Matthew Dicks's Blog, page 21

My surprise Eagle Scout award

Back in October 2024, I completed an Eagle Scout project 36 years in the making.

A near-fatal car accident derailed my Eagle Scout project in December of 1988. Still in the hospital, I asked my parents to request an extension since I would be turning 18 soon and would be too old to earn the award.

I was told the request was denied. In all likelihood, my parents never submitted that request.

As a result, my childhood dream of becoming an Eagle Scout came to an end, just one service project short of completion.

Last year, I decided to finally complete that project by cleaning a cemetery in Newington, CT, where my family and I live.

It was the same project I had planned before going head-first through a windshield on a snowy afternoon.

Nearly 50 friends, neighbors, strangers, students, and Scouts from Clara and Charlie’s troop came to help me clean the moss, lichen, and dirt from headstones. We spent most of the day working hard and having fun. I hoped that by completing the project, I might finally find some relief from the regret I have felt all my life.

I wanted to be an Eagle Scout more than anything. Scouting meant the world to me. Coming so close  — the completion of a simple service project — only to miss out because of a head-on collision one day before Christmas has been a difficult pill to swallow.

The biggest regret of my life.

Completing my service project that day was a joy. Having my family alongside me made it all the better. Though the regret still lingers and the desire to become an Eagle Scout still burns bright, it was a good day that I hoped would eventually bring me some peace.

Then something unexpected happened.

Aaron Derr, a writer for Scouting’s official online magazine, found out about my project through a friend and wrote an article about my efforts.

On the day it was published, I found a gift bag and a card on my front stoop. When I opened it, I found a note inside from a man named Wade.

It read:

Dear Matthew,

I was touched by the wonderful words, written about you, by Aaron Derr. I posted my comments online.

Please accept my Eagle Scout Award (1971). I have no child to pass it on to. You deserve it now, and it gives me great joy to leave it with you.

As for your life, you were blessed by the greatest Scout of all Scouts.

God Bless you and your family.

Wade

Inside the bag was a small, black case. In that case was Wade’s Eagle Scout medal, pin, and tie clip — all awarded to him in the same year I was born.

Needless to say, I wept.

I wept a lot.

I was also sure that I could not accept such an incredible gift. Having dreamed of becoming an Eagle Scout all my life, I couldn’t think about accepting another man’s award.

So I wrote to Wade, thanking him for his generosity and telling him how much his gesture meant to me. I also explained how I felt wrong about keeping his award and insisted he allow me to return it.

Wade would have none of it. He wrote back, insisting I keep it and offering to take a walk with me once the weather improves.

It turns out Wade was once a pole vaulter, too, like me.

We have a lot in common.

So, sitting on my desk at this very moment is an Eagle medal, still in its case, waiting for the day I will try again to return this award to the man who earned it. I suspect I will return home with the award, which I will cherish always.

When I decided to complete my Eagle Scout project 36 years after I first began it, I had hoped to rid myself of some of my regrets for an unfinished job and a dream deferred.

Instead, I found kindness, generosity, and a spirit of brotherhood that I never expected.

Life can sometimes offer us the most glorious of surprises.

I’ve also had several people inform me that, given my circumstances, a path to Eagle Scout might still be available to me, and some have already petitioned Scouting leaders to consider my case.

I may pursue that route someday, but not until I walk into the woods with a man who did something unthinkably kind and miraculously generous for me first.

I can’t wait to shake his hand and thank him personally for what he has done for me.

Americans support gay people.

Good news:

Despite some recently louder-than-usual bigots and the buffet-style religious zealots, it’s important to note that LGBTQ+ rights remain remarkably popular in the United States.

In every single state, a majority of people now back same-sex marriage.

Given what the world was like just two or three decades ago, that is astounding.

Of course, 100% of Americans should support same-sex marriage (and same-sex relationships), but until we can cure stupidity and blind adherence to cruel and ignorant authority figures, that is unlikely.

Still, the news is good.

