Just a guy on a Journey!

Smiling with a gap between his front teeth nearly the width of Wisconsin, Louie Anderson signs the joker in my deck of playing cards on a flight back from Montego Bay. 

A friend today sends a text informing me Louie Anderson passed away. I tell him of my experience on the plane with Louie and my friend cynically states too bad he didn’t give you ten cents, that’s worth more than his autograph. 

If Louie simply gave me a dime I probably would have forgotten the humble contribution. I will always remember my encounter with Louie because it’s who he is. As a comedian he is a full-time joker and his signature affirms that.  

My Dad taught me at a young age, “A man’s work is his signature.”  That is why it is important to always do a good job whether you are volunteering or getting paid. 

One of my favorite skits by the comedian was him telling how was carrying out a 55 gallon drum of 7-up from 7-11 and people looked at him like a pig. Unashamedly, he says “What? It was only a nickel more.”

So perhaps if he gave me a dime I would have been able to super size a Big-Gulp a couple of times.

But instead he gave me this story. Thank you Mr. Anderson. Rest In Peace. 

Leaning up against a concrete wall at Penn Station in Newark NJ a homeless women advanced in her years is trying to extract warmth from the train station as it serves as a bed. It’s just simply too cold to sleep on the ground on a windy Jersey January morning. 

Pulling three pairs of new white socks from a bag I ask her if I can give her some socks and snacks.  

Surrounded with lots of bags and a shopping cart she says yes with no emotion.

I could hardly see her face as the whipping wind had her wrapped in an oversized down jacket with the hood pulled tight and covered with blankets. 

Making small talk I could hardly understand a word she muttered as her inner-city accent was almost incomprehensible yet she managed to say H-O-P-E.

I thought she was asking me for soap, she had to spell it out for me.  She says,  “I have hope, someone is praying for me, you don’t need to pray for me.”

In addition to the socks the plastic bag contained honey cough drops, cheese and crackers, pretzels, breakfast bars, a bag of Cheerios, and a tin of Dollar-Store Cookies.

She graciously received the bag without looking at the contents. 

Walking back to my heated car I yell out to her, “there’s cookies in the bag!”

All of a sudden I saw what was a weather-worn face appear like a little girl smiling like she just opened a present containing a new doll. She coherently shouts back with her happy smile and says, “I love cookies.”

I no longer saw an older woman on the street, in my eyes she was just a little girl that loves cookies. 

I broke into tears when she said that and tears drip down my face now as I write what I experienced on my journey today. 

It was the best five bucks I ever spent.  My heart moved in a way it never moved before.  

This woman was once someone’s little girl that loves cookies and most likely had a bed and now she’s on the hard, cold streets at the gateway into New York City. 

How does this happen? I don’t know and I don’t judge her but my empathy reached a new level today.  

Now that I know she loves cookies my next visit to Newark will entail a visit to the Portuguese bakery or perhaps a batch of homemade oatmeal cookies. 

I never made oatmeal cookies before and I don’t know how but I am willing to learn. 

The weather is cold and the trees stand hollow.

Cheap news year’s wishes and half-hearted resolutions fly the coup almost as fast as a bat out of hell.

Lose weight. Quit smoking. Move the body more. Of course people sputter these words with good intention when the clock strikes a new year.

Many times these resolutions involve giving something up. But can you go all year without an ice-cream cone or chocolate or whatever your vice may be?

Not me. I dread the thought. So I won’t. I will focus on 180 days not the whole year.

180 is also an angle where you are turned around.

I am doing a 180 turn for 180 days and walking away from sugar and foods with added sugar in them.

No sugar for a year. That would be tough. No sugar for six months. No problem.

Memorial Day Tribute

Happy Memorial Day and remember those that paid the ultimate sacrifice for this great country we live in.

If you care to shop for a home after the holiday feel free to check out http://www.StreamingLiveRealEstate.com

Be safe everyone.

Through what lenses?

Doing their own thing on a perfect-weather day three people enjoy the summit on a vigorous Sunday hike. 

