Observation of the Day!

Why do some people have the ability to laugh at themselves and some don't? Laughing at yourself gives you freedom from embarrassment. I think the older you get the easier it is. At an older age you are given lots of opportunities to laugh at yourself because you do dumber and dumber things, get lost easily, forget names you have known all of your life, forget why you came into the room. The list goes on and on. If you got frustrated and mad at every stupid thing you do, you would be mad most of the time. I've been accused of "losing it". I haven't lost it, just misplaced it.

I want to share a story of something that I did just a little while back. I hope it writes as well as the telling.

I took a load of whites out of my washer to find a black sock, accidentally left in the machine. Some of the bleach got on it, and it had a flesh colored circle on the toe. Didn't think too much about.

Later, when I put on my favorite dark blue v-neck sweater that I have had for probably 15 years; I noticed on the elbow were some flesh colored spots like the sock. I wondered how in the hell I got bleach on my sweater. I took a magic maker and colored over the spots.

When I took the sweater off, I found two black marks on my skin. OMG those were not bleach marks those were holes, and the magic marker I thought was covering the bleach marks was marking my skin. I laughed out loud. Such a dunce. I'd like to point out that it did work, kinda.

In the words of Joe Pescie in Goodfellows, "Funny? You think that's funny?"

As a matter of fact I do.

Laughter is good for the soul.

Have a nice day!

Sammy Carl

How Am I Doing?

One of the things that stood out at Mark's memorial service, both in the eulogies and Facebook posts was, that no matter what he was currently interested in, he did it with a passion. Mark's interests were wide and varied. He involved himself passionately in everything he got interested in.  WWII aircraft, Karate, poker, trivia, his job and the list goes on. The things that carried over throughout his life were music and movies. He was a bit of a geek. He was much like the boys on Big Bang Theory, but not as smart and not quite that geekie. I have pictures of him at A Renaissance Festival and a picture of him with a flag draped around his shoulders, Captain America, I guess. He was always ready for an adventure.  His last passion was photography. He was passionate about it and shooting in Manhattan. He won a $2,000 camera last fall. He was scheduled to help a professional photographer shoot a wedding this summer. He was really quite talented. I think maybe someday he would make it a profession. He had the eye. God's plan, however took him from us too early, but I realize that in doing so God allowed him to pack it in in those too brief last years full of passion.

The reason I tell you all this is that it got me to thinking, How am I doing with the life I have left?Last week I posted a piece written on my last day of work, before I retired. I decided I would make a list of what I did in those twenty years.

Wrote a column in a food service trade magazine for two years.
Took a creative non-fiction writing class.
Wrote two books on selling and marketing in foodservice, Self-published and I made a little money. In reality it was two versions of the same book for two different segments.
Lectured and talked my book in seminars and trade meetings, including Cornell.
Became a coin collector, learning and collecting many quality coins. II was especially proud of my pennies from their beginning until 1995. Only missed the 1877, that was over $1,000, when I gave it up.
Got interested in genealogy and traced all my key lines back to when they came to America. All before the Revolutionary War.
Wrote my family history in the style of creative-non-fiction. Yet to publish. That's not good.
Had my second coronary bypass operation. A sixer. I was 57.
Retired for the second time from my little consulting business.
Went to Europe five times.
Started going to Coronado for the winter. Started at a month and elevated to four or five months.
Met Carolina and Raul and family. They have become part of my family and the kids call me Grandpa.
Started writing. Blog, lookingfornirvana.@blogspot.com
Diagnosed with prostate cancer. Beat it with radiation, which also killed Richard (Dick) Johnson.
Spent three days in the hospital with pneumonia.
Installed a pacemaker/defribilulater. Keeps me ticking.
Got divorced after 42 years. Who would have thought it?
Moved permanently to Coronado. My bedroom window looks out on the Bay and Amphibious Base, where I started my adult life. How's that for full circle.
After playing golf twice a week for years, gave it up. Not sure why.
Learned to dance.
Developed special friendships with several people. This means so much.
Found a relationship with God at the Rock Church. Truly has changed my life.

Overall, I guess I have done pretty well living the last twenty tears. I have lived with heart disease for thirty years and I'm still going. I know my heart is in failure mode, but I feel good. I am ready for whatever God gives me. Losing Mark was the only real tragedy in my life, but I am at peace with it through faith.

Whatever the future brings I am ready.

