in other personal behavior like that, especially since I have seen it on flights before.

I don’t gross out easily, but that just makes me go yuck.

Reading Material

Been a while since I provided links to other posts here and since I won’t be able to update for a few days I’ll provide a list you can dig into if you so choose.

Here is a short selection of posts to get you started:

An Uncertain Certainty
Words Are The Death Of A Blogger
A Father Describes Parenting
A Father’s Burden
How Sister’s Helped to Train A Father of “Daddy’s Girl”
Inside the Blogger’s Studio- A Dream, Er Nightmare
The GermoPhobe
What I Dream About
I am In Love
Becoming a Dad
Dad’s Most Important Job
A Decade of Dad
Grandpa
Donuts
Why Your Post Sucks and Everyone Hates Your Blog
Of Dads and Daughters

See you in the comments. Back with new material later this week.

P.S. The post before this isn’t bad, try giving it a read.

Transitions & Evolutions Of A Dad

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It is a strange feeling to be listening to Where The Streets Have No Name and yet hear Gordon Lightfoot singing about a ghost you can see.

The first is a high school anthem, from an album that came out my senior year and pumped me up because every time I listened I heard possibility.

Thirty years later I still do.

Yet my old pal Mr. Lightfoot’s lyric comes from a song much older, but still part of my childhood, don’t know if that makes me old or older.

What I do know is I had a conversation with a teenager who calls me dad and his younger sister who is almost a teen.

A conversation that made me ache because I felt time slipping away and yet I smiled because for the most part, things are going as they should.

She Giggled

She giggled about a boy and I didn’t have to see her face to know what expression was on it.

“Daddy, he is too old for me but my friends keep trying to get us to go out.”

I know that giggle and once or twice I have been the reason girls and or women have giggled like that.

It is the giggle that tells me the day is coming when a boy will supplant me as the male she runs to first. Got a long while before it happens with the kind of finality that a husband will bring, but I heard the echoes of the future.

I heard her down the road tell me to be nice and felt her glare because she knows her dad can be a rascal and might mess with the boy that comes to see his little girl.

Got a while before that happens too and I am not going to rush things along, but it felt strange to realize how close that time might be.

Ten years ago she was so very little and ten years from now she’ll be on her own.

It goes that fast.

Where Are You?

The emails and notes come in occasionally asking where I am and what I am doing.

“Jack, you used to update this place two or three times a day and when you didn’t do that, well you still posted daily.”

“Jack, I miss your writing. Post some silly story.”

I smile at the notes and think about how I was always the active outsider of the parent blogging community.

Hit the ground in 2004 and never stopped, always said I would go to a blog conference or two but never did.

Have worked as a brand ambassador and written sponsored posts and played many of the reindeer games but never worked my way into the inside like others.

Sometimes I was accused of being jealous because I would criticize some of the Babble or Good Men Project writers of this and that.

Would point fingers at the popularity contests and talk about how the same people won because their friends were judges and not because they had talent.

Some did and some do, but not all.

*****

The blogosphere is still a noisy place and there are still some awful writers punching out crap that is dressed up in gold and sprayed in perfume.

It still stinks.

I am obviously still around and still publishing, probably more than some people realize.

The words are slapped on a page daily and some of them are still pretty good while others aren’t quite where I want them to be.

But you don’t get better by thinking about it, you improve by focusing on your craft and practicing.

Apparently I took this seriously because I have been sleeping with fear for a long while.

Some days are harder than others but most of the time I do what I have to do not because I fear the consequences of inaction but because I fear letting fear win.

Most days I get up and work and wonder where the day will take me, adventure is always at hand.

It is a strange place to be, to realize my kids really need me and yet not like they used to.

They dress and feed themselves, go about their business with minor interference from their folks and live their lives.

Not quite in a place where they can claim the sort of independence they say they want. Not quite ready to run things without some help, but it gets closer each minute.

I hear the tick-tock of the clock and pray I have made smart choices and that the sacrifices have been the right ones.

Can’t say yes or no without walking the path and crossing the doorways, but sometimes I wish we could.

It is an exciting time, but I feel like a stranger in a strange land and I know I haven’t really hit the time or place when that is as true as it will be.

The Road To Riches

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One of the greatest moments of my life was recognizing how little has to change to make an immediate and significant impact upon my life.

I could lay out all of the details and requirements here on this page but superstition won’t allow me to place it here for all of us.

Instead I’ll share that each night as I lay my head upon my pillow I ask for help in going the last mile and promise to do what I can to help facilitate it.

And I’ll say that money is only a piece of it, granted it could be a big piece but it doesn’t have to be.

Hell, if I net $20k more a year it would be enough to shake things up in a positive way.

That is pretty damn exciting.

No Rest For The Wicked

Can’t rest on my laurels and expect things to automatically go where and how I wish them to be.

Got to keep pushing and do what I can to manage what I can and help direct things where possible.

My excitement is tempered by knowing things can turn and that close to the finish line is not the same as crossing it which is why I prefaced this by talking about the continued effort.

It is accountability and announcing to the powers that be whether they exist or limited to my own sense of faith that I am going to do what I can.

And it seems important to add I am disappointed in the behavior of some people I have known for more than 30 years.

We have reached a place where I wonder if the end of our friendship has come and I find it quite sad. I’d like for them to see the celebration and success and to say they have been part of it.

But I am not responsible for their behavior and can’t control what they choose to do or not to do.

I just wish I understood why they are acting as they are, but that is separate from all of this.

Teaching Moment

All of this, the push to cross the “finish line” and the “issue with some friends would make a great teaching moment for my kids.

I expect the time will come when I’ll get a chance to unpack and share it with them.

Certainly we’ll talk about the need for hard work, the understanding about how much control or lack thereof we have in life and how to live in a way that lets us sleep at night.

But the friendship thing, well to be honest at the moment it feels quite raw so I don’t know that I’ll discuss it.

Oh, who am I kidding, I will, regardless of how it plays out.

Sooner or later I’ll be willing to discuss it and I am sure there will be a time when they find it useful, but dammit.

Aren’t we too old for this crap.

Isn’t there a time when we all act like adults and this childish behavior goes away.

I guess the answer is yes and no followed by I let some of this crap go a bit farther because of the kind of friendship and years of it.

But there is a point it cannot and will not be allowed to cross.

I hope we don’t reach it.

In the interim I am focused on the positive and the pleasant realization of just how close I am to getting so much of what I have hoped for.

That is pretty damn cool, the road to riches is at hand.