Who needs SNL when you have NFL?

New York has Saturday Night Live and Chicago is home to The Second City, but I don’t envy them their sources of humor. I have the Cincinnati Bengals.

Easy for me to stick the tongue in the cheek because I’m not a sports fan. I don’t engage in endless and pointless arguments about things of little consequence, I don’t walk around with another man’s name on the back of my shirt and I sure don’t fritter away my life in the recliner watching images dance back and forth on a flat screen. But, you gotta love an organization run by a guy who whupped the IRS on their home court.

The performance schedule has been full the past couple weeks and the season hasn’t even started. First of all, the county commissioners asked that the Bengals renegotiate their stadium contract, an agreement that helped plunge the budget into a dark abyss and carries the distinction of the most one-sided and unconscionable pact in all of professional sports. The Bengals response was that you had your input, you negotiated it, you are stuck with it. Well played.

Except, I might take issue with the “you negotiated.” Bob Bedinghaus negotiated it. Bedinghaus is now a devoted employee of the Bengals. The question is, when did that loyalty commence. Only the Bengals would have the chutzpah to hire the commissioner who handed them a stadium on a silver platter.

Bad-boy wide receiver Terrell Owens has been flirting with the Bengals for months. He’d been trouble for a good selection of NFL teams. The Bengals signed him, not long after the echoes of their “character counts” speeches subsided in the wake of numerous player behavior issues. With this hypocritical backdrop, the CEO of the Bengals assured fans that he had met with and was impressed with the wide receiver. He’s got his act together.

So, with eager anticipation, the fans awaited the scheduled arrival and debut press conference this morning. He no-showed. Surprise! He missed his plane from Los Angeles. How hard is it to make a flight, especially when you have an entourage and other resources to accomplish that? On your first day of work and in the public eye? Oh, he has his act together and it fits right into the Bengals show.

But, my favorite sideshow was eclipsed by Owens’ failure to grasp the complexities of telling time. An article in today’s newspaper revealed that at least a half dozen Bengals have Segways (motorized personal transportation devices) at training camp to carry them between their dorm rooms and the practice field. Beautiful, absolutely beautiful. It’s training camp. You sure don’t want to risk enhancing your physical condition by walking to the field and back. I would give a thousand bucks to reincarnate Vince Lombardi, take him down to the field and hear what he had to say about that. Heck, I’d settle for Mike Ditka.

Keep in mind, there’s all this and we’re not even in pre-season yet. I’m looking forward to some great entertainment this season.

On the road

Where did I miss the boat? I was visiting a friend a couple weeks ago and inquired about how her daughter’s summer job was going.

It wasn’t. She had gone to register for graduate school, met a professor and he invited her to join him and some other students in a trip to New Zealand. Just like that. The only thing any school official ever said to me at registration was, “You’re in the wrong line.”

And, pray tell, what were they going to do in New Zealand? Research? A social project? What? They didn’t know. The prof was allocated the funding and said they’d figure something out when they got there. Beautiful.

Last week, I was at dinner with some friends. A couple told us that their daughter had been sent to the south of France for a year as part of her studies. From the account, it was safe to assume it wasn’t France, Idaho. Where were these junkets when I was in school?

It’s not that I didn’t get to travel. I did, as part of my co-op job. But, that didn’t take me anywhere near Europe or the Pacific.

In undergraduate school, I was an accounting major, at least for the most part. Yeah, I know. Long story and for another time.

My co-op job was with a large CPA firm. There, co-ops had a little more status than the Harijans (untouchables) in India. My first assignment was doing the grunt work on an audit of a rural bank deep in the bowels of Kentucky.

The audit manager evidently wasn’t high on the food chain to draw this assignment, much less the co-op. He was sullen during the drive south and gave me the bare minimum of a briefing. So, I didn’t expect the staff of the bank to let out a collective groan and meet me with hostile stares when we walked in. It was an unannounced audit, which was also news to me. They reached for phones to tell their families they’d be home late and then set about the task of digging up records and making my life miserable for a few days. I can’t say that the motel and local food compensated.