And I walk on making my memories

Have a great day. LIVE IT!

Sam

Song of Solomon. Ha! Ha!

The Bible often gives us guidance, insight and peace, but rarely does it give a laugh.  I found some verses that actually made me chuckle, Song of Solomon, Chapter 4 verses 1-4.

The Book of Solomon is thought to be some of the greatest love poems ever written. I think if anyone reads them they would agree.  Pretty hot stuff compared to the rest of the Bible. However, I’m not sure this one would get a girl of today.

“Behold thou art fair, my love; behold, thou hast doves’ eyes within thou locks: thy hair is as a flock of goats, that appear from Mount Gilead.

Thy teeth are like a flock of sheep that are even shorn, which came up from washing; whereof every one, and none is barren among them.

Thy lips are like a thread of scarlet, and thy speech comely: thy temples are like a piece of pomegranate within thy locks,

Thy neck is ike a tower of David builded for an armoury, where on there hang a thousand bucklers, all shields of mighty men.”

Hair like a flock of goats, teeth like a flock of sheep, temples like a pomegranate, neck that would hold a thousand bucklers?????????????

Dude, don’t try this at home.

Have a nice day!

Sammy

On December 22, 1992 I retired. Today, I reviewed what I wrote on that day. Tomorrow, I will report what has happened since that life changing date.

Retiring

December 22, 1992

The reality of retirement is here.  I am sitting on the forty-ninth floor of the Multifoods Tower in my spacious senior executive office.  The office is basically empty except for the furniture and the desk that once belonged to a long gone president of the company.  This is what I have worked for and this is where my corporate career will end.  Put out to pasture is the term we used to use.  I am moving to a greener pasture.  Never the less, it is a time for reflection and a defining moment in my life.

I had always said that I wanted to retire early.  Fifty-five had been my original target, but the realities of two kids in college moved it to fifty-eight.  Its easy to say you want to retire early when you are younger.  It is still a long way away.  However, as you round the bend of fifty you can now see the date clearly, and you start to think that you really didn't want to hang it up.  You decide you had better keep your mouth shut because someone may take it seriously and retire you.  The fact is you still have a lot of energy and dreams and you are not ready to quit.

Now you turn fifty-one, fifty-two, fifty-three, where does the time go.  It passes so quickly.  Your boss is younger than you and is looking for younger people.  You can feel their need for you slipping away.  The time is drawing near.  The time is today, my fifty-fifth birthday, December 22, 1992.

It is somewhat ironic that it is my birthday because I used to have a ritual on every birthday.  Many times I would be home on a Christmas break and would sit down and write about the past year and where I felt I was in my life and career.  December 23rd would be the first day of the rest of my life.  I always enjoyed the reflection and the renewal for the future.

One could always look on this day as a day of doneness.  I didn't view it that way, but I'd be lying if I told you finishing my career this way was not a little disappointing because it was more on their terms than mine.  I have much to offer the company.  They didn't see it that way and offered me an early retirement package.  I took it,although there really was not much choice.  It still hurts a little, but the hurt will be temporary.

How do you prepare for this day?  You will begin to realize in the later years of your career that you are as far as you are going to go.  It may require some career compromise, and you must deal with it.  You must deal with it if you are going to move on.  This is as good as it is going to get. 

I feel for those who reach this point and for what ever reason don’t not feel they have achieved their goals.  Some of these people gained early and rapid success.  They actually believe their press clippings.  I firmly believe that everything comes full circle in life.  What really matters is where you are at the end of your corporate career.  I was a slow but steady performer and was often my own worst enemy.  I firmly believe that I am not leaving this portion of my life and career with any need to make a compomise.  It is meerly a turning point to the next portion of my life.  Until you come to grips with this concept, you will be in mental termoil and stress.  It his hard to get over that hurdle, but if you don’t you will never find peace of mind.  You suddenly find that the next promotion will not come, but more importantly, you don't care.  You now are interested in bringing to younger managers the value of your experience.  However, don't be surprised if they ever seek your advice.  Just when you have all of the answers nobody asks.

I have been very fortunate because I met and exceeded my career goals.  In the end it was better than I ever could have imagined early in my career.  I have a network of friends, respected by many and am financially independent.  What more could you ask?  Most of my real career success and financial rewards actually came after my heart attack and first bypass operation.  When you quit chasing the gold ring, it often comes back to you.

