A Raccoon for Everyone
Keepin' It Real with Cam Marston
The World Cup has taken over America this summer — and it's brought more than just soccer. It's brought raccoons drinking gin. ------ The World Cup sure has been wonderful to watch. I’ve loved all of it, though I’d be hard pressed to clearly explain offsides. The broadcasters show replays of goals that have been taken back and the commentators say “Oh yes, that’s clearly offsides” and I have no idea what they’re referring to. It’s the equivalent of the infield fly rule in baseball or the tackle eligible receiver in football. It’s taken me years to understand these rules, and...
info_outline
Death of the Accord
Keepin' It Real with Cam Marston
Cam Marston has a confession today — eighteen months ago, he and his wife made a pact to declutter their house for good. Here's why it didn't survive contact with a U-Haul trailer. ----- About eighteen months ago, my wife and I made a deal in a hotel room overlooking the Atlantic. We called it the Fort Lauderdale Accord — not a bucket list of what we wanted before we died, but a list of what we wanted gone. Our aim was to simplify and we agreed on one thing: we had collected too much stuff. So we made a rule. One thing in, two things out. Net loss, every time. We clinked glasses, pinkie...
info_outline
A Grief No Words Can Describe
Keepin' It Real with Cam Marston
This week's Keepin' It Real comes from a place of real pain. Cam Marston reflects on the loss of two young men from his community, and a grief he says words can't quite reach. ----- “There are no words” is an expression often used to truly describe deep grief. It’s a feeling in your gut, your stomach, that you notice only when the world around you is crumbling and those important to you are experiencing something truly awful. That’s the way I feel now. A grief has set in and there are no words to describe this feeling. ...
info_outline
Father's Day Recap
Keepin' It Real with Cam Marston
Cam Marston spent Father's Day at church alone, then had dinner with his own dad — and somewhere in between, figured something out. ----- Father's Day came and went last weekend. It coincided with my wife and my anniversary and the summer solstice – all on the same day. That must mean something. My wife chose to prioritize Father's Day because, well, twenty-nine years is a nice number but it's not all that special, and she wanted me to be celebrated by the kids. I went to church on Father's Day. My wife was going to join me but there was a puppy emergency, and she stayed home on the phone...
info_outline
Puppy Patience
Keepin' It Real with Cam Marston
Cam Marston's new puppy has expensive taste — and this week, while the rest of his family's out of town, Cam's discovered his actual job has become full-time appraiser of whatever's currently in her mouth. ----- Our new puppy got the TV remote control this morning. I noticed it around lunch when I went to see if there were any World Cup games on. I tried the chewed-up remote anyway and found it turned the TV on but not off. And I'm ashamed to say it, but I lost my mind, because that remote was brand new — less than 24 hours old. It replaced the remote she ate last week, which I'd...
info_outline
To Goal or Not to Goal
Keepin' It Real with Cam Marston
Most of us have been told that goals are the key to success — write them down, stay focused, never quit. But Cam isn't so sure that's the whole story. ----- I’ve just completed a goal setting webinar. It was thought provoking and well run. Two things stood out. First – we are halfway through 2026. The webinar host adjusted the what was supposed to be a goal setting workshop with a one-year timeline to half a year to account for the date and though I have a calendar in front of me every day, it still shocked me that this year is half gone. Though factually I know it’s early June,...
info_outline
They Remembered
Keepin' It Real with Cam Marston
Cam Marston made a promise to his kids years ago, certain time would let him off the hook. He was wrong — and this week, he's paying for it, in the best possible way. ----- Many years ago, my wife and I made a commitment to our kids that I thought would probably go in one ear and out the other. It was a commitment that was easy to make because it was so far off that I was sure no one would remember it and they certainly wouldn't enforce it. "When the twins graduate from high school," my wife and I announced one night at dinner, "we'll take a big family trip." The twins were in grade school...
