secondstorywindow
By Greg Hill
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Podcast Description
The world as I see it through photography, video and words
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Forty Stories I Love to Tell - Story Number 16 | Life is filled with life changing moments. Some are obvious, like an addition to a family or a change in a career. Others, are maybe not as obvious, but nonetheless are significant. In 2006, I had the opportunity to attend a week-long leadership program at the Center For Creative Leadership in Colorado Springs, Colorado, as part of the Oral Health Kansas Dental Champions program. On our second day, we spent the day at the Catamount Institute near Pike’s Peak. One of the exercises during that day was to look through hundreds of photographs and to choose one that demonstrated each of us as leaders. I found several I thought were inspiring, but I kept coming back to a simple picture of a water drop, taken just microseconds after a pebble had been dropped into the water. Once I had selected it, I had an hour to write about how that picture exhibited my leadership. Admittedly, this type of exercise might seem a bit silly to an outsider, but it was a very powerful exercise and one as I look back, was a life changing moment. After I chose my photograph, I walked down a hill toward a lake high in the mountains. During my walk, I could feel the barriers I had built around myself fall away. I found a large rock, sat down, and I wrote quickly and fluidly in my journal, constrained no longer by the fears I had always felt of “being creative.” As someone who was educated in science, mathematics and later the law, I always found creativity to be discouraged. One law school professor said to our class, "don't think creative thoughts, just know the law." I wrote and wrote and wrote. Water drops began falling and I watched as these drops hit the lake, creating the same image as the picture I held in my hand. As I sat there, I gave myself permission be creative. That night, over dinner, I announced to the group that I was in the final draft of a novel. When I published The Family Tree, I gave those special people credit for their support. Without that day, my novel might not be published, not because it wasn’t done, but because I was afraid to tell others what I had done. That freedom to be creative didn’t just impact my personal life, but too, my professional life. Once I empowered myself, I began to develop my work around things like video production and photography. When I work with the Kansas Dental Charitable Foundation Kansas Mission of Mercy project, I take on the responsibility of sharing the passion and energy of our volunteers and the services they provide with thousands of people who follow us on social media. I do this through photographs I take, through video I record and by stepping out in front of the television cameras and telling of the awesome work of our volunteers. The ability to tell stories through video, photography and words has opened opportunities that otherwise might not exist. Yes, social media has enabled me by offering the channels of communication that I need, but without that day in Colorado, I might still be afraid to take those things I feel are important and share them with others. Last Friday, I had the opportunity to speak at the 2012 Dental Champions graduation ceremonies. I owe a debt of gratitude to this program and to some amazing people who listened to me as I explained my photograph to them. The underlying story here, of course, is to not be afraid to pursue your passions. It’s a story we’ve all been told again and again. But another part is that each and every one of you have the tools to take those passions, whatever they might be, and share them with the world. It might just be the greatest gift you can give yourself and you never know, others might appreciate your creative efforts as well | 5/7/12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Forty Stories I Love to Tell - Story Number 15 | Some of you have heard this story before, I know. But, as a fellow blogger friend of mine would say, "it bears repeating." Every year on Earth Day, and I did so yesterday, I think back to a promise I made as a senior in High School. My English teacher, Mrs. Linda Spencer, gave us a writing assignment to "journal" what we would do for Earth Day. Now, I’m ashamed to admit this, but when I was in high school I occasionally littered. I might toss an empty McDonald’s cup out the window or drop a candy wrapper on the ground when nobody was looking. It wasn’t a big deal at the time, although I knew it was wrong. As I thought about what I might do to help make the world a better place, I pledged in my journal that I would never, ever litter again. On this day every year, I think back to that promise and can say with complete honesty that I have not littered once in the now twenty-two years and I’ve cleaned up far more litter than I ever left behind. My kept promise has not in any way reduced greenhouse gasses or slowed global warming. But it has kept the world in which I live a bit cleaner. Most importantly, it is a promise I’ve kept for twenty-two years. Two years ago, on the twentieth anniversary of that writing assignment, I thought about that promise as I always do. I was driving to work when my cell phone vibrated to alert me to a new Facebook friend request. I could not believe my eyes when I saw the name Linda Spencer, my English teacher. An ironic twist of fate? Or was she checking up on me to make sure I had kept that promise? When I got to my office, I posted this story on Facebook. I received a very touching response from Mrs. Spencer. Yesterday, I thought not just about my promise not to litter, but the importance of a promise. Now I can't honestly say I've kept every promise I have ever made. But I like to think that I've kept the important ones. Don't take that as a claim of perfection because I'm far from it. There are promises I've made to myself that I've failed to keep. Like the one that when I turned forty I was going to focus on getting myself back into good physical shape and to take more time to read and relax. Today, six months later (to the day) I realize that I've not kept that promise to myself. So while this post is about Earth Day and a promise I kept for twenty-two years now, it's also a commitment to fulfill that promise to myself | 4/23/12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Forty Stories I Love to Tell - Story Number 14 | In my list of forty stories I Love to Tell, there are two different types of stories. Those I am definitely, without a doubt going to tell and those I may tell, depending on circumstance. This story falls into the latter. Many stories I tell because of a connection to a current event, which is often what prompts me to tell one of these stories in the first place. While I was in high school, I had the opportunity to go to California to see the landing of the Space Shuttle