I Don't Worry About Being Kidnapped Anymore

I’ve written before about the time my parents thought I was kidnapped. It was around 1985, when I was seven, and it involved a clown. Stephen King’s It wouldn’t come out and transform clowns from friendly, creative characters into menacing murderers for another year.But my friend Sam and I were plenty scared of that particular clown on that particular day. We probably still weren’t as scared as our parents were, since, in their eyes, we were missing. They might have thought we’d been kidnapped, and I for sure thought that’s what the clown intended to do.Kidnapping wouldn’t have surprised me. I worried about it all the time. It didn’t help that in school we were always learning about ways to thwart kidnappers. Seeing pictures of missing kids helped add to my paranoia as well. I drove myself crazy worrying about some madman rolling up in a beat-up van, luring me with some candy, and kidnapping me.Luckily nothing like that ever happened. And as I grew older I became less worried about it. At some point right after college it occurred to me that I hadn’t thought about being kidnapped in a really long time. Thirty-eight-year-old men aren’t kidnapped very often in America.One fewer thing for me to worry about.When we were presented with tonight’s Blogapalooz-Hour challenge: “Write about things you once worried about but don't anymore,” kidnapping was the immediate thing that came to mind. I thought I might write about just that.But as I wrote the first couple paragraphs above, I remembered a few other things that I used to worry about.Like parenting.At some point I realized that I hadn’t grown to be an asshole, or a murderer, or a clown, and I attributed that to being blessed with stellar parents. I always knew that I wanted to have kids, but I worried that I wouldn’t know how to be a parent.Sometimes in the back of my mind I replayed that scene from the end of Back to the Future where Doc Brown arrives from the future and says he needs Marty and his girlfriend to come help him. And Marty says, “Do we become assholes or something?”Doc tells him that they grow to be just fine, but “It's your kids, Marty! Something's gotta be done about your kids!"I worried that was the fate in store for me. I’d turned out to be a rather decent fellow, but what if I was such a shitty parent that my kids became jerks? I had no idea how to be a good parent. I couldn’t point to one particular thing my parents did that made them good parents.But even though the jury’s still out for my kids, I’m confident they’ll continue to be people of whom I can be proud. Part of that is because somehow I’ve learned to be a damn good dad. I used to doubt myself, to wonder if I’d know what I was doing, to wonder if I had what it took, but after getting an up-close look at a couple of truly shitty parents, I can say that I don’t worry about not being a good parent anymore.There are a few other things I don’t worry about anymore, most of which are less serious than being kidnapped or being a no-good parent.Like being buried alive. I used to always worry that when I got old my family would think I was dead and put me in a coffin, and then I’d come back to life, but still be buried. Horrible.But then I found out that blood is drained from bodies after they die. No need to worry about being buried alive anymore!I saw a movie when I was a little boy where a guy answers a phone and some killer on the other end sends a special shock through the phone that killed the dude. I don’t know, maybe there’s some technology that could do that, or maybe radiation from our cell phones is slowly killing us anyway. Whatever the case, I don’t worry about getting shocked on the phone.I used to worry about feeling awkward. Being in uncomfortable situations. Having to talk about difficult things. I don’t worry about that anymore. I’ve learned to embrace awkwardness. Even to seek it out sometimes. When we throw ourselves into difficult situations outside of our comfort zone, the only choice we have is to grow. Thus no need to worry about that either.There are times that I worry that I can’t write. Words aren’t coming together how I want them to. I’m unable to express the point I want to get across. Creativity seems to abandon me.But then a blank page fills up, and I realize I don’t have to worry about that either.Unfortunately, the list of things that I do still worry about is much longer than the things I don’t worry about.I’m still not worried about clowns though.Click here to receive an e-mail each time I write a new post! Guaranteed spam-free, unsubscribe any time IF YOU LIKED THIS POST I BET YOU'LL ALSO LIKE: Fear Can Be Useful When ParentingPREVIOUS POST: Money Can't Buy What We Want the Most

