In my opinion…

In 2014, I was chosen to serve on the Board of Contributors for The Olympian newspaper, a daily paper serving Olympia, Washington, and the surrounding communities. Several of my pieces were syndicated to other Washington newspapers.

Below you will find samples of what I wrote during my tenure.

 

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You Can Say That Again!

I’ve been cursed with a profound fascination of words and how we use them. Sure, when I happen to eloquently orate a soliloquy or transcribe a compelling composition—rare feats indeed—one may say I am blessed. But when friends and coworkers are interrupted with the correct usage or pronunciation, cursing usually follows.

The problem does not lie, however, in any gratification of being right or of anyone else being wrong, it lies in my never-ending quest for the truth. How does one pronounce Puyallup, for example? My belief systems and my education both point at the notion that a word has a specific intended pronunciation.

Imagine my chagrin, a Midwestern English major arriving in western Washington in the mid 1990’s. Back there, the names of town’s usually start with a name and ended with either “ton,” “burg,” or “ville.” As an example, I grew up on a farm near Dyersville; home to the movie Field of Dreams. A guy with the last name of Dyer started the community a long time ago. Within a 10 mile radius, there are towns like Colesburg, Earlville, Worthington, Bankston, Petersburg, Luxemburg; all easily and consistently pronounced.

Then a job takes me to Washington, just outside the city limits of Puyallup. Being the inquisitive perfectionist, I wanted to know the correct way to pronounce my new community. But I received almost as many different pronunciations as there were people answering! Not big differences, mind you; but just big enough to raise the ire of this verbal purist. Some would answer “pew-al-up.” Others would say “pew-all-up.” Then I’d hear “poo-yal-up,” and then “poo-yall-up.” The horror!

After 15 years, I thought I had it down. Then someone decided they had to change the name of Washington’s biggest carnival event to the “Washington State Fair,” and I no longer had that yearly educational jingle stuck in my head. The one that not only suggested how to say it, but how to “do” it.

After spending 40-something years with a name like Thier, which by the way rhymes with “deer” and has a soft “th,” I had to correct thousands of people on how to say it if they happened to read it first, and how to spell it if they happened to hear it first. It’s perhaps one good reason I am the way I am, and although my memory of names is horrific, my pronunciation of them is much better.

Take the name Dawn, for instance. Easy enough, right? That’s what I thought, until I met my wife. At the time there was a lovely associate named Dawn in the same real estate firm. Then I found out my then-girlfriend and I both had an uncle of the same name: Don. Can’t mess that up, right? Not so fast. My nearly-ousted girlfriend pronounced both names exactly the same! The horror!

Countless arguments ensued. Quickly, collaborators and arbitrators were gathered and their (not Thier) pronunciations were measured carefully against ours. I argued there was a huge difference in how you say the names. Gigantic; unlike the difference between ice cream and gelato, but that’s another argument.

I would ask her, “Dawn rhymes with lawn, right?” She would agree of course. And then I would ask, “And Don rhymes with Ron or the bon in Bon Marche’, right?” Still she would agree, normally something that wouldn’t add to my growing frustration. But to no avail. To this day, my wife, along with countless others I’ve discovered in the Pacific Northwest, pronounces the two names exactly the same.

Despite the fact that this particular quality ended up on the “con” (rhymes with Don) side of the page, where I actually did weigh carefully the pluses and minuses of a pending proposal, my wife taught me an important lesson that had nothing to do with verbal skills. Sometimes, however rare the occasion might be, it just doesn’t matter if we all pronounce words like “Don” exactly the same. It’s a lesson I’ve flunked over and over again, and still flunk to this day, but I acknowledge that there are bigger fish to fry. Like how to say Puyallup. Does it rhyme with dollop, or does it rhyme with gallop? Oh please don’t tell me they sound the same.

Perhaps my Linguistics professor from college should be impugned for my black and white outlook on pronunciation. After all, he would constantly demand of his students, “Soy it roit!”