Another glamour job was a liquid chemical company in West Virginia. I was selected to be point person on inventory audit. The Salad Oil Scandal was still fresh in the minds of accountants, so my duties involved getting very intimate with the storage tanks. I’ll understand if that biggie eludes your memory.

The short version is that a company in New Jersey (of course) took out loans collateralized by inventory, with the due diligence being the checking of incoming ships. In reality, only the top layer of the cargo was oil, which floated on top of the heavier liquid (water) that comprised most of the shipment. It may not seem like a big deal, but about $150 million disappeared (over a billion in present day bucks).

In subsequent years with similar situations, someone on the independent audit staff would be required to do some extremely unctuous verification of inventory. In this case, that someone would be me. I’m probably better preserved than beef jerky as a result.

One other memorable assignment was in New York. Gotham. The Big Apple. The city that never sleeps. Ah, so you did draw exotic duty.

Not by a long shot. It was during a summer quarter, so the Cincinnati office was quiet. Most of the activity was between year-end audits and the tax deadline. So, I was loaned to the New York office. Many financial firms had June 30 year-ends, so they were quite busy.

I think I was given a per diem of $40. That amounted to a flea bag hotel and one hot meal a day (hot dog from a street vendor). Not that I ever saw the day.

From seven in the morning until seven at night, I was sitting on a metal chair in a vault about four floors below Wall Street. Across a small table from me was an employee of the firm. Standing between us was an armed guard. The employee would give me a thick portfolio of negotiable securities. I would count them and write the total on a paper band. He would count. If we agreed, the band went around the securities and we would both initial it. We would walk it to its shelf and pull another. This cycle would be repeated. For twelve hours a day. By hour seven, I was eying the guard’s gun.

That’s about the extent of my college-related travel. I don’t know where I missed the turn in the road, but I did.

Monty, I'll take what's behind monument number two

Two pieces of mail today. One is a credit card offer targeting students and the other is from a funeral home. One thinks I’m a teenager, the other assumes that I have five toes in the hole.

I pitch the credit card promotion as it’s too inane to contemplate. Cards pushed into the hands of irresponsible college students contributed to the credit bubble and taught them some lessons they could apply to tuition loan default and bring down Sallie Mae. Apparently employing a similar thought process, GM recently announced a return to aggressive financing to boost car sales. You mean, car loan defaults, don’t you? My cat knows that, if he gets burned by something, he doesn’t stick his nose in it again. And yet, he’s receiving no offers of executive positions in the financial or automotive fields.

I turn to the other promotion. After a night out with the boys, I’m feeling like I might be a candidate for their services. I’m curious to see their approach, anyway, because I did some consulting for a large cemetery in the past.

The headline teaser over a photo of a very distraught woman: “In a world that’s out of control it’s nice to know there’s still one thing you do control! (Look inside for details!)”

Right off the bat, at least one too many exclamation points for my taste, especially given the subject matter. And, if the world is in fact reeling out of control, it’s hard to imagine one thing nice enough to assuage my concern about that. Let’s open this puppy up and find out what that might be, as we are intended to do.

“Dear Friend,” We’re friends? I didn’t know that. “The world changed on September 11, 2001.” Oh I can’t wait to see how they connect the dots on this one. “Today, we experience wars in diverse places (unlike before 2001?), outrageously high gas prices (have you been to Starbucks?), the economy is in distress, skyrocketing food prices and families drifting apart.” Well then, why wait until I’m dead? With all that going on, I’ll just climb into the box, now.

The copy goes on to paint a gloom & doom scenario. Just what is nice enough to compensate for my world crumbling apart? It’s that I can pick my burial merchandise and cost. They give me control over that. So, why is it that I don’t feel any better about my precarious perch on the eve of destruction?

