Good Values

I was always good at math in school, so it’s funny that the one thing I never did when I got older was create a personal budget. I’m not sure why, probably because I always worked hard, made good money, and resisted going into debt. But finally, two years ago, with retirement looming and lower income around the corner, I decided I needed to put myself (and my wife to her great dismay) on a budget.

It was a great idea that I wish I would have implemented as a young man. But oh well, better late than never and the best thing about a budget is that you get to tell your money what to do instead of finding out afterwards what your money did on its own. And if you budget properly, it greatly reduces stress!

Then the pandemic hit and everything about our budget changed. Obviously, like most people, our income went down due to a slow-down in our business income. But the good thing was that a whole lot of our expenses went way down too. We stopped driving as much, stopped going on vacation, stopped going to the movies, and completely stopped eating out at restaurants. Our restaurant budget alone was huge and now it’s zero. Yay for that! Even though we always looked for restaurants with good value, it was easy to see looking back that the best value of all, was always at home.

And that got me thinking… What is my value to society and what are my own personal values? I wonder if people who are my friends think they are getting a good deal by having me as a friend? I wonder if my kids think they got a good deal when they got me as a Dad? And I wonder if my wife thinks she could have done better? (Even though she told me when we met that for sure I was her destiny!) I hope they think they got a good deal, but I can’t control what they think. I can only control what I do, what I say, and what I think.

So… here’s what I think about values. I think everything we do is influenced by our values because our values determine who we are. So, if we take the time to figure out which values are most important to us and pick values that are lasting and stick to them, those values will help guide us to a great life. For example, early on in my career I decided that core values like honesty, integrity, and respect are super important. In fact, I felt so strongly about it that I actually had those three words embroidered onto every single uniform shirt at all four of my companies. But that can get a little tricky. If your shirt says “Honesty” on it, and you tell a lie, people are going to call you on it really quick. But that’s the point. Your beliefs determine your behavior, and your behavior determines what you become. Maybe I was right when I was talking about budgets at the start of this story… the best values really do start at home!

A true test of character is not how you are on your best days, 

but how you act on your worst days.

~ Anonymous

Pillow Talk

September 9^th, 2004 – This is my tenth night in a row sleeping on a beat-up old metal cot. I roll onto my side and look over at my wife. The smells of a hospital room are all around me and there are machines humming, a heart-beat monitor beeping, and multiple IV’s sticking out of her arms. There is also a big ugly chest tube poking out of her side. It looks like somebody drilled a hole into her and then pushed the tube into her lungs. Wait… it doesn’t just look like that, that is exactly what the doctor did! It looks ugly and painful because it is, and yet, she has never looked more beautiful and never been more precious to me.

I rolled off that cot and walked over to the side of her bed. I got down on my knees and begged one more time, “Dear God, please don’t let her die. Please help her, God. She is a wonderful woman, a good mother with three young children to raise. You know she is bold, and you know she is strong, but she needs you now more than ever. And I need you God, now more than ever! I will do whatever you want, Lord, just please don’t let her die.”

The tears started again, my sadness becoming so overwhelming that my body shook with despair. I didn’t even try to stand up, just crawled back and collapsed into that stupid little cot. My heart was aching as I looked over at her sweet little face, etching it permanently into my memory, fearing the worst but trying to have faith that my prayers would be answered. As I reminded myself how important faith is, I noticed something strange about her pillow. It had funny littles wrinkles on the side of it that almost looked like a word. I stared at it for several minutes and decided it wasn’t a word, it just looked like two letter B’s. I closed my eyes and tried to relax but I couldn’t sleep. I rolled over and gazed at her face again and there were those two little B’s staring back at me. I smiled just a little thinking those wrinkles should be D’s because she has always been my beloved “Debby Dollface”. But they weren’t D’s, they were B’s. What am I supposed to do with that God? Are you trying to tell me something?

September 11^th, 2004 – Two day later. The doctor just pulled the thick chest tube out of her side. I could tell it really hurt her, but she didn’t cry out. In fact, she was smiling because the doctor had just given us good news! She was finally out of danger and might be going home soon. She was released that afternoon and when we got home, I put her straight to bed, our bed, with her head resting on her own pillow. I was so happy to have her home I couldn’t sleep. I just kept staring at her face and thanking God in my heart. But I also couldn’t stop thinking about those two little B’s that were outlined by the wrinkles in her hospital pillow. I know it might seem silly, but I believe that we humans are given signs at times in our lives that have meaning. Signs, symbols, pictures, thoughts, whatever you want to call them, but they’re there, and they have meaning if we are willing to take the time to figure it out.

