Month: April 2024

The Shadow of Legacy

It came from Sears.

A standard basketball hoop, anchored by a large plastic base.

My father assembled the rim, backboard, and metal support. Then he filled the cavity of the base with water from a garden hose. He screwed the cap atop the base shut and turned to my sister and me.

Alright kids. Have at it.

We took turns dribbling a basketball on the back patio. Then we took aim at the hoop.

This pattern repeated itself for years. My sister and I would head outside to battle it out, one on one, on the patio.

But this activity wasn’t relegated to our suburban home.

In nearby New York City, there were millions of basketball hoops. They could be found in parks, in courtyards and on rooftop terraces.

Most city dwellers didn’t have a backyard, like we did. They couldn’t long toss a baseball at home or hone their golf swing.

But they could hoop right in their neighborhood.  And sometimes, when I was in the big city, I’d join them.

Basketball was a New York thing. The city claimed the sport as its own, and I saw no reason to dispute those claims.

But then a funny thing happened.

I was watching the NCAA men’s basketball tournament one year, and the University of Connecticut’s squad made the championship game.

As Connecticut closed in on a national title, pundits exclaimed how unusual this all was. Where was Kentucky, or Kansas, or North Carolina?

I was confused.

Basketball was a city game. It was New York City’s game. Why would some country folk in Kansas or Kentucky or North Carolina lay claim to it?

Heck, even Connecticut wasn’t exactly the big city. But it was a close enough drive away.

What was going on?

I had much to learn.

Some time later, I took out a book from the school library about Dr. James Naismith.

Naismith, I learned, was a Canada native who made his way to the United States in the late 19th century. While working at the YMCA in Springfield, Massachusetts, Naismith invented a game for the patrons there.

Naismith mounted a wooden peach basket to the end wall of the gym. Then, he had the patrons toss a soccer ball into the elevated basket.

A competition soon followed, governed by 13 specific rules Naismith authored. Basketball was born.

I was stunned. Everything I thought I knew about the sport was wrong.

Basketball hadn’t come from New York City. It had been imported from New England – its pretentious neighbor to the northeast.

If anything, the University of Connecticut had a better claim to hoops hegemony than New York did. Naismith invented the game a mere 30 miles from the university’s campus.

But there were more shoes to drop.

Naismith, as it turns out, didn’t stay in Massachusetts all that long after inventing basketball. By the turn of the century, he’d headed west to Lawrence, Kansas.

Naismith joined the faculty at the University of Kansas, and he organized a basketball team there. The sport was still new, spreading across the country through the YMCA network. So, the early Kansas teams mostly took on squads from nearby YMCAs. After 9 years of this, Naismith stepped away to take on other duties at the school.

One of the players on those Kansas teams – Phog Allen – would return coach the squad several years later, leading it to decades of success. Two of Allen’s players – Adolph Rupp and Dean Smith – would go on to coach the University of Kentucky and the University of North Carolina, respectively. Their guidance helped put those programs on the map, solidifying them among the sport’s “Blue Bloods.”

Those pundits’ mentions of Kansas, Kentucky, and North Carolina after Connecticut reached the promised land? They were no accident, no coincidence.

Yes, basketball’s roots are planted in the fields of rural America, rather than the blacktop of the big city.

And it all had to do with the particulars of a Canadian’s resume.

I might have grown up playing basketball in the suburbs of New York City. But I didn’t plant my roots there.

I ultimately moved to Texas. And I’ve spent my entire adult life under Lone Star skies.

Many in my orbit struggled to come to terms with this at first. Sure, I’d moved for a job. But it wasn’t one in the oil industry, on a cattle ranch, or at NASA. There were plenty of other places I could have gone for the exact same vocation.

I understood this apprehension. After all, I once considered Kansas a basketball afterthought. But I refused to acquiesce to it.

Gradually, the apoplectic comments dwindled. Or maybe I stopped paying attention to them.

Then, the COVID pandemic hit. And the conversation changed.

Now, my perspective didn’t shift during this time. I didn’t leave Texas at all for 17 months during the international health crisis. And I didn’t even entertain the thought of living anywhere else.

But the story was far different for others all over the country. Plenty of people saw the pandemic disruption as an opportunity to relocate. And relocate they did.

