Primary Connection

Remember the story of the explorer Ponce de Leon. He went searching for the fountain of youth but of course never found it. I kind of wish he did, because at 65 I’m definitely at the dawning of old age.

I hate to admit it, but I’ve been trying harder and harder to avoid old age. I exercise all the time, still lift weights, ride my bike 4 to 5 times a week and golf every chance I get. But unfortunately, the clock keeps ticking and my body keeps growing older. Everything hurts when I wake up, and what doesn’t hurt doesn’t work. At this point I take about 10 pills a day including supplements and baby aspirin, but the truth is… the hardest pill to swallow is growing old.

The worst thing of all is that my vision keeps getting worse. I wore contact lenses as a kid and then had Lasik surgery at 40, which worked great up until last year. But now the eye doctor (actually she’s a fancy neuro-ophthalmologist), says I can’t have Lasik again due to some stupid issue with damage to my optic nerves. So I need glasses to read and different pair glasses for distance or sports. Except wearing glasses while participating in sports is a real pain in the ass.

Now I don’t want to sound like a total complainer, but trust me… don’t ever take your vision for granted. Once you start losing it, you realize that your eyes are your primary connection with the world. Your vision allows you to see the soaring sunrises that are uniquely painted every single day, the billions of stars in the brilliant night sky, and the twinkle in your wife’s eye when you finally surprise her by doing something unexpectedly nice. In fact, how hard would it be to figure out if the person you love, loves you back, if you couldn’t look into their eyes. That’s a scary thought!

And that got me thinking… As we get older our vision should actually improve. I don’t mean our physical vision here on earth and all that our earthly home offers. I’m talking about our spiritual vision, our vision of heaven and the everlasting beauty that we know awaits us above. When I think about it that way, I have to say… things are looking up!

 

Age is no enemy. Age is a mile marker, 

a gentle reminder that home has never been so near.

~ Max Lucado 

Exercise Your Options

When I was a young boy I loved to be outdoors. My friends and I would always be running to somewhere, or riding our bikes, or simply walking the streets to explore the world around us. We didn’t purposely plan on exercising or worry about following a physical fitness program, we just thought it was fun to be “outdoors doing stuff”. And I’m pretty sure that being active as a kid helps you to grow into a healthier adult. I know it helped me because at 60 I was still playing baseball and at 65 I’m still playing golf, walking the course, and loving the challenge of it.

So after a lifetime of being active, I don’t plan on slowing down any time soon. Okay, maybe my wife does say I act like a kid sometimes. But I just respond by quoting the Bible, “I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” Matthew 18:3

And speaking of little children… I’m worried about them. I know that sitting on the couch playing video games has become the number one sport for most kids these days. That’s not good. And yesterday when I went for a bike ride on Beach Road, I saw at least a half dozen kids on “Electric Bicycles” and four more riding motorized “Hover Boards”, which are like two-wheel skateboards except you don’t have to push or do anything to get them moving. You just stand there and let the board do all the work. As they sped by me, I noticed not one of them was breaking a sweat… but I sure was!

So maybe the children of today are just smarter than me. They have figured out how to entertain themselves without any physical movement whatsoever. Or maybe they’re not! When I got home after pedaling 15 miles, I might have felt a little tired, but I also felt exhilarated. My heart was pounding, and I could feel the blood racing through my body. I felt strong, and I felt alive, and that felt good. After a few minutes to cool down and a quick bite to eat, I was raring to get back outside and enjoy some more sunshine.

And that got me thinking… Just because there’s a pandemic going on doesn’t mean we have to stay cooped up indoors. Head outdoors and get some exercise and remember, there are only two requirements when it comes to exercise. One is that you do it. The other is that you continue to do it!

I like to exercise first thing in the morning 

before my brain figures out what I’m doing!    

~ Marsha Doble 

60 Minutes

My favorite subject in school was math. I enjoyed working with numbers and even received a “Math Scholarship” to UC Berkeley when I graduated High School. Unfortunately, I dropped out of college after only one year, but being good with numbers has served me well all my life, especially as a businessman who often had to do his own bookkeeping. Even today I still have a talent for remembering numbers. In fact, my head is full of useless information and tons of numbers, but since our society today requires driver’s license numbers, social security numbers, credit card numbers, and an endless string of passwords with numbers, it’s been helpful to have a good memory for numbers.

Lately, the number 60 keeps popping up in my life. I’ll tell you how in a moment, but first, did you know that in numerology, the number 60 represents family, home, and harmony? It even has special meaning in the Bible in that 60 was considered the threshold of when a person enters the last stage of their life. So why do I bring up the number 60? It’s not because there are 60 seconds in a minute and 60 minutes in an hour, although I sometimes wonder how that came to be? No, I bring it up for two reasons.

