Spring Break - Introduction

Introduction

From 3/25-3/31, 2016 I traveled approximately the route pictured above.  Many of the places I visited I had never visited before.  I’m from Michigan – a very northern state, however it has a large number of transplanted southerners who came to work at the auto plants in the mid-20^th century.  The nickname for the town down the road from where I grew up, Ypsilanti, was "Ypsi-tucky."  And no, we didn’t mean it in a good way. 

As I’ve gotten older I’ve realized that if I’m going to  convince others to shed their biases that I have to shed my own.  I think the first step to ridding yourself of bias is admitting that you have one.  So here it goes – I think of the south as a scary place.  It’s almost impossible for me to think of the south without seeing white hoods, fire hoses and dogs attacking black people, and people proudly displaying the confederate flag.

Even just posting it here gives me the willies.  And it leads me to think - how can we be a truly united country when one symbol has such different meanings for us?  I’ve lived a lot of places – but I’ve only lived one place that could even be remotely called “the south.” Kendra and I lived in Winchester, VA when she worked for Shenandoah University.  It was a beautiful place, but we never really felt like we fit in.  It was a little too small for us – but the biggest problem was probably that it was too southern.  We just never felt comfortable as northerners.

However, we did meet some people who changed the way we looked at the south.  Most prominently was the local running store owner, Mark Stickley.  He is an incredibly generous man.  He helped me with an emergency before he even knew me and most importantly he hooked me into the running community right away.  He also happens to have very deep roots in the area.  His direct ancestors farmed land in the area before the Civil War.  He had direct ancestors who fought for the confederacy.  I’ll never forget when he invited my wife and I to his memorial day picnic that he held on his family’s property along a river.  The picnic was being held a few miles from the entrance to the property.  He had to lead us with his vehicle so that we wouldn’t get lost.  We traveled first on a dirt road – then we were driving through a field – the grass slapping the bottom of our Volvo.  We came upon a family cemetery where there were dozens of gravestones - about 4-5 had confederate flags.  I’ll be honest – my immediate reaction was – “oh, good lord – what did we get ourselves into?”

He proudly pointed out the graves on the freshly cut cemetery lawn – explaining that his elderly mother made him promise to keep up the cemetery – especially on memorial day.  She felt that memorial day was for American veterans of all wars – including those who had rebelled against the US government.  It was kind of confusing for me.  I know this man.  I know he is an incredibly kind man.  As someone from the north it just didn’t make sense.  Sure, I could say “you shouldn’t celebrate your ancestors.  They stood for the subjugation of another race for their economic gain.  The principles they fought for were reprehensible – and by not only lacking shame – but actually seeming to be proud of them – you do a great disservice to humanity.”  But I didn’t.  I decided that maybe this was a good lesson for me.  That my reflexive disdain was probably not helpful and that if we truly are going to be unified as a country – a place where everyone is respected we have to acknowledge that things are more complicated that we would like.

I’m not saying that I changed my mind on the fact that I don’t think it’s right to celebrate the confederacy – but I realized that before I ride on my high horse I need to admit that my understanding of the south is pretty limited.  So, I would say that this trip was in part to come to terms with my biases.  But it was also to visit places that were the birthplace of much of the greatest contributions of America to the culture of the world.  The blending of people from all over the world occurred here in a much more intimate way than any other place in our country – it’s the place where we found our voice as a country.  As northerners we might see our cultural centers as Chicago, New York, Detroit, and Philadelphia.  But if you peal back what things happened in the northern cities you typically don’t have to go too far to see that it was really a transplanted southerner who planted the seed.

I thought of various ways to organize my experiences in the south.  I decided that a day by day account wasn’t going to work.  Many times sites that were close together geographically were separated by time – and there were several sites that were tightly bound thematically but were on opposite ends of my trip.  So, the main organization is going to be chronologically and then by a specific theme – if it makes sense.

My first post will be about one of only 23 US world heritage sites.  A place that had as many as 20,000 residents in the 12^th century – at the time it was larger than London or Paris. 