Oh, by the way, my Linguistics professor was Scottish.

 

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Much More to Football than X’s and O’s.

There’s this little game being played on Sunday, perhaps you’ve heard of it. But why exactly is it that this event, this sport, and in particular our Seahawks mean so much to those of us watching from our living room? I suggest that for a moment, we fervent Pacific Northwesterners set aside the X’s and O’s and the numbers on the scoreboard. Like so many other things in life, if we view this seemingly nonsensical sport in a slightly different light, we see what it is that draws us in; ourselves.

At any given point in the game there are twenty-two players on the field, and twenty-two different success stories to go with them. But I’m not referring to the players’ ridiculous salaries or their 200,000 Twitter followers. Regardless of what their income or notoriety is now, these players are living a dream they’ve probably had since a very early age; a dream that required unwavering belief in themselves and endless hard work. No one picks the correct lottery numbers and suddenly gets invited to play professional football. No one has a contract in the NFL handed down to them in a will. Ask Thurston County’s own Jonathon Stewart of Timberline High, now playing for the Carolina Panthers, just how many of his successes were handed to him.

Consider your own dreams for a moment, no matter if you were bestowed with the body of an athlete or with the soul of a poet. How many have dreamed of playing professional sports? How many have dreamed of writing the next great American novel, or of painting the next Mona Lisa, or of accepting an Oscar, or of inventing the next high-tech gizmo that no human should be without? I believe that at some point we have all had an outrageous dream of reaching uncanny success.

Now here’s the tough question: How many of us have realized this dream? I’m guessing the overwhelming answer to this question is sadly, “not me.” Well, me either, if it makes anyone feel better. I graduated from college with a double major in English and Journalism, and with a dream of taking the advertising industry by storm and writing fiction books. With my education and stubborn desire to succeed, how could I fail, right? Then life happened. No career in any big New York ad agency, and no best-selling novel. Truthfully, just excuses.

But since the human spirit can be fragile, it is easily influenced. And this is exactly what we should allow this game to do on Sunday: inspire us, if nothing else. You don’t have to be a fan of the Seahawks, or even of football, to be moved by the story of Derrick Coleman, the NFL’s first legally deaf player who was told most of his life that he was going to fail, or by the story of Earl Thomas and how his mother was inexplicably cured from cervical cancer two years before he was born, and was never expected to have children. Determination, faith, hard work. These aren’t silly phrases of how the world used to be, they’re timeless concepts that work under any circumstance.

When I witness the unfurling of a dream, whether in sports, the arts, or in business, it causes me to reflect on how little attention I actually gave my own goals. Did I wake up every morning at five o’clock since I was a young boy in order to write that novel? No. Did I spend every day after school and all weekend practicing my craft? No. And the list of excuses goes on.

There will be twenty-two representations of fortitude and passion on the field this weekend in Met Life Stadium. They re-ignite that little flame deep inside my head and my heart that reminds me, “If they can do that, then I can do this.” In this inspiration, all of the perfectly good justifications for giving up vanish. For sixty minutes, amidst the melee of breaking bones and testosterone-fueled chest-bumping, it is proven to the world that even the most unlikely can still pull themselves up by their proverbial bootstraps, overcome any obstacle or condition, and become that which they dreamed. And it proves to me that the next great American novel just may still be a possibility.

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Common Ground.

Although sometimes I feverously enjoy discussing politics, I usually don’t write about it. And in a way which will become clear, I’m not going to write about politics in this column today, either. My blog, which I haven’t paid enough attention to lately, is usually about great outdoor adventures. Stories of hunting, hiking; those, dare I say conservative things.

I can sense the alarms sounding already.

“Patrick wrote in the Olympian that all hikers are conservatives,” I can just hear, echoing from the footwear department at Alpine Experience. Here’s where I must differentiate politics from philosophy: that little “s” at the end of the word “conservative” makes a huge difference. Without it, we can recognize what so many people from all ideologies have in common. With it, defenses are put up and lines are drawn.