Even states that once had seen high levels of opposition to same-sex marriage (a polite way of saying high levels of bigotry) now have a majority of residents outright supporting same-sex marriage, including Oklahoma (50 percent), West Virginia (51 percent), and Louisiana (52 percent).

Overall, 67 percent of Americans favor the right to same-sex marriage.

Only 29 percent oppose it.

Equally encouraging:

Despite recent decisions made by conservative judges and actions by the bigoted and ignorant Trump administration, 75 percent of Americans now favor nondiscrimination laws for LGBTQ people as of 2024.

Remarkably, that 75 percent ratio holds across almost every age, demographic, and gender.

This information comes from the Public Religion Research Institute, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization dedicated to conducting independent research at the intersection of religion, culture, and public policy.

Their latest report is filled with fascinating data that show that the country is more accepting of the LGBTQ community than ever before.

Happy days. Lots of work to still be done, but let’s take a victory lap. We need as many of those as we can get.

Here’s one more bit of data that caught my eye:

White evangelical protestants are now more tolerant of immoral behavior by elected officials than the average American.

The holier-than-thou, Bible-banging evangelicals have apparently turned their back on God and are now embracing the idea that the ends justify the means.

An immoral leader who gives them what they want is to be tolerated and supported.

Evil and villainy, when wrapped in their preferred social and economic policies, should be accepted.

A devil’s bargain is a good bargain.

More specifically:

An adulterous, convicted felon who has been held liable for sexual assault and admitted to repeatedly assaulting women and paid hush money after having sex with a porn star, who also separated immigrant children from their parents at the border and lies more often than any political figure in American history is a perfectly acceptable and preferred leader if he helps enact laws that favor our now-crumbling, compromised, and apparently meaningless belief system.

This means the average American — a group that includes atheists, Muslims, lesbians, Mormons, undocumented immigrants, transgender people, Democrats, bisexuals, and feminists (all groups of people who Evangelicals often oppose) — now possesses higher moral standards for their elected leaders than the group of people who made high moral standards their super brand for many years.

I guess we knew this based on recent voting patterns, but seeing this reality in the data is still a little astounding.

I found my kindergarten teacher

Something kind of amazing happened last week.After years of telling stories about my kindergarten teacher, Mrs. Dubois, I received an email from her.My former elementary school principal, Fred Hartnett, and I reconnected years ago after I told a story about him on the stage, and someone heard it and connected us. We’ve been exchanging messages ever since, and last week, he reconnected me with Mrs. Dubois, whom I remember well but could not locate.Not knowing her first name made it especially difficult.It’s Cora.Among other things, Mrs. Dubois wrote:“I can see you standing in line as we were ready to leave the room. You had a head full of darker-colored hair, and it was disheveled. You were quiet and well-behaved.”My students and my own children couldn’t believe it.“Quiet? Well behaved? A full head of hair? She must be remembering the wrong person!” my cruelest student spat.Being remembered at all by someone so important to me both then and now means the world to me.And I remember her and my kindergarten year so well, too.I wrote to Mrs. Dubois about my love of the Letter People — inflatable personifications of each letter of the alphabet. On one of the most exciting days of my life, she gave me Mr. R — with rubber bands for hair — when he needed to be replaced.I kept Mr. R for years.She wrote:“The Letter People! The children loved them, and I did, too, but they frequently had holes and deflated. I do remember giving them to the children who wanted them, and I’m glad that you enjoyed Mr. R with his Ripping Rubberbands.”I also wrote her about my love for recess and center time on the sun-dappled linoleum. I reminded her about the time she sent me to the corner for failing to clean up at the end of recess, determined to use every block to make my tower as high as possible,She apologized for punishing me in her email, but that moment changed my life. Before she sent me to the corner, I was terrified of being punished. I saw it as the worst possible thing that could ever happen to me. But while standing in that corner, beside the pencil sharpener and below the American flag, I came to realize that punishment is little more than an exchange of choice for time:I do what I want. In return, an authority figure might punish me by stealing some of my time.From that point on, my life became a constant balancing of that equation:Choice for time.I was suddenly able to do things I’d never done before:Break rules.
Push through barriers.
Bend norms.
Disregard authority.It was a defining moment of my life.I continue to operate by a similar equation today.I wrote to Mrs. Dubois about learning to tie my shoes — especially difficult being left-handed.I wrote about learning to read and acquiring a copy of my kindergarten basal reader last year.I wrote about the day math finally made sense to me. I was trying to solve problems in a math workbook that I can still see as clear as day in my mind’s eye. Ten turtles were on the page, and I was asked to draw a ring around them to make two equal groups.I remember being so confused. How could ten turtles be divided into two equal groups? Then Mrs. Dubois came over, drew a ring around five of them, and asked me to draw a ring around the other five.That was it. I suddenly understood. Ten is made of two fives. It sounds crazy, but I had never seen numbers as fungible in that way. It was the moment I understood that ten isn’t a singular, immutable number but a number comprised of other numbers.That was the moment math started making sense to me.Mrs. Dubois was surprised by how much I remembered from kindergarten—everything I wrote to her and so much more.I think she had a lot to do with it. Every morning, I entered a classroom where a teacher opened the world to me and made me feel safe and loved.How lucky I was to start my educational career at John F. Kennedy Elementary under the wise and gentle wing of Cora Dubois.