I must be missing something because the woman in the previous photograph is now sporting a wide smile in the one inside the brochure. Being able to select her own coffin has solved all her problems. Forget about war and economic ruin. I’ve got walnut!

Oh to be that easy to comfort.

It paid off

Walt asked me to attend the next meeting of his organization to share some ideas. They’re suffering from the same challenges other groups are encountering, including a lack of interest from younger generations.

Their facility was an old bungalow, set back in the woods. It had seen better days. Whether that was because of decreasing funds from a shrinking membership or a lack of youthful elbow grease wasn’t apparent.

They were all cordial and unpretentious people and the meeting was quite enjoyable. Or, maybe it’s just that it was a rare opportunity for me to be below the median age in a room. I had several suggestions, but didn’t get the feeling they were embraced. These guys had been carrying the load for so long, it didn’t feel like they were going to take on many new projects.

They adjourned the meeting and I was invited to join them in refreshments. As we were going down a hallway lined with vending machines, one of them stopped in front of me and turned. “You seem like a bright young fella. Maybe you can help us out with this one.” Young fella. How could I demur? “Someone donated this here old machine and we got it working okay. Except, it only takes coins and has a limit. That ain’t gonna cut it for beer, which is what we’re wantin’ it for.”

“Leave ‘im alone, Bennie. That isn’t his game.”

Actually, it is. In college, I figured out how to convert a soda machine like this in our housing into a beer dispenser. “Put empty bottles between the full ones, depending how much you want to make. All someone has to do is buy an empty or two to get to a full one.”

I knew college would pay off someday.

The race

It was my first open water race. Heck, it was my first swim race in any kind of organized and sanctioned venue and there were lessons to be learned.

In the pre-race briefing, the race director told us there was some current, but strong swimmers should be able to cut right across it without much adjustment. All my business experience should’ve prevented me from relying on hearsay. I’ve boated the river enough to be able to look at the current effect on buoys and judge for myself.

I also know better than to think there’s such a thing as free lunch. Mistake number two. One of the things that slows you down in open water is the necessity to pick your head up and check your course every ten strokes or so. In a pool, you navigate by the lane stripe on the bottom of the pool. Early in the race, I noted that I could see swimmers to my left while breathing. So, why pick up my head when I could just take a cue from their heading? Because they had listened to the race director and underestimated the current, that’s why.

So, a bunch of us in the moderate to slow speed range wound up at the turn near the opposite bank well downstream from the marker buoy and faced with the prospect of swimming directly upstream to round it. Some tried and then just got out of the water there. I hadn’t come this far to quit. Fighting the current head-on was the hardest part of the race, mentally. You fought your guts out only to find you were just a few feet closer. Disheartening and I understand why some just got out there. The upside was that it revealed that, in my race fervor, I was trying to muscle the strokes and neglecting technique.

Going to school on that, I took a sharper angle on the return leg. About halfway across, a patrol boat cut in front of me and told me I was off course and to aim further downstream. Mistake number three. What does someone with four hundred horsepower at his fingertips know about this current?

I took the direction and kicked it into high gear, but would still be swept by the finish line and have to come back upstream. By now, every muscle and joint was screaming to stop. My abs were spasming with every breath. Determination asserted and, with every pain, I upped the pace.

I was in a zone and oblivious to what was going on with other swimmers. Some had gotten swept under a barge/dock on the Kentucky bank, too exhausted to fight the current. Others hit the wall midstream and had to be fished out by power patrol boats, which I’m told were inadequate in number for the task. I feel some pang of remorse for not looking out for others in the heat of completion.

When I finally crawled up onto the ramp, I tried to jump up and sprint by the timer. I should’ve known better and almost passed out. You always see swimmers hanging on the side of the pool at the end of a race before trying to get out and take the body weight that was being supported by the water, enabling them to channel everything into the stroke and kick. I was completely out of gas and should’ve taken some time to recover. But, I saw the timer box and sprinted (stumbled) for it.

