Blaine Got The Call
Keepin' It Real with Cam Marston
On this week's Keepin It Real, lots of people celebrated last week. Cam was one of them. It was a case of determination unwavering belief that was finally rewarded. ----- So, after six years, Blaine finally got the call. I remember during the pandemic my wife and I rode our children’s bikes down the center of the street late one evening to our friend’s house for a cocktail. It was strange to have no traffic at that hour. At their house we sat outside and chatted for a while. Blaine was home and he and his sister stood in the back yard playing an improvised game hitting ping pong balls with...
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Practitioner
Keepin' It Real with Cam Marston
On this week's Keepin It Real, Cam wonders if we have what it takes any more. If the thumbs up button is as far as we'll go or as much as we'll do. ----- David Brooks wrote a column in the New York Times last week calling for a, quote “comprehensive national civic uprising.” There are well over four thousand comments with most being something along the lines of “Yes. It’s about time. Someone should do something.” Brooks’ says the Trump administration has gone too far, that we are indeed in a constitutional crisis, and it’s time to act. But, I wonder, do we have what it takes to...
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Prom
Keepin' It Real with Cam Marston
On this week's Keepin' It Real, Cam tells us that based on a series of recent events, he has two people he'd like offer up as potentially superb spies. ----- My twins are high school juniors, and prom was last Saturday night. The event went something like this: For my son: He brought his Joseph Banks suit downstairs about noon. It looked like it had been in a pile on the floor since he last wore it in March. There was a button-down shirt with it. My wife took the clothes and began steaming the wrinkles out. She asked “What flowers did you get your date.” A blank look. “Go to Publix and...
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To AI or Not AI. That Is The Question.
Keepin' It Real with Cam Marston
On today's Keepin' it Real, Cam reports on a writer's conference he attended last weekend where a good part of the conversation was about using AI. All the writers, Cam reports, choose to not use it, preferring to remain "pure." ----- I attended a writers' conference last Saturday. Writers are a curious breed, convinced their unique perspective on describing something as mundane as a sunset is groundbreaking and essential. I love them. But they’re weird. This year, though, a frequent topic was artificial intelligence – how do writers use it, if at all. Speaker after speaker claimed they...
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Get The Joke
Keepin' It Real with Cam Marston
Cam and his wife were at a wedding reception last week. It was beautiful. One conversation, though, has stuck with him. ----- My wife and I stood with a young man at a wedding Saturday night as he lamented the lack of turkeys to hunt at his camp. There were no gobblers, he said, and he was a bit down in the mouth about it. “Why,” my wife asked. “In the spring,” he said, “the hens move to a different place where they like the environment for nesting. The gobblers follow. And wherever those hens go, it’s not on our property. I wish there were something about our place that the hens...
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Judges Of The Truth
Keepin' It Real with Cam Marston
It's been a long week for Cam. He's going to get paid one hundred dollars for two days of work that he is required by law to perform. He didn't enjoy it but it wasn't because of the low pay. ------ In grade school I never wanted to be the one to pick teams. I was afraid of hurting someone’s feelings. It’s ridiculous, I know. I like to get along. I like to see people succeed. I’ve never wanted to be the arbiter of someone’s else’s happiness. That responsibility scares me. Monday morning, I was selected as a jury member for a federal trial. It was my first time doing this. I was one of...
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Meaningless Conversations
Keepin' It Real with Cam Marston
On this week's Keepin It Real, Cam Marston shares what exhausts him and how a good conversation is hard to find. ----- It was 1,000 one-minute conversations. A collection of people who all were within a degree, maybe a half a degree, of separation. Hardly a meaningful chat and as the event wore on, the meaningfulness of the chats dwindled further. For so little conversation, it was exhausting. I think maybe that conversations that skim along the veneer of content are more taxing than digging into content. I don’t know. But when I left, I was completely spent. I’m like so many other people...
