Ace Wisdom

Usually I give my Dad credit for instilling many value systems that have become part of my life.
My mother rarely gets mentioned for wisdom. She got dealt a difficult hand in life. She persevered after my Dad died and raised her four children without ever complaining. She was a bright lady. In high school she got straight “A’s”.
Where am I going with all of this? When I got one of my promotions at Vollrath years ago, my mother mailed to me at work a printed message mounted in a glass covered picture frame. It was her advice to me. It was the only printed information I can ever remember her giving me.
The framed gift was the first paragraph of the Serenity Prayer. It goes:
“God grant me the SERENITY to accept the things I cannot change,
COURAGE to change the things I can,
and the WISDOM to know the difference.”
For those of you familiar with the prayer, it contains more paragraphs and you can read them if you do the research. Her framed prayer only contained the first paragraph.
I placed that prayer on my office wall (of every job I held). I sometimes tried to remember the phrase verbatim when I was away from the office and I’d get it all screwed up. The essence always stuck with me that there are things you can’t change and you need to know when to let those things go. I think I have been pretty good at that but even I struggle at times.
I watched a program on Primetime the other night called the “The Last Lecture”. It was about a middle aged man diagnosed with a fatal illness lecturing his family, friends and “the world” about positive principles to live by. He referenced the Serenity Prayer. He accepted that he could not change his fate but he could try to make life better for all those who loved him.
My Mother taught me that. It is amazing how smart Moms can be.
The lesson Grasshoppers is that you need to chill out about things you can’t change and change only the things you can. You will avoid getting your shorts in a bunch. It is amazing how often the Serenity Prayer keeps appearing in my life. Hmmmmmm!
Love,
Dad

If you are not a sports “affectionado”, this blog will probably bore you. Well, get over it! I do think that there are lessons to be learned in sports that can be translated to everyday life.
First, the Milwaukee Brewers finally have a competitive ball club. As much as I dislike their high prices and extortion fees for food and memoriabilia, they do have reasonable entertainment. It has been a long time since I memorized batting averages of several players on the ball club. In the 1950’s, I could tell you the current averages and home run totals of Henry Aaron and Eddie Mathews. Now I memorize Prince Fielder and Ryan Braun. I guess my “roots” back to baseball have something to do with it.
Second, the golf season officially kicks off this week with the Master’s Golf Tournament. This is the ultimate in snob appeal because Augusta National Golf Course is private and the members list reads like a “Who’s who” in business. People like Warren Buffet, the richest person in the world belongs to a golf course he probably never uses. It is not about golf. It is about creating a place in the world that every golfer dreams about. So I will watch as 150 of the world’s best golfers try to carve out their piece of their personal snob appeal. Tiger Woods is favored. His secret is that he is the best putter on the planet. Can golf season be far away?
I watched Kansas eek out an overtime win over Memphis in the NCAA Championship game. The lessons are that people perform differently under pressure. Some people excel. Some people tighten up. There are plenty of “brain farts” to go around as decisions have to be made in the heat of battle. Does it get any better?
And then, if you like sports and you are a guy, this gift would interest you. It is the ultimate. The New York Yankees are building a new stadium and it will be completed by year end. The original stadium was built in 1923 and witnessed the likes of Babe Ruth, Joe Dimagio, Lou Gerhig, Mickey Mantle, Roger Maris and many others. They are going to auction off the memoriabilia from the old stadium. If you bought the urinal from the Yankees locker room (probably cost over $10,000) and install it in your bathroom, you could claim to pee where many greats have in the past. My Dad would say “if you run with the tall dogs, you have to pee like the big dogs”. So if you had the Yankee urinal, everytime you went to the bathroom you would be “standing tall”.
There aren’t many meaningful lessons here Grasshoppers. Just enjoy the entertainment.
Love,
Dad

You will all be getting a check from the Federal Government in May or June that is part of the tax stimulus package. You can actually go to the IRS website (www.irs.gov) and do a calculation to determine how much you will get. If you do the calculation, have a copy of your recently filed federal tax forms available. Good luck.
I keep hearing how inflation is under control and estimates range from 2% to 5% per year. “My world” seems different. I pulled into the gas station this morning and the customer before me had put in slightly over 22 gallons of gas (must have been a Suburban) and the total bill came to $77. For me, that was sticker shock. Market statistics show gas prices being up $.75/gallon from one year ago. That is a 30% price hike. Hello! The argument is that gas only represents a small part of your total budget (6%). In my world I am spending over $1,000/year additionally on gasoline.
I can be lulled into believing that gasoline price increases are really insignificant. What is this? Independent truckers across the country are waging a “slowdown protest” because they are going broke with high diesel prices. My world says that freight rates are going to go up and be passed on though higher prices of goods that are hauled. Ah, I shouldn’t be concerned because freight is such a small part of the price of goods. Yeah, right!
Then I hear that corn prices and the products they go into will increase 20-30% this year. We have learned how to convert corn into ethanol for gasoline and our government mandates using the ethanol. It has also been reported that farmers are going to plant 10% less corn this year because soybeans represent higher profit. Let me see! Now we have higher food prices and higher gas prices.
Have you checked your electric bill lately. It is increasing at least 8-10% per year and higher rate requests have been proposed. In my world, that is real money.
In my world, I am paying more for almost everything. I don’t see that changing unless we have a really bad recession.
My advice Grasshoppers is manage your budget really well!
Maybe I just don’t understand! Maybe “my world” isn’t real.
Love,
Dad

