IRISHMAN FOR HIRE

It was a warm summer afternoon and as we pulled into the parking lot, I could tell that Josh was excited. As soon as I turned off the engine, he bounded out of the car and headed for the ball field. Upon finding his team, Josh joined right in and started tossing the football around with his teammates.

Two and a half years earlier, while still living in Massachusetts, Josh handed me a football one day and said we were going to play until he could catch the ball every time I threw it to him. It turned out that football had become the game his friends were playing at recess and my son, who had never shown any interest in the game prior to handing me that football, spent eight hours that weekend working on catching the ball and running routes. Within a week, he had gone from the kid who was always picked last to the kid who got picked first almost every day.

Josh started playing football every chance he could. When we moved to North Carolina, our neighbor and his sons would end up playing a pick-up game with us every weekend. The kids in the neighborhood played fall, winter and spring, so when signups started for the Carolina Copperheads flag football league, Josh was the first one in line to sign up.

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Twelve years ago, I was standing just eighteen rows, left of center stage at the Billy Joel Millennium Concert. As I stood in the center of the universe on December 31, 1999, I took stock of my life. I was thirty years old. My beautiful wife was standing next to me and I was on top of the world. We had bought our first home, she was just named the Director of Social Services at a local nonprofit and I was the Chief Executive Officer of the organization I oversaw.

As Billy Joel sang the final bars of “Two Thousand Years” and we counted down the seconds to the year 2000, the world was my oyster. As the ball in Times Square finally dropped on the Jumbotron, I kissed my wife and sang “Auld Lang Syne” along with twenty thousand fanatical fans. And in that moment, as I stood there singing along with the crowd in the middle of Madison Square Garden, I briefly asked myself, “How did I get here?!”

As Billy Joel went right into “The River of Dreams,” the fleeting question passed. It didn’t matter. The past decade had been a great one and I was poised to embrace a new millennium filled with new possibilities. Our biggest concern that night was whether or not the Y2K bug was going to wreak havoc on the world and judging from where I was standing, I wasn’t too concerned about it.

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Great stories rise from the ashes of ordinary adventures. They take on a life of their own based upon unexpected twists or turns that occur in the middle of a journey. But without these explorations, life would become boring.

Stephanie is conflicted over making this year a “Scotty McCreery Christmas” for our daughter Chloe. Chloe is one of the biggest Scotty fans in the country. She would literally pray for him to win American Idol each week. She convinced us to take her to Garner every week last spring to watch the elimination show and yes, we were at the RBC Center when Scotty was crowned the American Idol.

Chloe has written Scotty a letter inviting him to her classroom. She even included a picture of a Koala Bear just in case he likes Koala Bears. We bought her tickets to her first concert so she could see Scotty perform live and as luck would have it, she met Scotty’s Dad. She won tickets to Scotty’s birthday/CD release party and I have had to TiVo every appearance Scotty makes on television so that Chloe can see it the next day. And at the Raleigh Christmas Parade, she walked within ten feet of his float and then froze when Scotty looked in her direction. Like I said, she is a big Scotty fan.

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So, it’s Wednesday and you’re wondering, “Did Doug write an article this week? I didn’t get my email blast.”

The answer is simple, I have some articles in the works but nothing that is ready to press yet. So I have decided to try something new; answer some of your questions! It has been suggested that I have been absent from the comment section from time-to-time when readers start a dialogue. Not always but at times. I do want to declare that this is somewhat by design. As the author of the articles, I do like to see the interpretation of a written piece by the audience. I almost feel like my commenting on the discussion would be unfair to a point, but my 2012 New Year’s resolution is to get better at joining those conversations. No promises but it is one of my resolutions.

One way to do that is by answering your questions when I have a slow week at IFH. So without any further rambling on my part, let me answer some of your questions:

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Dear Lord,

Thank you for my wife.

Thank you for my children.

Thank you for a home filled with love, laughter and the miracles you perform in our lives on a daily basis.

Thank you for providing us with your gifts of food, clothing, shelter and health.

Thank you for the chaotic moments that remind us of your glory and your wisdom, as well as your generous and overflowing love.

Thank you for my family members.

Thank you for my Parents.

Thank you for all of my brothers and sisters.

Thank you for all of my aunts and uncles.

Thank you for my friends.

Thank you for my neighbors.

Thank you for our community and the people who work together each day to build a better life for our children.

May you bless each and every one of them with your love and your grace in the days, months and years ahead!

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“Can we pretend that airplanes in the night sky like shooting stars?

I could really use a wish right now, wish right now, wish right now

Can we pretend that airplanes in the night sky like shooting stars?

