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...
info_outline
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...
info_outline
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...
info_outline
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...
info_outline
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_outline
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...
info_outline
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...
info_outline
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...
info_outline
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...
info_outline
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...
info_outlineMardi Gras ended Tuesday for Cam. Immediately following Mardi Gras is the beginning of Lent and Cam struggles with what sacrifices he should make.
-----
Lent. I struggle with Lent every year. How much suffering is enough to prepare my soul for the Easter arrival of the Lord? Is there enough? Who knows. There’s always someone suffering more; someone taking it to the next level.
As a child it was ice cream. I gave up ice cream every year and dutifully reported it to my religion teacher as the assignment instructed. I love ice cream, vanilla especially. In fact, I’ve created an association called the Vanilla Ice Cream Eaters of America Social Aide and Pleasure Club. It’s known by its acronym: VICEA. Our motto is “It comes from Udder Space” and our logo shows a scoop of vanilla with Saturn rings around it and a Holstein cow walking across it. We’ve had a Facebook page since 2008 edited by Holt Stein. It has fifteen members.
However, I don’t eat vanilla like I used to. It’s gotten expensive. That plus my waist size. Giving up ice cream is, well, too easy. I love the stuff but giving it up wouldn’t equate to enough suffering.
A friend from long ago gave up everything containing wheat for lent. Everything. That’s a lot of stuff. She had to pay close attention to everything she ate. Anything with flour. All beer. Bunches of stuff. She was the same person who kept a bowl of peanut M&Ms at her front door and allowed herself one M&M per day. No more. I eat peanut M&Ms by the double fist full. If they’re in front of me, I eat them. I can’t stop. She had a degree of self-control that is unrelatable.
Another friend gave up alcohol a few years ago. However, he had devised a chart of “skip days” where he could drink. He explained all this over a beer during Lent, by the way. His skip days were quite frequent, and it appeared to the rest of us like they related to the days that he wanted a drink. I was not impressed with his Lenten suffering. Mainly because there wasn’t any.
The good book says we’re created in the image of the Lord. So, imagine hearing prayers saying “I’m planning to remember a big event in your life in about forty days. To prepare properly, I’m implementing things to temporarily remove joy from my life.” I’d say, “Wait. Pardon me? Say that again. Is that what I’m supposed to want from you?”
One year I tried to drink more water for lent. The health effects of more water and all that but it’s not the same. The gest of lent is giving up something you enjoy.
And I’m not sure what to think about it. All the hard-fast black and white rules that I learned as a child have faded into grey. I wish they hadn’t. I knew the rules, I followed the rules, and I counted on the rules to take care of me. It was easier following and never questioning. Now, I question. A lot. And, believe it or not, it’s made me a better follower.
However, I still don’t know what to do about lent.
I’m Cam Marston and I’m just trying to Keep It Real.