What are they doing? Do they know each other? Are they in the same awe as me as I take in the New York vista where the peaceful views meet the New Jersey State Line. 

Who knows? Who really cares? They are doing there own thing. 

Placing my glasses on the rocky mountain ridge, I take a shot of the plastic spectacles as three strangers congregate in the background. 

Laying down on the hard rock my camera focuses  on my eyeglasses and the people in the background minding their own business are an afterthought. 

Looking at the picture on my iPhone, I see what would make a cool album cover.  

Did you think the same when you saw this photograph? Did you see an album cover of an unknown band? Probably not and that is because the picture is viewed through my lens. 

What lens do you view people, places, and things through? What lens are you using to view life through? 

An album cover represents accomplishment for hours of hard work went into recording people’s talent. The album cover pose is the celebration. The record is the finished product of many take 1 and take 2’s and recordings after recordings and the picture sums it all up. 

Lots of hard work and painstaking hours go into getting the perfect sound mixed and produced and the album cover represents the full finished product. 

The people on the mountain are simply resting and taking pictures while enjoying a bite to eat. 

They earned a well-deserved break for they climbed an ascending rocky trail encompassed with a little mud along the way. 

Yet as simply as they stand there I see an album cover, success, a finished product, a celebration,  a portrait of accomplishment. 

We all have different lenses and views. What do you see? How are you viewing things on your journey through life? Do tell.  

Erstwhile.

Erstwhile?? What the heck it that? Is that an SAT word or something?

Erstwhile is the Facebook messenger word of the day. The closest thing I could think of was John Entwhistle the late bass player of The Who.

Erstwhile in case you haven’t heard it either means in the past or formerly. Once upon a time…

Looking for strategies to forget certain hurt from the past, today I am excited to use my new word erstwhile.

Rather than get sad when a certain song pops up on the radio and reminisce, I will simply change the station and say that is erstwhile.

It may take a while for this new technique to set in but I expect using the word erstwhile to describe a former time will be worthwhile.

If it is in the past, it is erstwhile. Gone, history, good bye, erstwhile.

It is our own baggage if we bring it into today. Let the hurtful things or people be erstwhile.

Go ahead say it. Erstwhile and then smile. Doesn’t it change things a bit? I think it may be a powerful new word for me. I like it, had to share.

Coming home from teaching a real estate class just over 10 years ago I hear the classic keyboard opening of “Werewolves of London” playing over the airwaves. A moment later the singer begins to sing and it is not Warren Zevon’s classic song, it is Kid Rock singing All Summer Long.

When is two better than one? There are many cases that answer that question. When chocolate meats peanut butter and creates the mouth-watering Reese’s peanut butter cup is just one answer.

Sometimes two sets of glasses are better than one when the sun is beating down hotter than a gas barbecue grille converting a circle of beef into a hockey puck.

While walking the dogs this morning I find it nearly impossible to listen to All Summer Long by Kid Rock and stand still. The well known hit song with a moving beat was a number one hit in eight different countries.

Kid Rock married the goofy Warren Zevon song Werewolves of London and the iconic Sweet Home Alabama by the legendary southern-rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd.

All Summer Long is a happy song. It is the perfect blend of two songs into one. It is a killer combination of a humorous song tied together with a song about home sweet home.

The combination of these two songs creates a joyful and celebratory new one fitting perfectly together.

I attended a wedding last weekend and two hearts became one. Just like Springsteen said, “Two hearts are better than one.”

I started this story simply by wanting to write about how happy two songs combined together becoming one sounds, but as I write it, I can’t help thinking about two people becoming one will be the moral of this story.

In the book of Ecclesiastes it is written “Two are better than one because they have a good return for their labor: If either of them falls down one can help the other up but pity anyone who falls and has no one to help them up. Also, if two lie down together they will keep warm but how can one keep warm alone?”

I can only only conclude what Bruce testified in his song Two Hearts-“Two hearts are better than one and I believe two hearts are better than one.”

I believe it too. “I do.” I do believe two hearts are better than one.

And when I say “I do” I will more than believe it, I will know for sure two hearts are better than one.

Two hearts are better than one. Bring it on.