The Haves and The Have Nots

I’ve had an issue that’s been seriously bothering me for quite some time but I haven’t really had time to sit down and write about it which may not cure my ills, but at least lets me unload a bit. It’s kind of like a journal, but because I totally overestimate my importance, I put it out on the internet for the world to see! It’s just my way.

Now after that, it’s probably going to be hard to turn this back towards the serious side, but here it goes…and you’re all going to be like, “that turned dark way too fast,” but once again…it’s our blog and I’ll write what I want because I’m oh so very important…

Two weeks ago, a co-worker of mine, a 34 year old guy, died. We found out on a Sunday night and from all accounts and hearing people speak at his funeral/wake, it was more than likely from a drug overdose, more than likely Meth. He had a history of drug use, but not one that we thought he was continuing. He had been a reliable and very capable worker, which means a lot to me because he worked with me but more importantly for my best friend.

Workers aren’t always easy to find in the landscaping business, at least reliable ones. It’s tough work, and often requires long hours. But when this guy first showed up he was having a few difficulties getting his life in order, he had worked about a week before he had to call my boss/friend to see if he would possibly bail him out of jail for driving without a license. And because of things like that, when I first started working with him, both my friend and I had the intentions of working him so hard that he would eventually just quit.

But that little son of a gun didn’t quit. He worked his ass off, taking several breaks at first but as soon as he got going in the trade, he was easily one of the hardest workers that my friend has ever had working for him (which I took offense to, of course). He not only busted his butt daily but he also showed initiative. So often we work with guys who are handy with a shovel when prodded, but very rarely does someone actually attempt to learn how to lay block, or set up a patio…but he did.

My dad met him exactly twice. The first time was when he first started working. We were all at the café in the little town we work at eating, and this guy was sitting in a truck at the shop sleeping. The second time he met him was about a week before he passed away (my co-worker) at which point we were going to fix some landscaping at my dad’s house. Our co-worker jumped out of the truck as soon as we stopped and was over trying to see what the problem was and was attempting to fix it. Needless to say, my dad was pretty impressed with the transition.

Working with him taught me a lot about not judging a book by its cover and also about addiction.

By the time he passed away, I would have said we weren’t just co-workers anymore but that we were teetering on the verge of being friends…but when I found out about the possibility that he had died of a drug overdose…I began to realize just how little I knew about his situation and also, how lucky I was to grow up how I did.

After he passed away we spent quite a bit of time reliving how crazy he was and how we had all been introduced to him for the first time, and I also learned a lot about his back story, how he grew up…how his mom had been a drug addict, and how she had also more than likely died of an overdose. How, essentially, he was doomed from the get go.

Now a lot of people will read that statement and say that, “we all make our own choices.” Which is true, but 9 times out of 10, that statement comes from individuals a lot like me.

I grew up with two loving parents who had their differences and we had our problems. Not enough money to feed all the kids or keep the lights/heat on. We ate a lot of spam as a kid, and I kind of thought it was a delicacy! Times were tough in the Brumwell household for a while…but we always had love and we always had each other. I literally don’t know shit about tough.

My co-worker’s mom was dead by the time she was around 35. He held the record in our area for minors which stood (and stands) at 20 (a fact he told me the week he passed away). He once got two minors in the same night because his parents didn’t really care since all it was, was a fine. He was just told that he had to get a job or find a way to pay the fines, and you know a great way to get quick money…selling drugs apparently!

While he was working with us he was busy taking care of an uncle who apparently is such a bad alcoholic that our co-worker would often get calls to come pick him up from various bars because he had passed out there.

This was his life.

The one bright point that I saw was that he was one hell of a worker. He had once been a welder for several companies and exceeded at that position and as previously mentioned, he had potential to be one of the best workers that my friend had ever had working for him. One thing I keep thinking about is that we were about to build a block bar for an individual and he was so excited to get to attempt to design it…but he never got to, and he never will.

Why do people turn to drugs? Is it for recreation, because their friends are doing it, because it makes them feel good, or perhaps it’s just to escape their normal everyday lives?

I’ve smoked pot exactly one time. I also sold it that one time, because I was drunk in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area and I thought that what this group of individuals was doing was just another business venture. They had a product that they were trying to sell and they weren’t trying to force it down anyone’s throats…they were just letting them know that it was available. Me, being me, had a very in-depth conversation with this group and then proceeded to join their ranks for about five minutes and share a joint with a random businessman who said his wife didn’t let him touch the stuff anymore…the crew was alright with it, and after I had blown the sale I went on with my night. I didn’t get high, I was probably already too drunk for that, but it was a story to tell the grandkids one day…but probably not really.

That was my experience with drugs. I mean I’ve been around several, mostly pot, but haven’t attempted any at any other time. But alcohol is something I enjoy and partake in from time to time…probably too many times when I really think about it (I don’t really have to think about it). But a lot of people partake in alcohol and don’t think much about it, and most people can probably handle it alright…but some can’t and for those people it can be as big of a problem as drugs.

Luckily I grew up with parents who questioned me when they thought I was getting out of hand, and because I knew they were doing it out of love, I knew that I had to seriously stop and think about what I was doing…If they hadn’t cared, if they had used as heavily as I was, who knows where I’d be?

The title of this post is, “The Haves and The Have Nots,” it’s based off of a book I read in college which talked about the drastic difference between growing up with money and without it. It was an interesting read for sure, but when I went to the prayer service for my co-worker it was the first thing that came to mind. Not because I grew up with money and my co-worker hadn’t…because I grew up with a certain kind of love that was not only missing in my co-workers life, but in many of the people who were in that room with us.

The stories they told about growing up with my co-worker were heartwarming in the fact that they were stories of some of their most fond memories of a guy I had gotten to know and grew to really like…but they were some of the saddest stories I had ever heard as well. They were about stealing cars and getting away with it because no one really cared that they had done it. About getting caught drinking or doing drugs, and one of the saddest was the individual who got up two different times to remind people that if they know someone who needs help, to reach out to them…without a doubt, he was asking for help with this statement…and I’m sure he wasn’t the only one there that could have used it.

