Matthew Dicks's Blog, page 82

Checking in on previous promises

Elysha and I are celebrating our 17th wedding anniversary today.

As I have often said, it feels like we were married yesterday.

It probably feels a little more like 17 years to Elysha.

Since it’s our anniversary, I thought it would be a good time to return to our wedding vows. We each wrote vows to the other and revealed them for the first time at our wedding ceremony as we recited them aloud.

Elysha cried quite a bit while reciting hers.

In reading through them 17 years later, I think we both did a fine job upholding our promises to each other.

I don’t eat sushi very often, but I have tried it from time to time. And Elysha has done an outstanding job of picking her things up off the floor, though they sometimes migrate to other surfaces where they still don’t belong.

Overall, I think we’ve crushed it so far.

ELYSHA’S VOWS TO ME

Matt,
You are my dream come true.
There is nothing that could make me happier than marrying you,
my best friend and soul mate.
From this day forward, I promise to share with you the joys of life,
because with you, they will be that much sweeter.
I promise to help shoulder our challenges
because, through them, we will emerge stronger.
I promise to always encourage your creativity
because that is what makes you unique and wonderful.
I promise to nurture your dreams
because, through them, your soul shines.
I promise to try to be on time and pick my things up off the floor
because I know those things drive you crazy.
Most of all, I promise to laugh with you, support you,
and to be your partner in all things.
I love you up to the sky and back.

MY VOWS TO ELYSHA

I used to believe that life would be perfect when all my dreams came true, but then you came along
and I realized that I didn’t know what dreaming was.

Elysha Jaffee Green, you are more than a man could ever ask for
and more than I deserve.

I vow to spend every day of my life
giving you as much as you have given me.

I promise to remember the darkness before you
so that I will never forget the brilliance that you have brought to my life.

I promise to share everything that I have
and to try to give you everything you could ever want.

I promise to stand beside you,
hold your hand,
and be your strong and loving friend
through good times and bad.

I promise to always be the one to go into the basement at night
when the darkness frightens you,
to find you the best parking spots available,
and to shop with you and eat sushi, no matter how much I despise both.

Most importantly, I promise to love you,
to love you like no man before,
with all of my heart and mind, and soul,
until the end of these days and beyond.

Bird

A birdhouse is a lovely thing.

A birdhouse with a bird inside, staring out at the world, is a magical thing.

Music makes everything better

A new study of three supermarkets in Sweden found that on weekdays, customers spent an average of $23.31 per person when music played in the supermarkets compared to $14.96 per person when music was not playing.

When asked to rate their shopping experience, those who heard music rated the experience 8.8 percent higher than those who didn’t.

I open every school day with music as my students arrive. Each week I introduce a new musician or band and teach a little history about them as a part of our morning meeting.

Fleetwood Mac was quite the story.

But on Friday, we play a class playlist comprised of songs chosen by the kids. Typically more modern fare, but last year’s student-generated playlist included classical music, Pink Floyd, Rick Astley, and Carl Douglas’ “Kung Fu Fighting.”

Based on this Swedish study, maybe I should be playing music all day long. It would seem that music puts everyone in a better mood and makes people more willing to buy whatever is being sold.

In my case, I’m not selling rhubarb and canned tuna like those Swedish supermarkets. Instead, I’m mainly selling the development of a strong worth ethic, long-term thinking, empathy, organization, curiosity, creativity, a love for learning, and time management.

Along, of course, with all that content in an exceedingly bloated curriculum.

Texas hates workers

Texas passed a law that will eliminate mandatory water breaks for construction workers in cities where the local government had enacted such ordinances to protect people from extreme heat.

Texas also happens to be the place where 13 people recently died from the heat (one week after the bill was signed), and more than 300 died during heatwaves last year.

The bill passed the Texas state legislature, and Governor Greg Abbott signed it into law on June 14.