Spring Break

I can't wait for next Friday.  PA school is a grind.  We have basically no time off.  A three day weekend with no upcoming tests feels luxurious.   So to have nine days of no clinic - with tests still a comfortable month away is going to feel like a months long sabbatical.  What will I do with this time?  Last fall my friends Erik and Laith and I talked about how we needed to go on a vacation together.  We discussed a few different options - my preferred location was New Orleans.  About 6-8 weeks ago I messaged both of them about doing a trip.  I didn't hear back from them.  Well, it turns out that my friend Laith had auditioned for The Voice, but couldn't tell anybody yet.  Erik was just being a jerk (just kidding Erik ; ).

So, now I had to decide what I was going to do.  Find someone else to go with me at the last minute?  Or just go down to New Orleans by myself?  I decided on the latter.  I love traveling - but to be honest I prefer doing it by myself.  I have very particular interests and activities that I like to do on vacation.  Usually they are things that seem odd to others.  Just ask my wife.  We love traveling, but compromising on what I want to do and what she wants to do can at times be challenging.  And as my wife is finishing up her MBA and her break doesn't line up with mine - it seems like the perfect time for me to just do my thing.

While planning my trip I realized that my route would take me past many locations that have a common theme - a theme that is very much in the national conversation today - our racial divide.  I know - what a relaxing thing to be contemplating during my spring break!  I guess I'm weird that way.  My goal is to write about the history of race relations in many of the places I visit in a way that doesn't shy away from our history, but also cast anyone as the devil.  We are ALL capable of kindness, intelligence, and fairness - but we are also capable of cruelty, ignorance, and injustice.  That doesn't mean that we shouldn't hold people accountable or that I think the Black Panthers have the same moral responsibility for racial strife as the KKK.  But I'm going to try to focus on the dynamics of power, which is in my mind, the main driver of racial animosity - not just in this country, but all over the world.

Will I just be recounting a never ending list of historical injustices that have plagued racial minorities in this country since before its founding?  Yes and no.  Those events must be acknowledged and described fully - so that we can come to grips with how horrific it is that these things happened on our soil.  But, I think it's more important from the context of how those events shaped our current nation.  Why are we so segregated?  Why do minority communities still experience poverty, violence, incarceration and addiction at rates higher than Whites?  What do we have problems acknowledging the contributions of minorities to our nation?  How can it be that in 2016 we are still dealing with racial strife?  Why do people feel like they have to shout "Black lives matter" in 2016?  And is that "reverse racism"?  What do our current presidential politics say about us as a people?

Yep - that's some pretty weighty stuff alright.  But I don't think that we can move forward without conversation.  Sure it's scary.  But like I would say to a patient with PTSD - the only way to move beyond our past is to fully explore it.

Here is a map of where I will travel starting next Friday afternoon.  If anybody has any suggestions of places to visit that are near where I'll be traveling - please let me know.  I've got a lot of ideas, but I do actually realize (contrary to what my wife tells me sometimes) that I actually don't know everything.

Here is a map of my planned route. 

The places I'm planning to visit because of their significance are Kansas City MO, Oswatomie KS, Tulsa OK, Dallas TX, Tyler TX, New Orleans LA, Vicksburg MS, Memphis TN, Ferguson MO.

Wish me luck! ; )

Mind blown

So, um, yeah - that actually happened.  My friend, who I have known, for 34 years was on a TV show that millions of people watched last night.  Pharrell Williams came out of his chair and bowed to him.  Adam Levine said he was "unlike anyone we have ever had" on The Voice.  It was insane.

Not that I didn't think Laith had the talent or ability to "make it" as a recording artist - but I always thought it would happen differently.  I thought that some record producer would catch one of his shows and he would get a small contract and then tour, first regionally, and then nationally.  As he said - he has played over 300 gigs a year for the last 20 years.  Laith is definitely pretty big in the Ann Arbor music scene.  And he had made some significant inroads into Detroit and up north in Traverse City.  He even was playing more nationally in the last several years.  He played in Los Angeles, Denver, New Orleans, Kansas City etc.  But for it to happen - the way that it is happening - like he just jumped on a rocket ship to the moon at the age of 38 is just plain crazy.

