The Cheap Seats

My son was in Prague, Czech Republic yesterday - 4,573 airline miles from Minnesota and over 3,000 from his college home in Boston. This is his third trip to Europe in 18 months. He has been fortunate enough to have opportunities like this and equally adventurous enough to take advantage of them. Travel of any kind requires three things: desire, planning, and resources. But so do many other calculated risks we may or may not take throughout life that get us out of our comfort zone. Desire has to trump fear. Planning has to overcome uncertainty. Resources have to be marshaled. I'm not talking about  grand plan  Bucket Lists. This isn't a call to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro, hike the Appalachian Trail, or - Gump-like - run from one American coast to the other. Sure, those sound like worthy and exciting endeavors, but for most people they simply aren't realistic. Instead, I am referring to living an authentic life. Living an authentic life includes: - making pea

National conversations have been coming at the American people in a dizzying fashion of late, all thanks to the National Football League. The professional sport that dominates the hearts and minds of a rabid fan base has been the talk of the nation for entirely unwanted reasons. The subculture of domestic violence that is exists within the league is well documented. No reasonable person can defend it (though a few ex-jock talking heads have tried). Ray Rice's videotaped assault of his then-girlfriend was merely the tipping point of a decades-long crisis of credibility within the sport. Any national discussion of the issue has only cemented the consensus that domestic violence is abhorrent and criminal. Not so with the case of Adrian Peterson. Water cooler discussions at workplaces and around kitchen tables in homes have been diverse and lively:  - Adrian Peterson is a child abuser.  - Adrian Peterson has a right to discipline his child as he sees fit. - Spank

Fall - like any season - is all about perspective. Some people like the cooler temperatures and a return to normalcy, while others see the season only as a desperately short respite until the arrival of a long, frigid winter. Perspective - always in the eye of the beholder. Each fall I launch another school year with an introduction to the concept of perspective. Middle schoolers, whose brains are beginning to bristle with ever-more complex ideas and opinions, are ripe for my droning lecture and examples. "Kids, when expressing your perspective remember, there is no right or wrong, only opinion." Yes, Mr. Bergman . Ironically, perspective has two definitions that maddeningly defy one another. The concept I teach students, that perspective is the way people interpret something based on their own personal experience and understanding , should lead towards the other perspective -  possessing insight and wisdom acquired over time through experience . Alas, if only .

A chill wind betrays this time each year, conjuring up smells, throwing me backwards to youth when all that mattered to a boy was now and the next day. Flooded with fumes of fall and football and friendship was a clear expectation of something about to happen, hopefully a girl's glance or smile or her hand in mine. The past and future was held firmly at bay, the present lengthened and amplified to infinity, heightening the urgency of each memory and moment. Now, cut grass and cool mornings intertwine creating a longing I chase that is nearly tangible, to be that boy again who was more ignorant than knowing. But fixed here instead, I look forward with anticipation to each new autumn's annual power to send me back on an elusive breeze that carries yesterday with it.

I went to the Minnesota State Fair Saturday. I don't think I had been there since 2006. The Great Minnesota Get-Together was not a part of my childhood. I didn't go to my first Fair until 1987, spending a day there with my mom. We started by eating cinnamon bread the size and shape of an elephant's ear (which I think was its name) and concluded the day by making a mad dash to the car through a downpour after seeing George Jones and Willie Nelson play at the Grandstand. Fast-forward 27 years and those two memories are all I can recall from that first time at the Fair. In between I'm sure we ate, strolled through buildings, sat in on product demonstrations, ate, saw livestock, hiked up Machinery Hill, ate, stepped around fresh manure, watched a hunk of butter transformed into a girl's head, ate . . . Like two recent parolees, we undoubtedly couldn't get enough of conspicuous consumption. The more things change the more they stay the same. I had no pla

