Not with family or friends, in an airplane, shopped at a 7-11: sounds like a candidate for serious therapy!

However, keep in mind: I flex for facts and … the wrong train can take you to the right destination.

Notes from 2018:

*WKBJ Foundation is now out of money, as planned in its by-laws of 1989. For anybody, particularly the 45 students currently being helped, who is wondering about the financial details, be assured that funds have been set aside for the completion of college by these young people. What the opening sentence means is that new students are not being accepted. Fittingly, our final trustees meeting was held at a diner (truth be told: it was because the fancy French restaurant had lost my reservation).

Meanwhile, we have our first PhD (Applied Mathematics) and a second on the way (Intellectual Property) and our first USAF Captain. Quite cool for sure.

Overall, WKBJ has doled out some $20 million and changed an innumerable number of lives.

My new program idea, to be a personal venture, is something called the 5×12 program. The name emanates from its central idea of using a less stress approach to graduating from college, namely five years of 12-credit semesters. The goal is to raise the college completion rate of Hispanic students.

*Uncommon Schools continues its phenomenal success. Would you believe it is educating 20,000 students, up from 72 two decades back! Quality at scale, with the total story not yet having been told. The diverse group of men and women leading the 53 schools involved are truly exemplary individuals. I remain on the boards of North Star Academy and Camden Prep.

*The Charles Hayden Foundation, where I am a trustee, is undergoing a strategic planning exercise, complete with highly paid outside consultants. I sense regression to the mean as an outcome, but the drill is still worthwhile and, unrelatedly, I have not wavered from my belief that all foundations should have limited lives.

*The young couple sit down for breakfast at the restaurant of their choice, perhaps around the block from their high-rise condo. Immediately, they pull out their phones and are separately, quietly engrossed. Now I am not that knowledgeable about the actions of cocaine users— but I think their addiction is more physical and noisier.  Which compulsiveness is worse: the phone (a mostly unrecognized addiction) or the drug (a well-chronicled problem). 

Sorry, I have to interrupt my preaching to find out if the Kardashians have tweeted about the birth of still another child with an uncommitted father.

*Flipping the switch back to positive — on the family front, Wendy continues helping the Communications Director of Davidson do her thing and husband Ed is consulting with Oncor, in Dallas. Daughter Nora is a freshman at Tufts University.

Kari and Dan are about to move into their new house, which connects them more with their school teaching careers and gets daughter McKenna and son Callan into the center of town and activities.

All of the above are quite talented, bright, energetic, verbal, and pervasively nice people, which is amazing given…. well, you know.

*What would a missive from me be without a little political philosophizing!

Does anybody have a handle on what is to become the new version of the American narrative? Certainly the one most of my generation bought into those many decades ago is closer to being scrapped than being reinforced. Perhaps Trump has simply pulled back the curtains to reveal our dysfunctional and venal selves. As he pulls out of Syria, he leaves our allies in a completely befuddled position. As he rails against the Federal Reserve, he displays abysmal ignorance about how our economy functions. As he lauds the authoritarian leadership of Russia and China, he reveals his wet dream of complete power.

Turnover at the top of the administration is 65%. Only the good get fired? Nah, some of them were true scumbags. Meanwhile, is there anybody on the other side of the aisle who has covered the  emotional ground that the incompetent campaign managers of Trump’s opponent missed.

The college campuses are full of idealistic young people (their own definition) fighting for the right of everybody to agree with them.  Polarization anyone!

What do immigration, abortion, and charter schools have in common? You can win (by impartial standards) every debating point, but nobody changes their minds.

Planned Parenthood is accused of mistreating pregnant employees. A school for blind musicians is being ousted by the Charity for the Blind. The negotiator of the Amazon deal for New York City quits. Priests who have settled sexual assault charges are continuing to preach. HELP!

Get off the main highway, the interstate which has helped homogenize our country, and check out the two biggest buildings in a no-name community. They are the college and the hospital. In common, their costs are inscrutable and absurdly high, with no particular pushback of consequence. For several decades they probably have caused more stress and more hindrance of job and overall mobility than any other set of economic components.

There has been no public decomposition of college costs; all of the emphasis has been on somehow getting more money to students so they can afford the exorbitant prices. Periodically some august journal does dissect health care costs, at which time the analysis devolves into political wrangling, while the negative impact on most people continues to be highly painful.