Governor Abbott, for reference, is also the guy who sent migrants, including children, to Washington DC and left them on the street outside the Vice President’s residence in below-freezing temperatures on Christmas Eve without coordinating with any federal or local authorities or providing them with clothing appropriate for the temperature.

So a high-quality human being.

The bill, which goes into effect in September, strips construction workers in Austin and Dallas of the right to five-minute water breaks every four hours and time to rest in the shade while on the job.

Mandated five-minute breaks every four hours in the Texas heat was too much for the Republican legislators and Greg Abbot to accept.

Just to be clear:

The cities of Austin and Dallas instituted these mandatory water breaks to protect their citizens, then big government Republicans who don’t believe in the power and authority of local government stripped these cities and all future Texas cities of enacting such protective laws.

Abbot is a Catholic who often discusses how his spirituality guides his leadership.

Obviously, he is also a hypocrite.

I think it’s entirely plausible that Jesus might punch him in the face if he were around today.

Bud Light bigots

Since Anheuser-Busch ran a social media campaign in April with 26-year-old transgender actress, comedian, and TikTok personality Dylan Mulvaney, Bud Light’s sales and overall market share have dropped considerably.

All of this resulted from a right-wing boycott of the product for using a transgender person as a spokesperson.

Bud Light’s share of retail sales has dropped about three percentage points since the boycott began, and the brand has been dethroned as America’s most popular beer.

In addition to the boycott, singer Kid Rock filmed himself shooting several Bud Light cases with a submachine gun in a protest video. Several Budweiser factories also received bomb threats in response.

Senators Ted Cruz and Marsha Blackburn wrote a letter to the Beer Institute, a national trade association that represents major American brewers in governmental matters, asking them to “open an investigation” to review Anheuser-Busch’s “marketing partnership” with Dylan Mulvaney. They expressed concern that this single post TikTok campaign amounts to marketing to underage people because her audience “skews younger,” even though Mulvaney is 26 years old.

So some high-quality people were obviously upset by Budwiesers’s decision to employ a transgender person as a spokesperson. 

I consume very little alcohol, and it’s been more than 30 years since I’ve consumed beer, so I don’t have a dog in this beverage fight except to say this:

Apparently, a large number of Bud Light drinkers were ignorant bigots.

Like homophobic, I avoid using the word “transphobic” because fear has nothing to do with this boycott. It’s hateful bigotry.

Nothing more.

Dylan Mulvaney is a college-educated, highly successful, exceptionally popular, grown-ass adult. She has worked with Fortune 500 brands like Ulta Beauty, Instacart, and Kate Spade. She has performed onstage in national tours of Broadway shows.

She also happens to be transgender.

This was apparently too much for the easily triggered bigots who seem to melt like snowflakes at the thought that a transgender person might be drinking their preferred beverage or making money endorsing it.

Machine guns, bomb threats, and Congressional interference seem like a bit of an overreaction to a single TikTok video.

But when a large number of your customers are apparently bigots, I guess this was bound to happen.

The teacher was the problem

I taught Charlie how to play chess about three years ago. Since then, we’ve played quite a bit. He likes the game.

I offered to teach Clara, too, but she rejected my repeated offers.

Not interested.

Last week, I found my kids on the giant chess board at Winding Trail, the lake and recreation club where we are members.

Charlie was teaching Clara how to play the game with the enormous pieces.

Apparently, her refusal to learn to play the game had nothing to do with chess and everything to do with me.

The Red Rooster at last!

For the 16 years that we have been married and the 19 years that we have been together, I have heard Elysha talk about The Red Rooter, a restaurant in Brewster, NY, where she and her family often stopped on their way to and from the Berkshires every weekend.

Coming home from a Broadway show in New York City last weekend, Elysha looked at the map on her phone, realized how close The Red Rooster was to our current position, and suggested we stop by.

At last, I would finally see the fabled Red Rooster.

Also, we had apparently been driving within three miles of it for most of our marriage. Whenever we visit New York City, which is often, we almost always pass by the town of Brewster, where the restaurant is located. I’m not sure why Elysha took so long to suggest we stop.