info_outline
Witness To Your Life
Keepin' It Real with Cam Marston
Most of us have heard the phrase "they really knew me" — but rarely stop to consider what that truly costs us when it's gone. ----- What Does It Mean to Have a Witness to Your Life? Strange question, I know. But it surfaced at my mother-in-law's funeral this past Monday in Raleigh, and I haven't been able to shake it. A childhood friend of my wife's pulled her aside. "I'm sorry," she said. "Your mother was a witness to your life. Losing her is hard." I had never heard that expression before. And the weight of it hit me somewhere I wasn't prepared for. If we're lucky, we have...
info_outline
Busy Hands
Keepin' It Real with Cam Marston
There’s sad news at Cam’s house. Friends are reaching out to help his family through their grief. Losing a loved one is never easy and friends just want to help by doing something. ----- Busy hands surround my wife and me these days. Recent bad news has brought the need for friends to reach out and want to help us get through it. “I’m so sorry,” they say. “What can I do?” Our reply, just like most people’s is “Nothing. Thank you. We’re all set.” And they reply with, “Well, let me at least bring dinner.” The need to do something to feel helpful. The need for busy...
info_outline
Purpose
Keepin' It Real with Cam Marston
Cam’s been studying retirement trends for his work lately. One thing’s for sure, he’s not ready! ----- More often than not, when I ask someone who has retired in the past two years, their answer is nearly exactly the same. They say, “Well, retirement’s not all it’s cracked up to be.” Why? They worked so hard for it, now they have it. So, what’s missing? My work has steered me into retirement studies. Most people think about money when they think about retirement planning, but I’m learning money is not the only thing you need to plan for. There’s more. And it’s something...
info_outlineI've been offered an invitation to go camping...
-----
Years ago, my wife and I got a deal on some camping equipment. We headed into the North Carolina mountains to a creek camp site and set up our fancy new tent and tried out our new gear. When night fell, we unpacked our fancy new sleeping bags that were rated to keep us warm well below that night’s low temperature, climbed in, and waited to get warm. And we waited. And we waited. Then we started shivering. Teeth began chattering. After an interminable amount of time, I asked my wife what time it was. “Ten PM,” she said. The night wasn’t even half over. It was awful. As soon as there was any hint of daylight we packed up, hiked out, drove home, climbed in bed. That was well over twenty years ago. The cold got into my bones that night and has never left. I’ve still not warmed up.
Mankind, and especially Western society, has gotten soft. In fact, a book called The Comfort Crisis documents this and I’m right in the crosshairs of that book. Humans have figured out how to make nearly any environment on earth more and more and more comfortable. Along the way we’ve lost some toughness, some resilience. At the same time, however, I don’t think the solution to too much comfort is to seek discomfort.
And this is on my mind right now as I have, once again, been invited to go camping. I have a certain friend who claims to love camping. And I think he really does. But he has a hard time finding anyone to go with him. He invites me multiple times each year. The reason that no one joins him is that we know camping is not fun. It is unfun. It is the inverse of fun. It is proactively seeking discomfort. And this current invitation involved a five and half hour drive one way to sleep on the cold ground for one cold night and then drive home. And I’ll say it again: Five-and-a-half-hour drive. Sleep on the ground. Very cold night. Drive home. Un-fun.
For two summers during college, I worked in Glacier National Park in Montana. Each summer I planned to become a camping savant. Each summer I camped one time and never did it again. I lay there all night hoping a grizzly bear would come maul me because it’s got to be better than this.
The idea of camping is glorious. Nature and hiking and self-sufficiency and wildlife and all that. It’s romantic. But it’s like horses. I love the idea of being a horse person. But I’ve been around horses. They’re big and they’re strong and they spook easily and run very very fast and I’ve learned that I love the idea of being a horse person. But I have no interest in actually being a horse person. The same is true with camping.
It disgusts my friend when I tell him this, but on a pretty night when the wind is out of the north with low humidity in the air, I’ll open my bedroom window and throw an extra blanket on the bed. And that’s as close as I’m gonna get to camping.
I’m Cam Marston and I’m just trying to keep it real.