Things Aren't Always What They Seem

"I'm just a poor wayfaring stranger

I'm traveling through this world of woe

Yet there's no sickness, toil nor danger

In that bright land to which I go..."

-Traditional American Folk Song-

Just this morning I was thinking about someone from my past. When I was in high school, my summer job (since the age of 10) was as a caddy at Glen View Country Club. 

This was a very wealthy club on Chicago's North side and catered to people like JD Searle (yes THAT Searle!). Anyway, I quickly befriended another caddy who was older than I, and I only knew him as L&M (every caddy worth their salt got a nickname. Mine was Bear. Anyway L&M was a loner.  He always looked a bit haggard, with his long, thin sandy hair, clean shaven face and clean but wrinkled clothes, and he was very tall and thin. His skin was weathered making him look older than he was. 

We spent a lot of time just hanging out at the caddy shack (yes, there actually IS a caddy shack!) waiting for our 'loops' (this is what an assignment was called).  We often went to McDonalds for lunch, or I'd share whatever lunch my mom may have made for me, and sometimes I'd bring him to my house and we'd eat and hang out. He was the nicest, kindest, most interesting guy I knew. He was a gentle soul.  Also well traveled. Well, I soon found out that he didn't have home to go to after work.  Rather, he said he lived in the woods, and then when the season ended here (around early October) he'd go down to Florida and caddy somewhere down there. It just NEVER occurred to me that I was friends with a homeless man, nor did I care.  I just thought this is what he enjoyed doing, and like the beatniks and hippie's (which he was one) he preferred to not be 'tied down' with material things. The only possession he seemed to own was a bicycle.  

I have no idea if he was an alcoholic or druggie (I never saw any evidence of anything other than an occasional joint - remember this was the early 1970's!), and he was well educated, articulate, and had some of the most astute observations of and about people and things around us. I often invited him to stay overnight when the weather was crappy, but he never took me up on it. 

I've been thinking a lot about homeless people and the connection to Mental Illness lately. 

Approximately 20 - 25% of the single adult homeless population suffers from some form of severe and persistent mental illness (National Resource and Training Center on Homelessness and Mental Illness, 2003)

I was working in South Miami back in the late 1990's and on my way to campus, as I was stopped at a light, a man came up to my window with this newspaper and a donation jar.  I plunked in whatever change I had and he handed me a copy.  At lunch I decided to read it. I came across an article written by a young woman who recently found herself in the unthinkable position - she was homeless.


This educated woman recently lost her job, followed by the loss of custody of her children, she then lost her home to foreclosure, and then the only thing she had left was her car - which she was living in until it too was repossessed by the bank.

With no place else to turn, she started begging and pan handling on the street, occasionally doing things she now deeply regrets. Of the many things she talked about, the one thing that really stuck out for me was how she described people who would give her money. She said many of them asked her what she would do with the money, as a condition before giving it to her.  She said most times she'd lie and say what she thought they wanted to hear. 

But her opinion was this: "...it's none of your business what I do with the money you give me.  It's your choice of course, if you want to give me anything.  And it's my choice what I do with it. Sometimes I buy food, or an evening in a shelter, or clothes. But sometimes all I want is something to help me forget about the fact I have no where to sleep tonight, I'm in physical and mental pain, emotionally depressed and maybe a cheap wine buzz helps..."

Amen.     

Should you be interested, The Voice of the Homeless newspaper is a fundraising arm of The Homeless Voice.ORG - http://www.homelessvoice.org/  This video is a great introduction to the incredibly difficult and important work that they do.  

http://youtu.be/PFJgUVTxhUQ  

These aren't just society's disposable problems - they are people, often with significant mental illness.  As I've made clear in numerous posts, there will be NO ice bucket Challenges for me, but if anyone wants to present me with a challenge for Mental Illness education and fundraising, I'm ALL In.  

If you want to change the world get over being a sugar cookie and keep moving forward

It's graduation season and all the commencement speakers are sharing their pearls of wisdom with the recently minted scholars who are ready to go out and change the world. Some of them will be successful, and many will fail.  

The other day I came across this commencement speech by Naval Admiral William H. McRaven, a former Navy Seal, who spoke at his alma mater, UT-Austin recently, entitled: 

Ten Life Lessons From A Navy Seal.  

Please read this article and then the commentary to follow will make far more sense.  

What does it really mean to go and "change the world"?  I'm going to be 54 this August and I've been thinking long and hard about what this means.  I'm coming to the conclusion that I've been thinking about this all wrong.  It's not the world that needs changing, but rather me.  Anyone who has read anything I've written, knows that I have come to define success differently than many people.  Successful people do many things, but the following two stand out: 

1. They finish what they start  2. They embrace the concept of sustainability.  The other important point is that successful people apply this to everything they do regardless of how important it may seem.  It's so easy to think that success only gets applied to big, important goals and achievements.  Not so.  Success comes from paying attention to the little things.  