December 25^th, 2006, Two years later – When you have a big family, Christmas time is always a wonderful time and this year is no exception. My wife is healthier than she has been for a long time and my kids seem happy and well adjusted, despite enduring all of their Mom’s health issues. As we sat down for Christmas dinner, I thought back to all that hospital time in 2004 and remembered the 70-day journal I wrote during that time period. I wrote it because I was trying to keep my mind off my wife’s illness, and I was also trying to pass along some “life lessons” to my kids. Writing that journal was therapeutic for me and kind of fun. As I thought back on it, I also remembered the pillow with the little B’s, and it hit me! It took me two years, but I finally figured out what God was trying to tell me! I took action the very next week.

January 8^th, 2007 – I wrote and published my first ever “Monday Message” today and sent it to my children, family members, and a few dozen friends. I explained to them that God has blessed me my entire life in at least eleventy-thousand (my youngest daughter’s expression) ways and I want to give back for all the grace He has shown me. So, I have decided to start trying to write thought provoking stories wrapped around things that happen in my life, bold stories that will perhaps inspire people, remind them of the important things in life, and hopefully draw them a little nearer to God.

August 24^th, 2020 – I wrote and published Monday Message #500 today, which incidentally now goes out to over 500 individuals each week and has over 26,000-page views on its blog. I never even imagined I would live long enough to create 500 unique Monday Message stories, let alone be bold enough to share my personal faith with so many people. To me, it has been a blessing because it keeps me focused when things are going right and picks me up when things are going wrong. It’s the least I can do to thank God for all He has done for me.

And to think it all began when I realized what those two little pillow B’s meant… Be Bold!

Debby, Joe, Andrew, Nikki, Andie, Penelope, Jack, Colin, Cameron, Shellsea, Brooke, Zac

Be bold in your faith and faith will simplify your life.

~ Joseph Thrailkill

Stain Free

There is something seriously wrong with me! And I think I’m going to blame my Dad.

Don’t get me wrong. My Dad was the best man I have ever known, my hero, and I loved him very much. But he had this problem where he constantly spilled food on his shirt. He was always a very good-looking man, clean shaven and usually dressed very sharp. Except, there would always be a small, sometimes hardly noticeable, sometimes very noticeable, stain on his shirt. It never failed.

We used to laugh about it a lot. But he warned me that I would likely get the shirt stain disease too, when I got older. Unfortunately, he was right, and I admit it. I do have the shirt stain disease these days. And I can’t figure out how it happens? I try to be careful and think I’ve gotten myself through a meal okay, until I look down and inspect my shirt and sh*%&*t… there it is!

And this crappy Coronavirus is only making things worse. My wife and I used to go out to eat at restaurants a lot and when I’m sitting properly at a table, I don’t usually get food on my shirt. But for months now, we have eaten every meal at home and a lot of the time I’m sitting in my recliner. And let me tell you, that is a really dumb place to eat a meal if you don’t want to end up wearing it. Just one more reason the Coronavirus is making my life miserable!

In fact, it’s gotten so bad that I now keep a large spray bottle of Oxi-Clean right there on my dresser. Every time I change clothes, I have to break out that stupid spray bottle and use it on my shirt. It’s embarrassing to realize I have been walking around with a noticeable stain on my T-shirt, but fortunately that Oxi-Clean stuff works really well!

And that got me thinking… I’ve made a lot of mistakes in my life and committed sins that have stained my soul for sure. But I smile when I picture the Sinless One, standing next to me, the sin-filled one, spraying me with his own extra-large bottle of heavenly scented Oxi-Clean. Forever stain free!

Andie's clean T-Shirt says it all!

As a child my family’s menu consisted of two choices: 

take it or leave it. 

~ Buddy Hackett

Is it in Your Nature?

Sometimes good things happen to me in my life that I can’t really explain. They just happen and while I don’t know necessarily know why they happen; I am still very grateful. I’ll give you an example.

