Warriors
Keepin' It Real with Cam Marston
Warriors need to be praised. ----- Young men have always been warriors. They’d go fight the battles while the elders sat around the campfire. The elders decided if fighting was the right thing and when and how to do it. The warriors executed the plan. When they returned, they were glorified for their success, or they were coddled in their loss. Either way, they were praised for their efforts. Most old men don’t seek glory like young men do. Something happens after about forty years old, where glory no longer drives behavior. Old men prefer instruction and guidance. Not glory. Learning from...
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Gettin' Through it Together
Keepin' It Real with Cam Marston
It's been a tough few weeks. This commentary offers no specifics, but I've learned some things. ----- Many years ago, my neighbor in Charlotte, North Carolina knocked on my door one weekday afternoon. His wife had just told him she’s leaving. She climbed her car and drove away. He was dumbstruck and he needed to talk. My wife and I had just moved in. I hardly knew him. I didn’t know what to say or what to do. I froze. To my everlasting shame, I rushed our conversation so he’d stop making ME feel uncomfortable. I realized years later he was crying out for help and I failed him. I know...
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North
Keepin' It Real with Cam Marston
My wife and I were headed to a cocktail reception where we knew no one. "This is an opportunity," I said. ----- My wife and I were driving to a short cocktail reception full of people we’d never met. Most of them knew one another. Us? Not a soul. This is an opportunity, I said. Let’s run with it. I proposed that she and I create a story for ourselves. Pick a personality and a background and a job. We’ll create something bordering on sensational and come up with a few very specific details that will make whomever we talk to truly wonder. About us. About whether we’re telling the truth....
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Burning Our Brains
Keepin' It Real with Cam Marston
The heat's cooked our brains. ------ The heat’s taken its toll. It’s been unrelenting. Brutal. The greenery looks weary. The grass dries and turns brown within hours of any moisture. My car thermometer regularly reads around 110 and I saw online that it feels much hotter. We need a break. We need relief. My dog looks at me and says “No way I’m walking on that street. That street will burn my feet right off” and she’s right. It's affecting us mentally. We’re budding on crazy. It’s cooked our brains. Recent headlines are all you need to see. A lady in Birmingham faked her...
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Crossing
Keepin' It Real with Cam Marston
Last week I danced in front of a train to try to get it to move. ----- Trains have always held great symbolic meaning. They represent the future, a new destination, an opportunity. In movies, the characters board trains in the hopes of greater things down the tracks. Lovers tearfully depart at train stations. Though tragic it’s what’s best for each of them. Bandits of the wild west knew there was a strong box on a train full of money. Convicts break out of jail and if they can make it to the train it will take them away from the misery of prison. Songs, too. The Midnight Special. Midnight...
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Caricature
Keepin' It Real with Cam Marston
This week I take an imaginary walk through Jackson Square in New Orleans and ask a caricature artist to draw me something...different. ----- There are sections of our society that have become parodies of themselves. Once proud, they’re now laughable forms of their former self. Imagine this: You’re walking through the New Orleans French Quarter. You stop at one of the caricature artists on Jackson Square. You say, “Hey Mr Caricature artist. I don’t want a picture of me. I want you to draw a picture of, let’s say, today’s country music.” That caricature artist would draw...
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Thirty Years
Keepin' It Real with Cam Marston
After thirty years of the same family tradition - I give some thought to the future. ----- For the thirtieth year in a row my SUV left my garage headed for the North Carolina Coast the second to last Saturday in July. If we weren’t in it, it would go by itself. It’s what we do. It’s what the car does. And it was packed tight with everything from fishing gear, to bed sheets, to food, to 150 oysters in the shell on ice, two cakes from Bake My Day, and a case of get-along juice, also known as wine. My in-laws have rented a house on Ocean Isle Beach in North Carolina every summer and we are...
