Russians
Keepin' It Real with Cam Marston
On Keepin' it Real this week, Cam takes us back to 1988 when he and his team lined up to upset the world order in an all out international rowing competition. It was one for the record books. ----- It was the spring of 1989 in Augusta, Georgia. I was a member of the Tulane University Rowing team and we were there to train for Spring Break. Crew teams from across the south and many of the elite crew teams from the northeast came to Augusta and this perfect stretch of the Savannah River to train during the week and race at the end of the week. A call went out that the organizers were throwing...
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Top Hat
Keepin' It Real with Cam Marston
On this week's Keepin It Real, Cam Marston has just returned from a few days in Fort Lauderdale. It's a different world down there, Cam says. One that he might have envied at one point in his life. ------ My wife and I returned from Ft Lauderdale Saturday. We were there for a corporate event where I was giving a speech. My client generously offered an extra couple of nights in the host hotel and our room was on the 26thfloor overlooking the Atlantic Ocean. I watched the sun rise each morning as I sipped coffee and read. It began as a faint glow on the horizon to a disk coming out of the water....
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Regrets
Keepin' It Real with Cam Marston
On this week’s Keepin It Real, Cam hopes you have no regrets from Thanksgiving. And if you do, that you learn from them. ----- Well, how’d it go yesterday? Any family flare ups? Any thoughts you wish you’d kept to yourself? Thanksgiving gatherings are famous for finding people’s boiling points and the election having been just a few weeks ago, some are still gloating and others still licking their wounds. Any regrets from yesterday? I heard Dan Pink speak last week at a conference in San Francisco. He’s a New York Times best-selling author and his most recent book is called The Power...
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'Tis The Season
Keepin' It Real with Cam Marston
On this week's Keepin It Real, Cam Marston wants you to know he's NOT A CYNIC. But there are things this time of year that just kinda get to him... ----- ‘Tis the season for pensive and sappy messages. I’m so sorry but it’s true. They’re appearing in TV commercials, in client and vendor emails. Letters received in the mail about the joys of the season and now’s the time to be grateful and all that. I hate being a cynic, but it all appears to be virtue signaling to me. The people I know sending these messages are savage businesspeople and it’s like times running out and they’re...
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Cats
Keepin' It Real with Cam Marston
On the way home from Oxford Saturday, Cam and his family stopped at a service station which led to him thinking about what NOT to put on his Christmas list. ----- For years I had my children convinced I was allergic to cats. I told them the reason we couldn’t have a cat as a pet was that my head would explode in a fiery ball. They wanted a cat. They asked regularly and finally accepted that I was allergic. I’m not allergic to cats. I’m not sure how they found out, but the cat-pet requests are back. Frankly, I want nothing more to do with anything that requires fuel or any sort of...
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Owls
Keepin' It Real with Cam Marston
On this week's Keepin It Real, Cam tells us about some early morning attacks that are happening in his part of town. You'd be surprised at who is doing the attacking. ----- On the top of the Tangles Hair Salon on Bit and Spur Road in Mobile sits a hat and a headlamp with its light on. The headlamp is the type that an early morning jogger wears before the sun comes up. How it got up there is a heck of a story. Dennison Crocker jogs before daylight nearly every morning. His headlamp lights the way. One dark morning near Bit and Spur Road, a giant thunk, thud, and whoosh caught Dennison off...
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Can I Transfer?
Keepin' It Real with Cam Marston
On this week's Keepin' It Real, Cam recalls a time when he was very much out of his element and was slightly afraid for his life. ----- About midway through the fourth quarter of Alabama’s loss to Vanderbilt, my son, who is a student at the University, sent me a text. It read, “Can I transfer?” I laughed. As a Tulane student we were fond of saying that on Saturdays in the fall, the New Orleans Superdome hosted a cocktail party for students to mix and mingle in the stands. Occasionally we would look up and notice that a football game was going on in front of us, but we never let it...