The saddest part of the whole experience was that I got to know one of this “crew,” and I didn’t know him from drugs, I didn’t know him because we got in trouble together…I got to just know him, the person he could be, the potential he had…if he had grown up with my parents, or maybe yours? Where would he be today?

Sure. We all get to make our own decisions in this life. But when it comes down to it, most of those decisions are based off of past experiences and the thought of how those decisions effect the ones we love…some of us have that certain kind of love in our lives that helps us choose the “right” path…and others have not.

Regardless…I’ll miss my co-worker, I’ll miss my friend.

“Even though we don’t know where we’re going, we always end up somewhere.”

This is a quote I heard recently, not from some great philosopher or self-help guru, but from one of my best friends I had growing up. It wasn’t said about any particular life problem or situation, just about his trip back home from where he grew up to where he currently calls home. Given the context it really just seems like something someone may say when they’re headed out on a road trip with no particular destination, (which is exactly what he meant) but given our history and my uncanny ability to read way too much into things, the quote stuck and for reasons far greater than a simple road trip.

My friend’s journey is definitely one worth writing about, but as I have not asked for his permission to write about it, for now his journey will be his own, but just know that the somewhere he ended up is a long ways from where he began, or any of his closest friends would have imagined for him. A rough start in life does not guarantee a rough life, and his somewhere is something to be genuinely proud of today.

None of us truly know where we’re going in this life, we have ideas and plans and that’s generally where it all comes crashing down. As they say, “Life’s what happens while you’re busy making other plans.” So we plan to do this or that, and life has its own plan. It throws you this way or that, gives you opportunities where you never thought you’d have them and tears away the futures you had so neatly crafted for yourself, and that’s not always a bad thing.

When we’re young we believe we can do anything, we’re told we have the ability we just need the drive. But then reality sets in and we find that although we’ve always wanted to do something spectacular (such as write a world class blog), we find that our talents lie in other fields and even though we still partake in some of these other things, we see that our true talent lie elsewhere. For me, writing has always been a passion of mine. I’m not exactly world class at it by any means but it’s something I always enjoyed doing and if I could choose one thing to do for the rest of my life and actually make a living at it, it would most likely be telling stories and attempting to leave the world a little better off because of the life I lived and the stories I passed on. Big aspirations, but in reality my biggest accomplishment may end up being that I once got a report from The Washington Post to come visit my home town… It’s a huge deal for our community, but in my grand scheme of things…very far off from my life goals.

After attempting to find my passion in several different majors throughout my college experience, I finally found something I loved (Mass Communications) at the same point I lost the thing I loved the most (my mom to ovarian cancer in 2006). After she passed away I attempted to go back to school the following semester to continue my education but every time I sat in class and tried to concentrate on learning, I was filled with sadness about my loss and the whole concentration thing just didn’t seem to work.

I spent the following few month living, working, and dating in the town I hoped to eventually get back on track in and finish off my degree but after a bad break up I traveled down to spend some time with my brother and sister who convinced me that taking a road trip with my brother while we were still young enough to just go, was more important than what I had waiting for me back where I had come from…so we jumped in my mom’s old car, fueled by funds she had left to give us one last great Christmas (her favorite holiday) and traveled a huge portion of the U.S. We saw a ton of friends and family along our path, as well as some of the most beautiful country I have ever seen.

I’m not a religious person by any means, but I am a person of great faith…if that makes any sense to you. On this trip, I would get up every morning before sunrise and just walk around, sometimes with a good book, often with my camera, but more time than not, simply with my own thoughts. It was on one of these mornings while walking around the desert of Arizona that I got this overwhelming feeling that somewhere my mom was alright. I can’t quite explain the feeling, and this is the first time I’ve told anyone really about it, but for a brief moment there I was overjoyed with the fact that she, and everything else, was going to be alright. I had never had the feeling before then, and I haven’t had that feeling again, that’s how I knew it was something special.

Despite this moment of “awakening” I still remain unfazed by the fact that faith and going to church aren’t synonymous. I didn’t and don’t need a building to show me that there’s something bigger than myself, I just need good friends, a loving family, and the ability to see the good in all the individuals I meet along the way (a smile from a beautiful girl every now and again never hurts either!).

Faith, after all, can easily be summed up with the statement that began this post.

But the point of this post is that statement. We often find ourselves in anguish because this or that didn’t work out. I wanted to be a journalist one day, but instead I’m a business owner/landscaper/bus driver. None of these were really on my career aspirations list, but for the most part today they make me happy. I still get an opportunity to indulge my writer dream through a little blog post here and there, and even though not many people read it, it’s an outlet for me to keep those creative juices flowing. I may not be where I intended to be, but I’m certainly somewhere…and this somewhere currently works for me.

The remainder of my journey is as unknown as the beginning, but as usual I look forward to the ups and am better prepared than ever for the downs…life has a way of helping us with that. When I’ve reached my final somewhere, I hope that even though I never quite knew where I was going…I made the places I’ve been a little better with my presence, and that they’ve done the same for me. 

A Big Win for Small Town, USA

Recently an article was written based off of information collected by the USDA’s natural amenities index which lists the factors that are most desirable to people when they’re looking for a place to live. Through that information a reporter from the Washington Post was able to determine that Ventura County in sunny California was the number one place to live…and my county, Red Lake County in the frozen tundra of Northwest Minnesota, ranked dead last…3,111 out of 3,111 counties in the United States.

Having read the article, as well as the follow up (Thickcoats, thin skins), I decided that this was an ideal opportunity to shine some light on what I already knew was a beautiful county. My business being largely based on the natural beauty of our area, I get to spend my summers listening to people from all over the world (mainly U.S.) tell me how beautiful our area is. So, when the articles were published I felt like we could certainly use the publicity for our business, but also for our county.

The most logical way to go about this was to invite the writer of the article, Christopher Ingraham, to come visit our beautiful county for himself and then make his decision on whether or not it was a good or bad place. It must be noted that he wasn’t claiming that it was or wasn’t, he was just stating that based off of the data, we were the worst…so really, it’s the USDA we should all be upset with.

The day after I had sent an email to Mr. Ingraham, I received a response…the very next day! He had mentioned it to his editors and they seemed to think it was a good idea, so to strike while the iron was hot, I quickly put it out that I had contacted him and that he was possibly coming to come see the county for himself. Later Chris would tell me that even before they had fully committed to the trip he was getting calls from our regional paper asking if the rumors of him coming to the worst county were true, the ploy had worked!