Many years ago, when I was first started to play baseball, I met Scott. He was the best player on our team and probably the best player in the whole league. I, on the other hand, couldn’t hit a curve ball and thought a slider was a small hamburger. Fortunately, Scott took me under his wing. He was the star shortstop and I was the struggling second baseman, but Scott was patient with me, never got down on me, and when I booted a ball or made an error, he gave me tips that helped me get better each week. Eventually we both played on a team that won a World Championship, the highlight of my baseball life.

As my baseball career wound down and I switched to golf, I lost track of Scott. He lived up in LA and I lived in south Orange County. But then one day, when I was golfing as a single, I got paired up with a couple and when I walked on to the first tee, I saw that it was Scott and Rhonda. I was excited to see Scott again and super excited to get to play golf with him. Even better, I found out he had recently moved to San Clemente and so for the past year we have gotten to play golf together many times.

Scott coming into my life was a great thing and not just because of baseball and golf. The Coronavirus has made it impossible for my wife to go to the gym and swim the past four months. So recently, Scott and Rhonda have been letting my wife go to their house early in the morning while they are out golfing so she can swim in their big beautiful pool. This has been fantastic for my wife because she loves swimming like I love baseball and golf. And you know what they say about a happy wife!

When I think about good things happening in my life, more often than not it involves good people coming into my life. When Scott helped me with baseball, he probably never realized what a good thing he was doing, it was just in his nature. And Scott and Rhonda probably don’t realize what a huge blessing it is to let us use their pool, it’s just in their nature to be kind people.

And that got me thinking… You don’t necessarily have to spend a lot of money or put out a huge amount of time and effort to help somebody out. Sometimes… if it’s in your nature… you just might make a positive impact in somebody’s life without even realizing it!

I expect to pass through life but once. 

If therefore, there be any kindness I can show to any fellow human being, 

let me do it now. For I shall not pass this way again.

~ William Penn

Love and Baseball

I fell in love with baseball when I was only 8 years old. At that time, our family was living in a tiny cockroach infested house on a Marine Corps Base. The house was really dumpy and my Dad was overseas, so my Mom and my sister and I lived there all alone. Times were tough. I was just a kid, new in town, and pretty much scared of everything because I didn’t know anybody and my Dad wasn’t around.

But there was a special gift my Dad gave me before he left. It was a small transistor AM radio. I can remember how I would lay in bed at night, worried about my Dad, crying myself to sleep. But one night when I turned the dial on that little radio, I came across a baseball game. I forget what teams were playing, but it sounded like they were having a ton of fun. Back in 1963, the big names were Willie Mays, Carl Yastrzemski, and the Alou brothers, Matty, Felipe and Jesus. They said all three Alou brothers were playing together in the outfield in the same game that night, so I figured that must be a normal thing. If you had brothers and played baseball, you all played together. Obviously, that’s not the norm. In fact, that was the only time ever that three brothers played professional baseball together. But boy oh boy, did that game sound fun! It really took my mind off my troubles. So from that night on I always tried to find a baseball game on the radio and I started dreaming about being a baseball player someday!

Unfortunately, being a military brat meant moving from town to town almost every year. That meant we never stayed in one place very long, which meant that I only got to be on a little league team once. I was 12 years old at the time, the oldest kid on the team, but I remember the best part of being on that team was finally making some friends.

Although I never really played much Little League Baseball, I did get a chance to play hard ball baseball as an adult. I joined the Halo Baseball Club when I was 48 and played until I was 64 and it was just like Little League all over again. There was all that same whining and complaining, but now it also included cursing, and some really creative practical jokes. And here again, the best part about being a baseball player was the friends I made. I truly miss it more than I can describe in words.

So fast forward to March of 2020. Now, not only do I not get to play baseball anymore, I can’t even watch or listen to a baseball game anymore. It’s kind of ironic. My Dad is overseas again (in heaven), I’m living in a small house again (although without the ornery cockroaches), and I can’t even see the friends I have (because of the Coronavirus). I find myself missing those late nights where that little AM radio kept me such great company!

Recently, baseball started back up again and everything in my life seems better now. Don’t get me wrong, I have the best wife in the world, four awesome children, and six wonderful grandchildren that I love dearly. So I’ve never had anything to complain about. Which reminds me, Yogi Berra once said, “Love is the most important thing in the world… but baseball is pretty good too!”

Beckham Aaron Trout "BAT" - Future Star of the LA Angels

You got to be a man to play baseball for a living, 

but you got to have a lot of little boy in you, too. 

~ Roy Campanella