Snow Dog Football!

We were having dinner last night at the home of our very close friends Scott and Kim. As is nearly always the case when we get together, we found ourselves visiting back and forth about silly stuff. I made mention about being old and ridiculous. Courtney, Scott and Kim's oldest off Spring, picked up on it and started laughing. We decided Old and Ridiculous would be a great title for a sit com, movie, book or perhaps broadway play eg: And now, playing at the Walton Art Center for three nights and three nights only, "OLD AND RIDICULOUS" starring, Russ Robertson and his ridiculous friends Scott, Doug and Joe!

It's possible we're on to something here. I've personally witnessed enough ridiculous stuff in my life to fill the pages of at least one small book, and some of these things happened way before I started getting old. Like the time I was playing football in our back yard in my home town of Rolla, Missouri, with our 200 pound Saint Bernard, Schultz (my Dad was a big fan of Schultz, the hapless and naive German POW guard on the 1960/70's sitcom, Hogan's Hero's). I'd throw the football as far as I could and we'd both race after it. If Schultz got to the ball first, he'd grab it up in his mouth and take off running across the yard. Pretending I was a defensive back for the Green Bay Packers, I'd chase him down and tackle him, or at least try to. Remember, Schultz was a full grown Saint Bernard and weighed a little over 200 pounds; I was a full grown 4th grader at Fort Wyman Elementary and weighed in the neighborhood of 70 pounds.
On this particular cold and blustery day in January, there was a full 8 inches or more of snow on the ground, which made our little game of "snow dog football" that much more fun. Schultz would run around kicking up snow behind him and I'd chase after him, diving now and then as we'd both go rolling in the snow. I remember laughing out loud as our big Ol' lummox of a family pet would run around weaving in and out trying to fend off his 70 pound adversary.

Well, our game was fun for a while, but as the old saying goes, it's all fun until someone puts out an eye. I didn't put out an eye, but at the time I would have probably chosen that as an option over what actually happened next. This time when I threw the ball, I was the first one to it. I grabbed it up and took off running in the other direction, back toward the house. I gave big Ol' Schultz a fake to the left and a fake to the right and he went for it both times. But as I was about to claim victory with a last minute touchdown with no time left on the clock, Schultz made a lunge and took both legs right out from under me. I went tumbling into a pile of snow and what should have ended up as a last minute victory for me, ended up as a last minute "lovefest" for him. As I hit the ground rolling in the snow, Schultz pounced and started going after me like a monkey humpin' a football. Normally that description would conjure up a humorous visual for me, but not this time as I found myself playing the part of the football. I saw absolutely no humor in it--none what so ever! I was kicking and yelling and punching and rolling and the more I fought to get out from under his massive body, the more he apparently liked it. The only thought going through my mind as our big Ol' dog loomed over me was, "If Steve Patton, Mike Watson or Jim Ballenger come along and see this, I'm dead. Once news of this story hits the play ground at Wyman, I'm done for and will never hear the end of it!"
I finally managed to get both feet under his chest (thank God no one got a snap shot of that) and pushed with all my mite. That little maneuver threw Schultz off balance just enough that I was able to crawl out from under him and jump up on the deck before he had the chance to get on me again. I was furious and completely humiliated. At the time, I doubt if I knew what it meant to be "violated", but years later when I did learn the meaning of the word, I knew I had experienced it first hand.

I loved Ol' Schultz like a brother but if I would have had a gun that day, I know I would have shot him right between the eyes. He finally cooled off and went about his normal daily activities of guarding our backyard from outlaws, do-baders and marauders. Thank goodness that was my last encounter with Cujo. I remember thinking that if I ever played snow dog football again, it would be with a stinking Chihuahua!

As I reflect back on that winter day in 1971, I can't help from thinking about a scene out of the movie "Christmas Vacation", when Eddie (played by Randy Quad) was giving advice to his cousin Clark (played by Chevy Chase). While referring to the habits of his "Mississippi Leg Hound", Eddie told Clark, "If he gets going on your leg Clark, it's best to just let him finish"!

How would you like to spend the rest of your life?

Recently, I was engaged in a conversation with a young friend of mine regarding how he thinks he might like to spend the rest of his life. Trying to figure this out as a young person is a tall order. I'm 50 and I'm still trying to figure it out.
You've got to believe the vast majority of young folks fresh out of high school, aren't able to know what kind of career might best fit them. Even with their limited life experience however, they probably have an idea of what they'd like their overall life to look like in the coming years. Here is a suggested way of approaching the rest of your life: Get off the couch!

A good starting point is to determine what things are important to you in your life, and decide what you are willing to give and give up in order to achieve it.
For example, if as a young person you know you'd someday like to get married, have children, live in a nice house in an upper end neighborhood, drive nice cars, wear nice clothes, go on nice vacations, eat in nice restaurants, send your kids to nice colleges and retire nicely before you're too old to enjoy it, there's a few things you'll need to consider. For starters, you'll almost certainly need a college education and maybe even a masters degree. With a degree, you'll have at least a chance of getting an entry level job with a viable and growing company or organization.
Among other potentially undesirable things, you'll need to pay attention, work long hours, put up with substantial corporate politics, perhaps spend time away from your young family on business travel and of course outperform the vast majority of your contemporaries.
Over a period of time, you'll need to prove to the company execs, that you are head and shoulders above most of your co-workers.
This is the absolute minimum it will take to get recognized and promoted. If you're fortunate, by the time you're in your mid 30's, you'll be making the kind of money that will allow you to borrow the kind of money that will allow you to live the life style you've determined ahead of time is important to you. After obtaining the needed level of experience, you might even be able to start a business of your own, where the sky is the limit.

