Many, by now, are familiar with the Olympic tale of this 22 year old man from Seabrook, New Hampshire.  After winning a bronze medal during the Vancouver Games, he allowed himself to get into a bit of a predicament.  Photographs were taken of him in somewhat compromising positions with his medal.  Once those photographs found their  way to the internet, as most photographs usually do, what could very well have been a lapse in judgement turned into an international incident.

For his “punishment” he was, shall we say, “encouraged”, to leave Vancouver early and return to his hometown.  The Olympic dream of a young athlete abruptly cut short, and for what?  For a team to save face?  For a nation to save face?  I’m not sure that I understand.  I’m not sure that I ever will.  But it has presented an interesting insight into our own hypocrisy.

Boys will be boys.  That’s what they say, right?  Now, before I go any further, let me preface this by saying I am not condoning or encouraging his behaviour.  I’m simply pointing out an inconsistency that I see.

If the pictures in question had not found their way to the internet, then one can only assume that this incident would have passed without any mention.  The team would have cast it off as an excited young man having a momentary lapse in judgement amidst the excitement of winning a bronze medal at the Olympics.  Life would go on and Scotty would still be with his team in Vancouver.

However, because the pictures did make it to the world wide web, suddenly that changes everything.  Now, instead of forgetting the whole thing, the team feels the need to publicly reprimand the young man and send him home early.

One sports writer explained it by saying that these days athletes live under intense scrutiny.  I don’t disagree with that.  But that doesn’t explain the hypocrisy.  Why, if athletes are so heavily scrutinized, do their actions only become important when they get caught?  Why do we, as people, and as a society, tolerate a seemingly endless supply of unacceptable behaviour, as long as it remains behind closed doors?  Is it ignorance?  It’s is denial?  Would we rather just be oblivious?

I’m not saying I agree or disagree with how the Scotty Lago situation was handled.  I am more interested in understanding why we only hold people to a higher standard after the fact.  How long was Tiger Woods leading his double life?  Why did sponsors, colleagues, and fans the world ‘round abandon the guy the minute word got out?  Why do we accept our own sins and then turn around so quick to judge those of others?  Is it just because they’re in the spotlight?  Or is it because focusing on the flaws of others allows us to ignore the flaws in ourselves?

The religion scholars and Pharisees led in a woman who had been caught in an act of adultery. They stood her in plain sight of everyone and said, “Teacher, this woman was caught red-handed in the act of adultery. Moses, in the Law, gives orders to stone such persons. What do you say?” They were trying to trap him into saying something incriminating so they could bring charges against him.

Jesus bent down and wrote with his finger in the dirt. They kept at him, badgering him. He straightened up and said, “The sinless one among you, go first: Throw the stone.” Bending down again, he wrote some more in the dirt.

Hearing that, they walked away, one after another, beginning with the oldest. The woman was left alone. Jesus stood up and spoke to her. “Woman, where are they? Does no one condemn you?”

“No one, Master.”

“Neither do I,” said Jesus. “Go on your way. From now on, don’t sin.”
John 8:3-11

There are skeletons in all of our closets.  Some of them are from days long since passed.  Others are from recent memory.  Still some are ones we fight with daily.  As long as we keep them hidden in our closet, we are too often to content to just keep going.  It’s not until we are exposed that try to justify, correct, or save face.

Scotty returned to his hometown a hero.  To me, it’s a perfect picture of forgiveness.  Despite the mistake he made.  Regardless of the fact that his team encouraged him to leave so as to not draw any negative attention or publicity, his family, friends, and neighbours welcomed him home with open arms.  It’s unfortunate that that is not the story that will be told or remembered though.  And I can’t help but think that the reason for that, is because we’re all too busy casting stones.

the small town marching band is in the parade on independence day
proudly marching, stepping in time
wearing those hand-me-down uniforms
everyone gathers on main street
expectantly waiting for their hometown hero

don’t you know ..
don’t you know ..

that you are one of my most favorite things ..
like notebooks, portland and tea
and when you smile.. you smile… you smile at me
you have no idea just how sweet it can be

so the band marches on
and we will sing along
there’s comfort in knowing our similarities
we are captured in time, space and degrees of caution .. wonder .. and awe

like pirouettes drifting
like chocolate
like saccharine
you’re unaware .. appealing
like our friendship, i’ll be content

Amy Seeley – Surprisingly So
http://amyseeley.bandcamp.com

Anywho, I’m a bit of an old fashioned, sentimental guy at heart. So I wanted to try and do something special to mark this Christmas. Something with meaning. It may be our last, though I hope not. But it will always be our first. Given that we’ve only been together – well… not together since I’m not allowed to say we’re together – given that we’ve only known each other a short time, I didn’t have a lot of history to draw from for a memorable first gift. Nevertheless, with my thinking cap securely in place… I came up with two ideas. Neither of them are of any great significance. But it is the thought that counts right? If nothing else… both ideas were born from periods of great thought.