Shortly after I received another email confirming that he would be coming our way the following week, which only gave me a few days to plan the best approach to show him the county.

I wanted to give him the whole picture of every part of our county and give residents from all of our towns a crack at showing him why they loved to live here. After putting out some information via Facebook, I quickly got in contact with different individuals from the various communities which friends had told me would be fantastic representatives as well as extremely upbeat individuals. We wanted Chris to judge for himself about our county, but we didn’t want him to receive any truly harsh, closed minded individuals, and every areas has those. We wanted to use it as an opportunity to show why people not only live in our area, but why they start and keep businesses here, and why they raise children here as well.

Visiting the Tri River Pioneer Museum in Plummer, MN

The plan was to get representatives from every town, as well as individuals that would represent some of the major factors as to why people live or move to a community (safety, good schools, employment) onto a tour bus and give them an opportunity to speak to Mr. Ingraham about what they love about living in our county while showing him all of the natural beauty of it as well.

Eric Mickelson greets Chris Ingraham in front of TJ's Tavern in Oklee, MN

The process of getting the individuals together exposed me to people from around the county that I had never had the pleasure of getting to meet, and planning where the tour was going to take us had me exploring areas of our little county that I had never seen, or had not made an effort to travel to in quite some time. The planning stage of this whole ordeal seemed to me like it was going to be the greatest part. I had opened myself up to all the great people in our area and was so happy to hear their stories of why they love our area, as well as several stories which people passed along to me from individuals who had grown up here and eventually continued their lives elsewhere.

The main take away from this part of the experience was that when someone backs one or all of us into a corner, we have each other’s backs. People who probably hadn’t had their cameras out in years were rediscovering the natural beauty of our area by shooting photos of everything, and ones who hadn’t given much thought to their childhood home or the place where they now call home, were rediscovering why Red Lake County was a great place to live. I don’t even want to get into all the tweets and Facebook comments that Mr. Ingraham received (I actually apologized for some of those in my email to him).

Touring Paradis, Inc. in Brooks, MN

I wasn’t able to get people from all of the different towns to join us on the bus, which was truly too bad because the purpose was not only to show Mr. Ingraham everything the county had to offer, but to also show the residents of the different towns everything each town had to offer, feeling like they, like me, might have been missing out on some of these great things. Some of the best examples of this for me were the Community Center in Brooks, the live music in Oklee, and the museum as well as the shooting range in Plummer. All of these things I knew existed but had never explored them and once I did, I wondered why it had taken me this long to do so, I wanted to share that experience with our whole county.

Even though representatives from every town weren’t on the bus, we were greeted at every stop by residents of the different areas we stopped at. The looks on the faces of these individuals, as well as how we were able to actually see their pride in their town as well as the county was one of the greatest things I’ve ever been a part of. The citizens were proud of these things that they had come together and built, as had been stated in Chris’s most recent article…we quite literally build our communities together, be it the Red Lake Falls Swimming Pool, the Brooks Community Center, the Oklee Veterans Memorial, or the Plummer Museum, these projects were built with funds and labor donated by the individuals of these towns and this county…no wonder we have so much pride in it.

The Schindler's (Joe - holding Isaac, Carl, and Brenda) showing
off all of their hard work on their Dairy Farm, just outside
Red Lake Falls, MN

So in two days (36 hours actually) we were able to show Christopher Ingraham a huge portion of the county, as well as explain to him why we love living here. After we finished out bus tour, Chris was pretty well exhausted. I had pretty much planned out every second of his time from when he arrived in Red Lake County to now and I could tell he probably couldn’t survive another mass onslaught of people, despite the fact that everyone had been unbelievably nice that he had encountered, at some point you just need a break. So for the last meal of his time in Red Lake County, we had one of the best fisherman around, Justin Carriere, prepare him a dish he had never tried…Walleye. If this blog ever gets any wide spread readers they probably won’t find this strange, but around here we eat walleye, and it’s a delicacy and a staple all in one, and for someone to come to our area to see why we love living here and never get an opportunity to try it would be a crying shame. Luckily Justin was able to scrape up enough to feed a small group of us and we had a bit of a fish fry to end Chris’s trip. We had a nice conversation about his entire trip, and I even filmed him telling me that Red Lake County truly was beautiful and that the USDA needed to reevaluate their standards…then I lost the video.

The county waited patiently for Ingraham’s follow up article, where he could have said anything. We felt like he had had a good time on his little trip, but you never know exactly just how you appear from another person’s perspective. He had said all the right things while he was here but we had met the man for all of 36 hours, and we had exposed ourselves so that whatever he had thought of us would once again put our little county into a national publication…good or bad.

I had been extremely busy the week following Chris’s trip with friends who came to visit from Arizona whom I hadn’t seen for over 8 years…so there may have been a late night or two in there which allowed me to be a little less worried about the outcome, plus…I truly felt like he had a great time, so I wasn’t worried.

Then I got a message from our little “Baking Prodigy,” wondering if I had read the article yet…next my notifications started buzzing with people tagging me on Facebook and Twitter with links to the article and much of this was to be expected as it was a huge deal in our area…but then messages started coming from all over the state and country, as well as from abroad…all people who had read Chris’s article and thought that it was amazing. They told me how it had been such a great thing for the whole state, and others how it made them long for their small town home or relish the fact that the little guys were getting some much deserved attention for once.

The end of the Kayak trip (Sportsmans Park, Red Lake Falls, MN)

I finally got an opportunity to read the article towards the end of the day that it came out. The majority of the day had been a pretty big build up for what I read, but at no point (not even the beat up Buick comment) was I disappointed. The article was extremely well written in my opinion, and three days later I received a message from Chris stating that in the past three days the article had gone toe-to-toe with the nationwide big issues and articles such as those dealing with Donald Trump and Hilary Clinton…and that the Red Lake County article was still the most read.

The messages I received from all over weren’t the only ones out there. Comments on Facebook posts, tweets, emails, and so many other forms of communication were all stating the same thing, people loved the article. They were cheering for the underdog, the one that was featured in the Washington Post, the one which they lived in, or had come from, for this brief moment we’re all from Red Lake County, Small Town, USA.

