TODAY IS A VERY SPECIAL DAY

Today is Freedom from Hunger Day. It is one day a year when we want to remind everyone that every day of the year around one billion people in the world do not have enough to eat.

In February of this year I was in India, in the poor state of Bihar along the border with Bangladesh. I was there with my colleagues from Freedom from Hunger, the wonderful organization that I am honored to lead as Chairman of the Board of Trustees.

We were in a very remote, small village that had taken us many hours to get to despite the small distance of 12 miles or so. My colleagues were sitting in a dirt circle outside conducting training to a group of adolescent girls and their mothers who were gathered in the circle.

I wanted to get a better photo of the group and I looked around and decided that if I could somehow climb up on the roof of a cement building, I would be able to look down and snap a photo from an unusual angle.

At my age, getting up on the roofs of buildings anywhere is not easy, but especially in that part of the world. But I made it up there and took some photos. I turned around and saw some children hiding on the roof and sharing a meal-likely their only meal of the day. They let me take their photo which is below:





The question we have to ask ourselves on this special day, and every day, is “Why do our children have enough to eat and these kids do not?” They have done nothing wrong. They love their family and enjoy playing just like our kids. But they have to sneak food up on a rooftop so there is enough to go around-not just the day I was there, but every day.

On this day last year I wrote on my Blog the reason I am involved with this organization. For those of you that weren’t reading my Blog a year ago today, I encourage you to go to my posting by clicking here and read it.

And then, please, please-take a moment and decide if you can cut out the Starbucks for this next week or some other small sacrifice and make a contribution via the Freedom from Hunger website.

HANGING AROUND WITH THE KU KLUX KLAN

I read something on CNN.com a few minutes ago that the KKK is planning on being at the debate tonight in Mississippi. It seems they are not aware that the rest of America has moved on from the 60’s in the segregated south.

What a bunch of ignorant twerps. Go HERE to read the article.

I would never vote for Obama and I have made my political views on this election clear in previous Blogs. I have also stated that I am not particularly passionate about politics since I have causes of the left I believe in and causes of the right I believe in. I just won’t vote for Obama because I don’t agree with him.

But I feel bad about that because I think it would be so cool to have either a woman or a minority as President of our country. Just not this minority or his now vanquished (appropriately) female competitor.

Because I would like to see a minority as President (next time), these imbeciles who spew the hatred of the past drive me up a wall.

So now that I have vented, I will share a Ku Klux Klan experience and you can decide if these are intelligent, well intentioned people or backward, uneducated nutcases.

It was in the early 70’s in Tulsa, Oklahoma (a hot bed of racists back then). We were at a production of Hair, the famous Broadway production of the late 60’s and early 70’s. We had seen it previously (in California I think) and enjoyed it so we went again. It is funny that I am writing about this 35 years later as Hair is enjoying a renaissance with its’ recent successful performances in New York’s Central Park.

At the end of the first act, all of the actors and actresses take off all their clothes (this was in the free love days) and stand on the stage as a group, with all their you know what in plain view as the curtain slowly descends. It is the only time there is nudity in the entire performance.

So what happens in Tulsa that didn’t happen anywhere else?

As the curtain is lowering, a bunch of intellectual giants in white robes and white hoods ran up on the stage blowing whistles and telling everyone they were the KKK (as if we hadn’t noticed) and that they were shutting down the performance and making citizens arrests on the nude cast. And they shut it down. We all had to leave and didn’t see the rest of it as they shut it down.

And now I read today that these yokels are still around. What a great country we live in.

9.6 POUNDS OF MAIL IN ONE DAY!

I went to get the mail in the mailbox on Monday. I almost needed a wheelbarrow.

It was so much, I decided to weigh it. You will see the scale to the left of the pile in the first photo below.

Can you tell the Christmas shopping season is upon us? Ten pounds of mail-probably nine of it was catalogs and flyers.

SHE LEFT AS ONE AND IS COMING BACK AS THREE!

There are two groups of people that read this Blog. Those that have been reading my postings since before June 4, 2006 and those that have started visiting my Blog after June 4, 2006.

For the first group, you will remember one of the most tear jerker postings I have ever done was here, on that day. Man, I was a mess.

