The Dash

My wife and I used to watch the old ABC TV show ‘The Middle”. It was the story of a middle-class Indiana family with three quirky kids. In some ways, it could have been the story of my wife’s family, a middle-class Indiana family with three kids.

One of my favorite episodes was when the dad, Mike, had to do a eulogy for his father. Of course, he kept procrastinating and was continually nagged by his wife, Frankie, to get it done. When it finally was time to speak, the always soft-spoken Mike delivered a fantastic story about his father’s life.

The point of his story regards the tombstone. On the marker, it always mentions the date of birth and death, which we separate by a dash. The dash is the most essential part of that stone because the dash symbolizes everything in between. It encompasses every bit of their life.

Yesterday would have been my father-in-law Thom Brown’s 83rd birthday. But instead of celebrating his birth, today we’re in Indiana celebrating the dash. He passed away on August 19th. We all have mixed feelings about his passing. Shortly after the death of my mother-in-law Nancy back in 2019, Thom was officially diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease. We believe he’d been suffering for a few years, but Nancy never wanted to burden us with worrying about his health. Doctors were late in their diagnosis because he never exhibited the tremors most Parkinson’s sufferers show as the first symptom.

With the passing of his wife, the Parkinson’s diagnosis, and the COVID-19 shutdown, Thom quickly became a shell of the man we once knew. But there is so much more to ‘the dash.’ Thom was a career radio broadcaster. Early in his career, he worked for the legendary Group W (Westinghouse Broadcasting), which included time at a few well-known stations, including WOWO, Ft Wayne, WIND, Chicago, and two stints at the iconic KDKA in Pittsburgh. But after just a few years of moving up within the company, Thom gave up running the company fast track. He opted to move home to Northern Indiana to manage radio stations in his hometown of Rensselaer and then in nearby Lafayette, where he spent over two decades working at radio stations including WAZY, WEZV, WGLM, WKOA, and WASK.

While radio was essential to Thom’s life, it was a distant second to family. For Thom, the family was everything! Unlike most radio people (myself included) who are very extroverted, Thom was extremely quiet and reserved and relished his family time. He lived for the holidays, especially Christmas, and was always the taste tester for the Thanksgiving dressing. He loved his bacon extra crispy and never turned down an ice-cold beer.

For all of us, that dash between October 13, 1940, and August 19, 2023, represents a well-lived life. Godspeed, Thom Brown. We’ll take it from here…

Music:
David Fesliyan “Goodbye, My Friend”
Music used from https://www.fesliyanstudios.com

Behind The Mask

For nearly two years, many of us have been wearing some form of face mask in public. It’s become a major flashpoint for some. My attitude has always been I’m willing to put up with the inconvenience if it keeps me healthy.
Masking for Health

But now, the CDC has issued amended guidelines for wearing masks. Many communities across the country can now relax their mask guidelines, and that’s good news. Sadly, they’ve advised those of us in Nashville to keep our masks on a bit longer.

Now, I know you don’t need a commentary from me about mask-wearing. In all honesty, there’s one reason I wrote about these updated guidelines. Finding this new county-by-county information is a challenge. But, the CDC did create a handy-dandy widget for us to track this updated data. And since the CDC website can be a hassle to navigate, I’ve included their tracking tool right here.

Hopefully, this info will be much easier for you to find here.

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Fake Holidays

Social media has changed many things in our world. One thing that has become more prevalent is a greater number of fake holidays. Most of us celebrate the real holidays like the 4th of July, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. But more and more people have begun to embrace fake holidays.

During my years in radio, we always shined a spotlight on what were once obscure holidays, many of which were only observed on paper. Even today, I celebrate holidays like National Taco Day (tomorrow, October 4th) or National Pencil Day (March 30th). These so-called holidays have been around forever but are usually only mentioned in passing.

But the internet and social media have created a whole new crop of fake holidays that usually have some pop culture reference. I’ve mentioned a few of them here at Kev-Mania, like Rex Manning Day on April 8th. The day originates from a brief mention and major plot point in the movie Empire Records.

Another fake holiday that has become an annual social media obsession happens today, on October 3rd. It’s Mean Girls Day. It’s a day that again has its pop culture origin in the movies, specifically the 2004 teen comedy, Mean Girls starring Lindsay Lohan.

The holiday honors a one-off line uttered during one of the many classroom scenes. In years past, few people would have cared. But now, thanks to social media and meme culture, it’s an annual “celebration.” How we are supposed to celebrate, I have no clue. But of course, since I saw many of my Facebook friends remind me of today’s special significance, I think I’ll check out the movie on-demand.

Happy Mean Girls Day!
Mean Girls movie poster

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Slower Shipping

The US Postal Service just announced that their service is going to get slower and costlier. I wonder just how much slower it can get. I’ve been noticing that many parcels I both ship and receive have been taking much longer. And this isn’t a recent occurrence. This has been ramping up for the last few years. Below is an example:

This picture shows the shipping progress of my quarterly Quip toothbrush subscription from last October. The package originated in Hebron, KY which is a Cincinnati, OH suburb. Hebron is roughly 4.5 hours by car from Nashville. Now I realize the shipping progress isn’t as simple as throwing the package in a car, but this is ludicrous. At first glance, it looks like the shipping system is already broken. This image only shows the first 17 days of a process that took nearly a month to complete.

If the process gets any slower, what’s the point?

Video

365 Days

One year ago our world changed. It’s been 365 days since we received the news that my mother-in-law, Nancy had unexpectedly passed away. It started just like any other Friday. But as my wife was literally walking through the door coming home from work, we learned that the paramedics couldn’t revive my mother-in-law. She was gone.

Nancy had come home from school where she was a paraprofessional just like every other weekday. She chatted briefly with my father-in-law and then went into the bedroom to change clothes. She never came back out. By the time Thom went in to see what she was doing it was already too late. She had a massive heart attack and was gone in an instant.

My wife and I threw some clothes into our suitcases and hit the road. It was one of the longest trips back to Indiana we’ve ever experienced. At least it felt that way. The next few weeks were truly a blur. For my wife, her brother, and her sister that blur has lasted much longer. There were so many details that needed to be handled.

I helped when and where I could, but there were so many things that my wife, her brother and sister had to do wanted to do themselves. But there was one thing that they asked of me; Put together the video/slideshow that would play at the visitation and memorial service. I grabbed my laptop and started scanning pictures. Roughly 24 hours later the video was complete. Thanks to modern technology I didn’t even need to burn it to a DVD. I simply posted it on my YouTube channel and then connected my laptop to a TV. Thanks to the convenience of a wi-fi I simply hit repeat and let it roll.

There truly is no way to compress 73 year of life into a few pictures, but I tried. As I’ve now said way too many times; Make sure that you hug those who are precious to you, often. And never forget to say ‘I love you’. You never know when it might be the last time…

Music:
David Fesliyan “All Shall End”
free background music from https://www.fesliyanstudios.com

Rex Manning Day