My last name has a silent “H” in it. Despite the spelling of Huryk, it is pronounced “Yer-ick”. I’ve grown accustomed to correcting mispronunciations (or not). It can be a great separator of the people who know versus those who don’t. The letter has no function but it has importance. Running through a box of memories that I have, it became obvious that there were several events and people that have gone silent through the years. They are the silent letters of life.
As we progress in the modern world, everything seems to be more analytical. The value of time, interactions and relationships have an almost economic feel to them. While waste is not particularly something to seek out in earnest, it is often a necessary ingredient to the eventual path that we take.
No matter what is in the past it is only prelude to now and what’s coming. Those letters can be as silent or as loud as you choose to make them. Their power is not real. It is how pronounced you make them. Choose the ones that move you forward.
Before Amazon, there was (at least in my world) the Sears Catalog. It was a huge “magazine” that had just about every product in the Sears store. It was a place that my brothers and I would peruse some time before Christmas to find things we wanted. I remember that I always focused in on the guitars. They weren’t overly expensive at the time and I fancied myself as a future guitarist. Despite my desire, I never told my parents nor did I save up money to purchase one. In hindsight, I really didn’t want the guitar. I liked the idea of the guitar but if I had truly wanted it, I’d have found a way.
With summer almost here, it almost time cotton candy, hot dogs, games and fun. Unfortunately fair’s not coming to town. The trucks, the rides and treats might all show up for a few days but there will be kids and adults alike expecting fair. Johnny whose cotton candy is smaller than his sister’s cries about fair. The father who remembers when the ticket for a ride was a quarter, not a dollar will complain about fair. The Scrambler operator will hear about the pay that his friends get at their jobs and wish for fair. Fair is not coming to town because it’s usually a one sided proposition.
In high school in the 90’s, it was difficult not to be bombarded with the safe sex talk of that era. The positive test of Magic Johnson with HIV gave a famous face to a disease that had not fully hit mainstream awareness. Many actions were taken to help protect young people from their hormones. Not least of all the education system’s attempt to prepare us with lessons about condoms. I remember very plainly Mr. Vellucci, my bio teacher, asking us if we understood how condoms worked. Or did we need him to demonstrate using a banana as he had been instructed to do. It was all very well intentioned and I’m sure that it worked to some degree. Unfortunately with the widespread use of the internet and mass media, our children need to be protected again from a disease that threatens to kill every last one of them: LIFE.
One of the best movies from a pure story standpoint that I’ve seen is “The Usual Suspects”. The film takes you on a ride where you’re continuously led down paths for particular reasons. A main reason for the perplexing nature of the film is the doubt surrounding the myth of Keyser S
Personally I never heard that version of spook story when I was a kid but I can see its usefulness to some people. The fairy tales and legends that we are told as children vary greatly depending on the desired outcome from our upbringing. Aspirational and cautionary tales alike are used to push the child in particular directions. Keep on trying courtesy of “The Little Engine that Could”. Be prepared by “The Three Little Pigs”. Don’t be sexually promiscuous by “Little Red Riding Hood” (Didn’t know until I talked to a German teacher). These stories were all fashioned to get a result.
It was January 2nd 2003. A clever little trick of mine to always remember the day that I proposed to my wife 1/2/03. As I waited in her apartment with dinner ready and candles lit, I was extremely nervous. That feeling was only compounded when she arrived. Then I started to ask and I could feel my legs shaking. This was gut-wrenching but necessary. The fear and the nerves came from risk. The risk of putting myself out there and the possibility that the answer could be “no”. It ended up going in my favor but I think that risk is an important factor to the things that really matter. You need to care enough to be willing to lose.
For most of my life, I’ve had a portion of Teddy Roosevelt’s speech at the Sorbonne memorized. “It is not the critic who counts… The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena.” It’s moving. It moves me in the sense that I actually take action when I think of it, hear it in my head or in my heart. The issue is at the moment, the critics have such a large megaphone that it becomes hard to hear our heads and our hearts. The echo of other people’s point of view tends to linger, burn and even cut the ones who are actually in the arena. The credit may belong to the man in the arena but that credit is hard earned because people want you to lose and never let you forget it.
Do me a favor and breath deeply. Pull it in and then release it. The air is incidental, isn’t it? It’s the breathing that you noticed. You probably gave little thought to the air itself. That’s because air is all around and it feels pliable and weak. It is only when air is marshaled into a formidable force, like a hurricane, that it gets the respect that it deserves. We need the air that we breath, it a building block with the potential to give life or take it away. It is a resource of infinite importance that is invisible because we only see it when it smacks us in the face like in a hurricane.
Each week in fourth grade, we had a folder that contained all of our work. On Friday, if you had everything done, the word ‘Complete’ was written on your folder and you got to do some craft or game. If you didn’t have everything done, you received a note of ‘Incomplete’ and you needed to finish your work before getting any free time. In the entire school year, I think that I was ‘Complete’ only twice. It took me most of the year to finish my macrame owl due to my limited free time. I’m quite certain that I only passed fourth grade by the skin of my teeth. Perhaps I should have (or continue) to feel badly about my incomplete track record or tendency. The fact of the matter is that I don’t.
Huryk Unlimited 