Keepin' It Real with Cam Marston

On this week's Keepin' it Real, Cam Marston's new effort has been a year in the making and it's finally ready. It's learning delivered the way it used to be and he's very excited for it.

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Here's a story for you:

An old man lowered his clay jug every day at the well. He did it by hand with the jug attached to a rope. He was very careful to not let the jug bump the edge of the well which was made of stone or else the jug may break. A young man saw all this and proposed a wheel built over the center of the well with a rope that would lower the jug straight down every time. It would be easier and faster. All he had to do was crank the wheel up and down. The old man listened to the young man's idea and said, "No, thank you. Without the work of lowering and raising the jug, I'm not sure the water would taste as good."

Over one year ago I begin surveying clients and colleagues and having lunches and Zoom meetings with them to discuss a new two and half day workshop I was developing on communication skills. Their reply was unanimous: these skills a desperately needed in our workplace. I asked a lot of questions, have written, rewritten and rewritten the course over and over again and the program launched this past Wednesday.

Could the program be delivered remotely? Yes. Could it be pre-recorded and done online at the leisure of the participant? Yes, I think so. Could it be shorted to one day? Or maybe half a day? After all, people are busy. Probably. But none of that's going to happen.

There is a saying in the addict recovery world: What do you do when the very thing that is destroying you is what gets you through the day. For the addict it is drugs. For many of us today, though, it's urgency. It's more and more. It's busyness. Its Fear of Missing Out. It's the dopamine hit of the flashing or buzzing phone. And I'm as guilty of it as the next guy.

So in an effort to make a difference with the people who began with me Wednesday, I've created a program that slows the pace of learning. It's not cramming. It's learning. It's savoring new knowledge. It's dialogue, discussion, eye-contact, and thoughtful progression through learning and relearning skills that, per my colleagues, are desperately needed in their workplace.

No PowerPoint. No Audio or Video. Instead it will be flip charts, instruction, dialogue, and practice. Even pencils and not pens. It's the hard, slow, deliberate work that creates results and will lead to a more fulfilling and successful workplace for my participants. It's in a sense, retro learning the way it used to be done back in the day before all these tools we've created made things, what, quicker, better, easier? Maybe all of those but what I've created will be – memorable and transformational.

To many of my participants, what's old will be new again. It's been a year in the making. And we could get to end of the program much quicker than two-and-a-half days but, like the old man lowering the jug by hand every day, the water simply wouldn't taste as good.

I'm Cam Marston and I'm just trying to Keep It Real.

On this week's Keepin It Real, Cam has found infinite inspiration for commentaries for years and years to come.

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I sat quietly this morning and was ready to admit it's time to quit Keepin' It Real. I've lost my creativity. My energy around writing insightful and truthful things about the world around me was gone. Seven – maybe eight! – years is a pretty good run. Maybe close to 350 or more original pieces – I should be proud of my work and unashamed to put these commentaries to bed. But then…

Scrolling through today's headlines, I spotted a lifeline. Something that will allow me countless weeks of effortless content. It was hard to believe it was true, but… there it was.

Mark Zuckerberg was turning off the fact checking on his social media platforms. No longer would Facebook and Instagram work to fact-check people's posts. They'd let the community of users do it, instead. The article went on to say it was his way of genuflecting to the Cheeto Jesus – our upcoming, return of the king, Commander in Chief. Trump dislikes facts and accuracy so Zuckerberg, to curry favor with him, was ending any reliance on it in his giant megaphone of social media. Wow. If the age of Enlightenment wasn't already dead, it is dead dead dead now.

I've always been a fan of the expression "never let the truth get in the way of a good story" and I embrace a good, exaggerated story whether it be my own or someone else. However, today the expression is "never let the truth get in the way of anything." And what a giant hall pass this offers me in these commentaries. Why tell the truth when our highest elected official avoids it, and his minions support it.