"By the end of the day, that one task completed will have turned into many tasks completed. Making your bed will also reinforce the fact that little things in life matter."

This speech uses an extreme example of physical, mental, and emotional abuse to illustrate his points with the Navy Seal training.  However, the morals are absolutely transferable to each one of us. I sincerely doubt that I could withstand and pass these extreme training exercises and tests to become a Navy Seal.  That's a choice we can make: do I want to apply to Navy Seal training camp? No, thank you I don't. However, we don't get the choice as to whether we want to apply for Life Training Camp.  

Whether we like it or not, we all end up swimming with the sharks during 'hell week'. 

"You can’t change the world alone—you will need some help— and to truly get from your starting point to your destination takes friends, colleagues, the good                                               will of strangers and a strong coxswain to guide them."

What I take away from Admiral McRaven's speech is that the guys who quit the Navy Seal training camp are the one's who never figure out why they are there and what it's true purpose is. It's not to be first or to beat the other guys, or the system, or do something - anything perfect because it's very design makes this impossible.  It's purpose is to break one's spirit and get them to quit.  This, like life, has a similar purpose and that is to discover who you are and what exactly you are made of.  Are you tough enough to persevere? The purpose is not to win, but rather to finish.  You'll be surprised, like the Seals, how many people simply quit.  Sometimes just by not quitting you find out that you are the winner. 

"Those students didn’t understand the purpose of the drill. You were never going to succeed. You were never going to have a perfect uniform. 

Remember the old phrase you would sometimes hear from older people, "life is a circus"?  Growing up in a large family with 6 siblings, this was so true!  However the Seals have a different take on this idea.  It's more like the, 'what doesn't kill you, makes you stronger' saying. The point is that perseverance through continuous adversity does indeed build character, strength and endurance even though you may feel like you are simply being punished.  

"But an interesting thing happened to those who were constantly on the list. Over time those students-—who did two hours of extra calisthenics—got stronger and stronger.

The pain of the circuses built inner strength-built physical resiliency.  Life is filled with circuses.  You will fail. You will likely fail often. It will be painful. It will be discouraging. At times it will test you to your very core."

My favorite though is #5  'If you want to change the world get over being a sugar cookie and keep moving forward'.  This one, combined with #10 is the real secret to success in anything you do.  At times, life is going to be unfair, cruel, unkind, ugly, brutal, unforgiving and just flat out mean. It will also be beautiful, exciting, exhilarating, fun, fabulous, and downright awesome.  You can't have flowers without rain; good times without bad; happiness without sadness; pleasure without some pain.  It's all the 'circus training' that prepares us for the long haul.  

"Sometimes no matter how well you prepare or how well you perform you still end up as a sugar cookie."

The only real question to ask yourself is, are you going to ring the bell or are you going to be the sugar cookie? 

 "All you have to do to quit—is ring the bell. Ring the bell and you no longer have to wake up at 5 o’clock. Ring the bell and you no longer have to do the freezing cold swims.

Ring the bell and you no longer have to do the runs, the obstacle course, the PT—and you no longer have to endure the hardships of training.

Just ring the bell."

#10. If you want to change the world don’t ever, ever ring the bell.

Note: All quotes are from, Naval Admiral William H. McRaven, 10 Life Lessons From A Navy Seal, speech delivered at UT-Austin 2014 commencement  

Carry On My Wayward Son & other vinyl memories of Christmas Past

It was Christmas morning and I had just turned 16 that previous August. I don't remember every detail, but I do know that I woke up that morning and came downstairs where my mom already had the coffee and orange juice ready.  Our Berrafato Christmas tradition involved Midnight Mass Christmas Eve so that Christmas morning could be spent hanging at home opening gifts and having breakfast.  Grandma & Grandpa B. would spend the night so we all could be here.  It was a big group even before girlfriends, boyfriends, spouses or grandkids.  Eleven in total when it was 'just the immediate family'.  I can't remember if Gab was with us this Christmas or whether he was already deployed in the Navy.  If he was, chances are he probably didn't get home until shortly before I woke up and was now in various states of a nasty hangover, and grumpy to boot. 

My father was a self employed attorney so money was often tight.  It was 'feast or famine' depending on who paid him when, and I don't know how he provided for us.  We  lived in a nice house and I never recall ever going without the essentials.  Even though as we got older the gift piles got smaller, how my mom was able to pull off one present filled Christmas after another - year after year - for all of us remains a real puzzle to this day.