Discovery. Today as Discovery is headed to the Smithsonian for its final resting place, I recall not just the chance to see it land, but too, my fascination with space. Even as a kid, I studied the planets, learned about their composition and their moons. I'm fairly certain that in the fourth grade I shared that Pluto had moved closer to the sun than Neptune during show-and-tell. It was a big hit. Each year in science class when we discussed Astronomy, I'd always be the kid who raised his hand and explained this abnormal, ecliptic path around the sun and that when listing the planets in order, the correct answer, for the next twenty years or so, was Pluto then Neptune. The landing of the Space Shuttle Discovery took place at Edwards Air Force Base near Los Angeles. I remember waking up at about 2:30 in the morning and then watching with several hundred thousand of my closest friends in a cold desert in March. What I do remember about the landing was how quickly it happened. We heard the sonic boom, I saw it quickly glide across the sky and then it was out of our site and on the ground. When I returned home, the local newspaper called and wanted to interview me for what would be my very first news interview. When asked to explain what it was like, I innocently replied, “It was a big boom-boom and there it was.” I have since done dozens of newspaper, radio and television interviews and I always keep that quote in the back of my mind for fear of repeating it. I like to think of it as my personal version of “boom goes the dynamite.” (Google it) Today, I have a few space apps on my iPad in which I often explore our solar system and the nearby galaxies. I am as much now, if not more, fascinated by the planets. When visiting Cape Kennedy about ten years ago, I saw Atlantis on the launch pad and Columbia was in its bay, being prepared for the flight that would end tragically. Recently a friend posted a photograph of Discovery from Cape Kennedy and of course, I replied, “I saw that land 23 years ago.” I keep a photograph of that Space Shuttle landing on a shelf as a reminder of limitless possibilities, which is what outer space represents to me. So today, as Discovery is lifted away to Virginia, I think back to when Pluto was still a planet, when I was pictured on the front page with a bad high school mustache and of course, the lives lost in the two tragic shuttle disasters. | 4/17/12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Forty Stories I Love to Tell - Story Number 13 | There is something about the sport of baseball that, for me anyway, creates a direct connection to those who played the game for more than a century. Perhaps it's because the basic rules of the game have not changed but twice in almost a hundred years. The bases have not been moved closer to increase offensive production and there hasn't been a clock added to the game to "speed things up." Outside the lowering of the mound in the late 1960's and the designated hitter in the early 1970's the rules of baseball have remained fundamentally unchanged for almost a hundred years. Of course, there has been a period of what can be termed nothing less than cheating during the steroid era, but that is another story completely. I begin Story Number Thirteen with my great-grandfather who grew up in Humboldt, KS, in a farmhouse next to one of the greatest pitchers in the history of baseball, Walter Johnson. Legend has it, and the story I tell, is that when Walter and his family moved to California when he was a teenager, my great-great grandparents gave them a bed to take with them. While I have no independent verification, I have heard that bed is now in the museum in Coffeyville, KS. Of course, those from Independence know that the first night baseball game was played in Riverside Stadium and the great Mickey Mantle played the 1949 and 1950 seasons in Independence. I always feel pride when I talk about my hometown and the history that is connected to baseball and I've always felt something ghostly as I've stood in front of the grandstands on the field of Riverside Stadium. Growing up, there was no baseball player that I admired more than George Brett. One of my first memories of watching the game of baseball was a game in the late 1970’s. I don’t know who the Royals were playing, so for the sake of the story and since it’s my story, let’s just say they were playing the Yankees. (Truthfully I think that it was the 1976 playoffs, but I’m not for certain). Brett came to bat and I remember clenching my fists and quietly saying, okay praying, “please let George Brett hit a home run, please let George Brett hit a home run.” The stance. His head seemingly hiding behind his right shoulder and a wad of tobacco in his cheek, rocking back on his left foot until his right toe barely touched the ground. As the ball left the pitcher's hand, he leaned back, swinging the bat around as his right arm carried the bat around until the Royals logo on the powder blue jersey was clearly visible, except for the dirt covering it, inevitably from a diving play at third base, earlier in the game. The crack of the bat. The moan of the crowd as the ball sailed into the right field bleachers. Just as I had willed it. I'd lay in bed at nights listening to the Royals radio broadcasts as a kid, often falling to sleep to the sounds of Denny Matthews and Fred White and in the summers, I'd reenact the games from the night before in my backyard. As a Royals fan, I followed George Brett until the end of his career. That’s where this story finishes. When I was in college, my roommate’s mother worked for the Kansas City Royals. She had gotten word that Brett was going to announce his retirement the next day. She could get us tickets before it was announced and we’d be able to get great seats, which we did, just a few rows behind his wife. I still have my game ticket from that day and as he kissed home plate following his lap around the stadium I saw an appreciation he had, not just for the game of baseball, but to the community of Kansas City. Baseball is not what it once was. Money, steroids, and I think a lack of appreciation to the strategy of the game have caused it to lose its popularity. But when growing up, there was nothing bigger than the Kansas City Royals | 4/11/12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Forty Stories I Love to Tell - Story Number 12 | As a child of the 1980's, I spent many hours trying to solve the Rubik's cube. I confess, that I once even pealed the stickers off, took it to my parents and told them I had solved one side. My father explained that if the stickers were removed, it would be impossible to solve. After I understood why, I began to understand how the Rubik's Cube worked. My grandmother purchased a book that explained step by step, how to solve the cube. For several weekends when I was in the fourth grade, we'd get together on Saturday mornings, and work through the book. Quickly, I began to memorize the sequence of steps and it wasn't long before