So, with that, I'm redoing my biography. You may know me as a commentator for Alabama Public radio who lives in Mobile married with four teenaged children. That was who I was during the days when truth mattered. Now I'm a world-famous commentator who offers sage wisdom and insight and has been feted by the Nobel Prize committees and has turned down Pulitzer Prizes because they weren't prestigious enough. Sounds good. My four children are the best kids in any environment they ever enter – academics, athletics, needlepoint – you name it they're the best out of everyone. My previous work was as an astronaut, but it bored me, a lion tamer but the smell of the lions got to me, and, of course out of tribute to George Costanza, I am both an architect and a marine biologist. I've built a woodshed once and tossed a fish back into the Gulf, which in this era of non-truth, is sufficient enough to give myself those titles, regardless of what anyone says because those people are jealous liars who are out to get me.

My resume and my CV will change by this afternoon and will include the words Adonis, Guggenheim, and National Book Award. I'll call the bank and tell them the balance I see online isn't correct, my truth says it is much higher, and they better change it or I'll sue because the bank has a personal vendetta against me.

And my truth says that it's not the Gulf of Mexico nor the Gulf of America. It's the Gulf of Cam. It, in fact, has always been.

Tell me it's not true. I dare you.

I'm Cam Marston and I'm just tyring to Keep it Real.

On Keepin It Real this week, Cam Marston makes some observations on this odd stretch of the calendar between Christmas and New Years.

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This is a strange time of year every year. Kinda a liminal space between two big holidays. My instinct says I need to be working but the buzz of my email – a reflection of how busy my work world is – is so quiet. It's hard to get anyone to make decisions right now. Beginning around December 18th, we enter the "let's circle back on this next year" stretch of the calendar. We go from opening small talk with "So, are you ready for Christmas?" to ending it with "Let's circle back next year." I'm as guilty of it as the next guy.

My father turns eighty-eight today. He's turned his pickle-ball crowd onto these commentaries. So, to those of you playing pickleball today at the Via Health Center on Dauphin Street in Mobile, wish my father a Happy Birthday. He will probably try to waive you off, but I know he'll be flattered to hear from you.

One of the most remarkable things in my world today is the activity of my eight-eight-year-old father. He plays pickleball at least four days a week. He's made a whole new friend group there. Last year they convinced him to get a bike, and when they don't play pickleball, they'll often gather downtown and ride together for a few hours, staying away from the hills, and stopping some place for lunch or a beer. Many of them are twenty years younger than my father. They like him. They call to check in on him. They invite him to join them when they schedule things.

It's wonderful for him and it's wonderful for my brothers and me to know that since my mother's passing a few years ago, my father has found an outlet. I saw recently that one of the primary ways to determine how long you'll live is your measure of activity. Said another way, you don't get old and stop moving, you get old when you stop moving. Dad's still moving. He can still split firewood with an axe, still keep up with the youngsters on his bike, and still play pickleball several times a week. My daughter calls him to play when she's home from college and they make a morning of it together at the Via Health Center.

Right around the corner on the calendar is Twelfth Night, known more commonly as the Feast of the Epiphany. The traditional date is January 6th and it's the official start of Mardi Gras down here on the coast. King Cakes begin appearing in bakeries, beads start showing up. Notable and respectable people forgive each other and are forgiven for acting like fools with the culmination being Mardi Gras day which, this year, is March 4th, and, as luck has it, is also my birthday. In years past when my birthday coincides with Mardi Gras Day, I've created quite a spectacle of myself. Those days are over though I will enjoy Mardi Gras day a little more this year because it's my birthday and I will enjoy my birthday a little bit more because it's Mardi Gras..

Enjoy this odd liminal time on the calendar. Soon enough the grind will start again, and these commentaries will return – hopefully – to meaningful and thoughtful content.

I'm Cam Marston just Trying to Keep it Real.

On Keepin' it Real this week, Cam takes us back to 1988 when he and his team lined up to upset the world order in an all out international rowing competition. It was one for the record books.

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It was the spring of 1989 in Augusta, Georgia. I was a member of the Tulane University Rowing team and we were there to train for Spring Break. Crew teams from across the south and many of the elite crew teams from the northeast came to Augusta and this perfect stretch of the Savannah River to train during the week and race at the end of the week.

A call went out that the organizers were throwing together an unscheduled race at the end of race day. It was open to the first crews who could respond and would feature a race that none of us ever would ever forget.