Nashville, baby!

When I took the Moth stage for the first time in July of 2011 to tell my first story, I thought it would be my one and only.

Tell a story. Create a memory. Move on.

I never expected that moment to change my life.

Since then, I’ve told stories in 110 Moth StorySLAMs and 37 GrandSLAMs, winning 61 and 9, respectively. I’ve performed on stages all over the country and around the world and delivered speeches at a dozen TEDx events.

But that was just the beginning.

Today, I work with Fortune 100 companies, nonprofits, Olympic athletes, venture capital firms, attorneys, banks, hospitals, clergy members, politicians, the FBI, and more. I help them tell better stories, communicate more effectively, sell more stuff, build more trust, motivate actions, and forge connections.

I also perform stand-up. I serve as a substitute minister for several Universalist Unitarian Churches. I officiate weddings. I’ve helped the Mowak nation of Canada to tell better stories.  Taught storytelling classes for dating. Worked with wildlife photographers to tell better stories in the photos they shoot. Taught storytelling at yoga retreat centers and universities like Yale, Harvard, MIT, and many more.

It’s so weird how a simple decision can redirect your life forever.

Charlie and I will be in Nashville on Saturday night for my latest adventure:

Music Night: Live from Nashville:

Songwriters of some of the music industry’s biggest hits will take the stage to perform their songs and tell stories about their creations.

I had the honor of offering the songwriters some advice on the stories they will be telling.

The show will be streaming live to select AMC Theaters on Saturday night— tonight! — if you’re reading this on the day it was published. If you see the show (and you should), you might see Charlie and me in the audience. I’ve been told that as in-studio audience members, we will likely be seen on screen as part of the show.

Charlie is very excited. Me, too.

A description of the show is thus:
______________________________

Discover the unknown songwriters behind radio’s biggest hits in this exclusive LIVE broadcast from Nashville!

Join host Bobby Bones (Radio, Podcast & TV Personality) as he takes you inside the Analog—one of Music City’s most intimate and sought-after listening rooms, for a special night of stories and songs in a rare performance by three of Nashville’s hottest songwriters who collectively have written more than 40 number-one songs recorded by 20 different artists, including some of the biggest names in country music and beyond: Carrie Underwood, Jellyroll, Reba McEntire, Keith Urban, Martina McBride, Kenny Chesney, Old Dominion, Jordan Davis, Brett Young, Trisha Yearwood, and many more!

Experience the magic of a Nashville Writer’s Round as you hear the inspiration and creative process from CMA and Grammy® award-winning hit songwriters whose work spans genres and generations in this incredible one-of-a-kind LIVE broadcast event.