*Among other strategies to stay sane, I read less and less about so-called education reform; much of the verbiage is the same as that of twenty years ago. I am assisted in my attempt to maintain mental balance by knowing that gambling and marijuana are en route to being completely legalized, and Fortnite (which reportedly has 200 million players worldwide) is adding to the ability of young males to master the nuances of a proper kill shot. 

I am reminded by this trio of thoughts that I did not feel like writing this letter, preferring to stay in bed with the covers pulled up over my head. But the exercise was cheaper than seeing a shrink.

Perhaps surprising to many, I have not watched television news for over 35 years. Instead, I read the New York Times, the Economist, and EuroNews on my iPad. I buy the Wall Street Journal daily, listen to several radio stations throughout the day and sports-surf on television at night. Have I missed anything? P.S. I am continually reading a book, most of which are non-fiction and typically challenge that American narrative I obliquely referenced earlier.

*Basketball remains a delight; I mean, what can be sweeter than hitting the winning basket (happens occasionally) in a highly competitive 4-on-4 battle!

*Traveling to Paris and London with Damaris, Faith, and Paola (a mutual friend) at the end of March was great, occasional uncertainties about lead-follow-or get out of the way notwithstanding.

Faith is running (including multiple 5k events), drawing comic strips, and is living proof that kids say the darnedest things. I wish there was a tape of her five-minute riff on black-while relationships. The three of us were crying we were laughing so hard. Mother Damaris is doing Case Management at CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocates for foster care kids), a stressful position to say the least.

*What is family?

A: Accidental, blood, cultural differences in the heart rate when the word mother or father or sister or brother is voiced. Think of it though. A couple of people you never met until they combined for a unique event replicated the latter and, without any involvement by you, produced some other creatures with a combination of physical similarities and mindset dissimilarities sufficient to cause one to wonder whether these newbies actually came from the aforementioned couple of people. Oh yes, you love them anyway; it is stipulated, and properly so, on each birth certificate.

A(2): You grow up, at least in terms of years, and try for a sustainable romantic relationship. It works for a very long time, brings two wonderful individuals into the world, who in turn bring three more – all without anybody stopping to figure out the meaning of life.

B: A relatively short connection ends, in a friendly fashion that brings with it a collateral benefit: a strong relationship with a ten-year old who nearly every time she sees me says, “I love you.”

B: A foundation funding relationship with two young people brings with it a strong connection to their parents, meaning great conversation, exchange of gifts, delicious food and wine.

B: A former work colleague marries a young man known to me and they and their son are like family. Whoa, I have completely understated the depth of this connection, probably because it merits a long essay all by itself, beginning with tears at an unrelated funeral.

B: An ad hoc/accidental situation, wherein the connection to parents in their education and subsequent career pursuits gets augmented by interaction with their two young children.

B: Once, on paper and for a while in the real world, it looked like an ideal match, but it was not to be. Nonetheless, the connection to her offspring has survived, even blossomed.

B: Hard to describe a complicated situation, but the foursome represents all that is admirable about what we have traditionally regarded as American values.

B: What a long time, what a great platonic relationship, born of the office and continuing through the education of offspring.

Each entry above involves love in a family context; excluded are the many individual situations with analogous deeply felt emotion: you know who you are. My life’s focus, assisting young people to pursue their aspirations, brings me into the lives of a great number (including two exemplary individuals on my recent trip, with whom I had outstanding, meaningful, multi-hour conversations) … and it is fun, even recognizing the dysfunctional environments of too many students!

*Did I mention one of the innumerable benefits of curiosity: you ask the focused person next to you at a Barnes & Noble study table about what she is working on so diligently and you meet and get to know a woman who Dares to Dream. Check out the website!

*Almost forgot to explain the opening tease: a quirky set of calendar-related considerations had me involved in multiple Xmas celebrations before the magic day. On the latter I was on my way to Miami, to become secluded in a writer’s apartment (okay, a hotel room, but it had certain amenities needed for serious creativity, you know a coffee-maker and a nice flat table). The 7-11 nearby was the source of  energy bars, the final complement to productivity or whichever term is appropriate for these 1785 words.