The lightheadedness was a good feeling, considering my goal was to leave nothing on the field, so to speak. Being my own harshest critic, I wondered if I was kidding myself. But, faster swimmers came running up to congratulate me and commented on my drive through the final leg. Also, one photographer focused on “the guy who didn’t have any quit in him.” If they could discern someone giving their all from their vantage points, I was willing to give myself a passing grade.

The heat sheets printed out and it was a little bit of a letdown to see my name low on the list, even though that would be expected in my age class. The race director caught my expression and told me they didn’t record the DNFs (did-not-finish) to spare them some embarrassment. There were a number who got out on the opposite bank or who were brought in by patrol boats because of the current. The heck them and their embarrassment. What about mine? I’d like to see all those names below mine on the list. In fact, take every registered triathlete and Masters swimmer in town who didn’t bother to train for and enter this race and add them at the end. The sentiment passed quickly. I did this for me.

I can’t say my time was good, but it was enough to take the bronze medal in my age group. Considering the level of competition, I should be content with that. Okay, I am. The more I thought about it, the happier I was.

In addition to the mistakes, I was guilty of breaking training, so I should be grateful for just finishing unassisted. Even the night before, I was out late paddling a lake, not wanting to squander a full moon on a hot summer night. Every lapse I had was a conscious decision. At this stage of life, especially, you seize and enjoy the moments.

So, how does one celebrate? I don’t enter anything like this without high expectations and had that planned. Well, somewhat. Friends took care of a lot of that. My basic concept was to party like a college senior football player who had just won the Sugar Bowl, throwing in a big Dominican victory cigar. I got home and looked at the cigar and almost threw up at the thought. Then, I took the cat to the vet for his appointment (life goes on), took a brief nap and headed for a party thrown for me by friends.

So, what stands out? None of the above. I may have alluded to this in a previous blog, but it’s the nature of swimmers. When my son swam in college, I was a little surprised at the closeness between swimmers and parents from opposing teams. I’d go to another city to watch him compete and was offered food and lodging from the home team parents. To this day, my son can travel the country and stay with swimmers he competed against years ago. It’s like one big family. They don’t compete against each other as much as the water. Different from the sports I grew up in.

Many of the people swimming in this event are active in Masters Competition, triathalons, etc. and see each other on a weekly basis. And yet, I was treated as one of them. That’s what sticks with me.

Well, that and my victory party. It’s going to take a couple days to recover from that.

That fuzzy ball

I went to dinner with a small group of friend. Actually, friends of a friend, so I don’t see them often. They’re nice and interesting people, but I especially look forward to seeing Scott. I don’t know him well, but he’s the type of affable, balanced and intelligent person anyone would be happy to be around.

Last night, he was wearing an open collared shirt and I saw the glint of a silver tennis ball peeping through the v-neck. I asked him if that was his sport. “No, I have a bad back.” He smiled, “That’s my life.”

Scott’s father was a successful businessman. Scott and his brothers were sent to an exclusive private school with the other silver spoons. He uses that term often in telling his story. Even at an early age, they knew they had it made and wouldn’t have a care in life about money. They were largely goof-offs.

Scott’s father told him not to expect a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow because he intended to spend it before he checked out. Scott paid no attention.

He didn’t do much in high school except hit that fuzzy ball (tennis). That he could do and do very well. When he graduated, he went to a private college one notch below Ivy League, in spite of poor grades. He could hit that fuzzy ball.

The grades went from poor to worse. Scott’s father made an appointment with the dean to find out what the problem was. The dean told him Scott couldn’t get himself to class or do homework. The father asked why he hadn’t been kicked out. He could hit that fuzzy ball.

If the dean wasn’t willing to boot him, Scott had had enough of pressure from home and dropped out. He joined the navy to get as far away as possible from family pressures on him to stop malingering. He didn’t impress his commanding officers much and was shipped off to a remote station in Ethiopia. Better than Viet Nam, but no garden spot.