I could solve it on my own. Of course, I had to show off my new talent to my classmates, and I remember one day during recess, I solved the Rubik's Cube in 53 seconds. That is not a typo. Nor is it any kind of record. For comparison, the world record is under seven seconds. I never forgot how to solve the Rubik's Cube. In fact, I've taught my brother, college roommates and others (and possibly you) how to solve it over the years. I'll often walk through a store and find one on a shelf that has been "messed up." A few times, I've picked it up, solved in, once even to a small crowd that gathered around and applauded when I finished it. While on a bus at Disney World a few years ago, a teenaged kid pulled a Rubik's Cube out of his pocket. We began talking about the solution he used to solve it and the one I used. Our conversation lasted about forty-five minutes and it was probably the nerdiest conversation I have ever had. But it was fun to learn a different way to solve the cube than the one I have always used. After the success of the Rubik's Cube came other puzzles, including a 4x4x4 cube. I had one and was working to solve it on my own, without the solution book. One day in the fifth grade, as the day was beginning to wind down, I remember having one of those aha moments where I thought I had figured out a way to solve it. I could not wait until after school to try it out and see if it worked. A classmate snatched the cube from me, and tossed it to my sister. The next thing I know, my 4x4x4 cube was broken into dozens of pieces. For twenty-five years, I wondered if the solution I had come up with in the fifth grade would really work. Finally about three years ago, I found one on eBay. When it arrived, I immediately tested that idea and it didn't take long for me to realize that the idea I had in the fifth grade wouldn't work. But the solution I later found was very similar to the solution the kid on the bus had used. The Rubik's Cube is enjoyable to me, not because it's something unique that most people cannot do, but because of the great memories of sitting with my grandmother as a eleven year old boy. That, along with clearing the banana level on Ms. PacMan, makes me feel like a little boy again | 4/2/12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Forty Stories I Love to Tell - Story Number 11 | One of those goals I had set for myself after graduating from college was running a marathon by the age of thirty. As I like to say, “I lucked out and found one just two days before I turned thirty.” I had done the training over the summer and had run a few half-marathons as preparation for the full 26.2 miles. On October 21, 2001, I completed my first marathon, but it wasn’t easy. It started well. The weather was clear and I felt great, albeit a bit nervous. My great-uncle and great-aunt had come to the race and were cheering for me at about a mile into the race. I ran over to them and thanked them for coming out to see me. Through the first 13 miles, I felt awesome. I was hitting the aide stations, taking fluids in stride, feeling that I would easily breeze through with a sub-four hour marathon. At mile sixteen, I slowed through the aide station, picked up a cup of water and and a handful of trail mix and walked just long enough to finish the water and then I started running again. But something had quickly changed. Suddenly, both quadricep muscles had tightened up (and I mean tighten up to the point that I could hardly lift them) and then my calf muscles. My pace, which had been exactly where I had hoped it to be, was suddenly now a walk. I tried running again, which I did for a half mile or so, but then I was in too much pain and had to stop and walk. The route, which had to be redesigned due to the September 11 attacks (it originally went through the Air Force Base in Wichita, KS) passed the finish line at about mile 18. I contemplated stopping, knowing that the next eight miles were going to be tough, but I carried on down a bike trail on the four mile out and back. As the miles passed, my running became more of a walk and my walk, more of a crawl. By mile twenty two, I was taking painful baby steps even sitting down on the side of the trail, on my way to a twenty four minute mile. A race volunteer asked if I was going to be able to finish. I told her yes, but she was going to have to help me to my feet. At mile twenty four, I dug deep, forcing myself to run one hundred feet at a time and then resting. At mile twenty six, the course entered a minor league baseball stadium in right field, circled around to the third base foul line and then finished at second base. I knew there were people in the stadium there to see me finish. Regardless of what might have been a disaster of a race, I was not going to let my friends see me finish this way. When I entered the stadium, the announcer called my name and the crowd cheered (as they did for every runner, which is totally cool by the way). I tried the best I could to stretch out my legs and finish strong and by the time I made the turn at third base, I was running as fast as I could through the finish. I finished that Marathon that day and the next few days were painful. I’m proud of myself not for just doing the marathon, but for fighting through extreme fatigue and pain. It would have been so easy that day to have taken the ride to the finish line, but I didn’t and that’s why this story makes the list at number eleven | 3/26/12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Forty Stories I Love to Tell - Story Number 10 | I first heard of the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society in 1996. I received a brochure in the mail about the Team in Training program and the idea of training for and running a marathon was something that immediately appealed to me. But more importantly, it was the idea of helping to find a cure for Leukemia I wanted to support. I really didn’t know much about leukemia at all until one day I learned that a friend of mine named Derek, that I had gone to college with, had died from leukemia. When the brochure arrived, I decided I would do something about it. I signed up for the New York marathon and began training. That summer I traveled to London and spent many afternoons in the cool England summer logging miles without the heat issues that plague us here in Kansas. When I returned I was ready. Unfortunately, I injured myself and couldn’t run for a few months. I opted out of the race, but vowed to run a marathon again one day. In 2001, I did. A few months later, I rode a 100-mile bicycle ride for the Team in Training program. When I returned, I was asked to serve on the board of directors of the Kansas Chapter of the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. I was deeply honored to be asked and graciously accepted the opportunity. It was an organization that meant a great deal to me and one I knew was making a difference and would one day provide a cure for a disease that had taken the life of a friend of