Money Can't Buy What We Want the Most

In May of 1998 I was in the middle of an Elvis Presley obsession, so I went to Graceland. Everything about the place seemed awesome to me, from the giant Corinthian columns out front, to the purple and yellow room with three televisions built into the wall, to the big man’s grave out back.But what has stuck with me the most from the visit is a particular story about Elvis.During a party at Graceland he was inside with a guest who came from a poor background, and the other partygoers were outside on the lawn. His friend commented on how sophisticated all of the partygoers seemed. Elvis walked over to his desk, pulled a stack of money from one of the drawers, opened a window, and threw the bills out the window.The partygoers scrambled after the bills, shoving each other, trying to grab as much money as they could. Elvis turned to his friend and said, “They’re not that sophisticated.”I love that story because it shows both how money can mean so much to some people and how it can mean so little to others.Elvis grew up poor, and I’m sure when he was poor money was important. But when he started to make more money than he could ever spend, or maybe just enough money to have every material thing he wanted, it no longer held importance to him.My thoughts about money have always been in line with the old saying, “Money can’t buy happiness.” I think that’s true. However, it can make things easier, it can open doors, it can provide opportunities, and those things can lead to happiness.I’ve never been driven by money. I’d like to be rich. I’d like to have more money than I can spend. But if I were driven by money I would have gone into a different line of work, I would have prioritized my career over my family, I would have taken a different direction entirely.I recently heard two celebrities who have earned a degree of financial success comment on how money has affected them, and they’re both great examples of basic reasons why people want more money.Marc Maron, a comedian who produces the awesomely spectacular WTF podcast, recently said that he hasn’t made any large purchases since his financial success, but he goes to the grocery store and buys whatever he wants. He doesn’t even look at prices.An unlimited grocery budget. That’s why I’d like more money.Lin-Manuel Miranda, who wrote the cultural phenomenon Hamilton—which I’ve somehow never seen or heard!—posted yesterday that he knows he’s successful because he paid the premium overnight shipping rate when he ordered something and didn’t think twice about it.That sounds nice, too.I’m not a New Year’s resolution type of guy, but my main goal for 2017 is to end the year in a drastically improved financial situation compared to how I will begin the year. I have plans in place to do just that, but any success I attain toward that goal will be meaningful to me only to the extent that the success is non-monetary.I don’t equate money with success. Perhaps that’s inconvenient because of the world in which we live, but just because someone has money doesn’t imply to me that they’ve been successful. At least not in a meaningful way.True success has many non-monetary measurements. Are you professionally fulfilled? Are you personally fulfilled? Do you make a difference, in your work or in your life? Are you helpful? Are you creative?Although the challenge for this writing exercise is to “Write about how you view money and/or the role it has played in your life,” I think the more basic, core issue that should we should examine is how we view life, and the role it has played with our money.Some of us are rich. Some of us are poor. Most of us are in between. Some of us have been or will be both. And most of us have wished for more money at some point in our lives.Money is nice. But when I come to the end, and I look back at what I’ve done, I won’t wish that I had more money. I’ll wish that I had more time.Click here to receive an e-mail each time I write a new post! Guaranteed spam-free, unsubscribe any time IF YOU LIKED THIS POST I BET YOU'LL ALSO LIKE: SkyMall is Bankrupt, But How do These Places Stay Open?PREVIOUS POST: True Horror of Gun Violence in Russian Ambassador Assassination Photos

True Horror of Gun Violence in Russian Ambassador Assassination Photos

The picture accosted me without warning from my Facebook feed. It looked like a scene from some idiotic action film. A man in a suit sprawled on the floor, flat on his back. Next to him another man in a suit wielded a gun pointed at the ground. People in the distance scattered for cover.

But the photograph didn’t come from an action film. The men in the photo were all too real: one the Russian ambassador to Turkey, the other his assassin. By the time I saw the photo on my Facebook feed, both were dead.It took a few seconds before I realized what I was seeing. There seemed to be a disconnect between my eyes and my brain. I couldn’t process the images. I knew what I was seeing, but my brain couldn’t remove the filter that identified such scenes as fiction.Eventually, I put it all together though, and the gravity of the image became clear. I was looking at a photo of a dead human being, seconds after the other man in the photo killed him.The first question that came to my mind—before wondering who either man was, before thinking of the victim’s family, or the potential international crisis that might result—was, “Why the hell would they post such a graphic photo?”My next thought: “That’s the sort of sensationalism the media loves.”I read the article and discovered details of what happened. But as horribly as the events were portrayed via the written word, the image made it seem even worse.But this is one instance in which I think the image is more important than the words.Publishing the photo isn’t sensationalism. One man shot and killed another man. Reading that sentence will make you think one thing. But seeing this picture will make you think another.