I wasn’t quite sure what to make of this development. Sure, it was great to see millions planting new roots without facing a deluge of apprehension. But just how deeply were they planting those roots?

You see, over the years, I’ve come to appreciate what Dr. James Naismith did. By having a transient career, he not only spawned the game of basketball, but he helped grow it in multiple locales.

This was no small feat. There was no technology to spread news across the nation in a flash back then. And tradition ruled the roost.

Naismith had to evangelize the game in the communities where he was stationed. He had to use the scattershot geography of his resume to build grassroots connections.

He had to leave the shadow of legacy on the places he called home.

This is why basketball’s hall of fame in Springfield and Kansas’ home court in Lawrence carry Naismith’s name. It’s why Kansas’ arena is named for his contemporary – Phog Allen. It’s why Kentucky and North Carolina’s arenas sport the names of Allen’s contemporaries – Rupp and Smith.

The shadow of legacy brings gravitas to geography. Even if such geography is bestowed that legacy by happenstance.

But when a software developer writes code in Boise and uploads it to their employer’s servers in Silicon Valley, does that golden rule still apply?

I doubt it. And I mourn for our collective loss.

When I first moved to Texas, my resume matched my home address.

I was producing evening newscasts for a massive swath of West Texas, covering the daily events of Oil Country. On Friday nights, I was calling small town Dairy Queens to see if the employees knew the score of the local high school football game. I’d then report those scores on the air.

It really didn’t get more Texas than that.

Over the years, this professional connection to my state has dimmed. As a marketer in the technology space, I’ve long worked to reach national – even international – audiences. And my employer was acquired by a company based roughly a thousand miles from Texas some years ago.

Still, I take the shadow of legacy seriously.

I’ve joined groups in my city many of my personal and professional hobbies. I’ve seized many opportunities to volunteer in the area. I’ve supported across the State of Texas – in good times and bad. And I’ve supported both local sports teams and entertainers with steadfast vigor.

I might not end up as a household name in Texas, with buildings carrying my moniker. But this place is more than a line on my resume. It’s a part of me.

Texas is my home. And I want to give as much to it as it has to me.

It’s my sincere hope that those who’ve relocated in recent years consider a similar approach.

Yes, it’s easier than ever to swap out home addresses without facing a crucible. But if we cede the chance to build connection, we miss a giant opportunity.

So, let’s rebuild that connection. Let’s rediscover the shadow of legacy. Let’s nurture it and allow it to take root.

We’ll all be better for it.

Fresh and Clean

You’re bound to regret that choice.

I heard this comment over and over.

I’d just purchased a new SUV with a black paint job. In Texas. In the summer.

Many people thought I was in for a heaping of buyer’s remorse. A white paint job would have been a better choice, they said.

This argument made some sense. White colored items tend to deflect heat, while black colored items do the opposite. And Texas, you might have heard, features plenty of heat for much of the year.

Add it all up, and the black SUV was essentially a furnace. Buying it was a bad decision. Case closed.

But I was unconvinced. For I knew what a hassle a white paint job would prove to be.

You see, Texas doesn’t have blue skies year-round. There are plenty of days where the atmosphere is saturated with dust, pollen, or raindrops.

Those elements gather on anything in their path – including vehicles with white paint jobs. So, if I had such a vehicle, it would often look dirty. I’d need to head to the car wash time and again to get the grime off.

That wasn’t how I wanted to spend my time – or my money. So, I went with the black SUV. And I waved off any intimations of remorse.

A few years later, I was shopping for some new shoes.

I found a pair of Nike Air Force 1’s at the store. They fit well, had a leathery exterior, and were all black.

This last detail was critical. I could wear these shoes with jeans and any shirt without looking out of place. I could even wear them to work on Casual Fridays.

I bought the Nikes.

Soon, my friends started giving me uneasy looks.

You know that drug dealers wear black AF1’s right? they exclaimed. You should’ve gotten the white ones.

I did not, in fact, know this. I must have missed the note on the store display.

But even if I did get that memo, it wouldn’t have led me to buy the white pair.

Just like a white vehicle, white shoes are dirt magnets. And they’re even harder to clean.