The country was poor and primitive, save for the palaces owned by Emperor Haile Selassie. Somehow, Scott’s single talent came to the attention of the ruling class, rendering him celebrity status, and he was given free reign at the nearby palace. He spent his tour of duty playing tennis every day and enjoying the royal life. He could hit that fuzzy ball.

When he mustered out, he found that his father had already squandered the family fortune and was broke. Scott headed west and became a beach bum. California dreamin’.

That wasn’t the panacea he thought it would be, but he still hadn’t reached the turning point. When he left the service, he had reconnected with some of the other silver spoons. Now, they were dropping in on him when on their lavish vacations that brought them to or through Southern California. Scott resented the opulent life styles they still enjoyed. That’s what finally dropped him into gear.

He went to see the tennis coach at a university, took him out on the court and whipped him good, earning a full scholarship. He could hit that fuzzy ball. He did have GI benefits, but the scholarship made it easier.

He applied himself in school and later on the job. Today, he’s an executive back home in Cincinnati, which he attributes a lot to one thing. He could hit that fuzzy ball.

Going with your strength

About 40 hours until the big swim race, across the Ohio River and back. I did my last workout this morning. My ancient bod needs the time to recover for the race.

I swam a mile at moderate pace for a warm-up. Then, a series of all-out sprints with two-minute rests in between, except for longer than sprint distances.

One of the regular lap swimmers came over during a rest (read that as intense panting). He pointed out that a distance race depends on aerobic endurance and I was focusing on anaerobic with the fast laps. Then, he went into a biological explanation. I thanked him for the concern and said I was due for my next set.

I am aware of the difference. Well, somewhat. You enter the anaerobic zone when you’re in oxygen debt and the demands for that and fuel exceed the supply. I do understand that training for that is more appropriate for sprints and other competition that last up to a couple minutes.

But, I’m training my mind, not my body. This event attracts serious swimmers who have speed, technique and long-term competitive experience that exceed mine. My strategy is to avoid playing the game within the confines of their strengths. When the lungs and muscles start burning, I need to be able to kick it up a gear instead of throttling back. I’ve never been the fastest, biggest or most coordinated at anything and this has been my trump card.

Will that work in this case? I’ll find out Saturday.

Leaps of faith

An organization asked me to give a talk at their meeting last night. During dinner, I sat next to one of the officers. She told me about a business she had started and asked advice.

Her situation was that she had worked for one large company for years and was able to retire fairly early. Then, she started a business. It started off pretty well and then plateaued.

I asked a few questions and determined she was running it like a part-time business. To get to the next level, she needed to commit all her time and resources, in my opinion.

She asked if that would guarantee success. I said that it wouldn’t. That would be up to the viability of her strategic plan and how well she executed it. The only thing that was guaranteed was that she wouldn’t go much further without that leap of faith.

Something similar occurred this past weekend on a kayaking trip. On this river, we always stop at a number of play spots. At one of them, the river swiftly crashes into the pointed end of a rock island, forming a small pillow of water. To the left is a group of craggy rocks that you don’t want to be dumped into. To the right are a single rock and then the main channel on the other side of that.

The object of playing the spot is to drive your boat hard, as though you want to smash the left side of the point and, at the last second, flick it to the right and down the narrow chute between the rock and the island. If you’re not very aggressive, you’ll just be swept down the channel by the main current before you reach the chute. If you drive hard and don’t flick the boat, there’s some chance you’re thrown into the rocks on the left.

I gave the instructions to a newcomer who was having problems. She was approaching tentatively and never getting close to the chute because the bulk of the fast water pushed her down the channel to the right before she reached it.

I understood. By going hard and a little left, your eyes tell you that you’re either going to careen into the crags on that side or skewer yourself on the point. Your brain gets the message and slows your stroke.

I told her she had to override that and go strong, like she was trying to knock the tip off the island. She asked if that would assure she would drop into the chute. No, but you’re not going to get there without going hard at it. Your decision. Make the leap of faith for the brass ring or just float down the channel and play it safe.