The picture captures the true horror in ways that words can’t.And maybe we need to capture that true horror in this country.I’ve written about guns before. Many times. I’m no fan of them. And despite the wishes of an overwhelming majority of the American public, members of Congress have been too cowardly to pass any effective gun violence legislation.Part of the reason for such inaction is that no matter what horrors abound due to this country’s fetishizing of guns, most of us are removed from those horrors. Despite my emotional reactions to the various gun tragedies that have occurred in this country, I can’t think about gun violence in the same way that someone who has experienced it first-hand.Pictures such as those above help break down that wall between experiencing terror and reading about terror.In 1968, after the assassinations of JFK, Dr. King, and RFK, Congress passed the Gun Control Act of 1968. The act created a minimum age and serial number requirements, restricted shipping guns across state lines, required ID to purchase certain ammunition, and extended a gun ban to cover mentally ill and drug addicts.The NRA president at the time, Franklin Orth, said that even though parts of the law appeared “unduly restrictive, the measure as a whole appears to be one that the sportsmen of America can live with.”The NRA president said that his organization could “live with” a bill even though it was “unduly restrictive.”That’s not the only time the NRA took a sane position. A few years before, when Congress wanted to pass a bill banning mail order sales, which is how Lee Harvey Oswald obtained the gun with which he killed JFK, Orth said, “We do not think that any sane American, who calls himself an American, can object to placing into this bill the instrument which killed the president of the United States.”So what caused the NRA to take such positions?Perhaps they had no choice. The Zapruder film captured footage of the president’s head exploding, a fountain of brain matter and blood. Days later, his assassin was murdered on live television.Then, almost five years later, a 17-year-old busboy, Juan Romero, cradled RFK in a pool of blood after he was shot in the head. A Life magazine photographer captured the moment.Two of America’s most important and influential leaders were killed by gun violence, and we saw the devastation with our own eyes.

Imagine if pictures of the horrendous inhumanity of Columbine, Aurora, or Tucson were widely disseminated. I shutter to think what pictures of Sandy Hook would have looked like. From time-to-time I think of a couple of the descriptions I read from parents of the victims, and it’s almost too much.How could anyone see pictures of such horror and then decide not to act? Would a Senator vote against sensible gun control legislation when faced with photographic evidence of the weapon’s barbaric handiwork? And if he or she did vote against such legislation, would the voting public, who also saw such images, ever forget how that Senator voted?These images are troubling. They’re sensationalist. But they’re real. They should make us uncomfortable because that discomfort is the only way our elected officials will be forced to act.So the next time there’s a mass shooting in this country—and it will happen again, it always happens again—I hope someone publishes graphic photos of the aftermath.And those of us who have been pushing for sensible gun legislation will say to those who opposed gun legislation—gun rights advocates, the NRA, cowardly Senators—the same thing that Jackie Kennedy said when she resisted cleaning herself up after leaving Dallas: “Let them see what they’ve done.”Click here to receive an e-mail each time I write a new post! Guaranteed spam-free, unsubscribe any time IF YOU LIKED THIS POST I BET YOU'LL ALSO LIKE: Serious Questions For Those Who Oppose Gun LawsPREVIOUS POST: Thinking of the Sandy Hook Victims Four Years Later