Presented by the Nashville Music Network.
______________________________

Another unexpected, unforeseen, unbelievable turn of events led from a single night on a single stage 14 years ago.

A reminder to me and perhaps to you:

Get out. Say yes. Try new things. Do hard, scary things. Give the universe a chance to work its magic on your behalf.

“Most folks are as happy as they make up their minds to be.”

I love this quote.

It’s also not something Lincoln said, though it is constantly attributed to him. It was likely first expressed in a newspaper article about New Year’s resolutions in 1914, which credited Lincoln for reasons we will never know.

Regardless of who said it, it’s an excellent idea, smartly stated and deeply nuanced.

First, “Not Lincoln” says, “Most folks…”

This represents an acknowledgment that life sometimes punches you too damn hard to allow you to be happy, at least at the moment and perhaps for a while.

But most of the time, for most people, happiness is within our reach.

“Not Lincoln” also says that people are as happy “as they make up their minds to be.”

In other words, happiness is not easy or automatic. It’s not simple or uncomplicated.

Making up your mind to do something means taking action to make it happen.

You must make up your mind to be happy.

You must seek perspective. Strive for positivity. Engage in strategies like positive self-talk and meditation.

Exercise.
Set goals.
Prioritize sleep.
Embrace optimism.
Engage in altruism.
Eat a healthier diet.
Avoid gossip and gossipers.
Practice forgiveness when deserved.
Find and pursue hobbies and passions.
Limit your interactions with social media.
Spend quality time with friends and family members who don’t suck.

“Not Lincoln” doesn’t claim that happiness is simply a matter of choosing to be happy, though sometimes that may be true.

I suspect that, in many cases, happiness is simply a choice to see things through a more expansive, more transparent lens.

But other times, you must do the things to secure and guarantee your happiness.

Make up your mind to be happy, and most of the time, you will be happy.

I think Abraham Lincoln would agree.

The bad news and the very bad news about measles

The measles outbreak in Texas has now reached more than  150 cases, and for the first time in more than a decade, a child — unvaccinated — has died.

Almost all of the infected are children.

But the news is even worse.

Over the past decade, immunologists’ research has revealed that measles also destroys immune cells. As a result, even people who recover from the virus lose much of their immune memory and, therefore, the protection they had acquired from prior infections or vaccines against all the other childhood illnesses.

This leaves measles survivors more vulnerable to many other diseases for years afterward.

These victims may now face those childhood diseases, to which they lost immune protection, as older children, which puts them more at risk for complications.

Here’s the most frightening statistic of all:

Before vaccines were introduced, earlier measles infections may have been implicated in as many as half of all childhood deaths from all infectious diseases by destroying the body’s ability to defend against these diseases.

Measles is a Trojan Horse with bite. Not only might it kill you, but even if you survive, it’s going to kill all of your soldiers in the process, making it far more likely for you to lose the next war.

Oh, and in case you forgot:

Measles is one of the most transmissible diseases known to humanity, which makes it incredibly dangerous to unvaccinated children, which amounts to every single American child under the ages of four to six, when immunity from their booster kicks in.

Not only are unvaccinated children at risk, but also every vaccinated child who is waiting for their booster shot and the immunity it eventually confers.

So…

Thanks to a coalition of the stupid who refuse to vaccinate their children, outbreaks of one of the most transmittable diseases on the planet  — which we had essentially conquered prior to the rise of vaccine stupidity — are on the rise, threatening the lives of every single American child under the age of four to six with illness, death, and the threat of future disease and death as well.

One child is already dead.

But fear not. The Secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert Kennedy, is in charge, and he has assured Congress that he is not anti-vaccine.

I know what you’re thinking:

“But Matt! During a November 2019 measles epidemic that killed 80 children in Samoa, Kennedy wrote to the country’s prime minister claiming that the measles vaccine was probably causing the deaths.”