mine. During our second Kansas Mission of Mercy dental project, I began talking to a volunteer hygienist and she asked if we were planning to hold an event in southeast Kansas. I told her that we were and she was excited since she had grown up in that area. I told her I was from Independence and she said that her cousin, who I knew, lived there. As we continued to talk, I noticed her face and how her cheeks and her eyes were exactly like those of my friend's. “You are Derek’s sister?” I asked. “Yes, you knew Derek?” I told her that I did and then explained to her how I had learned of his death, a year or so later. I felt comfortable with our conversation to ask her what had happened. She explained in detail how he discovered he had leukemia and all the emotional ups and downs as he battled cancer. She wiped the tears from her eyes as she finished the story. After she finished, I looked at her and told her that I had gotten involved in the fight to find a cure for leukemia, had run a marathon and cycled a hundred miles to raise money and was serving on the board of directors. I paused a moment, took a deep breath and said “and it’s all because of your brother.” I’ve had the chance to stand up and speak to different groups about leukemia and I’ve told that story many times and it always, even as I write this, brings me to tears. I recently spoke to his sister and told her just how meaningful and powerful that conversation was to me and how I continue to tell it. She thanked me for all that I have done and that it meant so much to her and her family. We all have our reasons for supporting different causes. That’s why I support the fight against blood cancers. I tell this story, not just because of that incredible and emotional meeting, but because you never know that when you are asked to do something to make a difference that one day, years later, that decision you made to get involved, will have touched the life of someone you meet | 3/19/12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Forty Stories I Love to Tell - Story Number 9 | When I added this story to my draft list of Forty Stories I Love to Tell, I had intended it to be a humorous story. But as I began writing, I realized that while the ending is funny, the underlying problem probably isn’t. When I first told a friend of mine in law school that Gwen and I were dating, she replied that “she was so cute, like a little sweet pea.” I decided that I’d start referring to Gwen as “sweet pea”, as a term of endearment. I’d regularly email her during the day, often beginning the letter by writing, “hey sweet pea,” believing I was winning her heart with my affection. There is more to this story and I think in the end you will laugh; but before I tell that, I have a confession to make. I am a horrible speller. There are words I simply cannot spell and I’ll even admit, I will occasionally misspell a word so badly that spell check will not even offer a suggestion. Simple words like balloon, surprise, and both embarrassing and occasionally are words I commonly misspell. In college English, it took me three attempts to pass a test on frequently misspelled words. In each sentence that I write, spell check will undoubtedly notify me once or twice that the word I have typed is not spelled correctly. More often than not, it’s a double letter or I’ve used an “a” instead of an “e”. I’ll often just attempt to type a word, hoping that I can get close enough for spell check to recognize the word. Sometimes though, on bad days, a word that is relatively simple will not look like a word at all, but rather a bunch of letters stuck together. I am aware that some of these are symptomatic of dyslexia and if I were not forty years old and have discovered ways to overcome this problem, I might perhaps try and seek out answers. I cannot write something without reviewing it time and time again, and even after I post something I have written, I will experience ortographobia, the fear of spelling mistakes. Every now and then, I’ll misspell a word, not catch it right away, and then will scramble to correct it before too many people see my mistake. On numerous occasions during a meeting, I’ve been asked to take notes or make corrections to documents which are projected onto a screen. I can’t explain how difficult that was, knowing that I might have to type a word that I cannot spell. While I have been fairly successful in hiding this problem, it is extremely stressful. I enjoy writing, but there are challenges to doing so, notably the fear that a spelling mistake might be read by potentially thousands of people. So that brings me back to sweet pea. After several weeks of sending Gwen email messages, she finally broke it to me. “I really like that you send me emails, but I’d appreciate it if you would not call me “sweat” pea. Yes, I had been misspelling sweet as sweat. While using a word I had intended as a term of endearment, I had been telling her that she smells | 3/12/12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Forty Stories I Love to Tell - Story Number 8 | When I was fifteen years old, like many of you, I took my driver’s test. There aren’t many things that are worse to a fifteen year old than failing a driver’s test, so yes, I was very nervous. The morning I took the driver’s test, my father took me out for one final practice session before I’d drive with the examiner in the afternoon. As we came to an intersection, dad would tell me to make a right turn. I put my turn signal on and made a left handed turn. We’d come to an intersection and he’d say turn left, I turned right. I was certain to fail if I couldn’t tell left from right, even it out of nervousness. We next drove to City Hall, the home of the Independence Police Department. Dad saw an open space on the side of the street. “I want you to parallel park,” he said. “Right here, in front of the police station?” I replied. Sure enough. That’s what he wanted me to do. Cruel. I could just see myself backing into the car behind me or knocking out my headlights after hitting the car in front. After shifting from drive to reverse a half dozen or so times, I awkwardly put the car into park. It wasn’t pretty. I had hit the curb a few times and the front end was probably pointed a good six inches into the street. I pulled the car out and we circled the block. Well, not exactly, I turned left instead of right. Once back to the police station, I parallel parked once again, this time a bit better. From there, we went to the driver’s license exam station. I completed the paperwork and the examiner and I went to the car. I buckled my seatbelt and before he gave me the first instructions, I asked that he point the direction he wanted me to turn. He laughed and strangely, I felt at ease. I drove off slowly and cautiously, performing every instruction he gave. We drove back to the license office, I parked the car and took a deep breath. “Congratulations, you passed,” he said. Later that afternoon, dad and I took my 1968 Austin Healey