I went back and re-read it a few minutes ago and realized the little tart said she would be back in two years and, may I point out, that it is nearly two and a half. But I will take it. In high school she was always late getting home within two hours of her curfew-some things never change.

I sure hope I don't get transferred out of Atlanta now that you are back. Wait, I guess that can't happen, can it? There is one small problem.

The pisser about this is that they will arrive in Atlanta today at 3:30 pm. At 11:15 am today, we will fly out of Atlanta for Vegas. You would think that I could plan my schedule a little better. So we are going to leave our car in the short term parking, text them with the space number and when they arrive with their 3 tons of luggage, they will have a car to drive in back to our house. It's just that we won't be there for the next six days.

As I finish typing this and get ready to post it, I checked the Delta airlines website and it says they left London Heathrow about 20 minutes ago, actually departing eight minutes early-how odd is that? This means they will be landing in Atlanta in a little over nine hours from now. So by the time you read this Andrea, you will be back in Atlanta, and not by yourself as you left, but with husband Lee and son Finn with you. Not to visit, not to stay for a year, but to live here. I'm happy about that.

To commemorate this special day, I have three photos below.

Lee and Andrea with two week old Finn last February

Finn's American passport which he will get stamped with a USA stamp today for the second time. He also has a British passport-maybe he will grow up to be a spy.

Finn's reaction a couple of weeks ago when they told him they were all moving to Atlanta, the home of the Braves (he loves baseball)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ANDREA!

I write this tonight, September 21st, as if it was tomorrow because it is now your birthday, the 22nd, in London and I wanted you to read this when you wake up.

33 years ago this morning we left your brother with my Mom at our little apartment in Hoffman Estates, Il and we rushed over to the hospital in Elk Grove Village. We had no idea if we were about to have a second son or our first daughter, but it was clear, as late as you were, that we were about to have another child.

They checked Mom in and I actually summoned enough will power to go into the labor room with her for a while. She was pretty-the sight of her in pain was not. It came time for her to go into the delivery room and I ran faster than a Japanese bullet train to the waiting room.

I had a briefcase full of work to do but no laptop, since back when you were born (this will make you feel good I am sure), they had not yet invented the personal computer, let alone the laptop.

I met another Father-to-be and he told me he had been in the waiting room for 30 hours and I thought "Wow! I better go get some coffee."

I walked down the hall, bought some coffee from a machine, walked back to the waiting room and a woman said "Your daughter has arrived. Would you like to go see her?" I reached for my briefcase and the other Father went a little nuts. He started yelling "I've been here for 30 hours. You have been here for 15 minutes. How could you already have a baby?" I am sure I said something terribly witty as I left the room.

Things were so different then. I didn't get to hold you-they just let me look at you in your little bed on wheels (I am sure there is a more technical name) and off you went so I said bye to Mom and headed home to tell Grove he had a little sister and to tell my Mom she had her first granddaughter. And now, 33 years later, you look to her as one of your sources of inspiration and that makes me so happy.

Here the two of you were together last fall; you were pregnant with her third great grandchild and she was recovering with grace and courage from the toughest fight of her life. Mom and I marvel at how much your style, personality and mannerisms mimic hers.

Today, on this birthday, is also your last day of your life in London for the past nearly 2 and a half years. How interesting is that? It has been a wonderful experience for you and when I was talking to Grandma a little while ago she told me "It was a lot like my days at the Roping Cowboy where we lived in a motel room."

I decided before I started writing this I should look back and see what I wrote on my Blog on your last two birthdays and realized I didn't write anything! I must have been behind on my emails. I can't believe you didn't ream me out for not doing it.

And so, 33 years later, you are a married woman, a Mom, a friend to many, a wonderful daughter who is funny (not as funny as me however), smart and well educated and a little neurotic over the sleep patterns of your seven month old.

And as the two photos below show, how in your life has changed from that day in July, 2003, when you and I poised in front of a Moai on Easter Island to last September when I snapped this photo as you posed with a huge moose in Jackson Hole while you were carrying Finn within you.





And I close with the best part of all. You, Lee and Finn are coming home to Atlanta tomorrow-to live.

It makes me feel like it is my birthday, not yours!