I could really use a wish right now, wish right now, wish right now…”

This morning I burnt my bagel. I know it seems like such trivial moment in my day, but I was frustrated as the smell of sulfur surrounded my senses. I stepped away for only a moment and I ruined it. And now, I was going to throw away food. I hate wasting anything when so many people in the world go without. But I guess that is how my luck is running these days; if I step away for a moment, I’m gonna get burned. (“I could really use a wish right now, wish right now, wish right now…”)

Business is still slow. Welcome to the economy! Leads are like an oasis in the desert; far and few between. I believe it will come in time and things will pick up. It has to. I have worked too hard and too long to let it fail now. But as I was quickly packing up my equipment in the middle of a rain storm last week (third rain out in the last four events), I could feel the perseverance and the hope drain out of my body.

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Michael pulled his car over to the side of the road as a light rain cascaded over his windshield. The spine tingling squeak of the windshield wipers echoed throughout the car as music faintly droned through the speakers in the background. And with each pass of the vulcanized rubber against the glass, the anticipation of the moment that stood before him began to feel like a twenty-five pound weight that was pressing firmly against his chest. He knew that if he turned down the road and headed for the farm, that he would be passing the point of no return. It was now or never and Michael had to take one final moment to contemplate what he was about to do.

As he slowly brought the car to a stop on the side of the road, Michael put the automatic gear shift into park, pulled out a Marlboro Red and lit it. This was one of the many crossroads he would face in his life and as he took a long, hard drag off of his cigarette, he could feel the adrenalin in his body begin to subside. He took a long look at himself in the rear view mirror of the car and in the reflection of the deep blue eyes that were staring back at him. And in that very moment, he felt a calm, confidant resolve in the actions he was about to undertake. He took another long, hard drag of his cigarette, leaned his head back against the seat and exhaled forcefully as he closed his eyes.

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It was a beautiful day. The birds were singing and there was a crisp breeze that wafted throughout the neighborhood as the aroma of flowers rushed in through the open windows. I had been tracking a hurricane that was making its way up the East Coast all week but as luck would have it, a cold front had pushed the hurricane eastward off the coastline of Boston.

I stepped into the bathroom, looked at myself in the mirror and asked myself wryly, “Are you ready for this?!” And as soon as the words left my mouth, a wicked little evil grin of confidence and excitement grew across my face. I had been working toward this day for the better part of a year and now that the rehearsals were finished, lines memorized and the preparations had all been completed, it was time to get this show on the road. I was more than ready.

I felt the nerves well up inside of me as I got dressed. What if I screwed up?! What if I forgot something important?! What if something goes horribly wrong?! And as my mind raced, I looked in the mirror once again and found that my wicked little evil grin of confidence was still planted firmly on my face. So I dismissed the litany of “what if” questions and focused on what was firmly within my control. I took a deep breath, finished getting dressed and walked out into the living room.

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“Mom, I’m going outside to play,” I would often say when I was a child. And as soon as I stepped outside our front door, the world was my playground.

I could ride my bike to the center of town where I would meet friends to play a game of baseball, football, kick the can, ghosts in the graveyard or whatever game our imaginations came up with on that particular day. There weren’t any coaches or drills. We made up our own rules and when a conflict arose, we would solve the problem on our own. And yes, every once in a while, the person with the ball would get mad, take their ball, hop on their bike and go home. To which we would just shrug our shoulders and start a new game.

We rode our bikes down to the Shepaug River along Route 67. We would fish, catch minnows, catch frogs and swim. If we were feeling especially daring (especially as we got older), we would swim our way out along the six-foot waterfall and jump off into the raging waters of river below.

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Back in June, I had one of the best dreams ever. I dreamt that I owned a helicopter. I was no longer a victim of traffic because I could fly above it. I didn’t have to look for the shortest route between two destinations because I could fly in whatever direction I wanted to go. I was completely free to explore as I saw fit.

I soared with the birds. I flirted with the soft, white, fluffy clouds that lined the horizon. I fought with high winds and thunderstorms as the rain pelted against the windshield of my chopper. I felt the rush of adrenaline each and every time I took to the skies to explore the magical world around me. It gave me a great new perspective on the world below. But most of all, when I wanted to get away from the frustrating limitations of being on the ground, I had a serene place to escape and commune with nature.

I was on my greatest flight ever as I dodged in and out of the rocky ravines of the mighty Grand Canyon when, like all good dreams, the alarm clock rang out and dragged me back to reality. Ejected from the cockpit of my mighty bird, I awoke nestled in the warm confines of my own bed. I fluttered my eyes as the realism of the dream washed over me and for one brief shining moment, I thought maybe, just maybe, it wasn’t a dream. Maybe I really did own a helicopter. Then came the moment of discontent when I opened my eyes and knew that I didn’t own my mighty flying machine. Oh, why couldn’t I have had fifteen more minutes of sleep?!

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