So, I don't know if I'm going to write something necessarily every week - but a few things came to mind that seemed worthwhile to discuss.  I thought I'd write a little about some of the influences on Laith musically when we were growing up. Laith is completely his own person and yet he is very much a product of his environment.  I would say that a large number of American musicians have had one of two things which influenced them - a strong church music program and/or a strong public school music program.  Laith had both.

Our church, Zion Lutheran in Ann Arbor, had about 2,000 members when we were growing up.  So, a pretty decent sized church.  But we had two people that not many churches of any size have - we had Dr. Donald Williams and Carol Muehlig.  Don was from just outside of Atlanta, GA.  He migrated up to Ann Arbor to study organ at the University in the 1960's - and found a church home at Zion.  By the time we were in the choir he had been at Zion for ~20 years.  Carol was from Ann Arbor and served as the associate organist and choirmaster.

Don was a great choir master, but also a nationally touring organist.  At the end of the service each Sunday he would play a postlude - many people would stay in the church just to hear him play.  His "go to" was the incredibly difficulty Widor Toccata.  Here is a youtube of the piece so you know what I'm talking about.  It's actually pretty Rock'n Roll to my ear.

Laith has done a lot of study on guitar and none of it was with Don - but I think his ear for virtuoso playing came directly from all those years of hearing Don and Carol play the organ.  One of the most fun things about being in the church choir when we were really young was that Don and Carol would let us play the organ after choir practice.  They called it "monkeying on the organ."  Donald and Carol were not only incredible musicians - but they were giving with their time and wisdom.  They were also a great team.  Don was bombastic - if he laughed you could hear it three blocks away.  Carol is more quiet - but, also very talented and a great teacher.  They showed how one style is not right for every student.  You need a mix of styles to reach the greatest number of people.  Most importantly, they made everything seem very accessible to us.  They allowed us to be curious and creative.  I only wish that Don was still alive to see Laith last night.  

So, although Don and Carol certainly were a big influence on Laith - they certainly weren't Laith's only influence.  Ann Arbor is known for The Big House - but it's also a great place to be as a musician.  It's pretty much a given these days that if you go to a Broadway show there will be somebody in the cast from the University of Michigan musical theater program.  The other "Big House" in Ann Arbor is Hill Auditorium.  And even though the most recent event there was Jim Harbaugh's crazy signing day extravaganza with Tom Brady, Derek Jeter, Ric Flair etc - there have actually been even more historic concerts that have occurred there : )

During much of the 20th century the University's "May Festival" would bring some of the greatest classical musicians to Ann Arbor.  The Philadelphia Orchestra was a main stay while the great Eugene Ormandy was musical director there.  When Leonard Bernstein was in the last year of his life he decided he wanted to conduct one last time in three places - New York, Los Angeles, and Ann Arbor.

Classical was just a piece of music scene in Ann Arbor.  The two most famous musicians to come out of Ann Arbor are Bob Seger and Iggy Pop.  Seger, with his "Old Time Rock'n Roll" appeared to be of the past - but he had a huge influence on the future of Rock - even Kid Rock sites him as his most important influence.  Iggy Pop along with the MC5 basically invented punk rock.  And although Ann Arbor is not Detroit - we certainly are in the sphere of influence of Detroit.  In the 80's, less than an hour from where we lived Derrick May, Carl Craig and others were creating the new genre of Techno.  That energy which created Motown was still there - it was just finding new ways of expression.

Southeast Michigan in the 20th century is one of the most unique places this world has known.  There is a reason there was all this incredible creativity going on.  The auto industry brought in people from all over the United States - but also the world.  A huge Ford plant was just 10 miles down the road from us.  Our friends' parents were not only executives, but they were blue collar auto workers, engineers - and of course professors at the university.  Ann Arbor has a population of only just over 100,000 people - but it has the energy of a town 10 times the size.  The energy of that town on a football Saturday was incredible - but it was also our normal.

Jonas Salk studied here before discovering the Polio vaccine - James Earl Jones found his voice there - Arthur Miller studied theater there.  Because it is a relatively small place and there were so many amazing things going on it made you feel as though anything was possible.  It also gave us a lot to live up to. 