The first gift was tucked away safely on my computer. I have to be careful what I say here, so as to not give any discernible clues. It was the one I was most excited about; I suspect because it was the corniest of the two. I’m a bit of a dweeb like that. Nevertheless, it was there, safe, secured, and ready for delivery when the time was right.

I sat down at my computer last week and went to access the gift on my external hard drive. I turned on the computer, pushed the big blue button on the hard drive, and then went to search for the file. There was a problem though. My hard drive wasn’t showing up. I clicked the button again. Still no hard drive appearing. Upon further investigation, and possibly a moment or two of complete and utter panic, I determined that what I feared was true. The hard drive was pooched. For as long as I’ve owned a computer I have NEVER experienced a hard drive failure. I did on this day. My heart sank a little. Years of my life, quite literally, were gone in that moment. So was the gift.

I tried several different things I had read and heard about to get the hard drive working again… including placing it in the freezer! I was a desperate man, and these desperate times called for extremely desperate measures no matter how ridiculous they may have seemed. I imagine that there is a pimple faced teenage boy sitting in his dimly lit bedroom on the second floor of his parents house, laughing himself into convulsions over all the poor suckers like me that he’s convinced to place their hard drives in the freezer – courtesy of a tip he posted on his blog. On this day, I did not care. On another day, well, I may have tracked him down and flogged him with a wet spaghetti noodle. But on this day, I was willing to try anything no matter how absurd. My efforts were in vain.

It took me a week of surfing the interweb in my spare time before I finally found what was to be the second gift; now the first… and only. It’s amazing what you can find online if you know where and how to look. It’s all about the right keywords and search phrases, or so I’ve come to learn. I was excited about this gift as well. Even more so after the tragic loss of the first. The satisfaction of finding it after looking so hard made me anticipate it’s Christmas delivery even more. It is far from spectacular. But it is the fruits of a sentimental soul. One can only hope that counts for something.

I watched Jingle All The Way with my captivating young lady, her adorable sister, and her sisters boyfriend – who seems to be a gentleman himself – this past Friday night. It really is a total cheeseball movie. I think that is part of the reason why I love it. I mean, lets be honest, Arnold drinking with a reindeer? Who writes this stuff? I learned an important lesson from that movie, though I didn’t realize it until this evening as I began to write this blog. That lesson goes something like this… if Sinbad is even the slightest bit representative of the United States Postal Service, I have suddenly lost all hope of the timely arrival of gift number 2.

Order by this date at this time and it will arrive for Christmas. Those words were in big bold red letters all over the site. When I read through all the shipping FAQ’s, I read those words again. I read the fine print people… the FINE PRINT! I wanted to make sure gift 2 made it, and on time! Ordering when I did… I had plenty of time to spare! Or so I thought.

633km. That’s how far the package must travel. Well… that’s assuming the package travels a direct route. Then again, what are the odds of it traveling a direct route? I agree… slim to none. Regardless… this is a journey that I could have made myself in a day. A long day mind you, but a day nevertheless. The United States Postal Service, however, can apparently not complete this journey in a week. Rain. Sleet. Snow. Hail. They’re supposed to be all over it. But not on this day. Not for this package.

As I write these very words, my Christmas Countdown timer tells me that it’s 3 days, 2 hours, 19 minutes and 33 seconds until Christmas. Not just any Christmas either. No. Our first Christmas. The Christmas of first impression. The Christmas of lasting impression. The Christmas filled with two of the most unlikely stories that will be unwrapped in an empty box. The Christmas I tried hard and failed harder! If you’re going to blow it… may as well do a good job of it! I wanted to make a memory and boy have I ever! :)

And this Christmas will be… a very special Christmas indeed!

Sunday afternoon I asked her out.  It was… unromantic.  In fact, for a man who prides himself on his ability to communicate, for a man who takes his words and writes them with such care and consideration, looking back I can’t help but think I could have done better.  “Miss [name removed for the sake of my physical well being]… you amuse me and I think you need to let me take you out for coffee this week.”  Even as I type the sentence, I hang my head in shame, but still with a bit of a grin.  One day, should this story ever be made into a book or a movie, I’m definitely going to have to rewrite that line!