Another option would be to find something you're passionate about and get involved in an industry that revolves around that passion. For example, if I was a young person with a passion for video games, I might try to get a job somewhere in the video game industry. By doing so, I could immerse myself in the thing I'm passionate about and at the same time, surround myself with people in the video game industry who make decisions and make things happen. Although I'd be starting out at the very bottom rung of the ladder, I'd be headed in the right direction. If my goal was to someday be a video game designer, I'm going to have a much better chance of reaching that goal if I'm actually working in the industry as apposed to just being a customer of it. I might get better at playing video games by sitting on the couch practicing my trade, but the odds of an industry chief coming to my house and saying, "Hey Ralphie, how'd you like to be a video game designer", are pretty slim.
On the other hand, not everyone has a need or desire to own a bunch of really nice things. If as a young person I know it won't be important to me to have all the stuff our society uses to measure success, like a big expensive house and a new BMW every couple years, then I might not have to knock myself out like the other guy who spends most of his time trying to get ahead. In my humble opinion, there's nothing wrong with any of this. We just all need to be honest with ourselves regarding what we want out of our physical life. If I want all the stuff then I have to realize I'm not going to get it sitting on the couch watching Ridiculous House Wives and playing Super Kong Dong on my X-Box 3000. I have to be willing to go out and get it, and that's for sure going to mean giving up some stuff for a while and maybe for years. Stuff like Friday nights and weekends, sleeping late and taking off early, and laying around wondering how long I can maintain my current fully funded life style before my parents give me the boot. If I think I'll be able to satisfy the expectations I have for my life by unloading trucks at Walmart for $10 bucks an hour, that's great. But if I know I want more out of life for myself and someday my family, I have to be willing to get off the couch and start something. I need to realize most good things in life don't happen by accident--they happen because someone somewhere, made a decision to get off the couch and make something happen for themselves.

Unbelievable!

I have a brother who uses the word "Unbelievable" quite a bit. I kid him about it because often times I don't find the thing he finds unbelievable, myself all that unbelievable. It's not that I think I have any particular insight into the world of believability, I've merely chosen to reserve the word unbelievable for things I have at least a little bit of a hard time actually believing. Like the first time I heard Jim Neighbors was a homosexual.
I was about 10 or 11 when my friend Mike told me this, and after he explained to me what a homosexual was, I don't remember what I found more unbelievable: the concept of a man kissing another man, or the concept of Gomer Pyle kissing another man? At the time, I found both these things unbelievable, meaning, I didn't actually believe it. I just figured my friend Mike was making this stuff up, but apparently he wasn't. Which brings me to the point I'd like to share with you this morning:

I find it unbelievable (meaning I really have a hard time believing it) that over 70 million of my fellow countrymen, took a man with no previous leadership experience or responsibility, no previous business experience or responsibility, and no previous experience or responsibility running or managing a business or significant organization of any kind, and literally overnight made him the most powerful person on the planet. I know he was a senator for a brief time, but as far as I know, senators don't really run or manage anything--they primarily vote on stuff. Now, maybe voting on stuff requires a lot more skill and experience than I think it does, but I've never one time in my life heard anyone regard a fellow human being as "a great voter". I don't mean to make light of a senator's responsibility, but the mere act of voting could be performed by most 5 year old kids providing you explained the process to them.
For what it's worth, a little over a year ago I personally checked out then Senator Obama's senate voting record and found that as a United States Senator, he didn't even vote a big part of the time. I found that in and of itself somewhat unbelievable, especially when you consider that the primary criteria most of us would use to assess the performance of our senators, is how they vote.

Now if you're thinking, "Hey Regular Russ, it's not true that our President doesn't have a great deal of experience leading people and running significant organizations, dealing with major financial issues, working with budgets, making military deicions and stuff like that", then show me what I'm missing. I really paid attention during the almost 2 years President Obama was campaigning for the presidency and I don't recall any media source in our nation reporting to us that our current president had any of these previous experiences--not one. If you know that what I've just said is inaccurate, please email me the information and source that shows I'm wrong, because finding out I missed a bunch of news relative to this issue would make me feel a whole lot better about the possibility that our president might actually have a decent idea of how to run the United States of America, fight wars and oversee world affairs. I'm begging you, please share the information with me---I haven't had a good night's sleep in over a year now!

Always wanted to be a logger, not a blogger.

My wife Sue came home tonight after having read an email I'd sent to our friends Irene and Ronnie, and said to me, "You need to start a BLOG." I said, "I thought you had to be famous to start a blog." She said, "Well, you're probably as famous in your own mind as most of the actual famous people are in theirs." I thought to myself, "Huh, by golly I guess I am!"
So, here we are with my very first blog. As a note, I don't really know if the b in blog gets capitalized or if perhaps all the letters are supposed to be capitalized but if they are and I didn't and you stop reading because of that, you probably won't like much of what I might write in the first place. If that's the case, my recommendation at this point for you would be, take the time you might have spent reading stuff from me and utilize it for whatever it is you like to do when you don't really have anything else to do. And just in case I end up writing more than one of these darn things, I feel compelled to share something with you right up front--I don't know a whole lot of things for sure about very many subjects but then, that might put me and you in pretty good company. It's been my observation over the past several years (since I started paying closer attention to stuff that happens outside of my immediate little part of the world) that a whole lot of other people apparently don't know very much either, and I'm referring to people who really should. For example, people like the vast majority of our congressmen and senators!

I won't go any further on that specific subject but, someday I do hope to gain a more clear understanding of how in the snot some of the folks who are running our country ever got to be in a position of running anything, much less our doggone country. It nearly blows my mind and I hope it does yours too.