We might have grown up in the 80's, but there was still a lot of the 60's still left in Ann Arbor.  At one time it was probably the most liberal place in America - or at least it was tied with Berkeley.  Cheech and Chong talked about going to Ann Arbor in one of their movies because of the famously soft pot laws.  Local activism and national activism seemed to merge in Ann Arbor.  John Sinclair was a local guy who was a poet, journalist, band manager for the MC5 - among other things.  He got the attention of the authorities with his political activism - he started a group called "The White Panther Party" - which was supposed to be a group of whites fighting for racial equality with just as much as a military bent as the Black Panther Party.  To make sure he couldn't make good on some of his threats the authorities gave him a 10 year prison sentence for giving two joints to an undercover policeman.  His plight became a cause celebre for the entire radical left.  A concert in Ann Arbor in 1971 which was held to try to get him released included John Lennon, Stevie Wonder, Bob Seger, the poet Allen Ginsburg, Black Panther leader Bobby Seale, Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, etc. 

We also had a very strong music program in our public schools.  Laith went to Community High School - an alternative school that was based on much of the educational theory put forth by John Dewey, who was also a faculty member at the University of Michigan.  Community had an incredible Jazz program.  Their Jazz band was a regular at the North Sea Jazz festival in Amsterdam.  Several professional musicians came out of that program. 

So, when I see Laith on stage - I see all of those influences.  It's not just the long hair and beard (which is kind of funny to me because he was pretty clean cut most of his life), it's not just the bluesy voice that occasionally gives way to a clear falsetto, it's not just the virtuosic guitar, it's not just the emotion that he sings with - it's the combination of it all.  It's how he took all of these influences - how he perfected his craft through a lot of hard work - and then put all of it together in a way that is completely unique.

One of Laith's albums is called "Long Time Coming" - a long time coming indeed brother.

My friend Laith

Image from "sneak peek" of The Voice with what appears to be Pharrell Williams coming up to say something to Laith.

On Monday, February 29th my friend Laith Al-Saadi will be on the TV show "The Voice."  I've known Laith since I was five years old.  When I found out that he was about to be "famous" - it made me think about our friendship - and I made a few observations that I thought would be worth sharing.  Especially since eventually he'll need votes - and I think the more you know about Laith the more you are going to want to vote for him.

Laith and I met at Zion Lutheran Church because we both sang in the choir.  To be honest, even though we were around each other a lot from the time we were in kindergarten until we graduated high school - we didn't really become good friends until the beginning of high school.  I have never really thought about why that was - but, this opportunity of his on "The Voice" kind of made me come to grips with why I didn't think of him as a friend when we were younger.  I saw him as a threat.

To explain that a little bit further - my dad is a high school choir teacher.  My father's mentor was Dr. Donald Williams - the organist and choir master at our church.  I was a pretty decent singer when I was younger and so was Laith.  Who was going to sing "Once in Royal David's City" on Christmas eve?  While we were still boy sopranos it usually was between me and Laith.  Who was going to get a lead in the production of Gilbert and Sullivan?  Laith and I usually shared the same role. 

He was in the well respected Ann Arbor Boys Choir.  I was in the Ann Arbor Youth Chorale - a group that was created by my dad.  I can remember one year when I was given a role of the page in Concordia University's yearly production of The Boar's Head Festival.  Laith came to one of the performances.  I can still remember that I specifically wanted to sing well to show off to Laith.

As we got older I started to be more interested in sports than I was music.  And to be honest - I just wasn't as good of a singer once I hit puberty.  Laith on the other hand grew as a musician in a big way.  I can remember hanging out at his house about 6 months after he started playing the guitar when we were 15 years old.  There wasn't a song I could name that he couldn't play.  At that point I threw in the towel.  I would never be the musician that Laith would be.  Luckily at that point I had other things going on where I could focus my ridiculous competitiveness.

Another part of our blooming friendship was our mutual friend Erik.  Erik's dad was one of our pastors.  I had been good friends with Erik since I was five and Erik was six.  Many times the only reason I hung out with Laith, was because I wanted to hang out with Erik.  But, Erik's dad took a job at a church in Grosse Pointe, MI when we were in Junior High.  Given that our common friend was no longer living in town Laith and I started hanging out much more together. 