She went all out, pulled it off and was elated. It’s the same with starting a business and other things in life. It’s often required to totally commit and run the risks to attain the next level and enjoy the benefits thereof.

Of course, sometimes you crash into the rocks.

I'm not buying the alligator

At the gym yesterday, I was watching one of those soundless flat screens while working a merciless and boring exercise machine. Coincidentally, something similar cropped up on one of the news show, but it looked like fun.

It was a bicycle. Except, instead of the traditional pedals and seated position, you stood and worked an elliptical drive, much like the stationary machines in the gym.

When I got home, I looked up the site on the web and the hype was appealing. I had some interest until I got to the price, twenty-two hundred bucks. My eyes sliced back to the photograph. It looked pretty simple and appeared to be comprised of fairly standard components. Over two grand for that? I do understand that you price according to demand, not cost, but… Maybe they had a lot of tooling and it wasn’t as standardized as I thought.

I drilled down through the site and came to the deal breaker. Under the FAQ section, they reassured potential buyers about ease of repairs, stating that the bike was mostly comprised of “commercially available components” and that there were few custom parts.

No, no, no, no. You don’t pull back the curtain and show them the wizard. When Ford introduced the Mustang, their ads didn’t say, “By the way, this is easy to get fixed because we built it from your grandfather’s Falcon parts bin.” Let the magic sell it.

In the same vein, I attribute the decline of the Cadillac brand to the debut of the Cimarron. This was the intersection of two strategies. The first was GM trimming cost by developing a single platform on which to base models for its various brands. The second was for Cadillac to tap into a younger market with a less expensive car and make them Cadillac people for life. The latter worked to the extent it attracted new customers.

But, the other one destroyed the Cadillac mystique, in my opinion. The Cimarron was so similar to its sister versions that it trumpeted it was little more than a gussied up Chevy Cavalier. And, by extrapolation, all Cadillacs are Chevys. Who wants to pay those prices for a Chevy? I’m not advocating concealing relevant facts. But you don’t have to put them out in the store window.

If you don’t drop your pants in public, sometimes a competitor will pull them down. At one time, Escort radar detectors (the original, not the one that rose from the ashes of the sold brand name) were the dominant choice. Even with a premium price, they could barely produce enough to satisfy demand. Their unique selling proposition was that they invested so much in advancing their technology that the product had no peer.

All well and good until the partners had a parting of the ways. One wanted to take the company public and cash in. The other wanted to play it close to the vest. So, the partner desiring the IPO bought out the other and off he went to Wall Street.

That made Escort a public company. Public companies have to disclose their audited financial statements. So, what does that have to do with market share?

A clever competitor latched onto those numbers and used them to show the market that the extra dollars they paid for the Escort product weren’t going into technology. They were finding their way into the pockets of the owners. You were paying more for enhancing profits than R&D.

Escort went down in flames. There were other critical management errors that led to this, but you’d never convince me that this wasn’t the beginning of the end.

If you really want your bubble popped, take a trip to the Pacific Rim. There you will see a relatively few companies putting together televisions, audio systems, etc. with common components for almost all the brands. That is, you will see inexpensive and premium brands and models on the same assembly lines with the primary difference being a case or logo. The companies buy a lot of their components (standardized) from the same suppliers.

There’s a marketing axiom that dictates you sell the sizzle, not the steak. It’s not to deceive but to provide the market what it is they demand. Woody Allen wrote a satirical version of the story of Job. Job laments to the lord that he has made all these shirts and they haven’t sold. He’s employed the finest materials and best craftsmanship and yet, the warehouses remain full.

And the lord sayeth, “Put an alligator on the chest.” Huh? Trust me on this one. Just put an alligator on the chest. And the shirts sold out. The alligator logoed Izod shirts were a very hot, overpriced (my opinion) item of the time.