First, one of my best friends, a golfing buddy is turning 60 tomorrow. His wife bought him 60 ProV1 golf balls to celebrate, so of course, I had to follow suit. I bought him 60 Diet Dr. Peppers!  

Second, we celebrated the 60^th wedding anniversary yesterday of my wife’s parents. That doesn’t happen often! Tom and Jan are such great people. When I married their daughter, they took me into their home and treated me like a son. I always felt welcome around them and always appreciated their kindness. They might seem average to other people, but to me they are the quintessential happy American couple, good hard-working people with strong moral values. I have never seen either of them get angry or have a bad word to say about anybody. Unfortunately, Jan has been struggling with Alzheimer’s for the past two years and Tom, at age 79, has now taken on the role of full-time care giver. It is really hard on both of them, but they do their best which makes me appreciate their loving relationship all the more. And let me add, If the number 60 stands for family, home, and harmony, then it’s no wonder that Tom and Jan reached that milestone.  

And that got me thinking… If I only had 60 minutes left to live on this earth, I would want to reach out to the people in my life who meant the most to me, people who taught me about life, love, and family.   I would want to reach out to Tom and Jan.

The truth is maybe we are just average. But the way I see it – families

where parents get up every morning and go to work so they can get 

their kids through school and through life, and struggle to make it 

all work, and somehow manage to do it with a little dignity and a 

little humor – well, that’s not average. That’s extraordinary!   

~ Frankie Heck (from the TV Show "The Middle") 

A Change for the Better

I have never been good at relaxing. I’m great at working and playing and being productive, but for some reason I struggle when it comes to allowing myself some down time. So I’m trying to learn how to relax and Sunday morning, I actually slept in for a change. I wanted to start the New Year out right, you know, by being really lazy. It felt pretty good and after enjoying a huge breakfast of corned beef hash, eggs, and toast made by my awesome wife, I wandered out to our deck that faces the ocean to continue my journey of relaxation.

I had nothing to do and fortunately all day to do it. So the first thing I did was to take in the view, and wow was it beautiful! A bright clear morning. The ocean never looked more transparently turquoise. Rolling waves were washing ashore every few seconds down below, and up above were just a few puffy white clouds dotting an enormously beautiful blue sky. Birds were singing and palm trees were swaying while Catalina Island loomed on the horizon.

It could not have been a more perfect morning in paradise. I stretched and yawned as I grabbed a beach towel and propped up a chaise lounge to lay out on. The lounge chair was so comfortable and the sunshine so warming, that I closed my eyes and started drifting off, letting my thoughts wander as I pictured myself in a true tropical paradise like Hawaii.

That’s when it hit me… dead center of my chest! It was warm and wet and gooey, and it wasn’t good. Some bird, surely a sly seagull, had decided to take target practice on me. I could picture him gliding above me giving high five feathers to all his buddies, laughing at the unwitting dope down below who thought he was going to relax for a change. I jumped up off that chair and washed myself off three times, then took a shower, and then moved my lounge chair under an umbrella. But alas, the spell was broken, and I knew I wasn’t going to be able to relax after all.

And that got me thinking…  

·         If you’re trying to make a change for the better… and fail… keep trying!

·         Or better yet… if birds of a feather flock together… keep your shirt on!

I have never failed. I have just 

found 10,000 ways that won’t work. 

~ Thomas Edison  

No Pressure

This not so wonderful year of 2020 is almost over. And I’m sure you would agree that this has been one of the most stressful years that any of us has ever lived through.

Stress and pressure are really painful emotions. In fact, I was feeling especially stressed and worried recently when I went for a walk on the beach. As I started my walk, I stopped near my neighbor’s house which has huge boulders placed on the beach side to protect it from high surf and waves. Each boulder probably weighs over a 1000 pounds, and that’s what I felt like I was carrying on each one of my shoulders.

I guess I was letting the pressure of work, money, family, and loneliness (thank you Covid!) weigh all too heavily on me when I spotted something unusual. There was a huge boulder sitting on top of another huge boulder at an angle. The top boulder should have rolled off, but it didn’t because there was a small rock caught underneath it at just the right spot. I stared at that tiny little rock and laughed, thinking, “Wow, that little guy has way more pressure on him then I ever will.”

Laughing made me feel better. In fact, I immediately started thinking about some of the things that are going right in my life, instead of focusing on all the things going wrong caused by the pandemic. I decided to try to come up with a list of just a few of the good things that exist in my life, things I should be happy about and appreciate. Within 10 minutes I had come up with a list of 10 things that are going right that create happiness in my life.