Tulane scrambled to field a crew. I made it lineup, and sat in seat number six, a port-side rower. As our boat was backing down into the starting position I looked to my right. It was the Russian national team. They were in the US to train. We'd seem them practicing – their boat moved effortlessly and screamed down the river. Their powerful strokes appeared to make gaping holes in the water. We'd had sights of them on land and they were all about six feet four and 220 pounds. Cold, solid, hard looking. The Cold War was still on, and since birth, we'd been taught that these people were our enemy. To our left, in a boat on our starboard side, sat the British national team. They, too, were in Augusta to take advantage of the training. Beating the Brits would have been fine, but it was the Russians we wanted. The other five boats in the race were the elite Ivy crews. And there sat Tulane about to disrupt the rowing establishment and make the name for ourselves that we felt we deserved.

The starter worked to align the boats, backing some down, pushing some forward until all eight bows were aligned. It was quiet as these commands rang out. Sixty-four rowers sat with backs perfectly straight, leaning slightly forward, oar blades completely submerged, hands tight on the handle, looking forward, steely-eyed, waiting for the start, breathing. The starter finally had alignment and it happened fast. We heard, "Rowers sit ready. Ready! Row!" and we dug in for the first stroke.

We were tied with the Russians for maybe one one-hundredth of a second. By the time we had completed ten strokes they were half a boat length ahead. In another ten strokes we could no longer see them. All we saw was their fading puddles where their oars had torn holes in the water. Within twenty seconds our hopes for upending the world rowing order had vanished. It happened fast.

And we weren't really upset at the outcome. Heck, we had just raced the Russians. How many of our rowing peers could claim anything like that? We were a club team, after all, not even varsity. But we did it. We tried. We tossed our hat in the ring and tried to give those commies a good whippin.'

So here's to you and me throwing our hat into the ring for something for which we know we are completely outgunned in the new year. And doing it anyway. We got shellacked but, heck, I've been telling this story for thirty-six years. It was well worth it.

I'm Cam Marston and I'm just trying to Keep it Real.

On this week's Keepin It Real, Cam Marston has just returned from a few days in Fort Lauderdale. It's a different world down there, Cam says. One that he might have envied at one point in his life.

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My wife and I returned from Ft Lauderdale Saturday. We were there for a corporate event where I was giving a speech. My client generously offered an extra couple of nights in the host hotel and our room was on the 26thfloor overlooking the Atlantic Ocean. I watched the sun rise each morning as I sipped coffee and read. It began as a faint glow on the horizon to a disk coming out of the water. It was nice. My wife and I haven't had a chance to do things like that recently. Now that the kids are older, we're trying to take advantage of them. As we left to go on our trip, we told our kids to please not let us find the house in ashes when we returned. We felt that was reasonable. And it was in pretty good shape when we got home Saturday.

South Florida is quite different from South Alabama or, I suspect, most of Alabama. And I guess saying that is simply acknowledging the obvious. I counted five or six different Ferraris which I rarely see around here. I think they're beautiful. There were lots of Bentleys. There was lots of jewelry on everyone. Lots of senior citizens on the boardwalk late in the afternoon walking together, riding bikes, sitting and visiting. Lot of accents. Lots of people speaking Spanish, and what I think was Russian. Guitar players up and down the boardwalk, busking and playing music they hoped would catch the senior's attention.

My hope for my wife and my trip was to create not a bucket list for the two of us, but a reverse bucket list. Not a list the things we wanted or wanted to do. I wanted us to create list of the things we could do away with. What we could do to simplify. I've said it many times to my wife and kids – we could probably get rid of half of the things we've accumulated over the nearly twenty years in this house and never miss them. If you've lived in the same place for a while, you can probably relate. How and why did we get this stuff in the first place. And why do I have such a hard time getting rid of it.

I look at all those things those people in South Florida had, especially the beautiful cars, the jewelry, the magnificent beachfront homes and thought "Wow. That's beautiful. I'm glad I don't want it." And that's a 180 degree shift and about face from the way I once was – I wanted the stuff, the houses and the cars. Today what excites me is getting rid of the stuff I have. And m y wife is kinda there, too. It's a part of our journey together of what we want for ourselves from here on out. And what we want will change. Likely many times.

Ironically, though, as I say this my wife and kids have asked for my Christmas list – more things I want which includes, partly to my shame, a top hat. Do I need a top hat? No. Do I want a top hat? Yes. In a few years will I wonder why I have it and why I struggle to give it away? Absolutely.