I’m not saying this elliptical bike strategy is wrong. Being the first in the market and charging a premium is a strategy I’ve employed successfully. The trick is to skim the cream before all the competition comes in and drive prices down. See digital watches and calculators.

But, I won’t be putting a deposit down on the bike. I’m not buying the alligator.

Please yourself

The local paddling group I started turned eight today. That’s not bad in an internet world where factions rise and fall on an hourly basis.

We’ve reached 1,750 in number, which puts us at the largest in the country, and possibly the world, and about double second place. More importantly, in my mind, the quality of the people is in the upper quadrant.

On this occasion, emails, notes, etc. of congratulations are coming in. That’s also nice, but some of it means more than the rest.

The messages from my peers in similar group have some weight. They know what it takes to accomplish this.

I’ve heard from a lot of well-meaning members of the group. I do appreciate that, but most have no idea what goes into it. They just open up their email accounts and boom, there’s a calendar of events. They show up and it happens. They are grateful, but I don’t believe most have given much thought to how it all happens to be there for their enjoyment. Some have, and their messages had more impact.

The family is a different story. We’re kind of a culture of anything worth doing is worth going for the gold. We expect to succeed or at least to have left it all on the field trying. So, what has happened with the group wouldn’t usually ring a lot of bells. Therefore, their acknowledgement of it meant a great deal.

And finally, who really counts in this and my harshest judge. Me. I’ve faced every misstep of all the events I’ve run and in managing the group. I’m not one to deflect responsibility, make excuses or cut myself any slack. On the other hand, I don’t dwell on the errors. Take a lesson, make the adjustment and don’t repeat the mistake. And, relish the victories.

In this case, my stringent taskmaster rendered a passing grade, which is what really matters. As Ricky Nelson sang, “You can’t please everyone so you’ve got to please yourself.”

The Four Seasons

I’ve started packing for our annual Hiwassee River trip. Two t-shirts and a bathing suit. I’m 95% done. There, it feels good to get that out of the way.

It’s about that easy. We’ve been doing this one for a while and stay in a big, luxuriously appointed cabin that eliminates the need for camping gear. With most of the preparation out of the way, I can get down to the business of counting the seconds until liftoff, or trying to divert my thoughts from the same.

It’s one of a few of our annual events that remind me of “The Four Seasons.” I probably have mentioned that movie before, since it contains a line that added to my philosophies of life and led to a few watershed decisions. But, that’s not pertinent here.

What is, is that the movie is about a group of friends who regularly vacation together. Each new trek enables this close knit group to catch up with the evolution of each other’s lives and discuss the meanings. They’re all remarkable people and have a hell of a good time and grow closer.

That’s where we part ways. On the Hiwassee trip, we mostly have fun and the deep discussion is secondary.

The genesis of this trip goes back over five years ago. Our paddling group had been up and running for years by then, but we paddled gentle rivers and lakes. Then I got an email from a friend involved with a group in Kentucky who were about to run the Hiwassee, a whitewater river. We were invited.

I posted the invitation on our site, but drew only one response. There was trepidation about paddling whitewater. We went down and paddled two days with the Kentucky group. It was a blast.

The following year, I organized our own trip. That was a landmark event as it planted the seed that later added a whitewater component to our group.

The first few years, the main Hiwassee event was the river and its facets that challenged and thrilled us: Oblique Falls, Funnel Rapid, Devils Shoals, etc. But, as our skills evolved, so did our focus. The cabin time together emerged as another major source of the fun. A highlight now is the evening party and the coveted Busted Paddle Award (for the most spectacular wipeout of the day).

We usually have about a dozen participants. Over half are the regular core and provide the glue that holds it all together. The other slots are filled by people who drift in and out of the event, but they are quickly assimilated. It’s a lot like our annual spring trip which also holds some magic for us.

So, I’m looking forward to this with great anticipation. And, I’ve burned off a few hundred seconds of waiting writing this. Only a few hundred thousand to go.