And that got me thinking… The entire time I was thinking about the good things in my life, I never once felt any pressure about the bad things going on in my life. So here is my suggestion for the New Year. Spend your time focusing on the good in your life, and you won’t have any time left for the bad! 

Ten Blessings I Appreciate

I have a loving wife with a generous heart who constantly inspires me

 

My Children and Grandchildren are healthy and well

 

I have a job that I enjoy, one that makes me feel productive

 

I have a safe vehicle to drive and decent roads to drive on

 

I can have food safely delivered to my home during this pandemic

 

I have a home filled with love inside and a beautiful view outside

 

My back is sketchy, but I can still play the game of golf that I love

 

I get to share my faith and ideas through my weekly Monday Messages

 

The beauty of nature that surrounds me is an amazing source of joy

 

I have confidence that I can overcome any burden I face because 

no problem I have is greater than the God I have!

Problems and Promises

With the year of 2020 soon coming to a close, a thought occurred to me. The world has changed. Or at least my world has changed, and it will never be the same again.

For most of my adult life I lived what you would consider a normal life. I fell in love, got married, raised children, and worked 5 days a week. I attended my children’s school events, took my family to church on Sundays, played on a men’s baseball team and occasionally golfed on weekends. My wife and I went to concerts with friends and had friends over to visit. And I really enjoyed going out to dinner with my wife, where we would hold hands and smile, look deep into the eyes of one another, and talk about our wild and crazy, adventure filled life, with its multitude of problems and promises.  

However, this year has obviously been very different, and we now have a new normal. A new normal that does not include any of those fun filled activities listed above... except for maybe the last one. 2020 may have taken away the pleasure of going out to eat at a nice restaurant, but for 9 months now, my wife and I have gotten to enjoy every single breakfast, lunch, and dinner together - every single day! That has been the bright spot in an otherwise very dark year.

2020 may have forced us to stay home, but it has also allowed us to spend more time together than ever before. I think that’s probably true for a lot of husbands and wives and families. In our case, spending so much time together has caused our love to grow deeper and stronger than I ever thought possible. The bond that we now share is a blessing beyond blessings and it’s taught me a valuable lesson that is especially poignant at Christmas time. The greatest gift ever given to mankind was when God showed us his love by sending his son to spend time with us here on earth. Which means that no matter what problems we may have - spending time with the ones we love - will help us overcome them. And that’s a promise!

"And there were shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flocks by night, and lo the angel of the lord came upon them and the glory of the lord shone round about them, and they were sore afraid, and the angel said unto them, fear not, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David, a savior who is Christ the Lord. And suddenly there was with the angels a multitude of the heavenly hosts, praising God and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth - peace, good will toward men."

   “And that’s the real meaning of Christmas – Charlie Brown!”

Binge Love (By Debby Thrailkill)

Part of our coping strategy during 2020 has been to binge watch new television shows on Netflix as suggested by our 30 something family members. So far, we’ve watched The Marvelous Ms. Maisel (a dream escape), Downton Abbey (glorious in character), Fleabag (eye opening humor) Schitt’s Creek (hilarious and heartfelt), and lately we’ve been watching Grace and Frankie and I’m absolutely mesmerized.

Grace and Frankie (Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin) are unceremoniously dumped by their long-time husbands in the first episode. Their husbands who are business partners have fallen in love with each other over the years and have determined they are gay. This throws Grace and Frankie into a tailspin together… but together they weather the storm.

What has touched me the most in these fictional characters is how Frankie is so free spirited and artistic, a mother with a loving soul. I want to be more like Frankie in 2021 and beyond. Currently I see a lot of myself in Grace, but what I see in Frankie truly inspires me. While Grace and her husband fought after the disclosure, Frankie and her soon to be ex-husband Sol, held each other close, embracing the moment together. Frankie is passionate, forgiving, and creative, sometimes with wild disregard for common sense. Her love and passion are what endear her to the audience.

Frankie demonstrates the essence of someone living in the moment, loving those around her in spite of their faults, and always seeing the positive of that. Frankie gets more out of life because she sees more than what is obvious. She thinks deeper and she feels stronger. Every character in the show is drawn to Frankie because she is interesting and spontaneous and funny. And mostly because she is real.

And that got me thinking… From now on, I want to be as “in the moment” as possible. I want to notice what others may not see and I want to appreciate it, out loud! I want to love others like no one else has, and hope that my loved ones will feel the strength of that love and know that they can depend on my love. What matters most in life is how you treat others, so let’s “binge love” each other… and perhaps together we can weather any storm!

If there is a day to act on the love in your soul, 

it is today, it is this moment.

~ Mike Dolan