Sprite convertible for a spin. It had rained and water had leaked into the car, behind the radio. Not more than a half mile away, the radio began to billow smoke. I quickly pulled to the side of the road and pulled up the emergency brake just as a giant fire ball engulfed the floor. I jumped from the car to safety as the fire disappeared as quickly as it began. Now, I will tell you, that the part of this story about the fireball is in dispute. It seems my father espouses the notion that if he didn’t see it, it didn’t happen. He seems to remember the amount of smoke being significantly less than the billowing I recall and if you ask him, there was no fireball. The story he loves to tell is that I panicked, jumped out of a moving car as the radio shorted out. To this day, I remember that ball of flame in the floor board. Perhaps the smoke didn’t bellow as I remember and there is a chance the flame was a quick spark as the radio shorted out. Nevertheless, dad and I have shared countless laughs about this story, each telling it our own way | 3/5/12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Forty Stories I Love to Tell - Story Number 7 | A Lesson Learned from a Baseball Like many twelve-year-old boys, I dreamed of being a big league baseball player. And like most fourteen year old boys, my dreams of being a big leaguer were long since forgotten. But for one summer, my third year of Little League, baseball was as big as it got. There was probably a great deal of resemblance between my team and the Bad News Bears, except we were sponsored by the VFW and not Chico’s Bail Bonds. A lazy ground ball to the third baseman might lead to a three base error and a run, a fly ball to the center fielder was as good as a home run and sometimes we cheered if a player made contact, even if it was a dribbler off the nose. Okay, perhaps it wasn’t that bad, but we weren’t exactly winning many games. Now, before I tell any more of this story, I need to assure you that this is not a story about my skills as a baseball player. As a pitcher, I had two pitches, a slow ball and a slower ball. But what I lacked in speed, I made up for with accuracy. My catcher and I had a system worked out. He would position his glove in different locations in and around the plate. I’d mix up the speed of the pitch and hit his glove perfectly every time and we were winning. Our coach said that if we defeated one of the better teams in the league, he’d take us for ice cream. We went out and as a team, we won the game. And we kept winning, right up until we played the legendary ARCO team (legendary in the early 80’s Independence, KS Little League circuit anyway). For the past few years, ARCO had been loaded and they had won the league championship several times. If we won this game, our coach said, he’d take us all to Big Hill Lake. Again, our system was flawless. Move the glove around the plate, mix up the speed and throw strikes. Each pitch, it was the same routine. Arms up, step back, motion forward and throw. Strike. Strike. Strike. When contact was made, it was an easy out. I don’t remember the score, but I remember we were in the lead, in the final inning of the game. I was on the mound, in pinstripes, with two outs. Arms up, step back, motion forward and throw. Strike one. Same motion, strike two. The catcher put his glove low and on the outside corner of the plate. I wrapped my first two fingers over the seams, lifted my Mike Schmidt Rawlings baseball glove in front of my chest. I stepped back with my left foot as I lifted my hands into the air and then kicked up my left leg as I motioned my arm forward, releasing the baseball. If I were to guess, I’d have said it was a ninety mile-per-hour fastball and it was dancing around through the air, just as if it had been thrown by a Major League pitcher. I remember this as if it were a movie. The ball moving in slow motion, the crowd silent, the glove popping. Then what seemed like an eternity until the umpire made his call. Ssssssttttrrrriiiikkkkeee tthhhhrrreeeeeeee! We might as well have just one the World Series. Our catcher ran to the mound and jumped into my arms. The rest of our team streamed from the dugout and we celebrated as we had just handed ARCO what I remember as their first and only loss of the season. As with many of my stories, there is a lesson that I learned and it the reason why I selected the story to include in this series. There is of course the tale of the underdog and the notion that it was a story of success as the coach was able to position the players in just the right way to win. All of that is true. But it’s what happened right after the celebration, as we walked to the dugout, that provides the lesson in this story. As we walked off the field, the umpire, still holding the baseball, yelled at our catcher and tossed him the game ball. My heart sank. If anyone deserved the game ball, it was me, right? The catcher just told me where to throw the ball. I was the one who hit the glove every pitch. Why didn’t I get the ball? This bothered me for quite some time. I even told th | 2/27/12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Forty Stories I Love to Tell - Story Number 6 | Although I didn’t really start taking photographs until about a year ago, I can remember the first time I took a picture that really meant something to me. Now this is a story I have told many times, mostly to large groups as I have spoken about an annual charitable dental project I work with called the Kansas Mission of Mercy. I can always tell how well I have delivered this story by how many people I see wiping away tears. I’ve often joked, and I’m not being sexist when I say this, that I know I’ve given a good presentation if I look out across the audience and I see women in the room wiping tears from their eyes. I know I’ve given a great presentation if I look out and see the men wiping the tears from their eyes. The latter has happened many times and that, as I turn my attention to this annual event that occurs again this week, is story number six. The Kansas Mission of Mercy began in 2003 with the goal of providing free dental services to as many patients as we can treat in two days. KMOM is a project of the Kansas Dental Charitable Foundation which I serve as the Executive Director. We accomplish this goal by bringing together more than one hundred dentists, countless dental hygienists and assistants and hundreds of local volunteers into a single location, setting up a seventy-five to a one hundred chair dental office and then opening the doors to about one thousand patients each day of our two-day clinic. The story I often tell happened at our first project in February of 2003. We were in Garden City, KS and about eighteen inches of snow had fallen during the week of the event. Only four people out of the six hundred or so volunteers had ever seen a clinic like this take place, but somehow it came together. I had never really taken photographs before, but I was looking for something I