Keepin' It Real with Cam Marston
On this week's Keepin' It Real, Cam is searching for a message and if he hears one, he WILL obey. ----- I think there is someone or something out there trying to send me a message. A few things have happened lately that seem, well, like there is a message coming or attached but I don’t know what it is. First, storms rolled through a few months ago knocking out the power. Fortunately our house has a generator attached and it kept a few rooms running for a little while. My friends began texting about their power being out. I proudly texted a photo of my comfortable and well-lit kitchen that...
info_outline Tell Them Both I Said HelloKeepin' It Real with Cam Marston
There's a grocery store Cam goes to when he's in a hurry. It's NOT the one closest to his house. That one is full of memories. Full of roots. ----- I saw him see me. He turned and headed my way. “Cam,” he said. “How’s you mother?” “Well,” I said. “She passed away two years ago.” I saw you at her funeral, I wanted to say. I remember talking to you. “Oh. Yes. That’s right. I’m sorry. Well then, how’s your father?” “Dad’s wonderful. He plays pickleball five, sometimes six days a week. Sometimes twice a day. He’s eighty-seven but I don’t think he knows it....
info_outline Parent's WeekendKeepin' It Real with Cam Marston
On today's Keepin' It Real, Cam shares something he saw last weekend that made him feel a little bit better about things. ----- I'm in Starbucks. It's Saturday. It's Noon. I'm in Tuscaloosa at the corner of Bryant Drive and 8th Avenue. Sororities across the street disgorging young ladies for their morning cups of honey-dew latté with extra chai, extra vanilla essence and a dash of bumble bee eyelashes or something like that. Yoga pants as far as the eye can see. One girl wearing a T-shirt reading Don’t Date Frat Boys. Parents here for fraternity and sorority parent’s weekend. Dads wearing...
info_outline ForgivenessKeepin' It Real with Cam Marston
On this week's Keepin' It Real, Cam shares a story he's kept quiet for fourteen years. It's time to get it off his chest. ----- I’ve just boarded my flight. I’m headed home. Sitting here, a memory has resurfaced. Many years ago, deplaning in Chicago, I took a call from a young man. He’d studied my work and asked me to mentor him. He wanted to travel and give speeches. He wanted me to refer him when I was too busy, and he’d pay me a commission. He loved my topic and said he could represent me well. I was deeply flattered. He charmed me. A few months later, we sat at my dining room table...
info_outline SqueezedKeepin' It Real with Cam Marston
Cam's phone has been ringing. It's a lot of his small business friends and they're experiencing similar things. They're feeling pressure. They're feeling squeezed. ----- When an orange is squeezed, orange juice comes out. We know this. We know that sun and good soil and water and maybe some fertilizer help that orange develop that juice. We know the ingredients, we somewhat control the ingredients, and we know the goodness that comes from a squeezed orange. What happens, though, when you and I are squeezed? What happens when life puts pressure on you and me? What ingredients are we drawing on...
info_outline LentKeepin' It Real with Cam Marston
Mardi Gras ended Tuesday for Cam. Immediately following Mardi Gras is the beginning of Lent and Cam struggles with what sacrifices he should make. ----- Lent. I struggle with Lent every year. How much suffering is enough to prepare my soul for the Easter arrival of the Lord? Is there enough? Who knows. There’s always someone suffering more; someone taking it to the next level. As a child it was ice cream. I gave up ice cream every year and dutifully reported it to my religion teacher as the assignment instructed. I love ice cream, vanilla especially. In fact, I’ve created an association...
info_outline Dry JanuaryKeepin' It Real with Cam Marston
On this week's Keepin' it Real, Cam Marston has thoughts about this upcoming weekend. Mardi Gras is on us down here in Mobile, and that leads to some tough decisions. ----- Dry January ended last week. Dry January followed soaking wet, sodden to the bone December. I’ve never done Dry January before and after sodden December, I needed to give it a try. Aside from one small drink to celebrate my daughter’s twenty-first birthday, I drank no alcohol for thirty-one days. I’m not sure I’ve done that since I was a teen. The net result? I lost nine pounds. I slept very well every night for a...