Love,
Dad

HOW I SPENT MY SUMMER VACATION

When I was little I would always return to school at St. Mary's in Autumn and the nuns would make us write an essay on what we did that summer. Of course, because I was an onery little shit, I always made crap up, which is probably what started my love of writing.

So, since I am still onery but no longer little, I decided I would talk about my summer here, since I haven't posted in four weeks and only posted 11 times this summer. But this time I am not making any of it up.

I tried for 8 weeks to be a good husband while Cathy was recuperating from her surgery and so I was determined to do all the things she does on a daily basis. Of course, no one was doing my jobs for me. Yes, I know I am "supposed" to be retired and not have a job, but we all know that will never be my situation. So since a photo is worth a thousand words, I will show you a photo of my desk at the end of this period. I probably will also tell you the thousand words.

Yes, all of that mess on my desk is how much I am behind on.

Before this summer my daytime whine was "I have 30 emails in my inbox I didn't get to". Many members of my family, most in fact, are sick of hearing it and tell me to shut up and do them.

My nighttime whine was: "A nice Pinot or Malbec please". That part hasn't changed

Now I can't get the last 200 emails or so done. I had over 420 in my inbox a few days ago-I am actually feeling quite happy that I am down today to 257.

I have been thinking, meditating, talking and complaining about what changed that caused me to become so far behind? And I figured it out.

I call it "Airplane Withdrawal". After traveling out of town almost every week since 1970, I learned to use time on the airplanes, time waiting for airplanes, time eating alone in restaurants and time in hotel rooms to do all my business work. Take away that time and I am screwed which is what happened to me because I went 60 days without going on an airplane or out of town.

But boy did I learn a lot about what it takes to run a household. 743 loads of laundy later I actually began looking forward to sorting the colors, measuring the detergent and selecting the cycle.

743 loads of laundry became 743 loads in the dryer or 743 of those little sheets you put in with it to do something or other that was not clear to me. I always find it weird to discover one of those little sheets in my underwear when I am wearing it or having someone else point ou to me that one is stuck to the back of my shirt without my knowledge.

After the first six weeks of washing and drying the laundy, Cris, Landon and Wes came to see us. Cris went to use the dryer and went in to Cathy and said something like this: "I know Papi has been working hard trying to do the right thing, but I don't think he has ever cleaned the lint on the dryer and it is amazing the house did not burn down".

Cathy then asked me if I cleaned it regularly and I honestly replied: "What is a lint filter?"

I also learned that it is a lot more fun to fix nice meals once in a while than to have to do it every day.

I learned one evening that if you have an artificial knee (as in metal), you have to be careful how you pass a glass from one side of you to the other, as Cathy did before I took this photo of the result.

That's right. She bumped the glass on her knee and it snapped in half. Actually, more than half as the word half suggests only two pieces.

So, in summary, I learned some valuable life lessons this summer:

1. Staying home and taking care of someone important to you is worth being behind on emails.
2. Dryers have lint filters.
3. I let some friends and colleagues down, especially Janice, by being so far behind on my emails and things others have asked me to do. That is completely unlike me and I feel bad about it, although not bad enough that I have caught up yet.
4. I like to make the things I cook look good more than I like to actually cook them.
5. To all of you who have sent me emails I didn't answer or who patiently go to my Blog every day and see nothing new is there, I want you to know I feel horrible about it.
6. To every woman of the world first, then for every mother of the world, then for every working mother of the world I have new found admiration. I have no idea on earth how you can keep a house clean, do the laundry, pay the bills, cook the meals, buy groceries and the billion other things. I know men are supposed to share, and a few do, but most don't. I salute all of you.
7. I love to fly anywhere even in today's screwed up airline industry because when I don't fly away, I cannot do what I have promised others I will do.
8. Proof of the above is why I am typing this post at 2:06 in the morning instead of sleeping.

So, a couple of weeks ago I was able to start flying again. I had a glorious trip to New York for a board meeting and the next week I had another sensational airline ride to Chicago for another board meeting and in two days I get to fly to Las Vegas so I can drive to Kingman and see Mom and then go to Phoenix for a family celebration as well as a nice function with Freedom from Hunger.

I am starting to get back in the groove. Eventually I will catch up on the emails and all the other stuff I am behind on.

By the way, this is Janice (who many of you know):