could do to be productive, since I obviously couldn’t provide dental care. I grabbed our digital camera and began walking around taking photographs of the volunteers and the patients. I knew nothing about the camera other than point and shoot, but I did know that composition was important. So I walked the clinic floor, looking for interesting angles, using the lights of the dental units aimed at the patient’s mouths to photograph what would ultimately show the dedicated work of our volunteers. I had gotten called over to take a photo of a 103 year old patient who was sitting in a chair receiving dental care. I noticed he was wearing a volunteer badge and had come that morning to translate to our non-English speaking patients. We talked a few minutes, I took his picture and was then called over for another photograph. This time, it was a mother, likely in her mid-thirtees, who was being fitted for a full set of dentures. She had been selected in advance and had all the impressions done days before so when she arrived at the clinic on Saturday, she would be able to walk out with them that day. When I got over to her with my camera, I noticed that she had two daughters with her. I’d guess that they were aged twelve and ten, maybe a year or two older, or maybe younger. As her dentures were being adjusted, she revealed something that I could not believe and is why I tell this story. With her two daughters by her side, she told us that they had never seen her smile. Take a minute and think about this. Two daughters, both pre-teen aged, who had never seen their mother smile. As a parent, I can’t help but smile and laugh at what my children do. Perhaps what she said was that when she smiled, she consciously kept her lips closed so that her children wouldn’t see her mouth. Regardless, a smile, something that is instinctive, uncontrollable at times, and in a simple way, a treasure of life, was taken from this mother. I was about to witness the gift she received when that treasure was given back to her and I had the chance to take this photograph Now, I wish I had the chance to take this picture again. With | 2/13/12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Forty Stories I Love to Tell - Story Number 5 | Six years ago this weekend I traveled to New Orleans to help with a free dental clinic organizers had planned to provide dental services following Hurricane Katrina. I remember because I watched the Super Bowl in my hotel room in an almost barren downtown. This trip was my first and only trip the Crescent City. I would have loved to have seen New Orleans in all her glory, its rich cultural history and its appreciation for the unconventional. Sadly, this city, six months after Hurricane Katrina, remained devastated and mired in political controversy. The devastation I saw is indescribable, no matter how much I try. The quietness, lingering over the flooded areas in much of the city remains painfully eerie. The images of thousands of human beings struggling to survive as one of America’s great cities was transformed into a third world country still angers me. Imagine your next door neighbor’s house with each of its windows boarded over and tree limbs scattered all over the yard as if a heavy thunderstorm had hit just yesterday. The roof has sections ripped away, exposing bare rafters, and the siding on several sections of the house is tattered and torn. The house is empty and no public utilities serve it. If there is a car, it is abandoned or is still upside down or pushed underneath a nearby overpass awaiting its own graveyard. Spray paint on the doors indicates the house has been searched and too, those who perished inside. Now, imagine the house next to it, equally devastated, if not even more so. And the next house and so on until every house, including your own, is uninhabitable. Now, take every house in your neighborhood, and the next neighborhood, and then the next. Now imagine driving miles and seeing nothing but these houses, sitting and waiting for a bulldozer that would eventually come and finish what Katrina started. Commercial centers sat vacant. Long stretches of roads where restaurants and shopping centers once employed thousands were the skeletal remains resting on a desert floor. A ten-foot barbed-wire fence surrounded a Home Depot and the entrance was guarded by security officers as if it were a high-security prison. It was easy to see the destruction of the infrastructure, the houses ripped apart and the feeling of despair. During the newscasts immediately following the hurricane, we saw the footage of tens of thousands of people packed into the Superdome and the Convention Center. To stand at the Superdome and imagine those people, many approaching death from starvation or lack of medical care, brings an entirely new perspective to the magnitude of this catastrophe. As I drove the streets of the Lower Ninth Ward and witnessed the destruction, I couldn’t help but wonder whether this city would ever recover? Someday, I hope to return to New Orleans and see the city and I hope the people who were relocated across the country return too. Katrina may have stolen away much of New Orleans, but it did not take away her soul. And it is that soul that will rebuild it and again become the New Orleans we all once knew | 2/6/12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Forty Stories I Love to Tell - Story Number 4 | This week, I deviate from the "bucket list" stories I have told these last two weeks, to one of the stories I have always thought was pretty funny. Or at least I do now. As you will discover in later stories, I had a unique opportunity to work on the campaign of Kansas candidate for Governor, Bill Graves. Graves served as Kansas Governor from 1994-2002. At least one of the stories in this series will be about the campaign. Each year, my home town, Independence, KS, holds an annual carnival and parade over a weeklong celebration in late October, called Neewollah, which is halloween spelled backwards. The Saturday parade often lasts two hours and is a favorite for elected officials, especially during election years. On several occasions too, the parade has been the same day as our big in-state football rivalry, the University of Kansas Jayhawks versus the Kansas State University Wildcats. I am a 1994 graduate of Kansas State University and while I’m not a fan that goes to many games, I’ve enjoyed following the K-State Wildcats and I was certainly not going to let a parade stand in the way of a football game, particularly one against our in-state rival. In October of 1998, I took Gwen, my wife, although we were just dating at the time, to her first Neewollah parade, which of course, happened to be during that football game. If memory serves me right, I was strongly discouraged from taking a radio to the parade and listening to the game, so I did what every fan would do, I snuck my radio into my jacket, hid the earphones and then slipped the earpiece into the other ear. … And I would have pulled