So in the end, I guess I’d like to thank the guy who called us the worst county in America. He reported on some old data from the USDA, which he himself didn’t truly believe, but when someone told him to get his butt out of the office and come check it out for himself, he did it, and made a lot of people remember their roots and start to be proud of the place they live once again. So thank you Chris Ingraham, you’ll always have a place to come home to, right here in Red Lake County!



Thank You Christopher Ingraham, for coming to see the beauty of
Red Lake County!

Life Lesson #2: Life is an Experiment

Ahh.. BD&LL, I feel like I'm writing to a long lost friend. My notebooks, admittedly less full these days, are dotted here and there with very and not so very partial attempts/seed-ideas for blog posts. I just never seem to get them completed or transferred to the digital medium. The mind, the incredible result of this cosmic experiment of life, "is a wonderful servant, but a terrible master." In order to drive out this master, I've been sending in the special forces: music and philosophy. Which is what brings us here. Now. Today's lesson from a completely unqualified but unordinary teacher.

The TL;DR ('too long, didn't read' for those of you not into the whole brevity thing) version is this: read philosophy, it's exercise for your brain. Also stuff about the cosmos, life, stardust and humanity.

I've picked up reading the works of a very unique individual lately by the name of Paolo Soleri. He was an architect, builder, philosopher, dreamer, prophet; a man of the Renaissance mind set living in modern times. I was introduced to his work through one of his one time protege, Doug Lee who became Chief Architect and worked Soleri's Arcosanti project. I was introduced to Doug because he is my beautiful and apprentice architect wife's boss. Anyway, after reading the entirety of the Wheel of Time Series it was time for me to put the fiction down. Soleri's words have dusted off a few other rooms in my brain containing similar works that I've read. All that lead to this idea for BD&LL. Enjoy.

Life Lesson #2: Life is an Experiment

Reading philosophy, studying it, is truly an exercise of the mind. As such it can be difficult, frustrating, and extremely rewarding. It can also lift you out of a bad mood, give you a new perspective: a filter in which to interpret the reality that surrounds us. I would like to share some if it but I'll do my best to do the majority of the heavy lifting and offer a more "10-minute abs version."

Perhaps you've noticed that I've assigned arbitrary #'s to my "life lessons." This is because the "lessons" thus far are extremely specific and removed from the more basic necessities of life. They have been lessons in navigating the tributaries of a much larger sphere of life. But much thought over what would be the most basic lessons lead me to these two. First lesson: survive. It is the self-containing truth of life to survive. Without life, there are no 'life' lessons. Maybe more on that in a later post. Here, I want to share life lesson #2: Life is an experiment.

My life, your life, all preceding life in entirety of history, the cosmos, etc. - i.e. human life and the entirety of all living things past and present, has been and will be an experiment of life. Billions of years of evolution can be looked at as an incredibly long experiment in survival. That's pretty epic. Have a drink. Stay seated and let your brain chew on that one - that human brain which is probably the most impressive result of those billions of years of cosmic transformation. Stardust assembling itself into a consciousness that can be aware of its own existence. Sorry. I did say I'd do the heavy lifting, on we go.

Like good philosophy is apt to do, this one requires thought and reflection, but once you get a grasp on just a part of it, you see it in the world around you and begin to understand the larger implications of those ideas. Something similar to what we call the Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon. My own reflections on this cosmic-level philosophical filter coupled with my own hubris of assigning hierarchy to life lessons is this: You can ponder the actual consequences of this philosophy, the scientific understanding of how life originated, how it processes, how it creates, how it persists, etc. But you can sort of turn the philosophy inside out and think of it as way in which to live life. Which I believe is what we're all trying to do here at this fine establishment we call Banana Daiquiris and Life Lessons; that is, impart what little wisdom we may have gained through our own experiment in living.

The basic philosophical questions are something like this: (1) What is nature of existence? - Or more simply "What exists?" (2) How do I know that? or How do I know what I think exists actually does exist the way I think? (3) What should I do?

The third one is important and the answers are many. But these are the types of things that guide the way in which we live. What is right and wrong? What is the ultimate purpose of life? What is the ultimate purpose of my life? etc. etc. ad absurdum.

In answering this question our species has created moral code, culture, religion, philosophy which then breeds more philosophy, law, social norms, common sense. The diversity of the human species means a diversity of answers and combinations of the answers. We all subscribe to some set of philosophical consequences: some established law, nation, culture, religion, morals, manners, and means of interacting with each other. We build our personal ethos and directions for living through our experiences with these "answers" through our life. Our families, friends, churches, nations, towns, cities, heroes and heroines, have all had a say in what we have established as way to live and also ways in which not to live.

I'm not here to argue for the rightness or wrongness of any of these ways to live. My point is simply this: with so many answers available to "what should I do?" and "how should I live?", we can view our own life, and that of others, as an experiment - one testing the validity of our life lessons. I think this is quite liberating. As a species we are still trying to figure out what the best answers are. As individuals we spend the entirety of our lives figuring out our answers. The point of life is not finding the best answer, it's to keep questioning, keep experimenting, keep testing. It's the journey, not the destination.

If I treat my life as an experiment in living it opens up the possibilities of true liberty, understanding, tolerance - of myself, of others. While I have a core set of beliefs that make up who I am, what I hold important, what I deem appropriate, etc, simply knowing that it's still imperfect allows me to be open to the viewpoint of those around me; to attempt understanding while reigning in judgement; to open the door to honestly and dialogue instead of fear, hate, and cruelty (all too real demons).

It can be uncomfortable to take on this perspective and use it to explore and experiment with what life has to offer. I also know that many of those reading will not and maybe cannot take it on because you subscribe to a set of answers that prevent you from doing so. And if that set of answers leaves you content, happy, and an active, functioning, contributor to the betterment of human society than who am I to tell you that you should do otherwise? I wouldn't and I won't. But this perspective is what's working for me. Here. Now.

Listening to: Rival Sons; Black Crowes; Rolling Stones
Reading: Paolo Soleri
Playing music, living, learning, stumbling, and coasting through life.

Take care,

Mikey

p.s.