Goodbye Jerry Lewis Labor Day Telethon, there is a new fundraising template in town and its name is the Ice Bucket Challenge. If you're like me, you will be wiping away wistful tears at the thought of never seeing Jerry Lewis painfully crank out his version of My Way each time Ed McMahon announces more dollars on the tote-board every Labor Day - but whether it is education, business, or the fund-raising game - the old adage is still fresh, Adapt or Die . To be fair, I'm actually not sure if Jerry or Ed are still with us, but I digress. The ALS Association (short for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis - Lou Gehrig's Disease) can adapt with the best of them. Raising awareness (and dollars) has never been simpler or more fun. Star in a one minute video, donate money to ALS, challenge friends to do the same, take a bucket of ice water for the team. Easy peazy. The Challenged becomes The Challenger. A brilliant and benevolent pyramid scheme that increases exponentially and

Social media is tailor-made to magnify and dissect celebrity death. The why, how, where, and when of public figures' passings seem to fascinate and preoccupy an adoring fandom, sometimes to the exclusion of their living accomplishments. Think Amelia Earhart, Buddy Holly, John Kennedy, Roberto Clemente, Princess Diana. Death has a blurring effect on life. But not in the case of Robin Williams. The comedian's recent death - and the upsetting circumstances surrounding it - will not blur or obscure the body of work he left for us to enjoy. To us he will always be Mork or Adrian Kronauer or Mr. Keating or Genie or Sean Maguire or Patch Adams or Mrs. Doubtfire. He will not be remembered as that stand-up comic who committed suicide. Never. Yes, those who personally knew Robin Williams are feeling and grieving his loss. But our grief (if it can even be called that) is of a different nature, more circumspect and searching. More often than not, we are wondering generally how someo

I am feeling a lot like Kevin Bacon's Ren McCormick today. He moved south from Chicago to Beaumont U.S.A., only to find out that his God-given right to dance had been taken away by small minds in a small town. In a last ditch appeal to the John Lithgow-controlled town council, Ren (seeking permission to hold a high school prom) melodramatically declared that "it is our time to dance." Such deeply sincere overacting was just barely nudged out a few years later by Patrick Swayze's Pechanga-hating, "no one puts Baby in a corner." But I digress. In truth, I draw inspiration from a blogpost I read this morning by Josh Ellis entitled, " Everyone I know is Broken-hearted." Ellis' epic rant takes a swipe at seemingly everything he believes has unraveled the fabric of American culture (from the perspective of a 36 year-old) over the last three generations. Perhaps Ellis is simply a pessimist at heart but his piece speaks of a vague desperation and

Did you ever have one of those days when your mind was a jumbled haze? Trying to string two thoughts together is like throwing a lighter-than-air feather. Impossible, undoable - simply can't be done. Hydrate? Caffeinate? Maybe go for a run? Will that loosen the neurons, unstick these synapses? Is a simple lack of coffee responsible for such lapses? Perhaps it's all those paint fumes I've recently been huffing, Or maybe the dry, dead burned skin that has been sloughing Off my peeling red nose from being a softball ump, taking abuse from beer-swilling men - Jesus, what a chump! But wait, my calendar shows the month of August, right? Now the air grows heavy and my own workload light. Try as hard as I will, mental focus eludes me. My brain's own way of saying, "Hey, don't include me." "I want a break. Didn't you know thinking can be overrated. Not everything you do has to be remunerated." &qu

I remember the day I became a runner: May 31, 1985. College was still four months in the future but I was determined to maintain some semblance of good health after high school graduation for one simple reason - vanity. What can I say - the late teens and 20's can be a very narcissistic age. Granted, I was not accumulating ridiculous mileage every week (an easy 2-4 miles every morning), but I rarely missed a day. In fact, at my most obsessive, I logged 18 straight months of running between days off. Hung over? Run. Sick? Run. Subzero temperatures? Run. Blazing heat? Run. With the hindsight of 30 years, I wonder why that kid couldn't schedule more days off now and then. I suppose, besides the physical benefits, I viewed running as therapy - something I could control in a life that was continually experiencing change. It grew into the one constant bridge between life's many rites of passage - college, moving, job change, marriage, parenthood, divorce, aging.