Thinking of the Sandy Hook Victims Four Years Later

Yesterday I read an article about a study in Japan that determined that eating ice cream for breakfast may increase mental sharpness and response time. Regardless of the study’s validity, I thought it would be fun to surprise my kids with ice cream for breakfast. I imagined the stunned look on their faces when they came to the table and instead of cereal, or toast, or eggs, they found a bowl of ice cream.“Are you serious?” one of them would ask.“We get to eat ice cream for breakfast?” another would say.My six-year-old daughter would just giggle, run to her room to get the tiny spoon I brought home from work last night, and dive in.And then I forgot about it until two minutes before waking them up this morning. I didn’t buy ice cream last night so they didn’t have ice cream this morning.Parental failure.On most days I’d simply shrug it off, buy some ice cream at the store tonight, and surprise them tomorrow.But today isn’t most days. It’s December 14.It’s the day four years ago that I first heard the words Sandy Hook and Newtown. The day that twenty first graders, and six staff members who tried to protect them, were murdered.Three of my kids were in school then. My sons bookended first grade, one in kindergarten, one in second grade. In the days that followed, the pictures of those kids looked like kids I had coached in little league, kids we saw at the park, kids who lived in our neighborhood.Often when tragedies like that happen, people think, “I didn’t think it could happen here.” But after seeing those photos, and reading those names—there was Benjamin (my own son’s name), and Madeleine, and Catherine, and Dylan (we knew kids with those names), and sixteen more—I thought, “It could happen here. It could happen anywhere.”The thought of it can be crippling. It makes me want to lock the doors, home school my kids, and tell them that there’s nothing in the outside world that they really need.But I can’t do that, of course. Not only wouldn’t it be practical, but it would cheat them of the kind of life that I want for them. Prevent them from experiencing all of the impossibly amazing and good things the world has to offer.It would make them a different kind of victim.So we let them go to school. We let them go out into the world. And we try to hide how truly terrifying it is to be a parent sometimes. We keep them close, while letting them go. We try figure out how to hug them tight, while at the same time encouraging them to explore. We try to warn them of the world, but not make them scared of it.And I think about those twenty kids often. Not just on December 14. But every single time I go to my children’s school in the middle of the day. And on those wonderful days when I’m home to pick them up from school. And during holiday concerts and awards programs. And on the first day of school. And the last day of school. And next Thursday, when my kids are brimming with excitement for their holiday parties at school.I have no choice but to transfer my grief for those twenty children into gratitude for my own, or I risk being consumed. But the grief makes the gratitude more acute. More tangible.screen-shot-2016-12-14-at-112But still I think of those children. Twenty of them. Twenty. That’s so many. The logo for Sandy Hook Promise, an organization whose mission is to prevent gun-related deaths, is a tree in which green handprints are the leaves. The first time I saw the logo I thought, “There are so many handprints.” Turns out there’s one small handprint for each of the twenty children, and one large handprint for each of the six adults.Twenty. Ugh.I’m thinking of them today. I’ll read about them. I’ll look at their pictures.Then, tonight I’ll tuck in my own children, and breathe a sigh of relief that they’re safe at home, in their beds.And tomorrow morning, I won’t forget the ice cream.Click here to receive an e-mail each time I write a new post! Guaranteed spam-free, unsubscribe any time IF YOU LIKED THIS POST I BET YOU'LL ALSO LIKE: Dear Guns,PREVIOUS POST: Tips to Make Your Sledding Experience More Fun