Laith eventually started a Blue's group called "Blue Vinyl."  At the age of 16 his band was playing at Rick's Café - once of the major college hangouts in Ann Arbor.  He would get me into his gigs at Rick's by claiming that I was their "roadie" - all 125 pounds of me.  I went to a different high school than Laith - so I sold their CD's to my friends. 

Most importantly - Laith was my friend who I called when I was feeling down.  Not that Laith and I had deep talks about our feelings necessarily - but there was something about being around Laith that made me feel better.  Laith's incredible intelligence and creativity expanded my world.  Being around Laith reminded me that there is a big, beautiful universe of experiences out there - and he many times brought me out of the self obsessed funk that afflicts many teenagers and young adults.

Laith has made it as a professional musician for his entire adult life.  He is an integral part of the Ann Arbor and Detroit music scene.  I've been proud of what he's been able to accomplish as a musician.  But this is a much larger opportunity than he has had before.  I'm excited for him, but I also know that these contests can many times be about things other than talent. 

A few years ago Laith played at my parents' 40th anniversary party.  My father, who has a doctorate in vocal performance from University of Michigan, went up to him afterwards and told him that he was the most talented musician that he has ever been around.  Laith seemed genuinely touched.  Regardless of what happens I want Laith to remember what my dad said that day.  He is an incredible musician, but he is an even better friend.  I wish him the best of luck and I hope that everybody reading this will vote for him.

And remember Laith - if you ever need to show them your musical range - I am always available to come out to LA and sing "We're called Gondolieri"!

Here is Laith singing one of my favorite originals of his - "Gone."

A mystery to be lived

"Life is not a problem to be solved, it is a mystery to be lived."  Soeren Kirkegaard

It's been a little over 10 months since I've written anything on this blog.  I've been a little busy.  I finished the classroom part of my PA program and have just completed my first rotation.  I was at a bariatric surgery clinic.  In four weeks I participated in ~40 surgeries, rounded on patients in the hospital post-op and saw other patients in the clinic.  Surgery was fascinating to me.  The OR is full of seemingly arbitrary rules, mysterious looking instruments, and the tension of thinking "what if this person woke up right now?"

Clinic was great too - seeing people come for follow-up appointments years after surgery - many of them thanking the surgeon for saving their lives.  I even thought rounding on patients recovering from surgery was fun.  Getting to know patients over the 3-5 days post-op - being allowed to participate in what is a very vulnerable and difficult time for many people.  It is truly a privilege.

I heard the above quote for the first time a few weeks ago and it seemed to ring true to me.  It might sound as though it is a rather "c'est la vie" attitude - but I don't think that's where it comes from.  It's about creating space in our lives.  The quote gets down to why sports, religion, art, music, theater, and movies are so important to keeping us sane.  These things all focus on experiencing the mystery of life - and take us away from our problems and stresses. 

How I would interpret Kirkegaard is that he's saying so much of our lives are completely out of our control.  Where we were born, who our parents are, our genetics, the people who come in and out of our lives - most of these things are up to fate.  I'm not suggesting that we have no responsibility to make our lives what we want them to be - but, too often we get fixated on a preconceived idea of what our lives should be - and we get blinded to what the world is offering us.

I've learned that medicine is also about shaking off disappointment and failure - to search out what you're good at - and grab it by the horns once you've figure it out.  I'm far from finished with that process, but I feel closer to figuring out what I can do that makes me happy everyday than at any other point in my life.

The older I get the more I'm convinced that life is about experiences.  It's about connecting with other people - it's about sharing your story and hearing theirs'.   We many times try to manipulate others into helping us solve our problems.  If you listen to people closely enough you'll find that usually they can't solve your problems the way you initially expected - but that their perspective changes how you view your problems in a way that can make the problems seem to vanish.

By connecting with others we are able to come to a more objective place - a place where our problems don't seem so personal or immediate.  We see them as ethereal and temporary - as is everything in this world.  And from that perspective we're actually better able to deal with them.  If we focus on battling them alone - like Dali's St. Anthony - we actually make ourselves more vulnerable.  We don't have to engage every possible existential threat - sometimes we can merely watch them march on past.