To continue the example, I believe that an overwhelming majority of earnest, ethical hikers would consider themselves conservative. No “s.” That word, in its more literal sense meaning preserving that which is cherished, would make one believe that the average hiker cares about conserving the outdoor environment in which they recreate. I bet most do.

Being conservative in this respect also insinuates an appreciation of simplicity, of natural beauty, of clean air and of health. I bet most do.

We lose people when the “s” is added at the end. And by “we” I mean anyone of a similar philosophy, regardless of what oval you blacken on election day. After all, the philosophy of being conservative is much more important than the politics of it.

Here’s where the lines become blurry.

Are you against chemicals in your food? Then you’re conservative. Against big companies that pollute the air? You’re conservative. Against the reduction of wild places? Conservative. Drive a hybrid? Conservative. Don’t need to live lavishly with expensive toys? Conservative. And it goes on. Politically, you could be as far left as you want, but that doesn’t prevent you from being conservative.

When I tell you I’m a hunter, if you don’t already know me, a picture will be created in your mind’s eye. This notion will most likely include perceptions like, I am wearing plaid, I’m republican, I’m a redneck, and I own a gun.

Although you may be correct with many of your perceptions, I’m also conservative, like you. Like you, I appreciate natural, chemical-free food. I also appreciate clean air and the freedom to enjoy the wilderness. I, too, tire of the influence of big corporations in our everyday lives. And I also embrace the desire for a more simplistic life filled with less stress and less stuff.

Being conservative philosophically also means that as a nation, a state, a city, and even as a species, the reigns of advancement need to be tugged on from time to time. Even if only a little. The status quo need not always be demonized.

Virtually everything alive; every organism, every plant, every cell that exists has a power within it that makes it want to improve, advance, evolve. One might say, it’s the natural order of things. The danger occurs when we view all evolution as good, and as timely.

Who would argue that some things were better off the way they once were. My mother’s chest freezer was handed down from my grandmother, and it was still running up until a couple years ago. Admittedly it was an energy hog, but there’s no question its environmental footprint was tiny in comparison to today’s version. It was made to last for 75 years, by American workers, in an American owned factory, only a couple hundred miles away.

Instead, today we burn oil to ship materials to China (arguably the planet’s biggest polluter), to burn more oil to ship parts somewhere else across the world for assembly, to burn more oil to ship them back to this country, where high unemployment has been plaguing our economy for more than half a decade, and where the six-year old petroleum-made freezer is junked by the side of the street in an empty lot outside of my housing development. Is this really better? A conservative doesn’t think so, either.

So you see, we’re of a kindred spirit, oh sandaled trekker of mountains. We share a profound appreciation, oh lover of trees. We’re very like-minded, oh backyard chicken-raising consumer of non-GMO food.

Hmmm. As it turns out, Olympia just may be the conservative capitol of the world. Who would have thought?

 

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Memorial Day: A Reason to Remember

At 3 p.m. today in the midst of your backyard barbecue, set down your bratwurst or drumstick, put aside your cold, frothy beer, and pause for just one silent minute to put your hand over your heart and remember why exactly it is that you are able to enjoy that brat, that beer, that freedom to do whatever the heck you want. It will take some discipline to interrupt the fun and frivolity for a serious moment of reflection, and it will take some courage to actually remove that Mariner’s cap and lift your hand to your chest, but isn’t courage and discipline what this day is all about?

Memorial Day. A holiday on which we remember the men and women who have died serving our country; men and women who have not only sacrificed their lives, but have sacrificed their own freedom for ours. While we take the day off to relax or celebrate, many of the future honorees of this special day are undoubtedly working and fighting in foreign lands, far away from family, friends, and even from freedom itself. No one is forcing them. They simply possess the courage and the discipline that others do not.