Here's something I've been part of (taking and adding to the ether): Whiskey & the Wolves - an experiment all its own.

Why Caitlyn Jenner Deserves the Arthur Ashe Award for Courage

It’s been a long time since I actually put any words down in the BD&LL world, but recently something was brought to my attention that seems to be a pretty big deal nationally and it really got me thinking.

I think most people are probably already sick of hearing about the Bruce/Caitlyn Jenner situation and everyone seems to have a pretty strong opinion one way or another. The most recent flame to this fire was the announcement that Caitlyn Jenner would be awarded the Arthur Ashe Award for Courage at the 2015 ESPY’s.

There are a couple of individuals that people feel are more deserving of this award, with the most prominent being the college basketball player, Lauren Hill, who recently passed away from cancer. As cancer is something near and dear to my heart I felt like weighing in on this subject seemed pretty legitimate for me and my outlet is BD&LL, which is usually a pretty lighthearted blog but every now and then I like to take on more serious subjects, so here it goes…

Let me start off by saying that I followed the journey of Lauren Hill like so many other sports fans around the United States. Her story certainly brought tears to my eyes and when I think of the girl whose life was cut far too short, I certainly think of a courageous battle fought with perseverance which should make her undoubtedly eligible for either the Arthur Ashe Courage Award, or the Jimmy V Perseverance Award.

She was an amazing person who despite getting the news that she was going to die, kept on battling and even used her new found celebrity to raise awareness and funds for cancer research and to hopefully one day find a cure, and man-o-man have they raised funds! Thanks in part to ESPN for sharing her story the organization, The Cure Starts Now foundation, has raised over $2.7 million to help find a cure for DIPGG (Diffuse Intrinsic Pontine Glioma), the cancer that eventually took Lauren’s life.

But in case you don’t know me, that’s not the only thing ESPN does for cancer research. Teaming with Jim Valvano in 1993, ESPN helped to establish The V Foundation for Cancer Research which to date has raised and donated over $130 million into cancer research, and many of you reading this post have contributed to that amount through the organization Hoops for Hope! So, for ESPN to be getting bashed for not choosing a warrior in the fight against cancer for the Courage Award, seems like a big deal…but what they’re really doing is far more important than who they choose for an award.

That being said, people truly are outraged that instead of someone like Lauren Hill, ESPN has chosen a former Olympic Track Athlete who has come out as Transgender for the Courage Award this year. Some of the arguments stem from the fact that the athlete is from a family who has used their celebrity for everything that is wrong with celebrities and personally I truly hate anytime I hear one of their names mentioned. I really think that they are a great example of the things wrong with this country…yet their shows are popular enough to withstand several seasons and people everywhere always seem to wonder what they’ll do next…so the father coming out as Transgender and getting an operation to effectively make him a woman, certainly may seem like a publicity ploy to many. I even felt that way right away.

But I don’t watch the shows, I just know of them and that seems like an inappropriate reason to hate them, and an uneducated one as well. I’m not going to spend any of my precious time catching up on what I’ve been “missing out” on, but I’d like to look at Caitlyn’s situation from a perspective I should…not knowing anything else about her or her family other than the fact that Bruce felt like he was living a lie his entire life. He always felt as though he was a woman trapped in a man’s body. To me that seems like a very strange thing, but I also have no idea how it feels to live my life as a minority or anything other than what I am, and Bruce apparently never felt the same way I always have, comfortable in my own skin.

The idea of Transgender makes many people confused and puts most people off a bit, but if you look back at our colored history there were many different instances where things that seem normal today were thought of as strange an even hated. If I need to remind anyone…”White people” destroyed most of an indigenous people and took their land for their own, we then forced African people to our country and then used them as slaves. Slowly (very slowly) we began to see the error of our ways and started to attempt to make up for these two atrocities but have sort of screwed both parties out of their true identity and tell them to get along with the times. Even after we started to attempt to put things right with these two groups, we were still pretty much treating our women like property and even today they make on average 30% less than men doing the same work. More recently, after years and years of us openly bashing homosexuals (mostly due to religious reasons, (BS)) some states have finally started to realize that the government should have absolutely no say in who we should get to love (the separation of church and state only happens when it’s convenient for the state).

So last year, the Arthur Ashe Award for Courage went to the first openly gay professional football player, Michael Sam, and for the most part, he was heralded. A lot of individuals were still upset about it, but the tides have begun to turn for the homosexual community, making it more socially acceptable…but apparently not for the Transgender community.

I’m sorry, when I think about this it gets me very, very upset. I work with kids during the school year as a bus driver and I see bullies, and I see kids coming from homes that don’t prepare their kids for a day in school. I see kids who are obviously lacking love at home and some that probably love school just because it’s the one place they feel safe and even loved. I love kids, each and every one of them…but they can also be mean. But hate isn’t ingrained in kids; it’s unfortunately learned…often times at these same institutions which so many kids once felt safe and even loved at. It takes a single kid or a small group to spread hate, which always manifests itself onto the weakest individuals, and because our society has an established pecking order, often times the minorities are the ones that get picked on.

I’d like to look at some research, if any has been done, on the rate of suicide in high schools and colleges throughout the years and link up the rise and fall to major events in the social hemisphere. What I’m assuming we would see is that as it became more sociably acceptable to be a black student in a predominantly white school, the suicide numbers slowly fell and the rates would more than likely be similar with women, homosexuals, and other “minorities.”

The point is, by making a big deal out of things such as Caitlyn Jenner and her changing her sexual identity…we create hate.

Lauren Hill exemplified what it meant to be courageous when she knew there was no hope for survival, she also defined perseverance…just like so many other cancer patients I’ve known personally. Speaking with any of their loved ones, they would tell you the same things about their battle, they were a true inspiration, they fought a courageous battle, and the perseverance they showed given insurmountable odds, was a true inspiration…

Most people have dealt with cancer at this point in one facet or another, it’s the uninvited guest which can rip a family, friends, everything…apart. We hate it and we want to get rid of it, so we fight. And we donate money, and we educate people about it, and we do the things to try and keep it out of our lives, but it still comes…and then we fight, and sometimes we win sometimes we lose, but we fight because life is precious and worth fighting for.