it off too, if not for that meddling Governor. As Governor Graves rode by, sitting on the back of a convertible, he saw me standing and we waved to one another. Unfortunately, he also saw the earpiece in my ear. That’s when he yells, “Hey Greg, are you’re listening to the game? What’s the score?” After I told him the score, I looked over at Gwen. She was none impressed that the governor had yelled out to me. I took the earpiece out of my ear, wrapped it around my radio and put it back into my pocket. Ironically, later during that game, the starting KU quarterback went down injured. His replacement was my second cousin. And I missed it. Thanks Governor | 1/29/12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Forty Stories I Love to Tell - Story Number 3 | A Mountain to Climb In 2002, I participated in a 100-mile bike ride around Lake Tahoe as part of the Leukemia and Lymphoma’s Team in Training program. For those unfamiliar with Lake Tahoe, it’s a large lake high in the mountains, straddling the California and Nevada border. Our lowest elevation was about 5800 feet and our highest at approximately 7200 feet. Now, for those unfamiliar with Kansas, particularly in Topeka, we are relatively flat and our altitude is about 900 feet in elevation. The question I am always asked is “how did I train?” Each weekend, for about three months, I’d put my bicycle, a 1984 Fuji twelve-speed, onto a trainer, lock it down and crank up the tension to simulate climbing. For hours (sometimes four or five hours) I’d pedal as hard as I could. If I couldn’t simulate the altitude, I could simulate the mountains and if I could climb a mountain for five hours, I could make it through a century ride in the mountains. We set out in the brisk cold morning in Lake Tahoe. The morning temperature was in the low forties and I remember wearing two pair of gloves and my hands were still frozen. It would warm up later in the day, but for the first three or four hours of the ride, it would be bitterly cold. The first part of the ride was a downward decent to about 5700 feet and then at about mile sixteen, there was a series of switchbacks as we climbed six hundred feet or so over the next six miles. It was all uphill, rarely was there a place flat enough even to catch your breath as you climbed the mountain in the altitude of six thousand feet. Just as I began my assent, I realized that I was not able to shift gears. I was stuck in one of the lowest gears on my bicycle and I could not shift out of it. I had built speed going down the hill that I was able to climb a part of the mountain, but as I slowed, I struggled to stay on my bike in the crowd of people climbing the mountain. Finally, I was going too slow to even pedal and had to step off my bike. There was no place to stop and fix my bike. I had two choices. One, I could walk my bike up the mountain until it leveled out enough for me to ride, or I could walk my bike back down the mountain until I found a flat enough stretch that I could get back on my bicycle and peddle. I opted for the second choice. I found a stretch flat enough and climbed back on my bike and stood for the next four miles, giving every ounce of energy and power in my legs to climb the mountain. About three quarters of the way up the ride I was able to get a small adjustment made to my bike which made it slightly easier to pedal. But I was still not able to change gears. Once I made it to the top of the mountain, I had about fifteen miles to go before I could have a mechanic fix my bicycle. As I rode, my legs felt as if they were large tree trunks. I feel certain I looked exactly like Lance Armstrong as he climbed the Pyrenees. In my pocket during the ride, I had a piece of paper in which I had written the name of a friend of mine who had lost a battle with leukemia a few years earlier. He was the reason I had gotten involved in the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society in the first place. When I learned that another friend was battling non-Hodgkins lymphoma, I sent her that jersey. Both their sisters are friends of mine and I regularly run into them in my work. You will hear more about my involvement with the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society in future stories | 1/23/12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Forty Stories I Love to Tell - Story Number 2 | A friend of mine had always wanted to skydive. He asked me to go along. Since I had recently bailed on him as his Best Man (I would be in Europe during his wedding), I figured the least I could do was accompany him on his skydiving trip, which of course, meant I would skydive as well. We did what is called a “tandem” jump, which essentially means that you strap yourself to an experience skydiver and you are just along for the ride. It takes very little preparation, is relatively inexpensive (at least in 1997) and is quite exhilarating to say the least. After our short class, we boarded the plane and climbed to 10,000 feet. First, I have to tell you, this was a small single engine plane. Once we were over the “drop zone”, we all scooted over to the canvas tarp that covered the door and rolled it up and secured the Velcro straps. When I say scooted over, that is exactly what I mean. Recall that we are strapped to our jump partner and moving around is not particularly easy. Nevertheless, we managed to roll up the tarp in our very confined quarters and as fast as we rolled it up, my friend was out the plane, beginning his 5000-foot free fall. Now, the way this was supposed to happen is that once my friend was safely out of the way, we were supposed to follow. However, when they jumped, my friend hit the tarp with his head and the tarp fell, covering the door. For us to jump, we had to roll the tarp back up, which took long enough that we were out of the drop zone and had to circle around once again. The problem with this is that in order to roll the tarp up, we had to sit on the edge of the plane, or rather, my jump partner sat on the edge of the plane and I sat on his lap, looking straight down 10,000 feet. Did I mention that I was afraid of heights? As long as it took for the plane to circle back around over Independence, MO, I sat with my feet dangling in the clouds and I’ll admit, scared beyond belief. Keep in mind that my friend jumped immediately, having hardly any time at all to look out the window. I’d estimate that it took five minutes to circle and I really had only two places I could look. One was down at the ground and the other was the back of my eyelids. But as scared as I was, I was also quite intrigued at the world from nearly two miles above the ground. … And then we jumped. I remember I was pelted in the face by raindrops for the first few seconds and then the loudest noise I have ever heard as we fell for nearly thirty-seconds. I remember yelling as loud as I could and not hearing myself. After we fell nearly 5000 feet, the shoot opened and then silence as you have never heard. I mean dead silence. A