Tips to Make Your Sledding Experience More Fun

I checked the weather forecast for Chicago and saw that the high on Thursday is supposed to be seven degrees. And, oh, by the way, winter doesn’t begin for another six days after that.Mother Nature—cruel, demented lass that she is—graced us this past weekend with a preview of what’s to come: snow. Days and weeks and inches and feet of snow. We’ll get so much snow that three months from now even the kids will be tired of it.But this weekend it was still new and exciting, so I decided to take three of my kids sledding. And since it’s early in the snow season, and—despite what I’m about to write—sledding is damn fun, I figured I’d take this opportunity to provide a few tips that will help improve your sledding experience.A successful sledding outing begins long before you reach the hill. It demands thought and preparation, otherwise the whole thing can turn into a giant pain in the ass.It may seem obvious, but you’ll want to dress warm. There’s snow out there, which means it’s cold. If you’re sledding during a snowstorm, there’s a good chance it’s going to be windy, too. So dress appropriately. In fact, assume it’s going to be windy because even if you don’t feel the wind when you step out your front door, you’ll feel it when you’re at the top of the hill. Don’t be surprised.But even before you get dressed you have to prepare. I had my kids layer: two pairs of socks, two pairs of pants, t-shirt, sweatshirt, second sweatshirt, coat. Unfortunately, what I didn’t do was have them use the bathroom before they put on all of those clothes.Not a big deal for my sons, but my six-year-old daughter’s base layer was a pair of footie pajamas. As we walked out the door I remembered that no one went to the bathroom, so I asked if she had to go. She assured me she didn’t.Fast forward 45 minutes, and I’m at the bottom of the hill, looking up at her standing at the top of the hill, shaking her legs in the universal sign for “I have to pee.”We were at a park. The bathrooms were locked. And she had footie pajamas on beneath two layers of clothes. I had no choice but to take her home. (I'll be damned if I'm taking her to a public restroom in this situation.) After some negotiation my two sons talked me into letting them stay, so I raced home, unlocked the door, and helped my daughter remove layer after layer of clothes while she swayed from one foot to the other.Don’t forget to use the bathroom before getting dressed.Now for some sledding etiquette that might keep you from getting killed.First, obey the line. Most people at the top of the hill were patient and waited for their turn to go down the hill. But there were a couple of teenagers who assumed the rest of us were standing around for no reason, and just passed us, threw down their sleds, and took off.I rooted for them to fall off of their sleds.Also, at the end of your run, whether you make it all the way down or not, do not try to walk back up the middle of the hill. This seems like common sense, and most of the offenders were pre-teen and teenage kids, but there was one dopey husband who had to be reminded by his wife that he should walk off to the side before climbing the hill.I think sledding etiquette also states that if some nincompoop decides to walk up the middle of the hill they’re fair game. I don’t usually condone violence, but if you see someone walking up the middle of your sledding hill after they’ve been reminded not to do so, then you should try to run them over. Even if you miss you’re likely to put a scare into the wayward fellow, so maybe you won’t have to deal with their idiocy again.When you get to the bottom of the hill, please don’t forget that you’re at the bottom of a sledding hill.Some poor teenage girl forgot where she was, and congregated near the bottom of the hill with her friends. My twelve-year-old son slid down the hill, and with no chance of steering his sled, he plowed right into her. She flipped over head-first, like I’ve seen on America’s Funniest Home Videos 10,000 times. Luckily, she wasn’t hurt, but it could have been bad news.Sleds are hard to steer, so it’s the responsibility of the person standing at the bottom of the hill to ensure that they don’t get run over.That should do it. Follow my advice and you’ll have a blast.Winter sucks for the most part, so get out there and enjoy one of the few bright spots in an otherwise dismal season. And be sure to post pictures on Facebook so your jerk friends who live in warm weather locales can be jealous of your sledding fun.Oh, and some hot chocolate afterward doesn’t hurt either.Click here to receive an e-mail each time I write a new post! Guaranteed spam-free, unsubscribe any time IF YOU LIKED THIS POST I BET YOU'LL ALSO LIKE: Why Winter SucksPREVIOUS POST: Without Gratitude Do We Have Anything?

Without Gratitude Do We Have Anything?

We’ve made it to the end of November, but before we closeout the month, I wanted to mention that November is National Gratitude Month.I haven’t written much about gratitude on this blog during November, despite writing everyday. However, a fellow ChicagoNow blogger, You Know Neen, devoted the entire month to gratitude. Every single day she published a post about gratitude written by her or one of a number of guest bloggers. It has provided a respite from a very worrisome and mean month.But while thinking about gratitude, I thought it might be helpful to summarize what it is. The Oxford English Dictionary says that it’s “The quality or condition of being grateful.” I suppose that’s the essence in its simplest form, but as evidenced by the bloggers in You Know Neen’s series, that gratefulness can express itself in a variety of ways.I always try to be grateful, and take the time to think about how lucky I am, and the things in my life that make me happy. But it recently occurred to me that perhaps the best way to appreciate gratitude is to think about what life would be like without it.So, without gratitude:My daughter’s laugh wouldn’t make me smile.Who would appreciate the scent of freshly-cut grass?What about blue skies? Or puffy cumulus clouds?Pizza Fridays wouldn’t be so exciting. Neither would dollar shake Wednesdays.We wouldn’t look forward to three-day weekends.High speed internet would be just as good as dial-up. Margarine as good as butter.Photographs would just be colors on paper. So would paintings.Tragedy wouldn’t exist, so I guess that’s something positive. But neither would comedy. And that’s no good.The smell of a newspaper, the song of a mourning dove, the release of a good, first-thing-in-the-morning stretch. Sugar. No gratitude, no meaning.Bad things would just be bad. Winter would just be cold and sucky because we wouldn’t be grateful for sledding, and snowmen, and hot chocolate, and cuddling, and a nice warm blanket.We’d definitely live shorter lives because no one would exercise since the runner’s high would mean nothing. Neither would post-workout soreness, better fitting clothes, or having a Dove ice cream bar after dinner.Or maybe we’d have longer lives since beer and wine would just be liquids, and chocolate chip cookies would be just another smell.We’d have more free time, since we’d have no hobbies. But we wouldn’t care about free time. And we wouldn’t care about hobbies. Without gratitude, maybe we’d still read, but would we go for a bike ride, or do woodworking, or make quilts, or collect stamps?Say goodbye to the economy, too. Without gratitude who needs the newest gadget, a fancy car, nice furniture, or stylish clothes? You might as well skip the washing machine, too, since there’s no gratitude for the extra time you save by not having to wash clothes by hand.Sorry, Hollywood, you can shut down. We don’t need you. Nothing you do means anything because nothing means anything. Who needs a good story, interesting characters, or just pure escapism for a couple of hours? Not Gratitude-Free Me, that’s for sure!In fact, the more I think about it, the less I need. You, Devoted Reader, can leave. Not only do I not need you to read these words, but I don’t need you at all. It’s not like you add anything to my life. You might as well go. I’ll take it from here. All by myself.But don’t think that having time to myself will mean anything, because it won’t. By myself, with someone, in a crowd, whatever. A world without gratitude doesn’t care.It’s all the same. It’s all…nothing.And if you still think gratitude’s not important, then think even more primal. Try being indifferent about food or water. Oxygen.Gratitude is easy to overlook. Many of us probably don’t take the time to think about the things in our lives for which we should be grateful. But, to quote the ancient suburban philosopher, Ferris Bueller: “Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”But don’t just look at it. Think about it. And then remember why you should be grateful.Your future—the future of everything—depends on it.Click here to receive an e-mail each time I write a new post! Guaranteed spam-free, unsubscribe any time IF YOU LIKED THIS POST I BET YOU'LL ALSO LIKE: Summer is Worth Complaining AboutPREVIOUS POST: The Myth of the American Dream

