Staying Hungry

I’ve shared close quarters and even closer business partnerships with some pretty stranger folks in my life. But, I have to admit this hen and puppy picture beats any mutually beneficial arrangement I ever had. As I’m working on my book proposal one of the qualities I’m expounding on is tolerance. It’s not on the usual list of entrepreneurial or success traits that I’ve seen, but it’s a critical element for both.

Why? Well, because by “bedfellows,” we mean people that we are - by need or design, close to, intimate with even. We share SOMETHING in common - or we wouldn’t be rubbing elbows. That “something” may be all we share, but it’s important that we recognize that that something is pretty critical or we’d be looking elsewhere for it.

I hope that makes sense. For instance… as a security guard in an old paper warehouse in Denver in the 80’s, I worked the graveyard shift. It meant wandering around in the bowels of the paper plant alone, at night, with the rats. I don’t mean mice. I mean rats. I had to stoop to traverse leaky old pipes, slog through puddles and walk through piles of shredded paper and cardboard. Me and the rats. Ugh. I could hear them squealing and running and falling or leaping off of bales of paper as I trekked along on my hourly rounds. The only thing worse than the rats were the spiders. I soon learned to bang on the metal door with my flashlight before I entered each room. It gave them fair warning and I didn’t worry about them falling onto my neck or head from the overhead pipes.

After several weeks of this, one night I didn’t hear them. No snuffling, squeaking or rustling of paper. No thump, thump, thump as they hit the floor in a panic to escape. Just silence. It meant that someone else had already been through ahead of me - and had already scared them off. It took me a bit to figure that out - like about three minutes later when I rounded the corner and found a work crew no one had told me about. It scared me to walk up on them unexpectedly - and frightened them as well, but ever after that I learned to appreciate the rats. They were my signal that I was alone on the hundreds of acres of empty factory. They were my “strange bedfellows.” We shared space in a way that benefited us both I suppose.

As the world changes, economies shift and resources tighten or disappear, being able to recognize, utilize and capitalize on “strange bedfellows,” is almost a necessity. We no longer have the luxury of picking and choosing the company, the person or the opportunity we might fire on all cylinders with. Finding a common need is a way to do several things:

Extend our capabilities
Extend our network
Open ourselves to new ideas, approaches and markets
Learn tolerance
See need, purpose and design differently than we might otherwise have
Appreciate the smallest, most seemingly insignificant or important things in our world.

There are more benefits I’m sure. But those stand out for me right now. I hope you can think of opportunities in your life where “a strange bedfellow,” is or has been a blessing in disguise. Even if that disguise is a rat, you never know how valuable their contribution may be.

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On the Internet, nobody knows you’re a dog” is an adage which began as the caption of a Peter Steiner cartoon published by ”The New Yorker” on July 4, 1993. Since then the cartoon has taken on a life of its own - like the “smiley face” in a way.  The cartoon shows two dogs: One sitting on a chair in front of a computer, speaking the caption to a second dog sitting on the floor. As of 2000 it was the most published cartoon ever from The New Yorker. No, I don’t have the headline to my post wrong.

"On the internet no one knows you're a dog."

What’s funny about Peter’s cartoon - on several levels, is how people can BE anyone they want to be, and many a tech savvy teenager has passed for an adult in venues where they’d never gain entrance in person. Yet the reverse is true as well - if your tech skills, your writing, your keyboard and dissociative social skills aren’t up to par people may indeed MISTAKE YOU FOR A DOG!

So while men can pretend to be women, and women can pretend to be girls and everyone can pretend to be pretty much anyone  and no one much notices - I noticed something. People don’t notice that some of those folks they’re meeting are disabled and may be mistaken for “dogs.” (in the slang term meaning “not pretty or desirable,”)

I don’t mean disabled as in a wheelchair, although they may be. I mean many of the folks I interact with have mental disabilities, depression, cancer, age issues diabetes, chronic fatigue syndrome and a variety of illnesses that should become invisible on the internet - but don’t. Because while hiding your looks, or your status, or your accent or gender online is fairly simple, hiding your disability, your lack of skills, your age or other challenges is often not so easy.

From the speed of typing, to the age or other challenges, disabilities are often hard to hide. I teach basic computer skills at a local college (volunteer) a couple of times a month. Those attending are in their 50’s, 60’s and 70’s. They are determined to learn to get online. Most are men. Unlike their sons or grandsons who can type 100 words per minute with their thumbs, they never learned to type. So they hunt and peck. As a result, their blog posts and their infrequent emails tend to be rather short. More time is spent hunting for the keys than thinking about what and how they want to say what they have to say.