info_outline God StopKeepin' It Real with Cam Marston
What do you call it when your certain plans are suddenly upended? They're changed with no warning? You call it a God-stop. On this week's Keepin' It Real, Cam shares his experiences with them. ----- A friend told me a story about how he had applied for a job a long way from home. His potential new employer had said they were going to make a very attractive offer. My friend and his wife began discussing selling their home and moving their kids to a new school. It was certain to happen and then…it didn’t. The job offer never came. His calls to the new employer to get an answer or a...
info_outline Twenty-OneKeepin' It Real with Cam Marston
Cam spent Monday evening at a big party for a small group of twenty-one year olds. To say the least, times have changed. Here's what he saw. ----- A moment after midnight on March 4th, 1990, I stood on a barstool and declared loudly to the packed bar that I had just turned twenty one years old. I was in Boulder, Colorado. A moment later the bouncer had me by the shirt and said, “That means you used a fake ID to get in”, which was true. I was nearly carried, my feet barely touching the ground, to the door and tossed into the street. Oddly enough, the same story happened to my wife, long...
info_outline Resident CynicKeepin' It Real with Cam Marston
My real name is Charles. But Chuck and Chas live inside me. Chuck was trying to get out this week. Chas had to try to keep in under control. ----- An icicle hangs from the roof of my house. I’m looking at it but still can’t quite believe it. Icicles are very rare here. Usually reserved for the freezer door that was left open overnight. A winter storm blew through and Mobile, Alabama is doing what it usually does when it gets below average cold – we’re freaking out. School is cancelled, quote, “out of an abundance of caution” for the kids. There’s no rebuttal to that phrase. It...
info_outlineI say it all the time: "Turn off your lights when you leave your room!" It's yet another way I've become my father.
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I heard myself say it and I could hear my father’s voice coming out of my mouth as it happened. “Please turn off your lights when you leave your bedroom,” I said to my teenage son. “There is no need to leave those lights on if there’s no one in there. Ceiling fan, too. Turn it off or I’m taking money out of your allowance.”
I remember as a child my father saying this to me. As I’d leave for my walk to school every morning, my parents would pester me to turn off the lights. They’d remind me that electricity costs money and replacing light bulbs does, too. I’d shake my head and roll my eyes and wish my parents would worry about things that really mattered, not about light bulbs and a little bit of electricity. One of my neighborhood friend’s father worked for Alabama Power back in the day and I remember the father telling me that the cost to run an one-hundred watt light bulb for a day was about fifty cents or something like that. And I’d remind my parents of that as I made a huff about turning around, going back into my bedroom, and turning off the lights.
Well, I have now become my father in yet another way. I now remind my own children, and one child in particular, to go back and turn off their lights when they leave their room. Whatever light is on, if they’re leaving their bedroom for any reasonable amount of time, turn it off. It’s a waste of money, I say, to light an empty room. Besides that, the power rates are higher in Alabama than average and the LED bulbs that I buy to replace the old bulbs cost a good bit more, too. These new LED light bulbs are impressive with how little electricity they use and how long they’ll last, by the way. It’s somewhat strange to know that at my age of fifty-three years old I’m buying light bulbs that could very well outlive me. I tell my children that these light bulbs are the only inheritance they’ll get from me so treat them well. These light bulbs will be my memory.
However, my urgings and reminders and pestering and threats do little to get my kids to turn their lights off. Nothing I do or say works. My wife reminds me that they’re teenagers and their brains are full of hormones and random thoughts and confusion and it’s just a jumble in their heads at this age. She says I need to give them a break. My reply is that there doesn’t appear to be anything at all going on in their heads these days if they’re incapable of simply remembering to turn off their lights.
Which is, I’m guessing, exactly what my father said about me about forty years ago.
I’m Cam Marston and I’m just Trying to Keep It Real.