The Hill

the hill

Another memory.

I can’t recall who was there but it was a hot summer night. I think there was maybe four of us sitting on that hill just talking and drinking beer.

I can’t recall what we talked about but we sat there for hours.

My brother had this thing about telling stories. He would start down a path and he would spend ten minutes telling you about that path before ever stepping foot on it. Many of the stories where like that, never really knowing where you would end up.

I have to admit, there were times I felt like yelling “GET TO THE POINT!” but I never did. Sometimes I was at the end of the story already, having heard it before, just waiting for it to be finished. I think he liked telling it, reliving it in his own head.

I would give anything to hear another rambling tale.

I had to admit something today.

2015-05-02

I had to admit something to my brother today. Back when we were teenagers I used to sneak into his room when he was at work and listen to his records. I would even record some of the tracks onto cassettes to listen to on my Walkman. I knew if I ever got caught that would be the end of me. I can only remember some of the tracks, something about James Bond living down the street by the New York Dolls or maybe Toy Dolls. Some punk band from the UK. It was like pure bliss, listening to your albums was the best.

Once I shared that all kinds of other stories started to pour out. There was this time we were in Florida with the grandparents. That night NASA was shoot some satellite into space and we were going to be able to see the light of the rocket, nothing was more exciting than that. I’m thinking I was maybe in 4th or 5th grade and my brother was two years ahead of me in school. Well at some point PT wandered away down the beach to get a better look. My grandparents were beside themselves with worry. My grandmother whisked me away to the hotel room while my grandfather, a former FBI agent, ran some search grids. I never got to see the rocket. Maybe an hour or so later PT came wandering back into the room, not a care in the world. I was never worried, he is the smartest person I had ever met, I knew he would be fine. I had to laugh, that wandering away to get a better look sounds a lot like my son. I was super jealous that he got to see the rocket blast off.

That story brought me back to spending time in Wisconsin. Our gramps kept a small patch of dirt for us to play in. We would spend hours with a set of garden tools digging and making tunnels. Once gramps stepped on our tunnel thinking it would support him but it quickly collapsed. I’m not sure why that story stuck with us for so long but it did. We also had gramps scope out the tallest hills he could find and drive us up and down them when we were in town. It scared us to death but always wanted to do it over and over again.

Then there was that time when I visited in college. I was only in high school but we still sat up drinking beer and listening to Metallica, Master of Puppets. That was life changing, if this was college I wanted in!

I remember when you called me when I was in the Corps to tell me you just had your son, Patrick. I had just been up all night… uh… sitting on a hill watching the base burn with Crow. After that went on a 12 mile run and you called me. That was a pretty sweet thing to start the day with.

It breaks my heart to have to say goodbye to you today.

I love you and miss you dearly.

38 Solo + Duet

Sam played a solo and a duet today in some type of contest.

Smoking neighbors. Can’t stand them.

WordPress #37

I upgraded a site and now am slowly building.

One up side of the day was meeting Mac and Cheese, two little tiny ducks.

36 New Adventure

While I have created some blogs in the past, I’m moving the Slice to wordpress. I can’t remember the last time I used it so it was time to try again.

Besides that I am sitting in the car waiting for another practice to end.

#36

First blog post

This is your very first post. Click the Edit link to modify or delete it, or start a new post. If you like, use this post to tell readers why you started this blog and what you plan to do with it.

nothing…

I’ve spent the last three work days doing things for other people. All my work is piling up.

I have nothing left and it is only Wednesday night.

Tomorrow I have maybe 2 hours to myself. That is a wee bit stressful.

Wet Shoes

It was raining and I decided to still park a mile away and walk to the conference. I knew my feet would be wet but I really didn’t mind.

If it ain’t raining, we ain’t training.
That was our motto for years. We spent days in the rain and mud. It wasn’t too bad while it was warm but in the cold was a totally different experience.

We spent the night outside in the jungle during a tsunami. That was interesting.
Spent hours circling a small building in the rain without any kind of rain gear. The radio was well protected so the higher ups were happy.
I remember laying in a pool of mud while zeroing in the 60. Freezing.
One Friday we were stuck on a hill in the slow, cold rain. They forgot to pick us up.
I am well versed in misery.

Today I had a smile on my face. A few hours of wet feet makes me remember the rain that fell years ago.

Crow, Rocco and I. Sometime in 1992, NTA, Japan.

Sometimes it is hard to convince someone to learn.

Today was pretty much our last day of spring break. Tomorrow is just a regular Saturday filled with all the things that make a weekend busy, most of them are kid related.

We went to the art museum to check out an exhibit that will soon be on the CBS Sunday Morning TV show. I thought it would be pretty interesting to see it in person and then watch it from another point of view in a week or so.

Normally the tickets are $15 a person but on Friday they give them away for free. The only catch was we would have to wait almost two hours before we could see the exhibit. After about an hour Aidan, the 11 year old in the picture above, was done. I’m sure you have seen this in your own children or those you work with.

We found a very quiet exhibit that was all drawing created by a famous artist. No one else was in this part so Aidan was trying to stack up all the handheld lenses to see if he could get a super detailed look, really I think he was just trying to amuse himself.

I can’t recall who said it or the exact conversation around it but we came to the conclusion that to fill your head with greatness, you must be exposed to greatness.

It seemed super profound at the time. Now that I write it I start to think about my own kids, have we done enough to expose them to the greatness this world has to offer? Sometimes the news, peers, etc do not always reflect the great opportunities that are just outside our door.

With the statement of greatness in my mind I am sitting here plotting our next steps to see the world for what it really is.

Looking back at the other images that I had taken and this one hits me. Greatness before my eyes. In the exhibit Aidan found a great old classic and read it out loud to Sam. Totally spontaneous. Amazing things are happening all the time, sometimes right before our eyes.

You can’t do it alone.

Just saw the Lego Batman movie today. The big message was the same as last time, you can’t do it alone.

Sometimes I think people want the glory, maybe it is a trust issue but I struggle to see why people insist to go it alone when there is a team ready to help.