mile in the sky, not a bird, no sounds of cars, even the parachute that was just drifting through the air was silent. My jump partner asked how the earth looked from 5000 feet and I replied, “Absolutely beautiful.” There was really no other way to describe it, and I can’t. It’s something you have to experience yourself. Slowly, over the next few minutes, the earth approached and we set our feet upon it safely. It was about a year later I read the news in the Kansas City Star. The airplane we jumped from suffered engine problems at about 4000 feet. Inside that plane was our pilot and my friend’s tandem partner. They along with the other passengers died when that plane, our plane, crashed to the ground. I often think that could have been me and as much as I would love to skydive again, I can’t and I won’t. Not now. Not with two young children. As exhilarating as it was, it simply cannot compare to those four words I hear each and every day, “I love you daddy. | 1/16/12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Forty Stories I Love to Tell - Story Number 1 | In all likelihood, this is the first story in chronological order. That is not why I lead with it though, as you will soon understand. Several of these stories are about the game of soccer. It was my sport of choice, even as a youth in the Eighties and I spent hours upon hours practicing and playing. Soccer was the one sport I was pretty good at playing. I lucked out by having a great group of teammates who had played together for four seasons and we lost only one game during that span. I vaguely remember a few of the many goals that I scored during those four years, but not well enough to write about. At least not the goals I scored anyway. Roger was my best friend while growing up. He lived in the country and sometimes it was difficult for him to be able to make it to activities because of transportation. We solved this by requesting that we could be on the same team so that he could come to my house after school and we could walk to practice together, which we did for about five years. Roger played defender and worked probably harder than anyone to get better. We would practice together at school, after school and on weekends. The more we practiced, the better he got. As he got better, I did as well. He’d learn my soccer moves and I’d have to develop new ones, all the while making myself a better player. (I don’t know that Roger knows that last part) Our school principal would often give special rewards for the accomplishment of different activities. For example a home run over the fence in softball would often earn a trip to the ice-cream store. One day during P.E., Roger and I were heading the soccer ball back and forth, trying to see how many times we could do this without the ball touching the ground. Our principal, Mr. Johnson, walked up to us and said that if we could head the ball twenty-five times without the ball hitting the ground, he would take us to Braum’s for ice cream. I took the ball, “juggled” it on my head twenty-three times, headed it to Roger on the twenty-fourth and the ball hit his forehead for twenty-five. I think Mr. Johnson knew he had been had, but he honored his deal. One game, our team was winning big. I think the final score 13-0, but I don’t remember any of my goals that day. The goal that I remember came late in the game. I was on the sidelines watching, cheering for my friend Roger who had been moved from defense to forward. The pass came right to left. Roger trapped the ball with his feet, swung his leg and I watched as the ball slid past the goalie and into the back of the net. His mother cheered and jumped up and down. Heck, I jumped up and down. As Roger jogged back to the center of the field, he had the biggest smile on his face. So did I. This is story number one, not because it was Roger’s first and only goal. It is number one because it really is the first memory I have of watching something really special happen and when I learned the awesome reward of witnessing someone else’s success. Until that day, success in soccer was about how many goals I had scored, not even so much as whether we won or lost. But from that day forward and more so even today, I enjoy and appreciate watching someone else’s hard work pay off. Several years ago, I played in a soccer league in Topeka. Instead of playing forward where I had played as a kid, I chose to play back on defense, forcing myself to play a position I wasn’t very good at playing. I never scored a goal that entire season, but I enjoyed getting better each game we played and yes, I gained inspiration from thinking of my grade school friend Roger. I don’t remember how many games we won or last that year, but I can tell you that I don’t remember my team giving up that many goals | 1/16/12 | Free | View In iTunes |
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Forty Stories I Love to Tell - An Introduction | Toward the end of the summer of 2011, as I began looking seriously toward my 40th birthday, not the party that I was going to have or the fear that I’m at, near, or beyond the middle of my life, I began to reflect on my first forty years. My initial intent was to take forty of my favorite stories that I often tell and then publish them into a book on my birthday. I actually did a fair job of writing the stories, but it became a much larger project than I was able to quickly put together. So I decided that these stories might better be told in my blog. In essence, that’s what the stories really are. I will publish these stories, one each Monday, for the next forty weeks in my blog, “From a Second Story Window.” That will conclude my project just prior to my 41st birthday. Please do not consider this work as my autobiography. First of all, I’m not worthy of an autobiography. I consider myself just an ordinary person, nobody special. Autobiographies are for special people, famous people, people of extraordinary talent. That rules me out already. I also tend to view autobiographies as a lifelong story or a story after great success has been found. Not in mid-life, with certainly no claim to fame. What this is, instead, is a collection of stories I often tell, things that I tell about myself or will follow-up from a similar story someone else has told. Some are serious, some are funny, some are witnessing history first hand, and some are personal. But they are stories I like to tell. With my first forty years now behind me, I am putting these stories into print, not to boast about those things I have seen or done, but rather as lessons of things I have learned in my life. I often tell these stories as anecdotes for leadership. Not all of them are, but many will be. Those that aren’t I’m telling because they are stories that relate to who I am, as a husband, a father and as a person. I hope you enjoy these stories. There are certainly more stories to tell. Perhaps when I turn fifty, I will offer an update | 1/3/12 | Free | View In iTunes |
| Total: 17 Episodes |