My bucket list travel idea —  waiting until the last minute to decide among Serbia (mind), Morocco (soul), or Panama (body) as a destination– has been deferred, the result of a much better-informed analysis of time, energy, and money.

In any case, since the primary objective of said trip was to be writing, Miami was …. Perfect!

PEACE and LOVE, BOB                                                   

Below is background information, as framed in a 2018 letter to my sister and two brothers..

Dear Siblings:

Having taken a page out of the book of Ruth Ann (and a few million others), namely that the contents of a box must be allowed to age properly, over several years preferably, before the contents may be lifted from their repose and brought into the sometimes harsh glare of artificial light, I had left unexamined a box lifted post-mortem from Dad’s storage facility.

All I knew is that there were papers inside, unfortunately not including the category of stock certificates, and they pertained to his father.

The materials turned out to be quite interesting, in a surprising way, namely the question of how one Harry Melcaef Howitt spelled his middle name. Since I have yet to pay off on the $50 I have put up for anybody who spells my middle name correctly, it being Melcaef, this is an issue near and dear to my heart, at least on those days when my jump shot is off.

Maybe karma was in play; I just recently passed a landmark birthday and a meeting scheduled for this morning had been postponed, meaning that the excuse of no time to examine the contents of the box was no longer operable. Now, if middle name spelling is the topic, I had to be all in!

Here is a list of those pieces of paper on which the name was spelled as simply Harry M. Howitt:

Will, tax return, deed, social security letter, grand lodge communication, check, invoice, business card.

In addition, grandma Allene’s will listed her husband as Harry M. Howitt.

One 1917 draft notice had the middle name as Metcalf; another had it as Melcaef. Government administrative consistency apparently was as elusive a century ago as it is today.

The Bureau of Vital Statistics indicated that the birth certificate read Harry Melcalf Howitt; damn, have I been wrong all these years! Who do I sue!

Ah, but wait – there is a copy of an original document attached to the communication immediately above. It was mailed to Grandpa’s mother Isabella, who was married to William Howitt for those who are keeping score. This copy tells a different story.

Unless one believes that a single name with only seven letters would be written by the same hand with both a tall looping letter “l” and an “l” half the size of the former (which is what an open letter “e” resembles ), the correct spelling is …. drum roll please:

                                                                HARRY MELCAEF HOWITT  

There is no question that sleep will come easier to me tonight knowing this to be the truth regarding our grandfather and … myself.

Going “to” (being attracted to a new college or job or residence or relationship) carries better odds of success than going “from,” i.e., leaving any of these situations simply because you are ticked off.

When unsure, emphasize variable, not fixed commitments.

What are the unshakable truths about you: be totally honest.

What decisions must be made now, which decisions can wait.

Income fluctuates, but debt is forever.

Crawl … walk … run.

A house is not really an investment; it is fundamentally a residence: assume you will be there five years when considering buying a house.

Your loving family is not in the classroom helping you take a final exam.

Pursue your passion first; at the same time, have an alternative plan.

Regardless of the different paths in life, everybody’s goal is simple: a place to live, food, clothing, a loving relationship.

Do not let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

Decide on your action based on the net: positive factors minus negatives.

There are always unintended consequences.

Bring the bad news first, the good news can wait.

Half of the “answers” come from being able to frame the questions.

Every day is NOT new. You start with the values you created yesterday.

Passion alone does not triumph over inertia: you need a plan.

I want the cultures of all lands to be blown about my house as freely as possible, but I refuse to be blown off my feet by any. (Borrowed from Gandhi)

To start, you must have a good idea, delivered with passion. This will gain you an audience. When the approach is credible and favorable results ensue, you will have a following. If you add attention to data-gathering, procedural consistency and the development of talent, you will have a sustainable program—if you have funding!

Intentionality + Communication + Consistency = Consequences.

The cruelest, most harmful thing a teacher can do is to allow a student to think the world functions in a way different from that which the teacher knows to be true (lifted from a great Reading while on the exercise bike).

Under-promise and over-deliver; over-promising and under-delivering is a cancer affecting everything a person says he will do.

Group data is meaningful, but it tells you nothing about the characteristics of any individual within the group.

Be aware of the Conflict Avoidance Syndrome: fight when you are right.

A degree opens doors and provides options; it does not guarantee a job.