Monday, February 25, 2008

From YOUNG to AARP

It is the one month anniversary of a 50th Birthday so to mark the milestone, here is the column that originally appeared in The Freeport Focus.

This marks to us a milestone. God has blessed us to be 50 years old. --Christine Jamison Berdequez

Holy cannoli! You’re 50! --Al Bebach

My good friend, Al Bebach, decided to stick around an extra week to help me celebrate my fiftieth birthday this week. He likes to gather some tidbits and meaning from others’ lives, so this week he took the chance to interview me for this week’s column. Here goes nothing….

Al Bebach: So, you’re gonna’ be fifty, eh? I would’ve never guessed. 55, 60 maybe, but 50, nah. What’s the most important thing that has happened to you in that time?
Me: You mean besides being born, because otherwise I wouldn’t be here.

AB: Yes, of course, wise guy!
Me: I have to say unequivocally that it was meeting my beloved wife. Obviously, she wasn’t my wife when we met, but she would become Mrs. T. less than two years after we met. Five children later and I feel very blessed to still be so in love with her.

AB: What was the most memorable world event that’s happened during your life?
Me: The first one I remember was the assassination of JFK. He was killed the same day that my grandfather died. I can still see myself coming home from kindergarten around 1:00 p.m. when the announcement was made during “As the World Turns.” My mother just broke down crying and our nation’s innocence seemed to be lost that day. At age five I didn’t know that at the time. My first personal encounter with death came later that night when we found out that my grandfather had died.

AB: Who has influenced you the most in your life?
Me: Early on it was my mother. She was my biggest fan during all the sports that I played, though she was heartbroken when I gave up football for cross country as a junior in high school. She was always a big football fan. My uncle, Wayne, encouraged my running and was my friend and mentor until he died at age 23. My wife, Irena, has been the most influential over the second half of my life. I shudder to think of where I’d be without her!

AB: What is your greatest accomplishment?
Me: Thanks for asking the easy questions. I bet you’re easier on Paris or Britney. I think the greatest is staying in a loving relationship for nearly 24 years now. Helping to raise five children (and continuing to do so). Coming to know Christ helps guide all of the other accomplishments. I’d have to say that most have to do with my family.

AB: Have there been any major turning points in your life?
Me: Yeah, sure. Where do I start?

AB: Maybe just a few, I’m limited to so many words here.
Me: Okay. Getting a full ride to college definitely was one. I was the first from my family to graduate from college. Spending a year studying in Munich, Germany helped me to broaden my view of the world and gain an appreciation for good beer. My mother’s death two weeks after I graduated from college when I was 23 definitely made me grow up faster than I might have wanted to. Meeting my wife in Chicago during podiatry school comes at the top of the list. Moving to Freeport to start my own practice has influenced many of our life’s decisions. Finally, learning to be there and take care of our special needs daughter, Claire, has changed our lives in untold ways.

AB: That’s quite a list.
Me: I know. Life turns on our experiences and our circumstances. Each event, each person we meet, each decision we make affects each subsequent event, relationship and occurrence in our lives.

AB: Are you always so profound or did you get that from a fortune cookie?
Me: Ha! Ha! Maybe it is nearing the mid-century mark that has me thinking about life and its many meanings lately.

AB: What have you done that was really fun in your life?
Me: Definitely travelling through much of Europe when I was 21-22 years old. I met so many people and saw an entirely different world than I knew before that. Road trips with my wife before we were parents come to mind. Trips to Seattle, San Francisco, northern Michigan and Stratford, Ontario were memorable. The best gift I ever received for my birthday was when my beloved sent me to the Detroit Tigers Fantasy Camp for my fortieth. She totally surprised me with that one!

AB: So, given your milestone here, are you going to do anything special? Buy a sports car? Go to Europe, again, or Hawaii? Take a cruise?
Me: All of those are great ideas, but we’re not planning on any of those, yet. Maybe we’ll choose one of those ideas for our twenty-fifth anniversary. Actually, with any luck and a lot of hard work, I’ll be running the Country Music Marathon in Nashville this April.

AB: Are you celebrating or just into pain?
Me: No, no. It’s just something that I’ve wanted to do. Testing the limits kind of thing, you know? I’ve always enjoyed running and a marathon just seemed to be a good mid-life goal for me.

AB: Yeah, good luck with that. I can drive 26 miles, but to run that far. Hey, more power to ya’! Any last words you want to share before the big day, old man?
Me: I’d like to think that wisdom comes with age, but I know enough people that exhibit that old adage, “You can only be young once, but immature forever.” I also know that behind every great man is a greater woman encouraging him and working with him as an equal partner. Let’s see. It is possible to overcome adversity in life and to learn something from it and even become stronger in your faith and learn to help others. It is really easy to forget what a gift each day is, so in the immortal words of Warren Zevon we need to learn to enjoy every sandwich. Savor each bite of life like it is your last, because you never know when it will be. I guess that I’d finally like to say that laughter really is good for the soul and I know that I need to practice that as much as I preach it!

AB: Thanks, Roland, my friend. I wish you another fifty years, especially if you and your wife get that many more years together. You two really do deserve each other, and I mean that in the best way.