She said yes.  At the end of the day, I suppose this is all that matters.  A glass half empty person would reflect on the exceptionally unpoetic way in which the proposal was phrased.  A glass half full person – who may or may not have done a fist pump into the air – smiles at his good fortune and spends the days before their meeting working on better lines.

In today’s society, where so many are raised in broken homes, it would seem that little significance is now placed on meeting the parents of the person whom you choose to date.  Sometimes there is one parent.  Sometimes there are no parents.  Sadly, in so many cases, it seems that two parents under the same roof are the exception rather than the rule.  I think it’s for this reason that it doesn’t seem to be tradition, if you will, as it once was.

Being a bit of an old soul – or so I’ve been called in the past – I still believe that it’s very important to meet a young ladies parents.  I believe that a gentleman has nothing to hide and therefore, nothing to fear, from meeting Mom and Dad.  Don’t get me wrong.  It is still more intimidating to me than when I’m staring down the mesmerizing glow and excruciating heat of a structure fire; but as I always say, sometimes sacrifices must be made for the greater good.

If you told me that I’d be meeting the parents exactly one week to the day of my first contact with this young lady, I would have politely cast you aside as fruit nut, and went about the business of my day.  While it’s true that I am all for meeting, and including the parents, I was a little caught off guard to have it happen so fast.  As I sat in my apartment on the fateful Saturday one week later I found myself frequently checking my pulse, and there may have been a blood pressure check once as well.  My official story will, of course, always be that it was practice for the Fire Department.

The clock ticked louder that day.  I know this because I haven’t a clock that ticks anywhere in my home, but I’m convinced that I heard one knocking off each passing second – so it must have been louder.  I confess that I relived every bad thing that happened to Ben Stiller (aka Gaylord Focker) as he welcomed Robert DeNiro (Jack Byrnes) into his life.  I lowered myself off the couch, and on bended knee I prayed to God that there would be no urn on the mantle, no cat named Jinx, and with more fervor than perhaps I’ve ever displayed, I prayed that there would be no lie detector test conducted by a Florist formerly employed by the CIA.

Few gentleman had been brought home to meet the parents, or so the story this young lady told me, goes.  Being a classic over-thinker, I could only assume such a fact was true because the thought of the pending interrogation proved to be too much for those that had come before me, and they simply bowed out gracefully before ever making it to this stage.  In the midst of my poorly disguised panic, my captivating young lady – with her eyes the colour of a clear summer sky – explained to me that the bar was set very low by those that came before me; though this gave me little comfort.

“Stay awake.”  Those were my instructions.  “As long as you don’t fall asleep while they’re talking to you… they’ll like you.”

“But it’s Saturday,” I cried, “I sleep A LOT on Saturday’s.  Sometimes I can’t help myself.”  My concerns were genuine, though in reflection, mostly ridiculous and possibly brought about as a result of panic and an elevated heart rate.

My captivating young lady, whose smile douses my fear like an inch and a half combat line douses flames, was confident I could pull it off.  It is true that I sleep a lot on Saturday.  It is true that, in the past, I have fallen asleep in random places (refer to the above photo).  But today I was on mission.  Today, my objective was earn the privilege of a second date.  Today was Saturday, and it was time to meet the parents!

Epilogue
On Friday I will see my captivating young lady for the 4th time.  Not only did I manage to stay awake, but it would seem that I may have even managed to impress.  This, dear friends, is evidence to the power of prayer! ;-)

All of the guys wanted to dance like Fred Astaire or Gene Kelly. They wanted to sing like Frank Sinatra or Bing Crosby. They wanted to be like Cary Grant or James Stewart. The women wanted to dance like Ginger Rogers or Cyd Charisse. They wanted to sing like Judy Garland or Kathryn Grayson. They wanted to be like Audrey Hepburn or Grace Kelly.

One of my favourite scenes from a movie is from Singin’ In The Rain. It is, of course, Gene Kelly’s routine for the title song. Perhaps more so than any other scene in any other movie, it captures a feeling of pure joy. You can’t watch that routine and not smile. He is man who has been captivated by a woman, and his heart, in that moment, is clearly on his sleeve for all to see.