I think maybe I've identified the problem.

I'm Cam Marston and I'm just trying to Keep It Real.

On this week's Keepin It Real, Cam hopes you have no regrets from Thanksgiving. And if you do, that you learn from them.

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Well, how'd it go yesterday? Any family flare ups? Any thoughts you wish you'd kept to yourself? Thanksgiving gatherings are famous for finding people's boiling points and the election having been just a few weeks ago, some are still gloating and others still licking their wounds. Any regrets from yesterday?

I heard Dan Pink speak last week at a conference in San Francisco. He's a New York Times best-selling author and his most recent book is called The Power of Regret. I was invited to go backstage to meet him and he told me how he gathered data for the book. He personally read over 60,000 people's regrets. He solicited them from across the world and people enthusiastically responded. It was almost a catharsis for many respondents, he said. Like people wanted to get their regrets off their chest. He had to cut off submissions he had so many.

Regrets tend to come in four categories, he said in his keynote speech. They're either Foundation Regrets – where you're sorry you didn't do something long ago that would have changed your today – started saving money, read more, gone after the degree, or had a bad feeling about who you were marrying but decided to overlook it. Then there's Boldness Regret – when you played it safe instead of taking a chance or times when you look back and wish you had spoken up about something. There's Moral Regrets – You did the wrong thing and it haunts you, something that was very much out of your character. He told the story of a woman who, when she was nine, remembers bullying a girl on the school bus and that behavior has eaten her up ever since. And finally, there are Connection Regrets – when you should have reached out and, instead, let a relationship wither. Whenever you ask yourself "should I call? Should I visit? Should I send a note" the answer, Pink says, is always yes.

Pink also showed a slide that shows that regrets increase over time – the more time goes by, the more the regrets of our past haunt us. And our regrets of today sting worse when we make a poor decision right now. "I should have known I was going to regret this," we say, kicking ourselves. That, Pink says, is our own wisdom, earned over years, trying to exert itself, but we ignore it.

So, any regrets from yesterday? Anyone important to you storm off in a huff? Or maybe, did you? Apologies always matter. They make you feel better when you apologize and genuinely accepting apologies is part of God's magic for relationships.

My regrets? Well, I certainly regret the second helping at yesterday's Thanksgiving meal. I regret the third helping worse. More seriously, I regret losing my temper a few times as a young father. Regardless of whether any of my kids remember it, I can't forget it. I did the wrong thing and it haunts me. Since my stroke about eighteen months ago, though, I keep regrets in mind. I want to learn from the ones I have and prevent any more.

Something to think about as I fix a turkey sandwich for lunch today.

I'm Cam Marston, just trying to Keep it Real.

On this week's Keepin It Real, Cam Marston wants you to know he's NOT A CYNIC. But there are things this time of year that just kinda get to him...

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'Tis the season for pensive and sappy messages. I'm so sorry but it's true. They're appearing in TV commercials, in client and vendor emails. Letters received in the mail about the joys of the season and now's the time to be grateful and all that. I hate being a cynic, but it all appears to be virtue signaling to me. The people I know sending these messages are savage businesspeople and it's like times running out and they're throwing a Hail Mary pass to make Santa's good list. Maybe these people really are kind and generous and are thankful for their bountiful blessings, and the season is a gift meant for a deeper understanding of the commonalities of mankind and that the cockles of their heart swell with the love of the joy of the togetherness of their fellow man and the brotherhood of the love of the oneness of all of us…and all that. I can't help but roll my eyes. I seriously doubt many of these people have heart cockles. I question whether some of them even have hearts. But man, this time of year, people eat this stuff up.

My father and I watched a lady on the local news early Sunday morning deliver such a message. Her message was about enjoying the season by simplifying it to the essentials. It's a similar message that we all hear over this time of year. I was unmoved. My dad, though, was over the moon about it. He thought it was great. He repeated the message aloud several times, full of energy. Dad, I wanted to say, you hear this same message over and over again every year. There's nothing new here. Instead, I kept quiet. The message made him feel good and I guess that matters for something.