In fact, a few years ago, I attempted to take Elysha to The Red Rooster for our anniversary, thinking she might love the food and nostalgia, only to be told that it was an anniversary dinner type of restaurant.

When I reminded Elysha of this, she laughed, admitting that today, it seems like the perfect place for an anniversary dinner.

A good reminder of how quickly we can change our minds.

The fear, of course, is that after nearly two decades of hype, The Red Rooster would fail to deliver. What we remember as glorious as children often fails to hold up when we return as adults.

This was not the case for The Red Rooster.

The restaurant is a 1950s-styled fast food place with good food, a fantastic atmosphere, and outstanding service. On this particular evening, a local DJ played songs from the 1950s and 1960s, making the whole experience even better. The place had expanded since Elysha last visited, adding indoor dining space, quality restrooms, an enormous patio, and lots of additional seating.

A mini golf course stands adjacent to the restaurant, and an enormous rooster greets visitors by the front door.

But it was the big rock that garnered most of our attention. When Elysha was a little girl, she remembers climbing, sitting, and eating on an enormous rock just outside the restaurant. The rock was still there, of course, though not nearly as large as Elysha remembers.

Things tend to become a lot smaller through the eyes of an adult.

Still, the kids thought the rock was plenty big, so they climbed atop the same rock their mother climbed upon as a little girl.

These are the moments that I adore:

When the past and present are inextricably connected through memory, object, and meaning. A little girl who once played atop a rock outside a favorite restaurant had the chance to see her own children climb atop the same rock decades later.

Glorious.

Perhaps someday, Charlie or Clara’s children will do the same.

Air Canada impressed again!

In April, I wrote about an outstanding pilot announcement on an Air Canada flight to Victoria, Canada.

Before takeoff, the pilot emerged from the cockpit to introduce himself and his copilot and review the details of the flight with remarkable clarity. He was specific, direct, detailed, amusing, and even a little vulnerable.

Best pre-flight announcement I’ve ever heard.

I wrote about the experience and included it in a letter to Air Canada thanking them for the outstanding performance of this pilot, whose name I could not remember.

This week I received an email from Air Canada. They had received my letter, tracked down the pilot’s name based on my travel itinerary, and delivered my letter to him.

Included in the email was a message from the pilot, thanking me for taking the time to write and expressing his appreciation. Air Canada thanked me as well and informed me that they had also shared my letter with other pilots to encourage these practices.

Once again, Air Canada impressed me.

Some companies understand the value of effective communication and the minimal effort it requires.

Those are the companies with whom I will always seek to do business.

Now I just need another reason to fly to Canada.

A night at the ballpark

I returned to Yankee Stadium on Wednesday night after being away for over a dozen years. Elysha gave me tickets to the game for Father’s Day, which made it Clara and Charlie’s first visit to a Major League baseball game, too.

Actually, I didn’t really return to Yankee Stadium as much as I visited the new Yankee Stadium for the first time.

Though I once attended games often, the combination of Patriots season tickets and the birth of my children demanded that certain sacrifices be made, and one of those was attending Yankees games at the stadium.

It was a joyous return.

To start, it’s a beautiful stadium. The first thing I noticed was the legroom between seats. I couldn’t believe how much space I had to stretch my legs. I later researched the difference in legroom between the old and new stadiums, thinking I might be kidding myself, but no. There are about ten more inches between the seats in the new stadium compared to the old one.

Ten inches is a lot.

The stadium is the third largest in capacity in the major leagues, yet it feels surprisingly small and intimate, especially compared to the old stadium. The restrooms are much cleaner, the food is better, the concourses are larger and more open, and getting in and out of the ballpark is much easier.

The old stadium possessed unequaled history and lore that can never be replicated or replaced, but the new stadium is a joy.

The evening was filled with highlights.

In the fifth inning, Josh Donaldson hit a homerun – the first homerun Charlie witnessed in a major league park. Clara may have seen it, too, but she spent much of the game reading, so it’s hard to know. But Charlie lost his mind, leaping from his seat and cheering like no one else around him.

