My 500 Words

When I was 27 years old I found myself outside the dome of St. Paul's cathedral in London. Curiously, I voluntarily placed myself in that situation by walking up a series of steps. So what? 100s of thousands if not millions of people make that journey every year.  Well, most of those people aren't afraid of heights. People unafraid of heights refuse to get themselves in a spot that's high in the air with a very low and thin banister that cannot protect them from sudden and imminent death. I should clarify, I am not actually afraid of heights. What I am really afraid of is impact.  Impact scares me. In order to walk to the dome of St. Paul's cathedral you ascend a narrow stone corridor. After rising a few stories you get to the whispering gallery; a rounded wall where someone on the other side of the dome can hear you speak. From the whispering wall I had a simple choice, one was to go up to the top of the dome. The other was to descend back into the main cathedr...

My surname is not complex. Newton.  Two easily recognizable syllables. Nevertheless restaurant hosts, call center operators and others regularly misspell or mispronounce the name. I often see Nuton, Knudsen, Nelson, and on one occasion Gnuslin. I could simply spell the name so that they had it correctly, but instead I have developed the habit of mentioning one of the two most famous Newtons that have influenced our planet. Some people immediately understand the mistake when I reference the Fig Newton. "Aha!", they proclaim in the mini-Eureka moment, "Newton, like the cookie." I assure them that like Girl Scout cookies, Fig Newtons are in fact made with actual Newtons. As a side note, that connection to the cookie irritates my father to no end, but I think everyone else is grateful for the societal saturation of the delectable treat to help people understand our last name. Others correct the confusion more quickly with a reference to the great mathematician, Isaa...

I know a simple process that helps me make really good decisions. It requires three basic steps. Understand the question. Obtain the information to answer that question. Know where to turn when I get lost during steps one and two. I avoid bad decisions when I really understand the question before me. When I take shortcuts oversimplify the problem I inevitably err. Many will have filled out the paper that presented simple questions like your name, date, simple math problems and the like, only to get to the bottom of the page and find the instruction that told you to ignore all of the other questions and to then do something like make three dots on the back of the page. Most people overlook the instruction at the beginning that says to read all the instructions before they begin. That oversight and overconfidence led to their very mistake. Most of the time, when we think we already know the answer we try to solve problems we see before we understand the question before us. If we...

While sitting in a hospital waiting room I found myself across from my beautiful 16-year-old niece as we both silently pondered the significance of why were there. Knowing that we all have fears I decided to share with her some of my most deeply held fears that I am certain will persist throughout my life. Many have tried to dissuade me from these beliefs and each have met the unsavory taste of failure in their attempts. I esteem them greatly so anyone who desires to disagree will simply ignore the brutal truth. I asked my niece, "Are you afraid of the dark?" "No, she said" "How about basements?" "No. Well dark basements," she hesitantly admitted. I now knew that I had a kindred spirit and a bond that would never be broken with my oldest niece and example for my own daughter. I confessed my own fear for basements and how the light dispels the fear. What surprised me was that she didn't know the source of the fear; I had believed tha...

A dear friend teased his children telling them that once they went to bed the adults would get out the good cookies. Children everywhere fantasize about the mystery of night and very early morning. Unrealized experience fuels an innate drive toward fulfillment. Ecstasy occurs when experience exceeds expectation, but ecstasy can be fleeting. Contentment comes when experience shapes expectation and fulfillment is found in the moment and in memory. Childhood hopes of all night fiestas and the mental image of good cookies inspired me to want to stay up all night. Post midnight consciousness seldom occurred because I got tired and fell asleep. In my high school years I would stay up late, but 2 a.m. found me consuming textbooks rather than tasty treats; my expectations unmet, the ideal of staying awake disappeared and I learned to cherish sleep over delusional dreams. How little did I know? As a parent I found nothing better than 2 a.m. Early morning moments create challenges, but o...

They say you need water to survive. So why has water almost killed me, twice? I'll admit that the question is misleading, I often indulge in mental bantering about the oddities and idiosyncrasies of experience. Common occurrences may be random events but I look for unseen connections. The power of inductive reasoning may be the very source of fears and hopes and nightmares and dreams. It's really unfair to blame the water for my potential demise and further consideration does suggest a different culprit that is more appropriately blamed. I attended a father and son's campout at a nearby KOA. They had a swimming pool and I looked forward to playing in the water. Unfortunately I had not yet learned to swim but I was fine with that because the shallow end was plenty big for a child my size. I splashed and played and bobbed about. I tried to do some simple strokes but I lacked the confidence to just go for it and let the water lift me up. All was well until I neared the ro...

Farnsworth Elementary was built within walking distance of McDonalds and the local grocery store. In second or third grade, my class went on a field trip to learn about the different ways modern humans acquire our food. My mother had been so fantastic that I assumed that food came from the table, refrigerator and lunchbox. I have so many siblings that I would stay home with them while my mom went to the store and as a very large family we never ate out. Thus stores and restaurants seemed about as foreign as any  country. I found the grocery store pretty boring and was unable to really watch anything that they tried to explain in the meat department. Curiously, I was excited when our field trip continued to McDonalds. In fact, when I entered that McDonalds, it was the first time I had entered any restaurant in my entire life. It should be clear that my knowledge of dining out lay somewhere between limited and none. About the only thing I knew about the place was that it sold hambu...