December the 3rd was a brutal day for me. Not because of any event or circumstance per se. It was just “one of those days.” I hadn’t had a day like it in quite a while. My attitude was just junk that day. I’d like to say that it wasn’t about a self pity party, but I suppose, maybe on some level, it really was.

I was having an email conversation with a friend. In essence, I was spilling my guts about the prospects of facing my 3rd Christmas alone. She knows how much I love Christmas, and I was telling her that I just didn’t want it this year. I had kind of given up. I really was starting to let myself believe that hope was gone. It sounds dramatic, of this I am aware. But it’s also true that, unless you’ve lived through even some of what I’ve gone though, it’s hard to truly understand all I was feeling.

My friend, bless her heart, tried to encourage me, but I wasn’t interested in hearing it. I was miserable, and, frankly, I wanted to continue to be miserable. Christians don’t like to let Christians be miserable. So Christians are always trying to fix problems. But you know what… I wanted no part of it. God loves us, even when we’re ticked. I believe He understands. So on December the 3rd, I was in a bad mood all day long.

On December 5th, two days after the worst day I had had in a very long time, two days after I had quit women, given up hope, and was settling in for another holiday season alone, something unexpected happened. Something amazing happened. Two days later, my hope had been restored when – following a series of coincidental events – a young lady “Facebooked” her way into my life.

When I reflect on the story – which I’m not allowed to tell – I smile. Maybe coincidence wasn’t coincidence at all. Maybe it was all part of something greater than me and my bad attitude from December 3rd. I don’t want to overthink it. Not yet, anyway. So instead, I’ve just chosen to bask in it. And like Debbie Reynolds did to Gene Kelly, this young lady has captivated me. She did it with her quick wit, her blue eyes, and a smile that could brighten the rainiest day!

On my way to church this morning, as the skies opened up and the rains came down, I found Gene Kelly on my iPod. I played it once. Then I played it again. Then again. I ended up listening to it on repeat all the way to church. And the more I listened, the more I sang, and the more I pictured those blues eyes and that smile in mind, the more I finally understood what it was like to be “Singin’ In The Rain.”

If this is indeed true, then why is it that the Liberals rammed this tax through the legislature as quickly as possible, and refused any and all requests by the other parties for public hearings on this wonderful, amazing, life altering tax that is for the greater good of all of us?  Well… because even the Liberals know that Ontario voters would never stand for such a blatant government cash grab.  If people were given the chance to speak, I am convinced that people would send a loud and clear message informing Mr. McGuinty of exactly where he can stick his new tax.

For those of you that have not followed along with the developing story of the HST, here is your wake up call, albeit it, too late to make a difference.  This tax is coming in July and we’re stuck with it, at the very least, until the next provincial election in 2011.  Hopefully by then people will have educated themselves and decided to use their vote to speak.

People like you and I don’t always have a chance to have a voice when it comes to issues of government.  As evidenced by the HST, politicians will force things through without giving a second thought to the concerns of the very people it affects.  So every 4 years we have the ability to speak.  We have the privilege to speak.  We are given a vote.  It saddens me how many people cast this privilege aside as a waste of time or an inconvenience.  The excuses for doing so are as vast as the very land in which we live.  Each of them is unacceptable.

Take a look at the “price of progress” as this new tax is being deemed.  After you’ve done so; after you’ve had a chance to see just how deeply this will affect you and your family, I want you to mark October 6, 2011 on your calendar.  That will be our next chance to speak with our vote.  I hope you will join me in speaking loud and clear!

THE PRICE OF PROGRESS?

What will be subjected to the new sales tax

- Gasoline

- Utilities (heating/hydro/natural gas)

- Internet bills

- Magazines

- Adult footwear under $30

- Admissions under $4 (e.g., swimming pool, skating rink)

- Veterinary care

- Personal services (e.g., hair stylist, massage)

- Professional services (e.g., legal, accountant, mutual fund fees)

- Membership fees (e.g., gym)

- New homes over $400,000

- Real estate commissions

- Commercial property rentals

- Condominium Fees

- Landscaping

- Vitamins

- Most admissions to live theatres

- Taxi fares

- Conferences and seminars

- Dry cleaning

- Carpet cleaning

- Labour costs related to home renovation

- Motor vehicle services (towing, car washing)

- Ice rink rental

- Hotels

- Overnight summer camps

- Domestic air travel

- Domestic rail travel

- Bus tickets

- Christmas trees

- Electrical and plumbing services

- Snowplowing

- Bicycles

- Funeral costs

- Postal stamps and courier fees

- Green fees