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...
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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...
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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. ...
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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...
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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...
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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,...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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_outlineCam 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.
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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 before we met. It was a stroke after midnight on July 13th, 1991, and she was on Franklin Street in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Her declaration was not made atop a bar stool. She was greeted by cheers from her friends and was bought a round of drinks.
In both instances, our parents were not there. And, in both instances no evidence exists that any of it ever happened.
Monday night in Oxford, Mississippi, I was with my favorite oldest daughter in a bar called The Summit. All her crowd was there plus more. She and her friends who had turned twenty-one over the Christmas break banded together to celebrate. My wife and I were invited. We were, in fact, encouraged to come. Decorators created an Instagram-able background including a balloon-arch and streamers. There was a platter of cupcakes in the shape of 21.
Picture books were created for each of the birthday girls. The girls wore bawdy signs around their necks for the night. After a couple hours, my wife and I sensed the tide turning, the energy increasing, and a bar full twenty-one-year-olds were about to begin doing what bars full of twenty-one-year old’s do. My wife and I paid our part of the tab, hugged our daughter, posed for countless photos with her, and got the hell out of there. This is a low estimate, but approximately 55 million billion photos were taken in the two hours of the party.
This is not the way I would have wanted it, I kept thinking to myself. But the truth is, I didn’t have a pocket full of magic back in 1990. While it was her celebration, the cell phone and its camera, this magical device, drove the show.
I read somewhere that today mankind takes more photos in one day than we did from the invention of the camara roughly two hundred years ago to today.
The picture books she was given were made quickly compared to what it would have taken back in 1990 – imagine developing 35mm film, duplicates, photo booths. The sign she wore was full of images, printed as a whole, and laminated. It certainly took some effort, but simple compared to what it would have taken back in the day.
As much as I wanted to flinch, she and her whole party were a reflection of what technology has created. A natural consequence. Said another way, while I’d like to think differently, had the technology been available, I would have probably wanted the same. But I am indeed happy my parents weren’t there. And I am indeed very happy no evidence remains.
I’m Cam Marston and I’m just trying to Keep It Real.