"The doctors said my heart literally fell apart in their hands."   I'm not exactly sure when I heard those words, but I certainly have never forgotten them. They were spoken by my first employer, Rich Nelson. I was reminded of him - and the summer job he gave me - on a drive across western Wisconsin yesterday.   Almost entirely rural, western Wisconsin is covered with rolling hills and farmland. During my three-hour drive I saw field after field of freshly cut and baled hay. Not the same hay bales I could recall from my youth - these bales were large rolls that could only be loaded onto trailers with modern machinery, not a teenager equipped with two simple hay hooks.   Still, those large bales made me think of Rich. Retired from the U.S. Air Force, he and his family relocated to a small farm in rural Carlton County, 20 miles south of Duluth, Minnesota in the early 80's. A short, wiry man - Rich was obstinate and opinionated - a real barker - and altogeth

I am not a fan of short stories. Too long to read in one sitting (for me anyway), too short to make any lasting mark on my psyche. I haven't read any short stories - at least none come to mind -  so I am aware just how unfair my judgment of short stories is. But I've never eaten cauliflower either and I have no doubt that it's as awful as it looks and smells. Sorry, no fistful of melted Velveeta can save that foul-looking vegetable. But I digress. I am also not big on the author Ernest Hemingway, though I think I should be. I know I read The Old Man and the Sea in high school but all I can remember is an old man (presumably Ernest), a fish, and a rowboat. Regarded as one of the two or three greatest American writers, Papa (as he liked to be called) pioneered literary minimalism, never meeting a florid adjective he couldn't ignore (such as florid).   Dead now more than 50 years ago, Ernest Hemingway is also remembered for writing the shortest short story in th

If you have ever been an avid watcher of Mad Men, you know that the financial backbone of the fictional ad agency used to be its relationship with the real-life tobacco company, Lucky Strike. Upon hearing that the tobacco giant was going to fire Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce, Creative Director and partner Don Draper launched his own pre-emptive strike (no pun intended) by ending the firm's long relationship with Big Tobacco. The year was 1965. The Surgeon General's landmark Report on Smoking and Health was already a year old. Draper expressed his firm's position in an  open letter to The New York Times . Ironically, he wrote the letter while smoking a cigarette ( video ). Regardless, knowing what we have discovered about tobacco ever since, the letter was poignant and potent. The following letter is not. Instead, it's pouting and pathetic. While being an almost carbon copy of the Mad Men letter, it's actually a sad, desperate attempt to draw another personal l

My son - like many millions of other Americans - is in the grips of Soccer Fever. Pardon me, Futbol Fever. This affliction, as predictable as Halley's Comet, comes and goes in the United States rather quickly every four years. As we are currently being repeatedly reminded, soccer/football is the most popular sport everywhere else in the world except here. And I think I know why. Cultural? Bah. Socioeconomic? Pshaw. American Exceptionalism? Give me a break. It's simple really: We are now - more than ever - a nation of nerds. Disclaimer: soccer/football is a great sport requiring incredible footwork, endurance, and heart. World-class players are among the best athletes on the planet. However..... Eternally soccer-mad nations are largely homogeneous. And that just isn't us. Ethnic one-dimensionality hasn't been a part of our history since the establishment of the Jamestown settlement. A multicultural nation such as ours has too many separate histories to bind itsel

Hello, my name is Eric - Hi Eric - and I am a binge-viewer. I am a weak, weak man. But I resolve here and now that I will not spend the summer binge-viewing television shows. Twice through all 80 Battlestar Galactica episodes is plenty. I mean it this time. So Say We All. No, I won't pretend I don't know Walter White's fate again. Yes, Star Wars: The Clone Wars was just as good the second time around, but once more would be a path to the Dark Side, right? Repeat with me: My queue is empty. My queue is empty. My queue is empty. That's all I have to share this week. Thanks Eric . I can imagine such a conversation taking place at a BVA (Binge-Viewing Anonymous) meeting in the basement of some local church. Adults circled up on ancient folding chairs, styrofoam cups full of lousy coffee, the Serenity Prayer half-heartedly recited. Very little eye contact is made among the addicts for the obvious reason that no one believes a word anyone else is saying. Try not bing