On May 30^th, 1868, Decoration Day was spawned as a day to commemorate the fallen Union and Confederate soldiers. By the 1900’s it was extended to include all Americans who have died while in service. While the geographical origin of this holiday has been claimed by several towns in various states, The Department of Veteran Affairs credits Waterloo, New York as the official birthplace of Memorial Day. It wasn’t until 1971 that the day was established as an official U.S. holiday.

But sadly, like Easter, Halloween, and even Christmas, the real meaning of the holiday has been all but lost in commercialization and selfishness. For too many, Memorial Day is just a day off work. For others it’s just the “official” kickoff of the summer season. Or it’s just a blowout sale, or a break from school, or just another reason to party.

Allow me to give you 1,196,793 reminders of what today is about. According to the VA, that’s how many American men and women have died in conflicts since we became an independent nation. It’s easy to get lost in such a big number, so I pose we don’t simply remember a faceless group of nearly 1.2 million. Let’s remember instead that this group is comprised of our neighbor’s daughter, our co-worker’s spouse, the little boy who used to deliver our paper, and that old guy who walked with a limp and always wore a smile and a black cap with a U.S. flag and shiny pins stuck to it. 1,196,793 Americans have sacrificed their freedom for ours. Many died battling real-life demons on the front lines so that we can relax in the nirvana of our back yards.

So today let’s remember. Let’s remember the deceased who have paved the highway of liberty. And like we are reminded in so many memorial services we personally attend, let’s not focus on death, let’s remember and celebrate 1.2 million lives.

The older we get, the more memorial services we attend; it’s just math. But the more I attend and hear stories about “how great she was” and “how caring he was,” the more I am aware of my deep-seated desire to tell my loved ones how great they are when they are alive. And on this day—this big memorial celebration of life and freedom—I am compelled to not only say a prayer of gratitude to those disciplined and courageous enough to die for me, but to reach out to those who are serving this country now, still alive, and say thank you from the bottom of my heart. Without your courage and your discipline, there would be no freedom for me to sit in the comfort of my home and openly pen these personal opinions, and there would be no freedom to celebrate Memorial Day however I want; in fact there would be no freedom at all.

To those patriots who have gone before us, this day is for you, and you will never, ever be forgotten. To those still fighting the fight, you are appreciated more than our swelling hearts and seeping tear ducts can possibly convey.

 

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Boys and Girls Club: A Worthy Cause

What do Denzel Washington and Thurston County’s Terrance Gardenhigh have in common? Although they share an uncanny ability to entertain, that’s not it. And despite their rugged good looks, that isn’t it, either. What they share is something infinitely more important when it comes to determining future success: their common roots in the Boys and Girls Club. While Mr. Washington has since flourished into a tree of success, Mr. Gardenhigh is still a seedling.

Terrance is a 7 year-old South Bay Elementary student that regularly attends the Boys and Girls Lacey club. He’s been going there most days since he was 5, so if you ask him, he’s an old pro. I put on a reporter’s hat and sat down with Terrance for a few minutes last week to talk with him about his experience with the Club. Rumors of pizza were floating around when I arrived, so a few minutes were all I got. Imagine, a 7 year-old boy distracted by pizza.

“I like it and it’s very awesome, but it’s not the best place in the world.” I was waiting for some less-than-desirable juicy detail about this upstanding organization to come spouting from the mouth of this babe. But alas, I would have to wait some more. “Charlie’s Safari would be better.” He rolled his brown eyes with a smirk plastered on his face, knowing how well he was playing this old fiddle.

“They don’t teach me to raise my hand or treat others with respect here.” Again, I anxiously awaited the rest of the story. “They make me do those things, but they don’t teach me since I already knew that stuff.” I should have known.

The day before my interview with Terrance, Boys and Girls Club board member Michelle Wickett invited me to attend the “Great Futures Summer Blast” at their Tumwater location where we, along with other board members and community professionals each paired up with a Club kid. Just as the name of the event suggests, we were celebrating the great futures of these kids. How? Not just with water games and ice cream, but by answering the not-so-rhetorical question, “Its 3:00 and school’s out…where are your kids?”