As a result their communications are terse, and not the sort of compelling prose they speak in person. On the internet, no one knows what kind, gentle, generous souls they are. On the internet, no one hears their laughter, or their jokes or sees their smiles. I have learned to encourage them to be upfront with their shortcomings - to make a joke - so they let those reading their posts understand their limitations.

“In real life I’m a real chatter-box. But I don’t type as fast as I talk,” I urge them to tell folks when they first come online. Maybe I’m helping, maybe I’m doing them a disservice. I just know when I talk to someone and they sound a little odd, hearing, “I’m sorry, I had chemo today,” or “I’m sorry, I have some medical issues and today is not a good day,” make all the difference in the world to me. I should be patient because I have my days too - with my chronic fatigue and fibromyalgia flare-ups there are times I can’t remember what I wanted to say, or I sound out of it myself!

“I’m okay!!” I want to shout

“I just didn’t get the 30-hours sleep I needed last night!”

This has been one of those weeks for me. I worry that I haven’t posted every day, or that I’ve slept more than I’ve been awake. Then this afternoon a friend recovering from another round of chemo wrote to apologize for not answering an email I sent a few days ago.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “Lying in bed listening to the rain on the roof all week has just been so much more relaxing than answering email.”

I know exactly what she meant.

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Almost 30 years ago I volunteered to be a basketball coach for a youth recreation league. Without a coach, a team of misfit 10-12 year-olds wouldn’t be able to play ball, my friend, the Rec League Director said. So I said yes. It turned out I was the only female coach in the league. My boys - all of them, had finished dead last in the rankings the year before. No one expected them to do much better that year. Except for me. But first I planned to have more fun than any other team in the league. So we did. And instead of practicing fancy plays and “strategies,” we did three things every practice:

We passed. No dribbling allowed.

We practiced free throws and lay-ups. A lot.

If you were running, your arms were in the air - waving, a lot.

Oh, and we ate and talked and laughed - A LOT…

That was my strategy. And it worked. Because back then, 10-12 year old boys hadn’t mastered the pass, or the free throw, or defense like a lot of them have today. So while other boys worked on fancy dribbling, shooting around the key and learning how to “set picks,” we drilled and drilled and drilled and drilled on the basics. And they complained and whined and whined. But they did it. And after awhile, they suddenly got very good.

They passed through hula-hoops. They passed and bounce-passed around all those waving arms. They passed and bounce-passed from the side-lines. They passed long and short. They learned to catch a pass on the run and dribble without walking with the ball. They caught high passes, low passes, bounce passes. They caught passes with one hand, with two hands. They learned to bat a pass to a partner without catching it. They learned to move a ball down the floor FAST!! No dribbling - just break, run and pass - long arcing passes the length of a court - accurate passes, not desperate ones. I knew they dribbled enough on their own, at home, playing with their friends. We practiced that too - but not like we did the pass.

They carried those two skills, passing and defense, into the game. And by the end of the season we were tied for first place. And when the boys were taunted by teams who said, “Your coach is a girl!” they responded with, “Yeah and SHE is beating your coach like we’re beating you!” They were the “Bad News Bears,” and the most unathletic and unco-ordinated team I’d ever worked with - yet they came together, game-after-game, win-after-win. It shocked them. Then it delighted them. And with each win they were more willing to keep drilling on the basics.

And on the night when it came down to the championship, with less than a minute left to play, we had a real chance to win - we were only down by 1. But my one rule was - “Everyone plays every quarter and we play to have fun.” I had a choice - play Todd, my tall center, or play another boy who hadn’t played that quarter, and wasn’t a very good shot. Todd at center was a sure win. The other? He might wildly luck out, but probably not. It was fun or a win. We all knew it. I didn’t have to say it. I said, “It’s up to you guys. It’s your game, your championship. Who should play?”

They went for the fun. And yes, we got the last shot of the game, but we missed. And we lost. By one point. But it was okay. Because we had come from dead last to tie for first in wins to get to the championship, and then to come that close to winning it. And we’d had fun along the way. More than that, at the awards dinner later that year - we found out that the other teams had voted them “Most Improved.”

It was an amazing year for all of us.

