Matt Gordon's Blog, page 6

Parents Suing Over Baby-Swap at Birth

Jakimo, WA. – An elderly couple is suing a hospital—and others—after finding out that their child actually went home with another couple 29 years ago. Brandon Stearns, the boy Jim and Becky Stearns raised like their own, actually belonged to a couple from Seattle, Gus and Tina Harris, who left Jakimo County Hospital with the Stearns’ bundle of joy.

All this surfaced after the Stearns’ initiated a DNA test in order to finally put to rest a lingering suspicion.

“Yeah,” said Jim, “We always sort o...

Lifeless yet Living Life

Reality is no more.

We’ve decided to be done with it.

Take what we’ve done to waiting. No one likes to wait much, so we did away with it, creating little pocket robots that divert us from waiting to playing or texting or working. We wait no more.

And with that, I wonder what we miss? Waiting surely produces amazing things. We learn about people while waiting—for the very best people-watching is forced people-watching, had sitting at the DMV or sprawled in delayed-flight-anticipation at the airpo...

A Day Like Many Before It

“To be grateful is to recognize the Love of God in everything He has given us–and He has given us everything. Every breath we draw is a gift of His love, every moment of existence is a grace, for it brings with it immense graces from Him. Gratitude therefore takes nothing for granted, is never unresponsive, is constantly awakening to new wonder and to praise of the goodness of God. For the grateful person knows that God is good, not by hearsay but by experience.And that is what makes all the...

I Will Stop at Nothing

I moved to a new town recently that is like no other town, at least as far as I know. This town has restaurants like most the towns I’ve lived in. It has a mall, a theater, and a library—sadly frequented in that order. People here live in apartments or homes or trailers, just like everywhere else. In most every way this town is like every other—my mailman even waved at me the other day.

But in one way it is different.

In this town, a red light means nothing.

I noticed something was off my first...

Chasm to Absurdity

The chasm to absurdity is widening. It has been there forever, this rift in societal behavior—but now it is growing exponentially each day, aided on by social media forums.

The problem is a lurching paradox. At its root is the fact that morality is shifting one way. Our values are not rigid uniformities anymore, but flowing interpretations. Everyone can believe whatever it is they choose, and in this way, we collectively, as a society, believe very little. We’ve gone from black and white to sl...

You Just Never Know

You just never know.

Lately, I’ve been writing a lot less. My life situation changed, and with it some habits as well. In my previous life, my wife went to bed early, and I’d stay up late. These lonely-owl hours suited nighttime dance and writing sessions, a perfect time for finding oneself dizzy in words.

But then we moved, and for whatever reason, I beat my wife to bed on most nights. The time for writing has been there sure—we always say there “isn’t enough time” to do this or that, but ther...

My Very Sanity Fleeting

Each day around 2:30, I receive a mysterious phone call. It is from an unknown number, and again, it is very, very mysterious.

I do not know who this person is on the other line, and apparently, after the brief delay and then the recorded message telling me that this call may be monitored for quality control purposes, they make it known that they do not know me either.

“Is Ricky Chestin available?” the female voice, very Nebraskan with a twinge of old India mixed in, questions.

I pause.

The voice...

The Current 2013 St. Louis Cardinals Mighty Duck (original version) Personas

To win Game 6 (and keep a shot at being champs alive), the Cards must become the Ducks. The Ducks must become the Cards. The two must fly along together, indistinguishable from each other and united by the victory clenched tightly in their beaks.

Mike Matheny- He must motivate like Gordon Bombay. Maybe he should get a duck call? Whatever shtick he employs, he must remember: There are no more games after the World Series . . . There is no need to save arms. He needs to tell the boys to go out t...

The Highs and Lows of Sports and the Cardinals Losing the World Series

When your favorite team loses a World Series game, it can be a devastating thing. Though the St. Louis Cardinals’ futile October offense was unable to mount an inspirational comeback, I took some solace in the performance of one of my other favorite teams.

Following the Cards game, I was feeling macabre and decided to go to bed and dream dark, dark dreams, but then I saw that one of my other favorite teams had a game on TV so I flipped over timidly—I was afraid it would just be more heartbreak...

Turning on the Safety

I hope to be a parent someday. And that hope brings on another—I hope I’m not a tyrant like my own parents were to me.

Oh sure, they got lucky on a few things—“Don’t touch the stove!” and “Get down off that roof right now, young man!”—but generally their “advice” was a needless power trip.

One of the most ridiculous regulations they imposed was a strict gun ban. There were no guns in our house, and even our water guns had to be splattered with bright cartoonish paint so as to not resemble a rea...