The Myth of the American Dream

I try not to be too pessimistic in this blog. No one likes to read a bunch of downer ideas. There’s a reason everyone hated the Debbie Downer character on Saturday Night Live. I’m an optimistic person by nature, so most of the time it’s easy to write optimistically. Even when I’m writing about a discouraging or negative topic, I try to insert some optimism.However, when I read the topic for tonight’s Blogapalooz-hour, the monthly communal writing exercise in which ChicagoNow’s bloggers are given a topic and challenged to write a post in one hour, I knew immediately that I’d write a downer.The topic: “Write about something you believed as a child or in your youth that turned out not to be true.”Unless I decide to write about how I thought for sure that I’d be kidnapped as a kid, but then never got kidnapped, this one’s likely to be a downer.But, unfortunately, I knew right away what I’d write about, and despite considering other topics, nothing else is calling my name.So, I have no choice but to write about the virtual myth of the American dream.I don’t know where I first learned about the American dream, this idea that if someone just worked hard enough that they could make something of themselves and improve their lot in life, and move up the income scale. It’s so ingrained in American culture that I suspect by the time most kids are done with elementary school they’re familiar with the concept.Unfortunately, for most people, it’s just not true.Perhaps this is where I inject some optimism, because there are examples of people who have started from nothing, in very difficult circumstances, and succeeded. However, those people are the exceptions. They’re outliers.I’m not one to quote song lyrics, but a line from the song What It’s Like by Everlast hits the nail on the head: “You know where it ends, yo, it usually depends on where you start.”Most people in the United States will end up in the same economic class in which they began. Among other advanced nations, only in Peru and United Kingdom is a child more likely than in the United States to remain in the class into which they were born. Upward mobility is more likely in Pakistan, France, Canada, Japan and Denmark.This wasn’t always the case. If the American dream never existed then we wouldn’t have seen the creation, and then the growth, of the middle class in the past hundred years. All along we’ve accepted some income inequality because we held on to the idea that with hard work and perseverance that the poorest child can grow and work to become rich.But in recent decades education has become more important to land gainful, lucrative employment. And it only makes sense that the income inequality we’ve accepted contributes to inequality in education. If you doubt this is true, then why is housing usually more expensive in communities with “good” school districts? And why are the communities with the cheapest housing also the places where we find the “worst” schools?However, it’s not just education.People in the lower income brackets tend to have higher rates of single-parent homes and teenage pregnancy, and all of the accompanying stresses. It’s difficult for a parent to help a child learn the skills required to improve their lives if the parent has more immediate concerns, like working enough hours to put food on the table.And changes in government policy that are heavily influenced by the myth of the American dream only help to make that dream even harder to achieve. If we believe that when someone “makes it” they did so by pulling themselves up by their bootstraps, and just working hard, then it’s easier to justify economic policies that favor the rich. They earned it after all.Never mind the innumerable people that helped them along the way, or the advantages they received due to other social policies, or the fact that they just started from a higher class to begin with.In the past thirty years, as we’ve transitioned into more conservative economic policies, wages have stagnated, with real wages barely changed in 50 years. CEO pay used to be 30 times more than the average worker’s income. Now it’s 300 times more.Income inequality, and the lack of laws and economic policy to help reduce it, helps to keep the American dream out of reach for most people. And until Americans realize that the dream is a myth, and demand changes to help lessen income inequality, that myth will continue.Click here to receive an e-mail each time I write a new post! Guaranteed spam-free, unsubscribe any time IF YOU LIKED THIS POST I BET YOU'LL ALSO LIKE: Hey Kids, Michelle Obama Didn't Make your School LunchPREVIOUS POST: A Great Meal Requires More Than Great Food