Self actualization

Yesterday, we conducted a paddling workshop, primarily aimed at helping people develop their rescue techniques. One pleasant byproduct was a textbook example of the ropes course effect.

I’ve alluded to this in a previous blog or two. The gist is that you present a series of challenges, mostly traversing ropes high in the trees. Many in the group will consider these beyond their abilities. With some encouragement and help, they accomplish what they had deemed impossible. This is interpreted as a metaphor and they transfer it to their challenges in life. Hopefully, being prudent and realistic.

A subset of yesterday’s group was some women into their sixth and seventh decades. Many aches and pains, and even a joint replacement. But, you wouldn’t hear that from them.

Unlike many ropes groups I’ve seen, they required little prodding. While they were very short on paddling experience, they attacked the exercises of rolling and rescuing in kayaks with abandon. Each new conquest brought squeals of elation and admiration from the rest of the group. At the end of the day, it was all but impossible to get them out of the water. They were demanding more. “Bring it on.”

It was a pleasure to watch. You go girl!

Experience of a lifetime

In 1976, I was fortunate enough to be on a tugboat in Boston Harbor, assisting the parade of Tall Ships for the Bicentennial. It was quite an experience.

Yesterday, there was a Tall Ships parade into Cleveland Harbor and 16 of us paddled out to view it from kayaks. The array of ships didn’t match that of Boston, but the experience was right up there. Nothing like viewing ships of the line up close and personal from water level. My friends kept turning to each other and asking, “Can you believe this?”

When you approach the end of life, what do you have but your memories? As someone said, life is a big canvas. Throw a lot of paint on it.

Ann

Ann died ten years ago. She would’ve been 94 today.

When World War II broke out, she enlisted in the Army. They tried to assign her stateside but she dug her heels in, saying she didn’t join up to sit out the war in Jersey. She was reassigned to North Africa to serve under Eisenhower. If you asked her, and even if you didn’t, she would tell you that she showed Ike how to win the war.

After she mustered out, she applied to the local chapter of a veteran’s organization. She was informed that their bylaws stipulated that members be male, although they did have a women’s auxiliary she could join. She said she didn’t fight in an auxiliary war and wouldn’t accept auxiliary membership. She was inducted as a full member.

In the early 50s, the city was installing some storm water drainage. The plan showed an enclosed system in the “good neighborhood.” When it reached ours, it essentially changed to an open ditch. Ann thought that presented a drowning hazard for small children and filed an objection. When that was ignored, she organized the neighborhood mothers and, in their Donna Reed dresses, they laid down in front of the excavation equipment. Unheard of at the time. The plan was revised to enclose the entire system.

She was not content with the one-worker/one-car family model of the time and wanted her own freedom of mobility. She worked as a crossing guard and sold Tupperware door-to-door to buy a used, hot V-8 convertible. I’d get calls wanting to talk to my parents about my laying rubber around the neighborhood. I’d have to tell them that I didn’t drive.

Once I was in high school and she felt she could take one eye off me, she got a job with a department store. Her department head resigned and she applied for the position, even though there were no women at that level in the entire chain. She went in with six reasons why they’d benefit from promoting her and demanded the promotion. She got it.

My female cousins delighted in and emulated her, referring to Ann as “Auntie Mame.” Most of them went on to become CEOs, college professors, teachers, actresses and similar professions, rare outcomes for our neighborhood.

Life with Ann wasn’t a piece of cake. While she was a free spirit, she didn’t want that for her son. Though she and my father ruled with an iron hand (sometimes, close to literally), their unique personalities couldn’t help but manifest themselves in me. If she said it once, she bellowed it a thousand times, “I hope you have five kids just like you.” However, she was later quite pleased when her two grandchildren turned out much more docile than their old man.

We had our pitched battles, but the death of my father when I was in my teens drew us closer together. Years later, she married a very genteel older man. How he survived us is still a mystery to me.

Ann is long gone. But, to this day, when I hear the term “the weaker sex,” I don’t think of women.