Tomorrow, April 2 is your Mom and My wedding anniversary.
There are a lot of jokes I could make about marriage but they all are flippant ways of avoiding getting serious about 48 years together.
It was meant to be! Being together seemed right. You Mom and I always had the same dreams of family, home and a successful career. The dreams have been exceeded.
Your Mom has always been the center of the family. She has solid core values and has passed those along to Grasshoppers and Grandchildren. She was the strength when I could not always be there.
So without being too mushy, I have to thank her for 48 years (actually many more) of travel down life’s path. I wouldn’t trade any of them.
With so many people getting divorces and commitments lasting a nano second, I can only say that I always felt that my relationship with your Mom was always “meant to be”. A sincere thank you to her for always being there.
Love,
Dad

Grasshopper No. 1 gave us a copy of the DVD “The Longest Yard” recently. Ray Nitschke was in the movie. He plays a mean spirited linebacker on a Prison Guards football team (no front teeth and all). He meets his match when the quarterback (Burt Reynolds) throws a football into his groin and renders him unconcious.
It dawns on me that I have never talked about meeting Ray Nitschke, one of the most famous Green Bay Packer players from the 1960’s dynasty. People would stand in line for hours to get Ray’s autograph and to shake his hand.
I want you to know that your Mom and I got to spend personal time with Ray. Grasshopper No.4 had met Amy Nitschke while taking a class at the Fox Valley Techical College and the Nitschke’s had requested a chance to meet our family (in the early 1990’s). One evening, while we were living on Greenfield Street, Ray and his wife, Jackie came to visit.
Your Mom and Jackie ended up in one room and “us” guys in another. I was watching Indiana (coached by Bobby Knight) on TV smash some Big 10 foe when he arrived. We had an instant connection because Ray knew Bobby personally.
What do I remember about our encounter? I remember a friendly, gentle balding man with huge hands. His hands were massive (somewhat like Grandpa George’s). He wasn’t as big as I thought. I think he was on all 5 Lombardi coached Packer NFL Championship teams of the 60’s. He talked more about growing up in Chicago and playing fullback on his high school football team than the Packers. He went to the University of Illinois where the transition to linebacker took place.
7-8 years after our encounter, Ray Nitschke died at the early age of 61. I guess the years of physical abuse and perhaps cigar smoking took its toll. I’m sure that Ray would not lament about an early death. He would celebrate the fairy tale life he had led. He became a legend.
How many people can say they had a legend as a guest in their house? Hey! Living in Wisconsin? Having a personal connection with the Green Bay Packers? Then getting to walk with greatness? Does it get any better? My regret is that I didn’t get a picture but it didn’t seem appropriate to ask at the time.
Is being a Green Bay Packer stockholder great or what?
Love,
Dad

It has been 50 years since I graduated from High School. 1958! That means that our class of old fogies is featured at the June celebration of alumni.
Part of me says it would be nice to revisit people that I grew up with but I remember them as they were 50 years ago. I might not want to disturb those memories. Another part of me says it would be really interesting to see how everyone’s life turned out. I know that 21 classmates out of a graduating class of 128 are deceased.
Saturday morning I was home minding my own business when a classmate from the 50’s called to determine if your Mom and I were planning on attending the June reunion.
The voice was Richard Shovan, a twin to Roger Shovan (now deceased). The Shovan family ran a restaurant in the building that Grandpa George bought on Mill street and used as his shop until he retired. I would walk 2 blocks down Mill Street in Plymouth each morning and pick up Richard and Roger on the way to school. Richard’s Mom would greet me at the restaurant door and give me a hug (she weighed over 300 pounds but she was a delight). Sometimes I made her chase me around the kitchen before she got the hug. She always said she wanted to adopt me. Richard’s Mom and Dad were killed in a car accident when he was 13-14 years old. The restaurant closed and Richard and Roger had to live with sisters and ultimately with a close Aunt and Uncle all through High School. It obviously changed their lives. I played basketball with Richard all through High School.
Richard went on a class exchange trip as a senior with 30-40 Plymouth students (along with your Mom) to some place in Louisiana (in exchange, 30-40 students from Louisiana came to Plymouth). He made many friends on the trip and ended up going to college and marrying someone from Louisiana. His field of endeavor was social work, maybe because he was sympathetic for people that had been dealt a “tough hand” in life.
I got to travel down memory lane for almost an hour. Richard’s voice sounds similar to what I remember. Then, only as I can do, I indicated that we were certainly considering going to the reunion (notice I didn’t commit). I have to admit it was a “blast from the past”.
I’m not real good at lamenting about what might have been in the past. You can’t change it anyway. The real lesson Grasshoppers is enjoy the moment (it will soon be the past) and keep looking ahead. Dreams are the essence of life!
Love,
Dad

Spring arrived on Thursday. The snowstorm arrives on Friday (today). What the hell?
Madison (home of Grasshopper No. 2) is in the middle of the path of snow. The forecast is for 8-10 inches. The irony is that kids are off school anyway because of Good Friday so kids do not get to experience another “snow day”.
Also Easter coming on the 23rd is one of the earliest possible dates. It won’t occur again this early for over 200 years (probably not in my lifetime). The earliest possible date is Mar. 22 which happens once every 250 years. So snow this Easter is somewhat a result of it’s early date.
Grassshopper No. 4 and I have picked teams in the NCAA basketball tournament for all the brackets and the winner gets a big time prize. I picked 15 games right yesterday (out of 16) and Grasshopper No. 4 picked 14 games right. By my calculation I am winning. Just a side note. The one game I picked wrong was Marquette, my alma mater. I predicted Marquette would lose to Kentucky and they didn’t. Go figure!
So rejoice. Spring is here. Easter is Sunday. Good weather is on the way. Be happy.
Have a nice Easter!
Love,
Dad