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Rahhhl Tihhhde, Y'all!

Keepin' It Real with Cam Marston

Release Date: 06/09/2023

Owls show art 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? show art 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 show art 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 show art 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 show art 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...

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Questions show art Questions

Keepin' It Real with Cam Marston

On this week's Keepin It Real, Cam Marston says he has a question for you. And he's curious if you have a question for him. ----- A story that lives in legend in my family is the day my mother interrupted a story about a boastful largemouth bass fisherman and my mother, in full innocence, asked “Who had the large mouth? The fish or the fisherman?” She had never heard of a largemouth bass. But, considering the context of the story, it was a legitimate question. The group fell silent and stared. Someone then explained to her about the species of fish. While the story gets repeated because of...

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Waxed show art Waxed

Keepin' It Real with Cam Marston

On Keeping It Real this week, Cam reacts to Tuesday's presidential debate and shares something he's learned about himself in the recent years.  ----- Trump got waxed Tuesday night. Wow, did he get waxed. I watched the debate not knowing what to expect but man, to me, he got crushed. Trump later proclaimed it his best debate performance ever. He was outgunned. In hindsight, he never stood a chance. The pundits downplayed his shellacking. They emphasized some of the points he made but largely overlooked how badly he performed. Fox News was doing cartwheels to find something to like about...

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Gettin' Lucky show art Gettin' Lucky

Keepin' It Real with Cam Marston

Cam's back from his one month sabbatical and creating commentaries again. This one he simply calls Gettin' Lucky. ----- Dr Suchan Shenoy is one of the regulars at Restaurant Five in Tuscaloosa on Saturday mornings. I join the regulars when I’m in town visiting my son who is a sophomore at the University. Dr Shenoy is an OBGYN at the DCH Hospital there. He and I sat together and we made some small talk. I don’t know any of the regulars well, but I enjoy their company when I’m in town. Dr Shenoy could relate to my situation. I was a new guy sitting amongst a group of old friends in their...

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Really? show art Really?

Keepin' It Real with Cam Marston

On this week's Keepin' it Real, Cam Marston wonders if we prefer entertainment to anything of substance. And frets over the consequences. ----- I hope everyone had a nice July Fourth holiday. On July 4th, 1776, the Declaration of Independence was officially adopted and signed. It has proven to be one of the most influential documents in world history, generating demands for independence and self-rule across the world. Eleven years later, in 1787, the US Constitution was created and was then ratified about a year later. The energy and enthusiasm and aspirations of these two documents propelled...

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The Roost is Full show art The Roost is Full

Keepin' It Real with Cam Marston

The roost is full at Cam's house. And on this week's Keepin' It Real, Cam shares that it may never be this way ever again. ----- My wife and I had thought our summer would be quiet and a bit boring. Two of our four children would be living away and the other two would be at home but either working during the day, away at camp for a few weeks, or playing sports. Plans changed, though, and they’re all back home for the summer. Our house is packed. The roost is full. Our four kids are between the ages of twenty-one and seventeen and they’re all living at home until the fall when my two...

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My wife and I were at Bama Bound this week for my son's college orientation.

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I am oriented. It’s official. My wife, my son, and I spent a day and a half in Tuscaloosa this week at Bama Bound – the school’s orientation for students and parents. Roll Tide! Or as my wife says “Rowl Tihhhdee, yall”. We heard a lot of that these past few days. I attended out of curiosity to see what a parent’s college orientation includes. Here’s my review. And since this commentary broadcasts from the University of Alabama, if you’re hearing it, it cleared the censors:

First, the director of campus security assured us there are many ways our cherub-like son could get arrested. He listed them all. There is no shortage. One included domestic violence from parents and children fist fighting on move-in day due to disagreements over dorm décor. Apparently, it’s happened. I’ll need to remember that in August when we move him in.

Next, there are 687 different student organizations including ones for watching Disney movies together and another made up of guys who gather solely to discuss trucks. “Rahwl Tidde.”

At one point in the business school session with my son, I suggested that this degree sure sounds like a lot of work and maybe we should just go to the book store buy a degree. He shook his head. Rolled his eyes.

I learned I must get my son’s permission to see his grades and to see where he’s spending our money. As the parent, the bill payer, the bailer-outer, the “hey, what’s going at school-er”, I’m not allowed to see his grades or how our money is being spent without his permission due to privacy laws.

In a parent’s only session, we had a group of students there to take any random questions we had. The room had some super-moms and Karens and some super-dads and we’ll call them Darrens. Super Karens and Super Darrens ran the show. They asked questions that I had never considered. We had to cut the session short. Suffice it to say that there are parents leaving no part of their children’s college experience for the children to enjoy or figure out on their own.

There is a part of me that wants to know where my son is and what he’s doing when he heads off to Tuscaloosa in August. There is another part that wants him to discover much of it on his own. For him to solve some problems and tell me about them when he comes home. So, somewhere between knowing everything and knowing nothing may be the Goldilocks zone. May be just right.

Leaving the event I stopped in the campus bookstore. There is nothing on God’s green planet that cannot be branded with an Alabama logo. At the register in a big cardboard bin were blank diplomas and a Sharpie marker. I’m now have a Doctorate in Average Parenting and he has a double MBA with a concentration in College Football. All for forty bucks. I’m going to display mine in my office and hold his until he gets that other degree in, I hope, four-ish years. 

I’m Cam Marston and I’m just Keepin’ It Real. Rahl Tyde!