I was paired up with 8 year-old Emily Whitesell of Tumwater, and aside from her sweet disposition, one thing that really stood out while I was there was the organization within the organization. The kids had to wait their turns in line, raise their hands when they had something to say, and be quiet when they were asked to be quiet. But if you think this group is about boring etiquette lessons, think again. These kids were having an epic blast. Emily and her friends proved it with the smiles on their faces and giggles in their eyes.

The Boys and Girls Club of Thurston County started in that same Tumwater location in 2001, and has since grown to 4 clubs, also in Olympia, Lacey, and Rochester. Now, the Club’s collective enrollment reaches 700. That’s a big number of kids that aren’t home alone playing video games or on the streets getting into trouble.

But this fun, safe environment doesn’t come without a cost; tuition for the Club is a whopping $25 per child…per year! And for those who can’t swing the tuition, scholarships are awarded. In all, nearly 25% of Club kids are awarded full scholarships.

How does an organization like this provide such a benefit? Thrifty management and local generosity. Do the kids care that the typical Club building is a modest structure that more resembles a warehouse than the Taj Mahal? Heck no. They care about things kids care about, like friends, fun, and pizza.

Will Terrance be as famous as Denzel some day? Odds are probably not. Will he have the same opportunity? Absolutely. So long as we adults in the community make it so. Check out WWW.BGCTC.ORG to find out how you can do your part.

 

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No Politics in Nature

A few days ago, I drove away from a week-long hunting trip in the wilderness with a reinvigorated appreciation of Mother Nature, and of all of the peace and tranquility she offers. I was reminded that the most precious things in life are always found in simplicity, and not necessarily in easiness. At one point on the sunlit drive, Mt. Hood revealed her glory through the windshield, perched behind the darkened edges of the mighty Columbia, while Mt. Adams lingered in the rear view mirror and beckoned me to stay with her. To say I was bewildered by the beauty that surrounded me would be an understatement.

Then I remembered I had a newspaper column due. In a way it was a big buzz kill: the solitude and serenity that is the wild outdoors suddenly gave way to the din of cars and people, and the seemingly insoluble complexity of human society slapped me squarely in the face. I was going home to Olympia where I had better come up with something to write, and quickly.

“Write about how downtown needs to be cleaned up,” I heard from several people throughout the last eight months. No. Not only do most people already know that downtown Olympia could use a little “cleaning,” I wasn’t ready to anger those who would take offense at such an idea.

Others suggested that I write about the millions of dollars wasted by this or that state agency, or about the homeless problem that seems to be getting worse in our area. No, no, and no. The last time I offered my opinion on one of the “hot button” topics, I was practically deemed Satan-like to many local readers; accused of being everything from lazy to ignorant to racist. Talk about a buzz kill.

I suppose one could say that even though I don’t have plans on running for any political office in the near future, the broaching of such topics is to a great extent, politically incorrect.

Politically incorrect. My mind drifted back to the serenity that I was leaving behind, as the gnarled oak trees adorned in waning green leaves stood contrasted against wheat-yellow grasses on steep hillsides. There is no political incorrectness in the world I was leaving. In truth, there is no politics in nature at all.

Perhaps that is partly the allure of the wilderness. It is a world devoid of politics, of judgment, of dishonesty within species. The human being is the only species I can think of that is dishonest to its own kind. Bears don’t lie to other bears. A hungry boar may eat its own cub, but at least it’s honest.

Nature is simple, being only concerned with obtaining nourishment, repopulating, and survival, but it’s far from easy. Humankind, on the other hand, is growing increasingly more complicated in the quest of becoming easier. For example, we don’t have to get off the couch and drive to the bank, we just take a photo of the check and hit send. We shop on-line from that same couch with a few clicks, and everything from groceries to pet medicine shows up at the door. Easy, but in no way simple.