It may not seem, at first glance, that Caitlyn Jenner’s fight is similar…but it is. I talked about suicide because so many youth are lost each year because they are constantly bullied for not being like the other kids. Many of these kids are different because they don’t look or act like the majority, they’re easy targets because we as a society say that what they are, isn’t right. We have laws set up making the act of marrying the person you truly love, illegal. And we say that even if you spend your whole life feeling like you’re something you’re not…you’re wrong. That “God” made you that way, and that’s just who you are.

Bruce Jenner spent his whole life feeling like he was something he was not, and he lived 60+ years trying to pretend that he was the thing he felt so strongly that he wasn’t because we as a society told him that he was wrong and he saw that the “majority” hated the thing he wanted to become. So he pretended…and he lived his lie, and one day he said, “No more. I know what I am and I’m going to become it.”

Now look at all the backlash that he’s getting, all the hate that his decision has brought upon him, hate he knew would be there when he came out the other side as Caitlyn…yet he did it. He became Caitlyn and stopped living what he felt was a lie, and being the public figure he was…he didn’t just do it for him, he did it so that the individuals out there struggling with identity issues can see that they aren’t alone. He might not have done it to start the conversation, but I’m sure that she will be at the 2015 ESPY’s accepting the Courage Award and the fact that she will be, puts the subject in the limelight. It allows us to openly discuss it, hopefully educate ourselves about it, and maybe one day accept it. The fact that Bruce knew how publicly this decision would be broadcast, and the effects it could have…makes him courageous…and in my mind, makes him a very worthy recipient of the 2015 Arthur Ashe Award for Courage.

I hope someday…coming out as gay, or transgender is no longer considered a courageous act, much like a black person not giving up their seat to a white person, or a woman voting is no longer considered courageous, it’s the norm. We hate what we don’t understand…so let’s take this opportunity to attempt a better understanding of our fellow men and women, no matter who they love, or what they are.

 

Good Music and a Life Change

It's been far too long since I submitted a blog post. Tonight as I sit at my tutoring job with exactly 0 students in the room I can really think of no excuse to not write a blog post so here it goes.

Part of the reason that I have not written recently is that I haven't really felt like it. In fact I haven't really felt like doing much of anything. I wouldn't say I am depressed but I have exactly been farting out sunshine either. Not sure there is one cause but can think of some things that might be contributing. I don't want this to be a "Oh - look how sucky my life is" kind of a post so I am not going to talk about these reasons.

Instead, in an attempt to move past this "partly-cloudy to mostly-cloudy" time I will focus on writing about some things that are supplying me with a bit of joy.

First off I recently came across some great music. Thanks to the magic of Pandora! (Sidebar - if Pandora was a girl imagine how much easier dating would be. It's like Pandora knows everything I like and don't like and then introduces me to stuff I didn't know that I like. Amazing!)

Anyway - the music is great. Not only do I like the tunes themselves, but I can relate to the lyrics as well. I have been listening to it regularly and it still isn't getting old. (Definitely not like that one song by that one girl that that one station plays all the time. And don't act like you don't know what I am talking about. I bet you even secretly listen to it and sing along.)

Check it out. If you like it, buy it. I did. Hunter Johnson

(Continued after a 1.5 day delay. Can you believe it, some student was so inconsiderate and came in for help with his Geometry. Kids these days are so selfish.)

We are also preparing for a big life change in our house. We are days away from welcoming our baby girl. The feelings associated with the second child are somewhat different for me than the first. There is still excitement. I am excited to have a girl. Many times I have imagined having a little girl and am very excited to turn these into reality.

However, I have some reservations. I now know from personal experience all about late night feeding, blow-out diapers and long nights with a sick baby. At times having a 3 year old seems like all my patience can handle. Put these two together and it can be a bit overwhelming. Oh-yeah and there is the second mortgage known as day-care + baby food/formula + diapers. 

Of course all-in-all the positives greatly outweigh the negatives. I had a blast last night playing Ninja Turtle Bowling with my son. Even though, according to him he beat me every time. I guess that happens when you get to go first every time. I know he will be a great big brother and my wife is the most patient loving mother (well - probably second behind my mom, but she is the Michael Jordan of moms). Between the effort and love she gives to her students at school and our family I'm not sure how she does it all. 

In the end a few lessons have been learned over the last few weeks. 

1. Music is awesome (even Blank Spaces can serve a purpose)
2. Write - it makes you feel better and lets you think through your thoughts (I think smart people have a fancy word for that)
3. Find someone who you can share your feelings with (you aren't fooling those that are close to you by covering up your worries and "bad" feelings)
4. Enjoy what comes your way and don't worry too much about things (so far for 34 years everything has worked out pretty well - no reason to think this trend won't continue)

Cheers

-Mr. Dolores

The Tipping War

An Argument Against the Practice of Tipping

I truly never thought that when I started to do a little “quick” research for this blog post that it would take me this long to actually put the thing together and get something written up, but after seeing this College Humor video I felt like it would be a good subject to talk about.

 

I started by posting the video to my facebook wall as well as on our Facebook page and asked what other people thought about the subject. I didn’t get the outpouring of comments that I would discover usually accompanied any post about eliminating tipping but I did get a few of my friends who work in the service industry to leave me some feedback as well as a patron who could see the benefits of discarding the tradition of tipping. 

 

EV: Interesting stuff. I don't care if ppl don't tip as bartending isn't my regular gig. Will I remember you and hold it against you? Yep. I also disagree with the Cornell study they reference. I get my biggest tips from ppl I take care of the most. While I try to treat everyone equal, Assholes-a-plenty can make this difficult on busy nights. Raising prices isn't an easy answer. Just gives the masses something different to complain about...my .02 cents.

CN: It's a novel concept, but one that would take years and lots of money to change. Small businesses (non-chain establishments) would be the first to feel it, so the backlash would be a pr nightmare. There's a restaurant in New York (?) that just banned tipping because they gave their employees a livable salary + benefits, but that causes the owners to increase the price of everything, which is a risk.

LB: Hmmmm. Interesting I am not sure how I feel about this. I feel one of draws of serving is the potential of earning more than minimum wage. Especially in a small town at least in my experience you take care of the people they take care of you. It's my part time gig, but I wouldn't do it for straight minimum wage.