True, but that was six years ago.

He’s probably reformed his thinking since then.

Yes, he believed something nearly every doctor, nurse, scientist, immunologist, and American parent knew was stupid, dangerous, and without factual basis — and was clear if you simply looked at any historical chart of infection — but that was six years ago.

I’m sure he’s more informed now, which makes him perfect for the Secretary of Health and Human Services:

A former idiot just a little while ago who claims to be less of an idiot today.

Trump only hires the best people.

19 things that bother me… and perhaps should not

Watching people play games on their phonesListening to people talk about coffee as if it were somehow an interesting or entertaining subjectColor coding simply for the sake of color codingAdults who run meetings as if the attendees are childrenAdministrators who no longer do the job but pretend like they still know the jobParents who can’t hear their children’s questions because they’re too busy staring at their phonesPresentations that needlessly have more than one presenterThe glorification of alcohol consumptionDrivers who won’t turn right on red when it’s not allowed but clearly okayPeople who find a restroom door locked but knock on the door anywayChildren eating grapesWatching people purchase lottery ticketsLiving as a left-handed person in a world exclusively designed for right-handersListening to adults threaten consequences to children that will never happenShoppers who move through a grocery store as if it’s the place to beAnyone who uses BCCThe inefficiency of a Little League practicePaperwork that is required but clearly unnecessaryComplainers without solutions

The road to Heaven and Hell

Your plan fails.

It’s disappointing and maybe even a little surprising.

When asked about why you failed and what you were thinking, you say, “I meant well. I had the best intentions.”

Then the jerkface to whom you are speaking offers this scintillating quip:

“The road to Hell is paved with good intentions.”

Of course, this is a stupid statement, not only because it’s unoriginal, overused, and therefore boring but also because it makes no sense.

The road to Hell may very well be paved with good intentions, but the road to Heaven is also paved with good intentions. In fact, the road to Heaven is only paved with good intentions. Many, many good intentions. Exclusively good intentions.

The road to Hell may be paved with good intentions, but it’s also definitely paved with bad intentions. Mostly bad intentions. Overwhelmingly bad intentions. The ratio of bad to good on the road to Hell is probably a trillion to one.

Right?

The opposite certainly isn’t true. The road to Heaven is never paved with bad intentions. No one ever gets into Heaven by trying to do wrong.

So it would seem that good intentions are a good thing even when things don’t work out. Good intentions should be everyone’s starting point, regardless of how many times they may lead to disaster.

So when someone says, “The road to Hell is paved with good intentions,” what they really should be saying is this:

“The roads to both Hell and Heaven are paved with good intentions—and Heaven’s road is definitely paved with many more good intentions. So it would seem that having good intentions is a good thing no matter the result, so I’ve essentially made no point at all.”

Some aphorisms are stupid and should be avoided at all costs.

This is one of them.

American icons no more

In a strange confluence of events, Party City, Joann’s Fabrics (recently rebranded Joann), and Hooters are all going out of business.

Quite a collection of iconic brands.

Joann’s Fabrics and Party City are closing their doors and disappearing forever, and Hooters has filed for bankruptcy and is likely to close, though they could eventually emerge from bankruptcy to live another day.

Experts, however, see this as unlikely based on its trending sales data.

Three American institutions will soon be wiped off the map forever.

I’ve shopped at Party City several times in my life. The stores were often disorganized, messy, overstocked, and poorly staffed.

I’m not surprised to see it fail.

I visited Joann’s Fabrics once—years ago with Elysha. I found the store fascinating. It was like landing on a different planet and discovering a culture unlike anything I’d ever seen before. I left the store with an idea for a screenplay or novel that I’m still toying with today.

Apparently, I’ll need to find a new location for my book or film.

I’ve never set foot in a Hooters, even though I live about three miles from one of their locations. I’ve never set foot in a strip club before, either, mostly because I’ve always thought it sad, desperate, and purposeless to stare at half-naked strangers in a public setting.