A Great Meal Requires More Than Great Food

I like to eat. Some quick math reveals that I’ve eaten just over 42,000 meals in my life. Although that’s assuming three meals a day, and, as I said, I like to eat, so let’s just call it 43,000.That’s a lot of meals. Probably a few tons of food, and literally hundreds of different locations. ChicagoNow’s communal writing challenge for this month is to “Write about the greatest meal you've ever had.”But how do I choose just one?Meals associated with holidays always come to mind. Thanksgivings with grandparents when I was a kid, a Christmas dinner in which I completely undercooked a roast, and, of course, the first holiday meal we hosted at our house.Green Zebra has been the location of a number of outstanding meals. Gioco. Lucrezia. And a number of now-defunct restaurants: Karyn’s on Green, Rhapsody, Hannah’s, Eataly, and perhaps the greatest, Open Hearth. Bennigan's, too!Meals on vacation are always fun. We ate at a Fuddrucker’s near Orlando in 2009 that I remember being out of this world. And a Cici’s Pizza during that same trip that was memorable for a reason that will make you lose your appetite. We had a meal at a Mexican place in La Jolla after a day at the beach that was particularly satisfying, and an Irish pub across the street from the Pentagon made us happy, too.These meals stand out for a variety of reasons, but they all have one thing in common: I wasn’t eating alone during any of them.Eating is one of the most basic human social activities. Although food may differ across cultures, the act of getting together with other people to share the eating experience is universal. People want to eat with other people no matter where you are.And where we eat, how we eat, who we’re eating with, can even affect the taste of our food.I listened to a TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design—I’ve always wondered what that stood for!) talk the other day where the speaker—I can’t remember who it was—mentioned a restaurant that has two Michelin stars (that means it’s really good) that put a lot of work into the entire dining experience, not just the food.For instance, when diners arrive at the restaurant they’re not immediately served. Everyone’s sitting around, waiting to eat. On each table is squeezable chicken toy (or something similar) that makes noise. Inevitably, someone will squeeze it, the thing will make a noise, and everyone will laugh. Then, because everyone has this thing on their table, other people will start to do it, and in a few seconds, everyone’s squeezing these things and laughing.And that’s when the first course comes out.Everyone loves the place, both because the food is good, and because they feel good, happy, entertained, whatever, when they begin eating.So what makes a good meal? It’s impossible to pin down.One thing’s for sure though, it’s more than just food. The food is important. Charlie Chaplin’s shoe wouldn’t have tasted any better in The Gold Rush if he was eating it in a beachside restaurant with people he loved.But the food isn’t everything.Food will taste better if we surround ourselves with people we love. It will taste better if it’s a special occasion, and if we’re in a special location.And that’s because food is more than just science. We don’t just taste with our mouths. In fact, from a science perspective, much of our tasting is done through scent with our noses. But even food that tastes and smells good can be less-than-fulfilling if we share it with lousy company, or when not in a good state of mind.So the greatest meal I’ve ever had? I don’t know. I can’t pin down just one.I think that means that I’ve often been surrounded by people that I love. And that’s greater than any food could ever be.Click here to receive an e-mail each time I write a new post! Guaranteed spam-free, unsubscribe any time IF YOU LIKED THIS POST I BET YOU'LL ALSO LIKE: What Happened When I Ate Food from a Stranger's PlatePREVIOUS POST: What if Trump Arrests You for Having a Handgun?

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