They’re all grown now - families of their own. And I hope they remember that as the year they had fun. I certainly do. It wasn’t a fluke. I did the same thing with my girl’s soccer team. We spent one practice washing my car, another with a food fight. We played in the rain, we played while we played. Who knew bonding and laughing could create team spirit better than drills ever could? Was I criticized for my unconventional methods? You bet I was. But we won - just practicing the basics and having fun.

Are you practicing the basics and just having fun? Try it. I promise you’ll not only like it - you’ll win too.

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The night before the cranes leave it’s quiet there. Only the sound of the wind blowing through dry leaves and the murmur of conversation drifts down the road. If you didn’t know there were 19 endangered whooping cranes hidden away under a dark netting on a far hillside, nothing would give them away - except the four ultralight aircraft lined up against the fence line. For this Kentucky farm has a secret.

One night a year it is host to some of the most incredible birds in the world - the endangered whooping crane. There are fewer than 500 in existence now - not many, but up from only 14 just half a century ago. Overcrowding, hunting and environmental factors have killed off the birds, but concentrated efforts by a handful of dedicated individuals are bringing them back. And in the worldwide scheme of things, this Civil War era farm is fortunate enough to have them grace the ground and the skies - for 48 hours once a year.

As a journalist and freelance writer I’ve had some once in a lifetime opportunities to photograph amazing things. This was one of my most memorable. One of the most amazing things is that these birds don’t know the way home when they’re born. The ultra-lites are their “mothers” who lead them there after they hatch. The way home has to be imprinted upon them. Someone has to “show them,” the way. But then, it becomes part of them forever.

Persistence, determination, grit - we may all be born with the potential and for some, it just comes naturally - but for many of us - just like these cranes, we need a little help - someone to show us the way, to be a guide - one that expects us to get there under our own power - but who is willing to lead the way. And just like these birds, as they get closer to “home” they often sense it and take the lead themselves.

Sometimes we lead, sometimes we follow. But do one or the other - don’t just sit there!

For more information on whooping cranes and on Operation Migration - or to donate to this worthy cause or to purchase or view other photos of these magnificent birs, go to http://www.operationmigration.org. (c) Photos by Becky Blanton. All rights reserved

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What is life? It is the flash of a firefly in the night. It is the breath of a buffalo in
the wintertime. It is the little shadow which runs across the grass and loses itself in
the sunset. - Crowfoot, Blackfoot warrior and orator, 1890

Has life as we know it really changed much since the 1800’s when Crowfoot wrote this? No. Life is short. And, as they used to tell me in college, “This is it. It’s not a dress rehearsal. Get out there and start doing something with your life.”

This quote reminded me of Lucy Freeman, a woman I went to college with back in the 70’s. Lucy never wore shoes and she hunted squirrels for meat. She talked with an East Tennessee twang and laughed about it. Her hair was shoulder length, straight, rarely styled, and she never wore make-up. She wasn’t poor. She came from a “good family,” and was as smart as anyone I’ve ever known. And she was a talented artist who fell in love with clay and became a potter. She graduated with a BFA in ceramics I think. When I was lying in a hospital bed, paralyzed from the waist down from a wrestling accident, she brought me a mug she’d made. I used it to drink Dr. Pepper from and every time I used it I thought about her.

Lucy’s thin cotton dresses were knee-length or longer and swirled around her in soft faded pastels. There was almost always a smear of clay or paint on them somewhere and her unshaven legs were always tanned dark brown. And - she was always barefooted. It didn’t matter if it was winter, summer, raining or hot. Lucy didn’t wear shoes.

“I just don’t like ‘em,” she told me when I asked. There were times when she did clomp into my room in boots - usually on her way to hunt, or somewhere where footwear wasn’t optional - like to dinner with her father, or hunting in a particularly thorny patch of woods.

I admired her. Not just for being barefoot, but for knowing what she wanted out of life and for going for it. She wanted to be a potter, her father wanted her to “get a real degree.” The world expected her to wear shoes, she was barefoot. She shaved her legs if and when she wanted to, ate, slept, worked and did what she wanted to. She may have been my first inspiration and realization that we can all do that. And we can. The world didn’t end because Lucy didn’t wear shoes.  She got some laughs, some looks, some snide comments, but Lucy’s feet were happy and so was Lucy. She never lacked for friends - even when she was serving squirrel for dinner. I’ve wondered what happened to her, if she ever wore shoes after she graduated. Did she get a job or create one for herself. Either way - she inspired me to look at my own life and see if I was dancing in tight shoes. I have - and it’s no fun. What about you?

Are you dancing in tight shoes?

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