'Tis season for extras, though. Whoever you are, you can justify something a little bit extra this time of year. "It only comes around once a year, so why not just a little more?" we say. A little more to eat. An extra slice of pie or two. Maybe a whole extra pie. Fill the wine glass a little fuller than normal. Each time. An extra gift for someone and maybe an extra one for you, too. Leave the office a little early. And then a little earlier. And then earlier. Every day of the year only comes around once a year, but these are…different. These days are a part of the Christmas season which, per the displays at Lowes, begins mid-October, making the Christmas season nearly a quarter of the year.

Some, like my wife and kids, have no problems with this. What does it matter, they say, if we like the decorations and they make us happy? My position is that the shorter it is, the more intense and special it is. If your default mode is that it's nearly always Christmas, what's so special about it? At least that's what I say to myself, sitting all alone, while what remains of the cockles of my heart burn to cinders.

I'm Cam Marston and I'm just trying to Keep it Real.

On the way home from Oxford Saturday, Cam and his family stopped at a service station which led to him thinking about what NOT to put on his Christmas list.

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For years I had my children convinced I was allergic to cats. I told them the reason we couldn't have a cat as a pet was that my head would explode in a fiery ball. They wanted a cat. They asked regularly and finally accepted that I was allergic.

I'm not allergic to cats. I'm not sure how they found out, but the cat-pet requests are back. Frankly, I want nothing more to do with anything that requires fuel or any sort of sustenance from me to operate, be that cars, boats, cats, birds whatever. My wife and I have four kids, too many cars, one dog, and share responsibility for a boat. And I'm weary of giving birth to, parenting, raising, collecting or owning creatures or things that need me.

Buckatuna, Mississippi is a nice stopping point between Oxford, Mississippi and Mobile. We stopped there coming home this past Sunday. We had five people in the car, and it was time for a fluid adjustment in some way for all of us. The ladies in the car needed a bathroom, and I needed something cold to drink to keep me awake for the final stretch of road and the boys just needed to walk around.

There at the door of the service station sat a cat. We noticed another and then another. My wife and kids went toward them using their kitten voices. There were a lot of them. Another car stopped and the driver got out, watching my wife and kids. "I want all of them," my wife said. She is now the pro-pet cat camp. "All you gotta do is catch one," the driver said, "But, be careful what you wish for. My daughter," he told us, "came home with one and said 'I rescued a cat!' Well, I said, that's your cat. You have to figure out how to feed it. Then she came home two months later with another. Two months after that, we suddenly had nine cats and my daughter was struggling to feed them all. Then one day I came home and there was a dead snake on my porch with its head gone. I found out that cats help clean up vermin in the yard. Rats, mice, and even snakes. They bite snake's heads of and bring the body home as a gift. So now," he said, "I'm feeding those cats."

"So," he said again, "be careful what you wish for."

The holidays are on the horizon. Kids making lists for themselves. You, perhaps, making lists for your kids. I've begun the tradition of making lists, making copies, and leaving them in places around the house where I know they will be found. Toilet seats. Front seats of cars. I've even put them in cereal boxes. No one can claim they don't know what to get me. Cats are not on the list. Neither are dogs or anything alive or inanimate needing food or fuel. As a child we had a pet rabbit that ate through the power cord of the deep freeze. It wasn't until all the food was spoiled that we realized it.

Anyway, just like cats and that rabbit now's the time of year to be careful what you wish for.

I'm Cam Marston and I'm just Keepin' It Real.

On this week's Keepin It Real, Cam tells us about some early morning attacks that are happening in his part of town. You'd be surprised at who is doing the attacking.

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On the top of the Tangles Hair Salon on Bit and Spur Road in Mobile sits a hat and a headlamp with its light on. The headlamp is the type that an early morning jogger wears before the sun comes up. How it got up there is a heck of a story.

Dennison Crocker jogs before daylight nearly every morning. His headlamp lights the way. One dark morning near Bit and Spur Road, a giant thunk, thud, and whoosh caught Dennison off guard, and his hat and the light were gone. Something had hit him in the back of the head. His light was flying away and stopped on the roof of Tangles. The culprit: an owl. Likely a barred owl. They're the ones known to attack.

But that was just the beginning. Weeks later he was jogging not far from the same spot when the owl hit him again. He was in the middle of the road and, bang. Dennison started swatting wildly in the air. Just then a car stopped and asked if he were ok – Dennison was, after all, wildly swinging his arms around in the air in the middle of the road before daylight early one weekday morning. He told the driver about the owl. The driver looked concerned for Dennison's mental well-being and slowly drove away and, just then, the owl hit him again. The driver reversed back, seeing Dennison wildly swinging his arms again and offered to get him outta there. Dennison dove in and went straight home.