I retiring from corporate life and going to do something else.  I am writing a book and am developing a sales training program.   I have always wanted to write and now I'm going to try my hand.  I am even thinking of taking a writing course.  I may even make a little money at writing because I am already writing a column for a trade magazine on a monthly basis.

I am developing a second career.  I look forward to helping people in what ever way I can.  I am going to be the foodservice rennaisance man.  Look out world, here I come.

See you tomorrow.

Samuel C. Arnold 
Executive (retired)

The Father I Knew

Clifford Ward Arnold was the adopted and only child of Sam and Stella.  He was born in January 14, 1912 and died August 29, 1994.  After he died I discovered that there were many unanswered questions as I tried to understand who he was as a person and why he was like he was.  Researching and writing the story of my parents was the most revealing exercise that I have ever doneTheir story is reconstructed as best I can through some genealogical research and memories of my parents.  It took me two years after they died to begin the process.  It took me another three years to complete the project.  In those five years I found that I had grown and changed and now feel that I know my parents, especially my father, better than I ever did while they were alive.  In many ways that is sad, but in the end I feel good about what I have learned about them and more importantly perhaps what I have learned about myself and about life itself.

Dad was of average height, about five-foot-ten, but shrank as he got older.  He was always on the thin side.  As a young man, he had a full head of somewhat wavy dark hair, which he parted in the middle and combed back.  His posture was rounded at the shoulders, and his ears were a little large for his head.  As his hair thinned and turned snow white his ears seemed to grow larger.

I never knew much about my father’s childhood, other than what I was able to glean and imagine from the pictures I found of him as a young boy.  In these pictures he and his faithful little rat terrier, Mickie, looked a little like runaways from an Our Gang comedy.  The pictures are of a typical American boy between 1915 and 1920; pictures with his father and a pet lamb probably taken shortly after his adoption; pictures with his mother; on a hobbyhorse; playing ball; fishing; hunting; swimming; milking a cow and just acting silly.  I cannot remember my father ever telling any stories or even small anecdotes of the childhood in these pictures.  I guess I never really thought much about this void until it was too late to ask.  I accepted his lack of interest in recounting stories of his past as being “just the way he was”.  In retrospect, I have found that many older people constantly tell stories about their lives -- why didn’t he?  This lack of personal sharing was part of my mystery of the man, and I have convinced myself, be it right or wrong, that his lack of recounting, even the little anecdotes of his childhood, involved some sort of scar tissue.

He had friends, but didn’t make friends easily.  Friend making was mostly Mom’s department, -- he went along for the ride.  He was an easy friend to have because he didn’t make many demands on the friendship.  He relied on himself and his wife when anything was needed.  He was most comfortable in the company of himself and his family. 

“Self-contained” is a short, but accurate description of my father.  He was quiet, simple, honest, hard-working, dependable, steady and unassuming man with a dry sense of humor that showed occasionally.  Beneath the surface, however, his self-contained quietness was as complex as the backlash of a fishing reel.  He was more of an observer than an outgoing participant.  He generally kept his opinions to himself unless asked and if asked, he stated his views clearly and constructively, and he didn’t seem to care much if you liked his answer or not.  You asked for it and here it is -- period, end of story.  My nephew, Jeff, says the same thing about me.  It’s in my genes I guess.

His avocation and lifetime hobby was attending local sports events, reading about sports in the newspaper or listening to sports on the radio or TV.  His biggest passion was the trials and tribulations of the Marion Giants, the local high school teams.  You would have to live in Indiana, or any small town in the Midwest for that matter, to understand the devotion and importance people place on their local high school sports teams.  In Indiana, Hoosiers are maniacal about basketball.  My father had season tickets for Marion Giants basketball games for nearly seventy years and my mother had them for sixty.  Until the day came when they could no longer attend the games, they supported both in person and financially every high school sport, both boys and girls, year around.  He was the Marion Giants biggest and most loyal booster.  This may seem to be a trivial piece of information, but to know my father you had to know that his love of the Marion Giants and sports in general was very much a part of who he was.

Big band music and the singers of the forties were always his music of choice.  He liked the big band music, as much as each of us loves the music of our era.  His was the music of Sammy Kaye, Tommy Dorsey, Glen Miller, Benny Goodman and other bands and entertainers of the forties.  Every Sunday, after church, he would ritually turn on the radio to a show featuring “his” music.  The sounds of the big bands on the radio were as much a part of an early Sunday afternoon as the smells of Sunday dinner floating from the kitchen.  When big band music gave way to rock and roll, it left a void in his early Sunday afternoons.