As I surveyed my 'bounty', I saw what I already immediately knew was an album and I decided to open that one last.  There were the usual clothing articles, aftershave, and small but useful (and needed) grooming and fashion accessories, but then there was The Record!  Having just discovered the 'FM Dial' only a year or so previously, Kansas' Carry On My Wayward Son was at #11 on the Pop Charts and in heavy rotation on FM stations. 

I remember when I first started listening to the radio and I would hear a song I really liked.  It would seemingly 'burn a placeholder' in my brain and mark a period in my life - one that would always be instantly brought back front-and-center when I would hear that song.  I'd raid my piggy bank (a 45 record cost about $.69 cents in 1968 :-)  get on my bike and ride the 3 miles roundtrip to EJ Korvetts, where the record department was on the 2nd floor.  I'd buy my record and ride home as fast as I could and then play that baby non-stop.  During summer vacation when my family would spend the week at Sharenburg's White Lake Beach resort in Central Wisconsin we'd spend hours each day in the 'Game Room' and the central focus was of course, the Jukebox.  I'm sure I spent at least half of all the money I saved that year playing songs on that wonderful and joyful machine. 

Of course I'd come home and immediately start saving up to buy all those records over that fall.  This was the start of my serious music acquisition and has been on fire ever since! 

So back to that Christmas morning in 1976, as I tore the wrapping paper off the record and saw it was the new Kansas LP Leftoverture and knew THIS was going to be a great day!  (obviously one of my brothers helped my mom pick this out :-) 

Part of the immense joy I got back then from buying music was the process one had to go through to acquire it.  If you really want to see how much the world has changed regarding technology, think about how simple and instantaneous it is to buy music today.  I can literally do it in less than 30 seconds! (even while flying at 30,000 feet somewhere over Oklahoma!)  As I got older and my musical tastes evolved (or as some might argue - devolved ;-) I was no longer buying 45's, but rather 33 LP's.  This required going to different record stores and was far more expensive.  But I still got on my bike and would ride to Record City in Skokie (10 miles round trip) and of course do the EXACT same thing! 

This is just one of a dozen wonderful Christmas memories I have from my boyhood.   What are some of yours? 

Oh No Not the Bass solo!

On a recent trip to Chicago for a family wedding, I had the opportunity

during one of the many family gatherings to make a toast to a special person who has become a very important addition to my family, in an unusual way.  This lady is quiet, gentle, pretty, elegant, funny, soft-spoken, smart, caring, competent, and most important - very good at what she does.  All those years raising children, managing a household and loving a strong willed husband has presented her with many challenges and tremendous satisfaction.  Through it all she kept her composure, sense of humor, and just as important, her sanity.  The toast I made was, like most toasts, completely impromptu and in my inimitable style, I used a music analogy.

I got to thinking about the 'unsung hero's' of any great band. Everyone knows and loves the singers, and the lead guitarist or other lead instrumentalists take center stage.  The drummer's job in most bands is to keep time (unless you're the Who ;-), however the guy you never seem to hear or see is the bass player.  He/she is always seemingly tucked into a corner quietly, unnoticeably just doing their thing (whatever that may be).  The job of the bass player is to 'hold down the bottom end' of the groove allowing the other players to do their thing.  It is not an overestimation to say the bass player has the most crucial role in the band. Everyone in the band depends on the bassist's subtle (and sometimes not-so-subtle) lead. If the guitarist or saxophonist makes a mistake, hardly anyone will notice, but if the bassist makes a mistake, everyone in the band and the audience will instantly know that something is wrong. The Bass player links the harmony (chords) with the rhythm which determines whether it's the blues, rock, jazz, etc. 

I have two stunning examples of what I'm talking about here.  First, is James Jamerson known for his work over a 30 year period as bassist for the Funk Brothers - otherwise known as the band behind almost EVERY Motown record you ever heard.

James Jamerson

  Yea, that's him leading off the Temptations, My Girl. 

The other great example is the legendary Donald 'Duck' Dunn, who played bass with Booker T & the MG's.  'Duck' Dunn, along with mates Al Jackson and Steve Cropper as the studio band for Stax Records created the Memphis sound, which was the 'archrivals' to what the Funk Brothers were to the Motown Sound.  Yea, BOTH anchored by calm, cool bass players. 


This brings me back to Gerry.  This is the role Gerry is now playing in my family.  She's 'holding down the bottom end' that was once held by another very special lady - my mom.  She hasn't replaced her, heaven's no!  She has simply brought her unique 'voice' and style to a group of 'misfit toys' that was sorely in need of this sort of quiet, subtle, but strong and loving leadership.  May you continue to be blessed with good health, good humor, and surrounded with people who love you Gerry.  Thank you for all you do for the Berrafato's!

 

So my question to my dear readers is: Who is the 'unsung hero(s)' in your life?