In the fourth inning, Charlie managed to get himself on the jumbotron – a moment none of us will ever forget.

But to Charlie’s credit, he remembers moments like these and often marks them for posterity even as they are happening. As Yankees pitcher Randy Vasquez was getting ready to throw the game’s first pitch, Charlie leaned over and said, “This is the first pitch that I will watch live in a major league game. Big moment, Dad.”

It was.

Being a Little League player and second baseman, Charlie was also calling out the plays throughout the game. “One out. Plays at first or second. Outfield cut two. Watch that runner, pitch. Looks like he might go.”

I don’t think anyone on the field heard him, but it was fun to listen to.

It’s also great to see that he understands the nuances of the game. In the second inning, the Yankees doubled the runner off first when he went too far on a fly ball, and Stanton’s throw from right field was on the money. It’s not a play you see very often in a baseball game – a double play from right field to first base – and Charlie knew it.

It makes watching the games with him a lot of fun.

In the sixth inning, the wave began making its way around the stadium, which was also a first for the kids.

We didn’t catch a fly ball, which would’ve been nice, but in the top of the sixth inning, an errant throw from the Oriole’s second baseman hit a cameraman in the face, stopping the game for fifteen minutes before they took him away on a cart and stretcher.

Maybe it was better that no baseballs were hit in our direction.

Much to Clara’s delight, we left the game midway through the seventh with the Yankees trailing 4-3. They would eventually lose 6-3, which was disappointing, but baseball games have always been different than football games for me. When watching the Patriots play, I live and die on every play. A victory means it was a good day, and a loss can spoil an otherwise lovely afternoon with friends.

Perhaps because there are 162 baseball games in a season compared with just 17 in an NFL season, each football game means more, and as a result, every game is critical.

With 162 games to play, a single loss throughout a long season is much less painful.

But I think it has more to do with the speed of the game. Even with the pitch clock, which I love, baseball gives you a chance to talk to your seatmates, observe and watch different aspects of the game, and relax in a way that is impossible at an NFL game.

I’ve spent entire football games standing on my feet. Baseball is much more conducive to relaxing for the majority of the game.

All of this makes winning and losing a little less important, at least in July, when there is plenty of season left for the Yankees to make a run.

It was a grand time at the ballpark on Wednesday night.

If you have not attended a major or even minor league baseball game, you should, even if you don’t love baseball. The game is pretty great, but there’s a lot to enjoy, even if you don’t care much about the game, the teams, or the score.

Little did I know what future me would think

Back on July 28, 2009, I wrote this on my blog and on social media:

“I have no intention of becoming political on this blog, but just in terms of writing, did you see or hear Sarah Palin’s farewell speech from yesterday? In terms of the writing, which is what I typically deal with here, take a look at these two paragraphs, the second and third, from her ten-minute address.”

I go on to analyze Palin’s inability to construct complete sentences.

“Nearly incomprehensible,” I wrote.

But the first part of that post is hilarious.

“I have no intention of becoming political on this blog…”

Oh, younger, more innocent Matt…

Little did you know that in less than a decade, you’d be writing relentlessly about Donald Trump’s destructive Presidency and eventually join a lawsuit against him that would reach the Supreme Court.

While I wouldn’t characterize what I write as consistently or even frequently political, it’s at least sometimes political in nature, and depending on the state of the world at any moment, it can be scathingly and relentlessly political when necessary.

My children will never wonder why I remained silent in the face of rising authoritarianism and injustice.

But looking back at that post, written 14 years ago, it serves as a good reminder of how quickly things can change, including your view of yourself, the world, your intentions, and your work.

It’s a good reminder that certainty is almost certainly a mistake, no matter how certain you may feel. Hubris is a balloon just waiting to be popped. Open-mindedness about your own possible future open-mindedness – as unlikely as it may seem – is recommended.

Otherwise, you end up looking like a fool to your future self.