Sunday afternoons were also for freshly popped popcorn.  The first popper I remember was one that was must have been left over from “pioneer” days.  It was blackened by its many years of popping over an open flame.  It consisted of a pan with a sliding cover that was attached to a long handle that was shaken back and forth over the gas flame to keep the popcorn from burning as it popped.  When the popping sounds gave way to appetizing silence, the cover was pulled back by a little hand lever and the wonderful yellow popcorn was dumped, along with a few “old maids”, into a either a red or white enameled kitchen pan along with a juicy red apple and delivered to the living room.  He eventually graduated to a small first generation semi-automatic electric popper that didn’t require constant attention to the popping process.  He continued to use this type of popper the rest of his life.  We once bought him a modern rotating popper with a compartment on top to melt butter, but the box in which it came was never even opened.  His method of popping corn was as old-fashioned and comfortable as popcorn itself, and that suited him just fine.  There was no need to change.  Popcorn will always be my favorite comfort food, and whenever I sit with a bowl of warm freshly made popcorn on a winter Sunday afternoon, I think of those cozy comfortable popcorn Sundays when I was a boy.

He read the daily newspaper faithfully and completely, but seldom, if ever, read a book.  He was not very demanding when it came to his own personal needs beyond having supper on the table on time.  He was a meat and potatoes man.  He didn’t like fish or pasta.  He was the only person

YEA! RAH! Marion!

It's Fathers Day, a day when you think about you dad, whether he is living or dead.  There are lots of things I could say about him. He was a quiet self-contained man. He was the most honest hard working man I ever knew. His values were old-fashioned. My brothers and I have tried to live up to his standards in our lives.

No matter how much I could say about my father, it almost can't match what a local sportswriter wrote in his little newspaper when my father passed away in 1994. My father and mother loved the Marion Giants.  In small town America, the local high school teams are the only game in town. The Marion Giants were their love and their passion.

I'll let the column speak for itself.

It’s too bad there’s not a Super Fan Hall of Fame because if there was Ward Arnold surely would have been one of the first to be elected.

Ward was more than just a fan.  He was a super fan just like some athletes are super stars, only without all the ego, fame, money and publicity.

He died last week at the age of 82 and with his passing closed the book on one of the greatest supporters of Marion High School athletics ever had.

He never scored a basket or a touchdown.  He never hit a home run or pitched a no-hitter.  He never ran a 100-meter dash and he never pinned his opponent in the first period.  He never won a 100-meter freestyle or took first place on the balance beam.  He never hit an ace serve and never scored a winning goal.  He never crossed the finish line first and he never made a 25-foot birdie putt.

Nope, he never did any of those things but yet he probably saw others do them more than anyone in the history of Marion High school sports.

Ward Arnold was a fan’s fan.  Basketball was his big thing but he would follow all the other sports as well.  For so many years as long as a Marion Giant team was playing there was a good chance Arnold was there.

The year was 1975.  Marion hadn’t won a state basketball championship since 1926.  The Giants got to Market Square Arena that year for the Final Four.  Ward was vacationing in Arizona at the time.  But he didn’t let a few miles stand in his way of seeing his Giants go for the state title  He got on a plane and was at MSA when Marion took it all.

Arnold was in the eighth grade when the Giants last won the state championship.

He was a rabid fan but not a very vocal one.  At basketball games he would sit there with pencil in hand keeping score.  More often than not, right beside him, too, would be Maxyne, his wife of so many years.

Maxyne became ill a year or two ago and was unable to make the games.  In fact, she became ill at a Marion Giant home game one night.  Ward and Maxyne were pretty much inseparable.  One can’t recall seeing Ward at a Marion basketball last season because Maxyne was unable to be there, and he didn’t want to leave her and go alone.

Yet, he kept buying season tickets.  Last year marked the 66th straight time that he had season tickets to Marion High School basketball games.

They were a lovely couple that seemed to depend on one another quite a lot.

Arnold didn’t yell out like some fans but he would voice his opinion rather quietly, giving either words of praise or criticism as he saw fit.

There are a lot of adults who attend Marion basketball games.  They don’t have kids playing, but they are there to support the Giants.