AH: I think it makes sense! I know many times I may have under-tipped just because my friends and I would base it off of how many little bills we had in our wallets.

 

My biggest discovery through my research is that the tipping war has become one between the consumer and the server, and the owner or franchisee is almost always left out of the argument. Most responses went something to this effect:

Server: “I work my butt off serving going above and beyond my job description and I often receive $0 checks because my salary doesn’t cover the amount I have to pay in taxes on the amount I make in tips. If you can’t afford to tip, then stay home. If you don’t tip me well, expect bad service…etc.”

Patron: “I don’t think that I should have to tip in addition to what I’m paying for my meal. I put forth good money to enjoy the service of eating out and being served is part of that service so I don’t think I should have to tip more money than what I’m already paying. If servers don’t like their jobs, than they should work harder, get a better education and move into a job that pays better!”

This is just a basic compilation of some of the arguments on both sides, but the crazy thing is that for some reason most of the Patrons are arguing against the servers and the servers against the patrons. The fact of the matter is that the FEDERAL minimum wage for tipped employees is set at $2.13/hour…FEDERAL! As with other occupations, employers have to pay whatever is higher, the Federal or State wage so you do have states, such as Minnesota, that pay their tipped employees the same minimum wage that other entry level employment positions get paid. And that kind of leads me into a response to one of the largest arguments…

Restaurant owners couldn’t afford to pay greater wages to their employees because than they would have to raise prices and most patrons would not be able to afford to go out to eat!

I probably spent the greatest amount of time trying to discredit this argument. Almost always, people would reference that the profit margin for most restaurants is a measly 2%, and although that may be true for some restaurants, that figure is an average nationwide…which also includes all of the restaurants that don’t make it. So one restaurant may be making a profit margin of 40%, 6 others offset that by losing money and closing their doors, and unfortunately it is true that restaurants close every day, it could be from poor management, poor marketing or location, or even bad or not well trained staff. It happens…in every business, not just the restaurant business.

But my main question here was, “how do restaurants handle the change in minimum wage per state? How can it have such a huge impact on the profit margin yet we still have restaurants in states the pay the minimum wage? My obvious answer was that restaurants inflate their prices where they have to pay their employees more, which makes sense considering that you need to offset costs through the price of your products…but then I saw an Applebee’s commercial and saw that their 2 for $20 menu was back…and I thought to myself, well how the heck can a national brand like Applebee’s run a commercial like that? Their restaurants are franchised so each owner, depending on their state and the other expenses they face must be able to set their own prices, right? If they can’t and the prices are set by corporate, how the heck do they survive?

I guess the answer is that the 2% profit margin may just be a bit of bullshit.

Sure the states that get to pay their employees less will have a greater profit margin but the other states must still be doing alright for themselves in order to keep their doors open and their employees employed. Upon further research I discovered that the actual profit margin for most restaurants (those that make it) is probably closer to the 10-12% figure, in large part, thanks to lobbyists…

$0 Checks

I know it stinks when you bust your butt working for someone and then when your pay period ends you receive a check for $0 or you may even end up having to pay in. It has to suck, but it's not really an argument for why people need to tip more. I'm sorry, but everyone who works for a living has to pay taxes, it's just how things work, and when you get a $0 check, it doesn't mean that you worked for free...it means that you made so much money in tips that your measly wage that you are being paid by your employer has all gone to paying the taxes associated with the amount of money you made.

I'm not happy with the amount taken out by the government each pay check that I receive either, but for my current jobs I'm paid a fair wage by my employer and when the taxes are taken out I still have enough to pay my bills so I keep my current positions. If I wouldn't make enough, then it would be time to find different employment, it's not rocket science...it's life.

I may be willing to bet that if servers actually claimed every tip that they made, they might have to pay in quite a bit more than their $2.13/hour pay check as well. Another perk of this type of employment is cash tips...and cash is pretty hard to tax if you don't claim it.

HOW THE HELL CAN FEDERAL MINIMUM WAGE ONLY BE $2.13 FOR TIPPED EMPLOYEES?!

It turns out that way back in 1991 (which doesn’t seem that far back to me), restaurant lobbyist convinced congress that there should be a different minimum wage for tipped employees…how did they do this, why the same way everything else is done in congress, by buying politicians votes. Who could afford to pay to get something like that done?! Poor restaurant owners who were trying to scrap by on the crumbs of a 2% profit margin…sound fishy to you?

Here’s the kicker…The Federal minimum wage was $3.80/hour in 1990 and was raised to $4,25 an hour starting April 1^st, 1991. The Federal minimum wage today is $7.25/hour with talks of an increase up to $10.10/hour…but the tipped minimum wage has remained at $2.13 since 1991. Let’s say we get to that $10.10 point by 2016, that would mean that in 15 years we have seen an increase in the minimum wage for most employees of 137%...which may be wrong since it’s been quite some time since I’ve had to use math…but in that same time frame, the tipped minimum wage will not have changed at all.

The law states that if tipped employees do not make the minimum wage when their salary and tips are combined than the employer must make up the difference, which of course is a terrible system as you put it, once again, back on the employee to bring this to their employer’s attention. If you take the time to read some of the other links I provide at the end of this post, and read the comments left by people in the service industry on those posts, you’ll hear horror stories of how employers have even been known to skue the amount employees made in tips in order to not have to pay them the additional funds…you’ll also see that most tipped employees, despite what their base salary is, make far more than most if not all entry level positions once you figure in their tips.

SO WHY ARE WE ARGUING OVER THIS?

When it comes right down to it, my personal belief is centered on the fact that big business (restaurants) are geniuses. Not only have they locked in their minimal ways of paying employees with the federal government, they’ve turned over their responsibility of paying those employees to the people who are using their service. If a server doesn’t make the amount they think they deserve, they aren’t upset with their employer, they’re upset with the customer.

And honestly, how could they be upset with their employer? I don’t think I’ve ever taken a job without knowing what I’d be getting paid in advance and the same goes for servers. They’re told what their base salary will be and are aware of the fact that they are mostly paid by the consumer through tips.

WHY WOULD YOU WANT EMPLOYEES WHO WORK FOR TIPS?

