August 17, 2020
Good morning!
Gorgeous, gorgeous rain last Friday morning. All spring and summer Laurie and I have been wishing for an early morning rain by which to sip our steaming coffee while enjoying the sounds and smells of what we always called on the farm, a million dollar rain. Two and one-quarter inches (2 1/4″)… enjoyed concurrently with blueberry waffles made possible by a care package mailed to us from Maine. Back to every three or four days of mowing the lawn… no fertilizer. I’ve decided to include needle-nose pliers as de rigueur in the kitchen utensils drawer, along with the spatulas, so as to be able to open some of those pesky packages and containers. Now even milk has gone to the super-hyper-sealed barrier.
- A good friend died several months ago; the COVIDs delayed his funeral until just this past Saturday.
- The family asked me to read from Ecclesiastes.
- As I studied my lines I couldn’t help but harken back to Pete Seeger, Judy Collins (angelic voice!) and the Turn Turn Turn of The Byrds from 1965…
- … and particularly the poignant and timely, “…a time to embrace, and a time to be far from embraces…”.
- Younger than I? Google all of it.
- Missing football? Try a few editions of The British Baking Show — a sure cure.
- “The art of hiring is matching a personality to a company culture.” (Gorman)
- “The hardest person you will ever have to lead is yourself.” (George)
- Your vision doesn’t have an expiration date; pick up your tools and start again… keep going.
- “Stop being afraid of what could go wrong and start being excited about what could go right.” (Leadership First)
- “The biggest mistake most businesses (professions) make is falling in love with their product or service, and not with their clients (customers). (Robbins)
- Have you ever wondered why human teeth are naturally imperfect?
- IBM is telling the world it’s going to come roaring back; go, Big Blue!
- We are in a time of change. How are you feeling? Not what are you thinking, but how are you feeling?
- Are you scared, angry, anxious, giddy, lonely, amused, euphoric, surprised? Why?
- Will you help to lead this change, or will you perhaps emerge as THE leader, or as among the leaders?
- For those resorting to hyperbole, is this time of change really more significant than dozens of other periods of history? If so, why?
- In the U.S. alone, how about 1861? 1865? 1929? 1941? 1945? 1968? 1918?
- Compare and contrast. This is different, to be sure, and we are only at the very beginning of this experience; what is to come?
- “Nobody grows old merely by living a number of years. We grow old by deserting our ideals. Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles the soul.” (Ullman)
- Born the same year as my Mom: Anne Frank, Martin Luther King, Barbara Walters; only one of the four is still alive.
- There are about 35,000,000 households in the United States with children under the age of 13.
- Anyone want to talk about this — especially in this era of the COVIDs?
- Rare humility: “No one should be so arrogant as to think this plan will work.” (NBA physician in charge of the quarantine bubble)