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Happiness
Keepin' It Real with Cam Marston
On today's Keeping It Real, Cam recounts his birthday week which has some unexpected surges of happiness. ----- Happiness is fleeting. It never lasts and I’m not sure it’s supposed to. It’s different than joy and contentment and pleasantness. Happiness bubbles up from an unexpected place and last such a short time. And when it arrives, it sometimes brings tears. Living in constant happiness would render us nearly helpless. It immobilizes you. Living in joy and contentment is great with, hopefully, unexpected surges of happiness from time to time that render us speechless. For my...
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The Ft. Lauderdale Accord
Keepin' It Real with Cam Marston
On this week's Keepin' It Real, Cam explains the Ft Lauderdale accord and how it's telling him that it's time to move on. ----- My wife and I will be empty nesters in eighteen months. If all goes according to plan, in that time our youngest two will graduate and head to college and if looking back is anything like looking ahead, these next eighteen months will fly by. If you’re a regular listener, you know that my wife and I have four kids. We purchased this house with a family of six in mind. With only two kids left at home, it’s already a lot of space and in eighteen months it will be...
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Paraty
Keepin' It Real with Cam Marston
On today's Keepin It Real, Cam reports back about his most memorable event on his recent trip to Brazil. He traveled a long way to come back with this... ------ Cachaca is a Brazilian alcohol that was first made by the slaves the Portuguese brought to Brazil. It’s sugar cane based. Very sweet. And like gumbo, red beans and rice, jazz music, and the Mississippi delta blues among other things, it was what the poor people created due to a lack of resources and that the wealthy people eventually wanted. Crazy how that works so predictably. It’s like clockwork. Anyway, my wife and I were...
info_outlineSometimes I quickly conceive a brilliant idea and quickly make plans to execute that idea and I realize I'm smarter than I give myself credit for.
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Several years ago, I arrived at the neighborhood pool early one morning to swim laps. It was a habit I had gotten into that summer and the week before, my buddy Josh and I had talked about our workouts – how we warm up, how we keep track of laps. Stuff like that. I was going to try some of his ideas and it was early that day, but someone was already in the pool, putting in their work – head down, strong kicks, big flip turns.
I put my towel in a chair, put my googles and my pennies - which I use to count sets - in a neat little pile at the end of an open lane at the edge of the pool. I started stretching and took a look at the other swimmer. It was Josh. He has an unmistakable balding pattern that was clearly visible in the water as he headed down his lane towards me. “Oh,” I thought, “this is going to fun.”
When Josh made his flip turn, I had backed away so he wouldn’t see me. I kept stretching and by the time he was headed back towards me and got close to the end of the pool, I took four or five running steps and I launched and tucked into the tightest cannonball an unlimber, middle-aged man could tuck in to. My launch was high, my angle was perfect, my timing was perfect, and I rolled slightly backwards to hit the water on the small of my back to make the biggest explosion possible right next to him. I saw a hole in the water form around me. I saw the water rise up on either side of me and then cave in back down on top of me, and I felt that wonderful concussion one feels when the water slams down on you after executing a flawless cannonball.
It must have thrown Josh ten feet in the air. I imagined him air born, mid-stroke, staring wild-eyed through his goggles wondering what in the world had just happened. Who did this? I heard big drops of water still hitting the surface and as I came up and I was gasping for air because I already laughing.
Most events in my world take careful and deliberate planning. But every now and then I have a quick and brilliant idea and I throw together a quick and brilliant plan that works flawlessly and I surprise myself at how well I’ve done. I tell myself that I’m smarter than I give myself credit for. Usually when I rush things, things go wrong.
Josh stood up, looked at me with his mouth wide open, ripped his googles off and…it wasn’t Josh. It was someone I had never met before. Someone I didn’t know.
I just stood there. I didn’t know what to say. I couldn’t form a word. And I finally just muttered “Oh. Sorry,” and swam away as fast as I could and didn’t stop swimming until he had finished his workout, left the pool and I had seen him drive away. It was awful.
Quick planning did it to me again.
I’m Cam Marston and I’m just trying to Keep it Real.