But once the season is over most of them aren’t to be seen at another athletic event until the next basketball season rolls around.

But that wasn’t the case with Ward.  He had no son or daughter playing but he was there at other events just the same.  He saw his share of sports besides basketball or football.  He was a genuine fan.  He went to games because he loved sports and young people.  He went because he was a true blue Marion Giant fan.

None of us will live forever.  Ward Arnold had a good long life.  Marion High School was blessed to have such a dedicated fan.

There are fans such as Joe Blow and then there are fans like Ward Arnold.  People, there’s a world of difference.

The Hotline’s sympathy goes to wife Maxyne and the family.

There have been few fans like Ward Arnold and there won’t be too many more like him down the road either.

Links to Heaven!

 He will wipe away every tear, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying,  nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.

 Revelations 21:4

  My son, Mark, passed away. 

When events shake your life and perhaps even your faith, you become sensitive to various inputs, as you search for answers. These random inputs are absorbed, compartmentalized and stored in your mind for future reference, as you read, listen, pray and read the Bible, searching for understanding.  Suddenly, these random and independent thoughts come together and are linked.  A new understanding emerges that clarifies and answers the questions you have been seeking.

Is there a Heaven? If so, what does it look like? Is it truly a “better place”?

My brother, Jim, called me to tell me about a dream he had the night before.  He said that we three brothers were at a huge green and lush field, like a park or huge picnic area. We were breaking up to go our separate ways, when he called us back to tell us that for sure the Arnold boys needed to get together again. As I turned to walk away, Jim said Mark was standing there waiting for me.  He looked just like he did on Celebrity Apprentice. He went up and gave him a hug. Mark said he was doing okay.  And then Jim suddenly woke up.  He cried as he told the story. I cried when I heard the story.

In my search for answers I read two books about near death experiences. What gives near death stories validity is that they are remarkably similar. There is a consistency in one to the other.  As they describe heaven, they all say whatever they are describing doesn’t come close to what they saw and felt.

In the book entitled Proof of Heaven by Neurosurgeon, Dr. Eben Alexander, he describes what he saw in his near death story.

“The moment I understood this, I began to move up.  Fast. There was a whooshing sound, and a flash I went through and opening and found myself in a completely new world. The strangest, most beautiful world I’d ever seen.

Brilliant, vibrant, ecstatic, stunning… I could heap on one adjective after another to describe what this world looked like and felt like, but they’d fall short.  I felt like I was being born. Not reborn, or born again.  Just … born.

Below me was countryside.  It was green, lush and earthlike. It was earth  . . . but it at the same time it wasn’t. It was like when your parents take you back to a place where you spent some years as a very young child.  You don’t know the place.  Or at least you think you don’t.  But as you look around, something pulls at you, and you realize that part of yourself, a part way deep down, does remember-- and is rejoicing at being back there again.”

“. . . Multiply that feeling a thousand times, and you still won’t be anywhere close to what it felt like where I was.”

In To Heaven and Back, by Mary C. Neal M.D. she says,

“Regardless, it is impossible for me to adequately describe what I saw and what I felt. When I try to recount my experiences now, the description feels very pale. I feel as though I’m trying to describe a three-dimensional experience while living in a two-dimensional world. The appropriate words, descriptions, and concepts don’t even exist in our current language. “

All agree heaven is indescribable in human terms.  It is a special state of perfect happiness and calming peace; free of pain, worry, the external world and our internal selves. We are all looking for this Nirvana, but there is no perfect Nirvana on Earth, it only exists in heaven. What we can do here on earth is look for those little everyday Nirvanas.

These near death experiences are supported in what the Bible describes about the wonders of the eternal after life in a heaven.

I have wondered when God created the Garden of Eden if his original idea might have been to create a heaven on earth.  The Garden is described as being lush and green, bountiful with fruits and every species of bird, animal and bug available. It was without sin.  By eating the forbidden fruit, sin came upon the earth.  It was not a heaven. It was and is  filled with non-heavenly things. It was God's test and we failed.

The final piece of input came from the Bible.  One of my favorite chapters in the Bible is Psalms 23.  I read it quite often because it gives me peace.  As I was reading it, I was drawn to the second verse;

“He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: He leadeth me beside still waters.”

I believe David is writing a description of heaven.

             

My search for answers goes on, but I know there is a heaven, and it is indescribably beautiful and it truly is a better place.

Rest in peace my son; I’ll be there.