Christmas Stories (and others) Told Well

I admit it, I am a sucker for a good story. That’s probably why I like movies and probably why I enjoy reading books, though I don’t do the latter as much as I probably should.

I have a recommendation for you today, on Christmas Eve 2017. I have been listening to these stories each week for just a little over a year now and if you haven’t already discovered them, or the story teller, then I suggest you give him and them a listen.

You see, back when I was a kid I used to listen to stories while I sat at the lunch table while I was at my grandparents’ house. We visited often and my grandfather would come home from the orchard for lunch each and every day. During that lunch hour, he would turn on the radio and the stories would begin. Paul Harvey, you may have heard of him, would catch us up on the news and tell stories. Paul would end that time by stopping the story before the end…which would cause us to tune in later (late afternoon, before dinner time if I recall correctly) and then Paul would start the second broadcast of the day with, “…and now, the rest of the story.” He would proceed to finish the story he had started earlier.

Those are some great memories and ones I cherish very much.

These days, story tellers are hard to come by. Not many people take the time to tell them, let alone listen to them. But, I believe there is going to be a come back, of sorts, and that might just come from the source I mentioned earlier.

Mike Rowe, at MikeRowe.com, has a podcast called “The Way I Heard It”. Yes, you know this Mike Rowe, I am sure, because you likely have heard his voiceover on Deadliest Catch, or saw him as the host Dirty Jobs. It is the same Mike Rowe with the same awesome, story telling voice. He is nearing 100 podcast episodes now, but there are TWO that I would like you to consider this day – Christmas Eve, 2017.

Two episodes you should give a listen to TODAY (or tomorrow, if you like) are Episode 88: The December Missiles  and Episode 86: Francisco’s Flakes.

They are both Christmas stories, about things that will be familiar. I believe you will enjoy them and, at the very least, will probably even make you smile a little. I have shared them with my family, but why stop there? I think more people need to hear them!

Thanks for stopping by and reading this blog once in a while. I appreciate it.

Merry Christmas, and Happy New Year, to you and yours.

The MOVEMBER Experiment (sort of)

November has come and gone and you probably heard about a lot of men doing the Movember thing…it’s where they grow a mustache in an effort to bring awareness to prostate cancer. I think it is sort of the equivalent of everything turning pink during breast cancer awareness month, only not as widely advertised. If you want to know more about Movember, check out the Movember Foundation. Apparently the “rules” say it should be a mustache, but I think it should be expanded to all facial hair, but what do I know?

Anyway, that brings me to my experiment. I don’t do mustaches…I have grown out the facial hair in past and shaved all but the mustache and I just couldn’t walk out of the bathroom with that look on my face. I mean, my ugly mug doesn’t need any more help in disrupting traffic and scaring small children. So, why punish people with a mustache hovering between my nose and upper lip?

I, therefore, have taken it upon myself to expand Movember to include all facial hair. Now, that being said, it isn’t all that unusual for me to allow the hair to grow a little during the winter months for short periods of time because I get lazy. I don’t really like shaving, so it is a good excuse to just let myself, I mean face, go. This year I had a purpose, a goal, if you will. I wanted to try a look I had not done previously but I know my dad has a one time and, apparently, was rather popular in the past.

The photo above shows the four phases of the month. #4 is the standard beard and doesn’t take much upkeep. I have been known to wear this look for weeks, so it wasn’t all that much of a stretch for this little experiment. #3 is also an old reliable for me. I have also been known to wear this on my face for weeks at a time and, again, not much of a stretch.

That brings me to #2. I am talking about them in reverse order here because that is really the order I wore them on my noggin. I had never worn #2 in the past, but because it wasn’t much of a change from #3 I thought it was a relatively easy look to pull off. I have to say that it wasn’t much of a favorite among the family or co-workers. I didn’t really like it all that much either since my two-tone facial hair seemed to get highlighted by this particular iteration of cowboy style. Maybe if I had been living in the dusty southwest and had a cowboy hat on I could have made it work.

Finally, that brings me to #1. Oh, the Mutton Chops….yeah, I can see why these are no longer popular. The looks I got from strangers…perhaps they thought I had escaped from a mental institute. The looks I got from co-workers…well, that mostly falls into the camp of “So, when are you going to change that?” (I am not sure if they were talking about my facial hair or my face.) Last but not least, the looks I got from my family. To quote my sister, “It is slightly entertaining, but mostly just creepy.” Of course, my mom just puts both her hands on my cheeks and says, “When is this going to go away?” Ah, but my wife, but especially my wife…the look of horror on her face when I came out of the bathroom before heading off to work said it all! She actually stated, “I can’t believe you are going to leave the house like that.” Mind you, I only sported this look for FOUR DAYS, but she definitely expressed over that time the desire for it to never be repeated again.

I guess I’ll never do that again…or perhaps I will. It’s all in fun and, after all, it’s just hair and it, unfortunately, just grows back. So next year, how about I go with the Friendly Mutton Chops? (you can look that up if you like)

What do you think? Do you participate or know someone who does? What facial hair style to you like, either to try or like on men?

“Never again”…and the world stands by

The news about the Rohingya population in Myanmar (Burma) continues to astound me. As someone who has taught about genocide to high school students, this struggle for life is heartbreaking. I wrote about genocide in the past (Duck, Duck, Genocide) and it would appear that the United States (and the West) is taking the same position is has in recent years, calling genocide “ethnic cleansing” just so it doesn’t have to do anything about it. The United Nations “Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide”  is pretty clear, but there are too many ways to avoid committing to stopping genocide. This is one area where we seem to pick and choose how we will respond – sometimes we do something, most of the time we do nothing.

Franklin D. Roosevelt’s words, when he said “Never Again” after the Holocaust, continue to ring hollowly in the collective memory of the world. I would venture to say that we have not learned from history and we are doomed to repeat it, at the expense of humanity.

Here are a few articles to get you up to speed if you need to know more about this:

No Such Thing as Rohingya: Myanmar Erases a History

Rohingya Crisis: US calls Myanmar action “ethnic cleansing”

US Denounces Violence Against Rohingya as “Ethnic Cleansing”

When will the world stop sitting back and watching as peoples, and histories, are erased?