I guess sometimes the ground can shift between your feet. Sometimes your footing
slips. You stumble. And sometimes you grab what’s close to you and hold on as tight as you can. – from The Wonder Years

Monday, February 18, 2008

The Will to Win

The spirit, the will to win, and the will to excel are the things that endure. These qualities are so much more important than the events that occur. --Vince Lombardi

I’ve been a “Speech Parent” for the past three years following the growth and maturation of an outstanding group of students at Freeport High School. Yes, I’ve seen competitors from some of our other local schools excel as well, but obviously there is a connection to one’s home team. Dan Stevens has done the “objective” work of describing the meets, presenting the results, and highlighting some of our top local contestants. He has the background and isn’t “attached” to any one school per se, but tries to offer a fair and balanced presentation of the students of Northwest Illinois. As for me, I admit that I am biased in favor of my own daughter and the Freeport team, though I do find myself rooting for any of the local students to also do well. It’s kind of a parochial mentality of “us” (Northwest Illinois) versus “them” (larger suburban Chicago schools) that permeates some of that thinking. But, like I said, I am playing favorites…
I spent most of my high school years in sports competitions, usually track and cross country. Like most sports, the most baskets, the most points, the fastest times, or the most pins knocked down determine the winner. It is clear cut. There is no subjectivity left to the imagination. You run the fastest, you win. You swim the fastest, you win. You pin your opponent, you win. I competed one year in “forensics,” which is now primarily referred to as speech. I was okay. Not great. Definitely not like many of our local students from Freeport, Eastland-Pearl City, Lena-Winslow and Aquin. I’m sure I’m missing someone, but you get the point. I didn’t know enough to take it as seriously as these students do. I did know enough to know when someone was better than me. I don’t remember the young lady’s name in one competition, but I can still remember how we were both scheduled to read Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart.” She read first and I wanted to crawl out a window, partially because she read so well that I was actually scared and partially because I was intimidated to the point of wanting to pretend that I wasn’t there. Actually, I wished I weren’t there at that point. Fortunately, no one read the same poem that I read for my other event and I actually placed. Way back in the stone ages there were only three or four events, unlike today where there are fourteen events. There are more choices, but also students with much more talent.
As a “speech parent” one of the most difficult aspects is dealing with the unknown. That unknown is a variable referred to as subjectivity. There is no way of predicting how a judge is going to score a student’s performance. One judge can give out a “1” which is the best score and another judge can give a “6” for the same performance. We don’t know who the winner is until the names are announced. There is no photo finish as it would be if two runners cross the finish line. Sometimes there is no rhyme or reason, at least none that we mere mortals can understand. What I do know as a parent and frequent attendee of speech tournaments is that there is a group of dedicated students in our area and throughout the state who put in long hours after school and often during the summers, share their hopes and dreams of a brighter and more intelligent future, and gain a level of poise and maturity that many adults would benefit from emulating.
Congratulations to those that have “given their all” and maybe came up just a little short of a trip to the state tournament. There are many of us who have never even come close. No medal, ribbon or plaque can take away the effort, dedication and time that you have put into a season that will leave a lifelong legacy for your lives. You are an inspiration to those of us who look to you as the future leaders of our society. You are off to a great start and that cannot be measured by a stopwatch or the number of points scored. That can only be measured by the heartfelt effort that has shined brightly each week.
Good luck at State to all of our area’s speech teams’ members!

In Pursuit of Perfection

It has been a while since I have posted to this site, but I have still been writing a weekly column. This column seemed to gain a "companion" from another local media source two days after this was printed. Our local congressman seemed to have a similar situation occur. Oh well, here is the column in its entirety.


The supreme object of life is to live. Few people live. It is true life only to realize one’s own perfection, to make one’s every dream a reality. --Oscar Wilde
It is Sunday evening and the Patriots’ perfect season has just gone the way of so many snowflakes in a blizzard. One could sense it coming. The pressure was mounting with every play. When Eli Manning slipped the grasp of seemingly the entire defensive line to complete the pass to the 25 yard line, destiny seemed to draw up a new game plan for the Patriots.
“It’s only a game,” we tell ourselves. And yet, it seems to be the American way, perhaps the way throughout the rest of the world, to celebrate perfection. Of course, there are those that revel at the thought of ending perfection, as if it were too much to bear the thought of someone being that good at anything. Americans are notorious for only recalling what a team or individual has done in their last game. Sadly, it tends to carry over down to the level of even elementary school, junior high and high school competitions. “Win at any cost” has replaced “just do your best” as the rallying cry for our youth. This mentality permeates our society, though, thankfully, is not totally pervasive.
How do we develop that fine balance between “everybody plays” and “it doesn’t matter who wins” to the idea that one is supposed to win, no matter what? The former takes out the whole idea of competition. When our children are taught that they are entitled to play on a team, then it doesn’t really prepare them for the “real world” that adults find themselves in. You know the one, where large corporations fire or buy out thousands of employees at a time in order to ship the jobs to foreign markets to make stockholders happy. Ask the residents of Galesburg about the “friendly” Maytag man. Ask hundreds of Freeport residents about their jobs at long-gone insurance companies, “lifelong security” at institutions like Newell or Micro Switch or Kelly-Springfield or Burgess or… the list goes on.
A time eventually comes when all of this “fair play” gives way to a sense of entitlement. If one is used to always getting one’s way, then it is expected to continue. A feeling of entitlement subsequently leads one to no longer try and improve or move beyond the status quo. One’s comfort zone then becomes a guiding force, but one that also works like a form of imprisonment. Why move out beyond one’s level of comfort when so little effort is involved to remain there? What motivation is there to grow and develop? Why would one put oneself into any type of competition when it is evident that “it doesn’t matter who wins” as long as one is taken care of? No child will be left behind because the government has mandated it? Left to the discretion of the states, what precludes them then from dumbing down their standards in order to make it seem as if “everyone is winning”? It becomes an extension of entitlement and a further step toward a socialist movement. It worked wonders for the former East Bloc countries, didn’t it?