The best example of this happening in my life right now is a knee injury that may be nothing - or it might be the beginning of something bad.  I won't bore you with the exact symptoms - basically it boils down to one of those things that is uncomfortable when I'm running - but doesn't stop me from running.  Maybe it's a meniscus or a patellar tendon that isn't tracking right or a tweaky ligament.  Whatever it is there is definitely a voice in the back of my head saying "maybe this is the big one - maybe all those miles have finally caught up with you and you'll never feel good running again." 

I've seen it happen to more than one running buddy of mine.  But, I'm also at the beginning of a new career, a new adventure.  An adventure that will probably mean as much to me as anything that's happened in my life up to this point.  That's how much I enjoy taking care of patients.

So, maybe this is the end of competing as seriously as I used to - or maybe the knee thing will go away, I'll find a cushy clinic gig and qualify for Kona : )  Who knows.  But whatever happens - I'll try take Kirkegaard's quote to heart and live it more than I try to solve it.

A Good Year

Over the holidays Kendra and I visited Prince Edward County, Ontario - where they have over 40 wineries.  On the wall of Hinterland Winery is the cross section of dirt and rock shown above.  The point of it is to show what is important to making good wine.  Good soil is important - but even more important is having good rock.  A quality vintage is one when the roots of the grape have plunged into the rock - bringing the taste of minerality and complexity that people enjoy in their wines. 

What causes the roots to penetrate rock?  Struggle.  It happens when conditions above ground are bad.  Usually that means there hasn't been enough rain.  The plant struggles to survive by spreading it's roots deep and wide - searching for water.  The best vintages are therefore marked by years when the plant comes closest to failing.

Anyone who knows my last year might have thought the title of this post was the exact opposite of 2014 for me.  The year started with me coming very close to having to give up on my dream to become a PA.  I fought to stay in my program, and in the end they ended up giving me another shot.  Not only that - they changed the rules, so that anyone who was in my position would be given a second chance.

Those first few months of 2014 were rough.  Like the vine - I was searching for something to give me sustenance.  I was trying to remind myself of what I had of value to offer the world.  That was probably the biggest reason that I self-published part of this blog as a book.  I've always been amazed that anybody reads this blog - but some folks who I really respect have told me they enjoy it - so, I decided to organize my posts from my training for the Boston marathon into a book.

I started writing again too.  While my future was still up in the air I decided to get out of Dodge.  I started driving South to Texas and then West to New Mexico and Arizona.  When I came back from that trip I wrote a lot. 

Around the time that I found out that I would be given a second shot in my program I received an e-mail from a stranger who read my blog.  His name is Glen - he asked me to write out a training plan for him and to coach him.  I had been an assistant coach for my old high school in my early-mid twenties - but I had never coached someone online before.

Glen is in his early-mid forties.  He was a decent runner - but he wanted to break through to the next level.  Glen was a 5k and 10k runner - his main goals were just to get better at those distances.  He had never run more than seven miles.

Glen was the perfect student.  He ran pretty much everything that I planned out for him - even though I'm sure he wasn't 100% confident in my plan at the beginning.  The result was his first Army 10 miler in DC - which made him feel so confident that he decided he needed to do a half-marathon a month later.  And now he's decided he will do a marathon in March - where he hopes to qualify for Boston.

It's been a lot of fun experiencing the joy that Glen has had in his improvement and performances.  As for me - I wasn't sure what I was going to do a the start of the year.  The "good" news was that I had a lot more time for training.  I even contemplated another Ironman - but I decided to focus on running for the first half of the year.  I hadn't run an "all out" half marathon in quite awhile - so I signed up for the Lincoln Half. 

The main thing I added to my training was intensity.  I ran several of the "No Frills" races during the winter - and then I added some tempo workouts in March and April.  The result was my fastest half in quite awhile - I ran 1:13:35 and came in 11th place out of 8900 finishers.  I was excited to see what I could do in my half Ironman scheduled for early June.  Unfortunately, I had an accident with my bike on a rainy day only one week before the race.