I get that if you have employees work for tips, than you can pay them less and consequently rake in more money yourself, but what are the negatives associated with this practice?

Pilferage. First of all, count on pilferage. If you tell someone that you’re going to pay them right next to nothing to do a job for you, but someone else tells them that if they give them a little extra kick in their drink or some additional food than they will tip them handsomely, than how do you prevent them from taking from the person who’s giving them nothing and giving to the person that has offered to give them extra?

The number one problem that restaurants deal with is pilferage, and as stated above, how could it not be? If employers went out of their way to pay their employees what they're worth, and outlawed the tipping practice than why would employees pilfer? If they knew that giving someone an extra shot of alcohol in their drink wasn't going to lead to more money for them, than why would they risk doing it? A better question may be, why haven't restaurants gone this way if pilferage costs them so much? I think a good reason may be that they save more money in employee costs than the costs associated with pilferage. The attempt to stop this in restaurants/bars is a prime example of having your cake and eating it too. More profits for the restaurants and less loss is definitely to their benefit, but apparently increasing the wage of their employees doesn't really cross their minds as they try to find a solution to this particular problem.

Off Days. What happens when you have a tired employee? Say this employee has been a blockbuster for a couple of days and has made pretty darn good money in tips, but last night they went out and just don’t feel like working today. They may lower their performance simply because they don’t really care to be there and know they’ve already made a lot of money for the week.

Company Image. This kind of goes along with the last item, but what kind of employees do you want representing your business? How demanding can you be of an employee you only pay $2.13 to do their job? It is a staple in the customer service business that the customer pays your wages, not just for tipped employees but for anyone in customer service at all. People get to decide where to spend their money and if your service isn’t good they will go somewhere else and spend their money. If they go somewhere else, that translates into less money for the owners of the operation and also less hours for the employees and possible closure of the establishment.

If you want to have employees that represent what you want your business to stand for than you have to compensate them for the job. If you rely on someone else to compensate them (through tips), than expect them to portray the image that gets them paid the most, which more than likely won’t be the standards that you set.

Have you seen the movie "Waiting?" Quite frankly it is a disgusting portrayal of the restaurant business and many of the people I have known who have worked in the industry have said that it's actually a pretty accurate movie for some of the places they have worked. If you haven't seen it, it may be worth a watch just so you can see why they say, don't mess with people who prepare your food. When people work for the customer and the customer pisses them off, it isn't a good thing. These things may happen no matter the wage set for servers because we've all seen how terrible some people treat others but maybe we could have better behaved patrons and servers if owners paid their employees more and management was given more of a green light to refuse service to patrons who lack respect for restaurant employees.

CONCLUSION

We all get an opinion on everything, that’s what makes this country so great and in the same sense, tough to live in! But when it comes to tipping I think we really need to consider what it is, a way for employers to get away with paying their employees less which translates into higher profit margins for the company. A better bottom line, regardless of other arguments. The restaurant industry is a multi-billion dollar industry which employs a giant portion of working individuals, but like many industries it is just another business with the same risks/reward possibilities that others face but are protected towards better profits because of a loop hole which allows them not to pay a livable wage to their employees. They’re smart, though, turning the debate away from them and towards the consumer/server relationship.

I hope in the future we see a change in this system and employees are paid what they are worth by their employer. I, personally love to tip for great service because I like to reward people who do their job above the call of duty, but when you consider the markup on food and drinks at all restaurants, you start to question why you’re paying double for the single service you’re receiving. The best thing that restaurants do is when they automatically add on a certain percentage tip for larger groups. Servers and patrons alike see it as a way to ensure that the server doesn’t get “stiffed” by the patrons, but really it’s just a way for the employer to ensure that the employee is getting paid by the patron, not them. The industry has done one hell of a job pulling the wool over all of our eyes, and hopefully someday we can do something about it.

WHY AM I QUALIFIED TO MAKE THESE ARGUMENTS?

For one, I’m a writer who adds another heading after his conclusion heading, so I must be better at something other than writing, right?

But more importantly I had a serious three month stand in the industry. For the most part I washed dishes but one day I was given my big break to attempt serving!

I got to serve exactly one table.

At that table I took their drink and food orders right away as they came in knowing what they’d like as they were regulars. There were five patrons who all ordered a pop as well as a water and then their food order. I filled the glasses with the appropriate beverages, loaded them on my tray, brought them over to their table, and then proceeded to spill the entire tray on all them.

They were absolutely soaked but fantastic about the whole situation. I was obviously very embarrassed and apologetic but they were unreal. They said that it wasn’t a big deal at all, and allowed me to continue to serve them the rest of the time, all while sitting there in their soaking wet clothes! They even left me a really good tip, I remember because it was the first and last table that I ever got to serve. After that it was back to washing dishes until I decided the restaurant business wasn’t for me.

But that’s not really where my restaurant story ends. I actually, somewhere along the line, started to love to deal with people and for a long time felt like running a restaurant would be something I would be interested in so when I had exhausted most other majors in college (I think I had gone through about 6) I decided to get my degree in what used to be known as Hotel & Restaurant Management which has now taken on a broader scope to include the entire service industry and is now known as Hospitality Management.

I have yet to re-enter the restaurant business but have strongly been once again contemplating it and felt like the issue of tipping may be something that would be worth doing some research on. The links below will lead you to several other great articles and facts about tipping and the restaurant business in general so I hope you check them out! But I started this blog with a video and I’d also like to end it with one. This is a TED Talk given in Canada from an individual who has worked in the Restaurant industry his entire life and has some fantastic information and suggestions about tipping. If you don’t check out the other links, at least give this video a watch. It’ll cost you 20 minutes of your life but the gratuity is already included!

 

Searching for the Life Lesson?

How about, don’t judge a book by its cover? When we talk about tipping it becomes too cut and dry of a topic, there aren’t tippers and non-tippers and those are the sides, both are really fighting against the establishment…they just don’t realize it a lot of the time.

 

A Few More Articles for Your Reading Enjoyment.

(Make sure to read all of the comments to really get a feel for how the battle has become one between Servers and Patrons rather than against the Restaurant Owners)

 

Tipping and Service Quality Article

 

Forbes Articles on the profit margins of restaurants

 

 

Wikipedia article