My friends and I once went to a strip club for a buddy’s bachelor party. When we arrived, everyone piled out of the car except for me. When my friend asked what I was doing, I told him I’d wait for them in the car. I had a good book — Kurt Vonnegut’s “Cat’s Cradle” — that I would happily read while they were inside.

“Drink as much as you want,” I told him. “I’ll drive for the rest of the night.”

When he asked why I wouldn’t come inside, I told him I’d never set foot in a strip club before. “No judgment,” I said. “But I can’t see why staring at naked women who have no interest in me and possibly becoming aroused while sitting beside my buddies has any appeal.”

My friends laughed and teased me about that moment for a long time, but the groom-to-be leaned his head through the car window and whispered, “You’re not wrong!” before heading inside.

Hooters is certainly not a strip club, but it’s known for its revealing uniforms. Choosing a restaurant specifically to watch women in revealing outfits also strikes me as a little sad, desperate, and purposeless.

It’s kind of like going to the beach to enjoy the ocean but mostly to stare at people in their bathing suits.

And for anyone who claims that Hooters’ wings are the best, I could always DoorDash an order of wings before they close forever. However, Elysha and I eat at a restaurant down the road that local media have repeatedly recognized for having the best wings in Connecticut, so I think I’m good.

Even though I care little about any of these dying brands, the closings of these stores also represent the loss of jobs, which is never good. Real people will no longer be collecting paychecks from these businesses, so I hope these employees land on their feet and fund fulfilling work as soon as possible.

The curious thing for me is what happens now?

When Joann’s Fabric closes, where will people get their yarn, thread, and sewing machines?

Online, of course, but is there a brick-and-mortar to replace it? I feel like yarn is something you need to hold and feel before buying.

When Party City closes, is there another location where you can purchase helium balloons, party streamers, and those awful party favors?

And when Hooters closes, where will people go to be served wings and beer while simultaneously objectifying women?

Cooked!

On Friday night, while I was trying to get a table at a local restaurant, Charlie watched a child — maybe three or four years old — screaming in the waiting area.

Demanding to leave. Expressing outrage for not being at home. Thoroughly upset.

The parents attempted to convince the child to stop screaming, then after a moment or two, they gave the kid a dollar bill.

The kid stopped screaming almost instantly.

At the table, as Charlie was describing this scene to me, he said. “Dude, this generation is cooked!”

By “generation,” he meant Generation Alpha, which he missed being a member of by a year. Generation Z ended in 2012 — the year Charlie was born — placing him on the cusp of Gen Z and Gen Alpha but firmly rejecting any notion that he is in the same generation as that child in the waiting area.

I’m not so sure. He’s pretty cuspy.

Either way, why does Charlie see the hazards of placating children with cash but not those parents?

He also often criticizes kids who are staring at phones and iPads at dinner tables, knowing how foolish it looks and how detrimental it is to a person’s ability to communicate like regular people. He hates hearing parents threaten their children with punishments that he knows will never happen. And he can’t stand watching kids misbehaving in public in front of parents who do nothing to respond.

Clara feels similarly, but she doesn’t see some of these things because her head is often in a book. She also tries to be more empathetic towards people.

Charlie has no patience for them.

And don’t get me wrong. The boy isn’t perfect by any means. He makes his share of mistakes, too. But he sees these bad decisions and wonders why parents can’t see the same.

He’s not wrong.

I explained to Charlie that not only is the kid with the dollar bill being set up for failure but his parents and future teachers are also being set up to suffer.

As my former principal was fond of saying to parents who were not actively engaged in their children’s learning and making excuses for their poor behavior:

“You pay now, or you pay later.”

I’d argue that paying later has a far steeper cost.

But who knows? Maybe that child is a future entrepreneur and will someday launch a company that will change the world in some positive way while employing thousands in the process. Maybe that wealth extraction from his parents was a first step to economic independence, long-term cash flow, and a well-capitalized enterprise.

I hope so.

I don’t think so.