There was simply no way I could swim - I had sprained my AC joint in my shoulder.  I had a hard time even sleeping for about a month.  Oh well - that's the kind of year that I had.  I tried to stay in decent running shape and out of the blue came an interesting opportunity.  A group in Iowa was trying to set the world record for a 100 X 5k relay.  They had a few guys drop out - so they needed a few fill-ins.  I didn't run all that fast - but we did break the record.

I haven't written any posts since August - as I've been focusing on school.  The one event that happened since then is my grandfather passed away.  There were a lot of great things about my grandfather - but maybe most notably for this blog, he was also my first running partner.  I remember when I was in early grade school stretching with him against the fender of his 1979 mustard colored Mercedes.  He had a mile long route around a man made lake in Ann Arbor.  Many people don't like running because the first time they do it is when they're being punished while practicing for some other sport.  I think one reason I like running so much is that my first experience with running was while getting to spend time with my grandpa.

I don't know what exactly 2015 will bring.  I did sign up for the Lincoln full marathon this morning.  Probably a foolish thing to do when most of my waking hours will be spent studying - but I figure I need something else to think about other than school.  The other new thing is that my wife is going to start writing a blog!  Which is called "The Multisport Hybrid Vigor". 

Will 2015 be a "good" year?  I might be a wimp - but let's just say that I hope it's "good" in a very different way than 2014.  Although it's going to include nine months of constant studying - so it's not exactly going to be a breeze.  Regardless - I'm sure it will be interesting.

 

 

 

 

 

Unrealistic Dreams

On Grand Avenue in Detroit there is a house that spawned some of the greatest music of the 20th century.  In 1959 the garage of that modest house was converted into a studio - the kitchen became the control room.  From 1961 until 1972 there would be over 100 top 10 hits recorded in that studio.  Stevie Wonder, The Temptations, Smokey Robinson, Diana Ross, The Four Tops, Marvin Gaye etc.

How did the son of a Detroit grocer start one of the greatest record labels of the 20th century?  First of all Berry Gordy was a great business man.  He also knew how to recognize and develop talent.  Probably, most important, he was a perfectionist.  He knew what he was good at - but he also knew where he needed help.  He found great song writers, choreographers - even a woman who taught his talent the importance of good manners.

This fall my father starts his 40th year as a music teacher at a school less than an hour away from that house.  He has led a high school department that won a Grammy award as one of the top seven high school music programs in the United States.  A student who was a Presidential Scholar (there are only two per state) and scored a perfect 1600 on his SATS selected my dad as his most influential teacher.  The student became an engineering student, but felt that his music teacher influenced him most.

As a child I assumed that my dad somehow lucked out finding the perfect career for himself.  Whenever I saw him teaching it seemed as though he was made for it.  And yet, over the years, I heard stories of him struggling along the way.  How he almost failed a piano class in undergrad - how he almost had to beg for his first teaching job - how he would come home and sleep for several hours in those first few years while he was teaching elementary school classes.

Even though he had great mentors and education at the University of Michigan - it took him some time to come into his own.  He had develop new skills.  Most of all he had to keep moving forward even when things got tough. 

Reflecting on his career and on a place like Motown made me think about how initially their dreams probably seemed unrealistic to the people around them.  In fact they were unrealistic.  The paths that they started out on weren't necessarily how they found their success. 

Not everyone can have the same success of Motown or even what my father has done.  But we certainly can learn lessons from them.  Success comes from a combination of going after our dreams and understanding what the world needs from us.  Motown was successful not just because they had an incredible number of talented young people signed to their label - but because they understood the kinds of songs that people wanted to hear.

The same is true of running.  Success comes from having a strong dream - but then understanding the basic principles that help you to run fast.  Success comes from not being afraid to fail - it comes from listening to mentors, but also finding your own way.  Most importantly I think it comes from having a combination of both confidence and being humble.

Many times when we look at successful people we see their lives as intractably leading to the point that they are at.  But when we look closer we see false starts - even failures.  Their lives may seem inevitable now - but like anything in history they most likely didn't seem that way at the time.  As I start on my next beginning I try to remember that.  I try to feel confidence that I can be successful and the yet be humble enough to know that I can't do it alone.