While humankind is so clever, so far “advanced” compared to the natural world—we need not harvest or hunt our own food any more, weave our own baskets or craft our own clothing—we all too often step on our own kind for personal advance. Sadly, we cheat our friends and brothers and sisters to gain an advantage, and in cold actuality, lie to each other in the name of political correctness.

Crossing the next bridge that welcomed me back to Washington, I tossed aside any thoughts of ire-raising topics. I wasn’t ready to dive back into society head first, to stir the pot, or to obsess about ultimately unimportant things. The appreciation of the natural beauty of where I lived was tantamount, and I clung to the peace that reverberated within because of it.

The great poet, Rumi, made the suggestion a long time ago: “Sell your cleverness and buy bewilderment.” I took his advice for as long as I could, and enjoyed the rest of the drive home.

 

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Merry Christmas!

Ok, how many of you reading this have I offended so far? Sadly, I’m sure there are several. So I ask the question, why? Not why you are offended, but why we say Merry Christmas.

To answer the question, I decided to write my final column of the year in defense of Christmas in general. But before some of you get up in arms, this piece isn’t about defending a particular religion or even a holiday. This is about defending a state of mind; a state of mind that has been virtually legislated and commercialized out of existence.

Eleven months ago I wrote my first column about chasing dreams and accomplishing goals, as the Seahawks were on their way to the Superbowl. As I write this now, the Hawks have an aura of renewed vigor, of hope reborn. So what does this have to do with Christmas? It has everything to do with the state of mind I am referring to. Belief. Not in the existence of or in the power of Christ, but belief in the notion of impossibilities being possible. I guess you could say, belief in miracles.

When I and a billion or so other people on the planet tell you “Merry Christmas” this time of year, we aren’t asking you to convert to Christianity. We aren’t diminishing you or your beliefs if you don’t happen to have a foundation in this religion. We aren’t insulting you, at all. We are in a way, simply reminding you, ourselves, and all of humankind that with belief, extraordinary things can happen. Whether you associate this belief—this mindset—with the notion of a Virgin Mother, or with the cure of your loved-one’s cancer, or with getting yourself back on your financial feet, is completely up to you.

Christmas is about encouragement and optimism. It’s about sharing well wishes and good deeds. It’s about reaching out to those who we may have neglected throughout the year. It’s about reconnecting with the fellow human, and not just with the fellow Christian or American, or black or white. It’s about that nebulous concept of spirit; that unseen force that knows no physical limitations and allows you to believe in miracles if you wish.

Ironically, the holiday of Christmas is filled with materialism and greed, and the meaning of Christmas is all but lost. It’s not a new problem, just one that keeps getting worse. Corporate profit and bottom lines force the negative aspects of the holiday down our throats before Halloween even gets here. Our government, despite having its foundations in Christianity, is more and more restricting the freedom to publicly acknowledge the positives of this day. We are asked to max our credit cards and deplete our savings for the sake of the season, while political correctness works to stifle its real meaning. The state mandates that “Happy Holidays” is acceptable, and “Merry Christmas” is not.

I don’t and won’t suggest the archaic notion of “when in Rome, do as the Romans do.” If you don’t want to celebrate Christmas for whatever reason, don’t. It’s a free country that by design, will allow you to do that. But the same respect must be reciprocated. Just because a Christian American may not be a numerical minority doesn’t mean this group deserves less respect, or that it should be embarrassed by expressing a genuinely well-intended offering. Wish me a Happy Hanukah if you will, and I promise I won’t get offended. And if I want to wish you a Merry Christmas, and you’re an atheist or Jewish or Buddhist, you really have no reason to be offended, either.

These little communicative devises called words carry a lot of weight. When I offer you a Merry Christmas, I’m really just saying, brother and sister, believe that anything is possible, that life can get better for you in any way you wish, that we share a common spirit regardless of religious adherence or political affiliation or skin color. These words simply mean that with that old-fashioned concept of love, you and I can set aside our differences, if only for a season, and bask in the glow of belief in the miracles of kindness, goodness, and respect.

Merry Christmas, my friends.