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FBI
Keepin' It Real with Cam Marston
On this week's Keepin It Real, Cam Marston tells us about a bomb maker he met who sends the bombs he makes to his friends. Oddly enough, you and I should be happy he's doing it. ----- There’s a man on the outskirts of Mobile who spends a good part of his days making bombs. He uses items he finds around town and buys from retail stores. He then sends his bombs to his buddies to see if they can disarm them. It’s a game and, believe me, it’s a game you and I should be grateful they’re playing. I’m participating in a seven-week course called the FBI Citizens Academy. For two hours each...
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Infantilized
Keepin' It Real with Cam Marston
On this week's Keeping It Real, Cam Marston reacts to a book review about society and how we're raising kids. It's not the kids fault, Cam says, it's definitely the parents. ----- The Economist magazine reviewed a book called Infantilised: How Our Culture Killed Adulthood. The author, Keith Hayward, argues that western society is keeping kids less mature than previous generations. He tells of a young lady who insisted on spelling the word hamster with a P. When corrected repeatedly, she called her mom and put her on speakerphone to tell her boss not to be so mean. That’s laughable, but...
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Lucy At The Vet
Keepin' It Real with Cam Marston
On this week's Keepin It Real, Cam's family dog heard what he said to the vet. And she has something to say about it. ----- When I walked through the back door our dog, Lucy, looked at me as if to say “you and I have some unfinished business.” Lucy had been feeling bad. She was lethargic and had thrown up in four or five places in the house. On the rugs, of course. I got to my hands and knees to try to clean them up. It was nasty. She definitely wasn’t herself and my wife, who Lucy seems to regard as The Kind One, took her to the vet. My wife texted that afternoon saying, “Please go...
info_outlineNearly the whole house is suffering.
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A slew of fall and winter maladies has infiltrated our home. ‘Tis the season after all. I sat in the emergency room with my favorite oldest daughter early last Wednesday morning as she suffered with what we think were cluster headaches. Right now, my favorite youngest daughter is home from school, in bed with a stomach bug and my favorite oldest son just walked back inside after dropping his brother off at school. He felt bad when he woke up, but his head began pounding when he got active, he returned home, and he’s now back in bed. Cold and flu season is here. And I mean right here.
I, myself, was in the orthopedist’s office yesterday. I had a meniscus repair a couple years ago and should have addressed it when I first felt the pain. Instead, like a testosterone poisoned male, I kept going and tried to push through, hoping that I’d arrive at the other side of the pain and be pain free. Well, the surgical procedure lasted only a short time a few months after realizing there was no other side to push through to.
A similar pain is now in the other 50% of my knees and I went to the doctor in short order after having learned my lesson. He took X-Rays, examined it thoroughly, and said “I think you have a sore knee.” I said, “Yep. That’s why I’m here.” “No,” he said. “I can find nothing wrong with it. When’s the last time you stretched after your workout?” “Oh,” I said, “Maybe last year or the year before that.” “Go home and stretch and let me know.” So, I did. And, no knee pain today. “Don’t forget how old you and your knees are,” he said as I stood to leave and then he said, “Hey, let me check your prostate.” I’m kidding. He didn’t really say that.
Last night at 2AM my wife sent me to the kitchen for Advil. A mysterious foot pain surfaced in the middle of the night and, as of this morning, is thankfully gone. And our dog, Lucy, started showing a limp after long walk over the weekend. At this moment there is only one of us living here not suffering some sort of ailment. But, it’s just a matter of time. He’ll catch the “something’s wrong with me bug” soon once he sees all the school his siblings are missing. Stands to reason, he’ll want in on it, too.
I’m a pro-vaxer. Covid, Covid-boosters, flu shots every year for well over a decade. I’ll schedule a shingles vaccine as soon as I can find time on my calendar. Vaccines won’t help my knees or my wife’s foot but if there were one, I’d get it. I’m all for science, it’s good stuff. Until then, though, if you see me or any of my family, stay away. We’re all in in pain, in bad moods, or contagious or all of the above. Avoid us. Just come close enough to drop off a casserole. We’re plugging a refrigerator in on the front porch so you don’t have to ring the doorbell.
I’m Cam Marston and I’m just trying to Keep It Real.