The owl has become quite a star around here. My new best friend, ChatGPT, says the owl is either protecting its nest or it thinks Dennison is poaching on its hunting ground. It's probably the latter since it's a bit early yet for owls to be nesting. So Dennison, per the owl, looks like a food supply threat. And, well, maybe he kinda does. Dennison's a big solid guy and I'm guessing he'd need a lot of squirrels to fill up, leaving fewer for his owl friend. The owl is rightly concerned Dennison taking more than his share.

I learned about all this at my regular Thursday beer drinking session with my homies and it was Jay Stubbs who told Dennison's story only because Jay told us HE has been attacked, too. Jay is an early morning walker and not far from Tangles where Dennison's hat sits, Jay got hit by what he says felt like a broom over the back of his head. His hat flew off and all he saw was wings. Jay, too, looks like a food supply threat. Jay could pack in some squirrels.

Oddly, I'm on team owl. I don't want anyone to get hurt, I don't wany eyes gouged out, but I like it that in our terribly predictable world, we have to worry about an owl attacking. It makes me chuckle. Getting attacked by an owI is something you could never have predicted sitting on your couch New Year's Day, making guesses about your upcoming year. It's a wonderfully refreshing story of life's randomness and unpredictability.

What's the moral? It's simply this – it's against the normal order of nature for people to exercise before daylight. Even the owls know this.

I'm Cam Marston and I'm just trying to Keep It Real.

On this week's Keepin' It Real, Cam recalls a time when he was very much out of his element and was slightly afraid for his life.

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About midway through the fourth quarter of Alabama's loss to Vanderbilt, my son, who is a student at the University, sent me a text. It read, "Can I transfer?" I laughed.

As a Tulane student we were fond of saying that on Saturdays in the fall, the New Orleans Superdome hosted a cocktail party for students to mix and mingle in the stands. Occasionally we would look up and notice that a football game was going on in front of us, but we never let it distract us.

Then one weekend I visited friends in Tuscaloosa. Saturday morning, I asked about plans for the night. "It depends," was the answer.

"On what?" I asked. "Whether we win or lose tonight." "You mean the football game?"

"Of course!" they said.

"Well," I suggested, "let's assume we're going to lose and make some fun plans anyway. That's the way we do it at Tulane. And if we win, it's a wonderful surprise."

There was quiet look of incomprehension. Of disbelief. "I recognize your words," their faces showed, "but I don't understand what you're saying." I realized that I stood in a dangerous culture unfamiliar to me, and I'd best button my lip unless I said something that might bring me harm. Like standing with uncivilized tribe in the Amazon jungle where you don't know the rules and a foolish move may cost you your life.

My son's text brought that memory back.

Monday, I spoke with a friend who was in Nashville during the Vanderbilt game. He watched from a balcony on Broadway as the goal posts made their way down the street. The students were very well heeled. Lifting the goals posts over the cars and apologizing if their impromptu parade was inconveniencing drivers. Very kind. Very nice. Bear Bryant's advice on what to do when you're in the endzone – act like you've been there before – was lost on them. By-standers watched in delight and awe, like spotting Halley's comet, returning after making its long loop around the sun. It was a lifetime event. He said even the police were in on it, blocking traffic and making way.

I have a friend who's quit smoking except for the second half of Alabama games. He watches through the window, one cigarette after the other. Another who only watches alone in his small home office where he can't be disturbed, and no one can be offended by his cursing. I have some who make everyone stand up and change places when something goes wrong on the field. As if new seats in the room will bring better luck.

Saturday I'll be watching the Alabama Tennessee game with my father, my two brothers, my son and some nephews at a work weekend at my father's camp in Clark County. I am a Tide fan, after all. But there will be no strange hocus pocus from us. Just my lucky Bama hat, my favorite Bama shirt, and my lucky Bama sock – just one sock. I tried wearing them both again during the Vanderbilt game. It's my fault they lost. I'm sorry. I took the bad one off and burned it.

Roll Tide, ya'll.