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Bunge
Keepin' It Real with Cam Marston
She hopped to the edge of the platform, raised her arms, and jumped. ----- The video opened on my phone and my daughter was leaping off a bridge and falling out of the frame. It took my breath away. I watched it again and texted her. “Since you sent this to me,” I said, “I assume you survived the fall?” “Yea,” she texted back. “It was awesome.” She’s in South Africa as I write this. She’s spent the month there with a student group called Lead Abroad. It’s a one-month trip where she and about thirty others study leadership and communication skills while experiencing the...
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Coffee with Milo
Keepin' It Real with Cam Marston
A cup of coffee with a friend and a few strangers was a wonderful start to a great day not long ago. ----- I’d like to say Hello to Randy Fowler. On Friday mornings he’s in his car on his way to the Restaurant Five in downtown Tuscaloosa with his dog Milo. He’s a regular listener to these commentaries and he reached out to me a few years ago when he liked one to offer a compliment. Turns out Randy’s daughter, Julie Otts, lives a few doors down from me here in Mobile. It’s a small world. Randy and I have visited a few times when he’s in town to visit his daughter, son-in-law, and...
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Tinkle Bell
Keepin' It Real with Cam Marston
I have an idea for a business. Make up words customers can't understand then upcharge 75%. ----- I think our dog is constipated. She rung her tinkle bell early early in the morning to go outside and she just roamed around the yard in a hurry with her nose down. I have no idea if this is what a constipated dog looks like. I’m assuming that’s her issue. She appears to want to do something but…can’t. The tinkle bell hangs next to the back door. The dog rings it with her nose when she needs to go out. In the wee hours my wife or I stand bleary-eyed in the door waiting for her to do her...
info_outlineListener's responses from my request last week:
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To the many of you who pulled your Subaru’s over last week and emailed me, thank you. For those who don’t know, I had a stroke about two weeks ago and am, thankfully, ok. I walked out of intensive care about twenty-four hours later. Other than a fistful of pills every day, I’m back to normal. And as I said last week, it was close and I got lucky.
My request last week was what does this all mean? I got very close, received an enormous outpouring of support, and got stuck on the question, “What’s it all mean?”
The emails from listeners had three consistent themes: gratitude, the small things, and people.
Lara Shows emailed to say “find joy in every day even in the mundane things” which I tried to put to use in the Atlanta airport Sunday with a delayed flight. I watched the planes come and go, tried to enjoy it versus getting upset about the delay.
Lawrence Hughey of Mobile and I exchanged a few emails. He wrote “all of us are surrounded everyday by blessings and miracles but we don’t see them. Our vision is faulty and limited. But for you,” Lawrence continued, “I’m betting your vision is greatly improved at this point.” And it is, Lawrence, and I hope to never lose that vision and I know I have to work to keep it.
There was Andrew Willis who works at Alabama Public Radio. He began as an intern where one of his first jobs was learning to edit audio content and used my commentaries years ago as practice. He’s now the Assistant Program Director and Radio Producer. His message: “It’s not about the lifestyle changes that you need to make, but the relationships you have with people. Set aside more time for those relationships. That’s where you really make a difference.”
Andrew, I don’t know if I make a difference or not, but I do remember lying on that table in the hospital and telling my wife I’m not ready to die yet. The imagine in my head was of my children and how badly I want to watch them grow up and celebrate all the chapters in their life that lie ahead. I’m not ready to acquiesce that dream yet. And I’ve made some subtle changes with them already.
In the movie It’s A Wonderful Life, George Bailey’s guardian angel, Clarence, says, “You’ve been given a great gift George: A chance to see what the world would look like without you.” I was not given that gift, but I the stroke I had two weeks ago was a big scare. And I’m going to decide it was a gift and see what I can do differently going forward to try to make a difference.
My doctors told me to take it easy but get back to living. And all this rumination on life and such along with waves of emotion have been exhausting and they’ve left me feeling a bit melancholy. I’m ready to take my newfound lessons and move forward, renewed.
If you offered thoughts for me, I can’t thank you deeply enough. Truly, thank you.
Now, let’s get going.
I’m Cam Marston and I’m just trying to Keep It Real.