So, I held firm. I kept wearing my black AF1’s and driving my black SUV. And I ignored the whispers around me.

I believed I was following common sense, even if I did absorb some extra heat for my decisions.

But as I looked around, I realized just how unusual those decisions were. It seemed like every other person I passed on the street sported white Air Force 1’s. And every other vehicle I saw on the roads had a white paint job.

That had me scratching my head.

Vehicles and tennis shoes are just two fronts in a movement. A movement I don’t understand.

Namely the white finish movement.

It’s seemingly everywhere.

Our walk-in closets are full of white dress shirts. Countertops, walls, and porcelain appliances tend to sport a white sheen. Office lobbies and shopping malls feature ornate white tile.

We’re drawn to this bright look. We relish the freshness it provides. And we fill our world with it.

But there’s a catch.

We have no patience for any blemishes on our shiny canvas. We can’t stand it when that crisp, white finish looks anything but. When a tomato stain appears on our button-down shirt. When a skid mark tarnishes the marble floors.

To stave off the unconscionable, we kick into overdrive. We devote as much effort as we can to preserving that shine.

We send our shirts off to the cleaners, time and again. We scrub our floors and finishes until our hands are chapped, and then scrub some more. We take hours out of our day, money out of our wallets, and water out of circulation – all to maintain appearances.

It’s all absurdly wasteful. And more than a bit nonsensical.

Recently, I saw an unusual commercial.

The ad features a black box in the middle of a West Texas road.

After several elaborate motions, the box transforms into…a toilet. More specifically, a smart toilet manufactured by Kohler.

Now, I’m not in the market for a toilet. And I was less than enthused to see one unveiled on a road I once drove on.

Still, one detail of the ad did resonate with me. The color of the toilet.

A black toilet would seem to make a lot of sense. After all, it’s an appliance that collects our messiest bodily functions and disposes of them. A crisp, clean look runs counter to a toilet’s actual function.

And yet, I’ve rarely encountered a porcelain throne that did not have a white finish. Which means a great many people have spent a great amount of time preserving that shiny look, over and over.

Now, this is not to say that such actions are pointless. I certainly understand the importance of cleaning toilets.

But the prime purpose of such actions should be to keep the toilet sanitary, not to keep the white finish looking crisp. Maybe if the porcelain was black, it would reinforce that point.

The same principle can apply to bathtubs and sinks with a white finish. Or to white-colored kitchen countertops and tile floors. It could even apply to white shirts, shoes, or SUVs.

None of those items are expressly designed to be sullied, the way a toilet is. But we waste too much effort cleaning them, just to maintain an aesthetic. Perhaps with a different hue, we’d follow a healthier pattern for this task.

Maybe, just maybe, we’d break free of the madness.

It turns out a black finish alone didn’t keep my SUV clean.

Dried raindrops would leave gray marks all over. Dirt and pollen would stick to the clear coat for days on end.

I’ve made my fair share of trips to the car wash over the years. And I’ve given my Air Force 1’s a once over now and then.

Still, these activities are proportional to actual need. They’re meant to keep these items clean, not belie the fact that they were lived in.

And that’s precisely the point.

It’s time to stop condemning ourselves to a prison of our own making. It’s time to quit walking on eggshells in defense of an aesthetic.

We need something more feasible, more adaptable, and more efficient.

Color choices alone won’t get us there. But they’re a start.

Let us begin.

Hidden Battles

He was a grocer. A blue-collar American. The first man in my family to carry my last name.

I never met him. And neither did my father.

A heart attack felled my great grandfather before he could even see his 50th birthday. The tragic event cast a shadow over my family. One that was still hard to ignore when I entered the picture three decades later.

The other side of my family tree was no less somber. My mother adored her paternal grandfather. But by the time she was in grade school, he was gone. A heart attack claimed him too.

Heart disease is a sobering reality in my family. The leading cause of death in America has wreaked havoc on my family tree.

Even those who’ve managed to fend off the reaper ended up sporting pronounced war wounds. My mother’s father survived two heart attacks, a triple bypass, and a stroke in his nine decades on this planet.

I remember the third and fourth legs of that odyssey. I vividly recall the toll it took on him. The toll it took on all of us.

I observed it. I absorbed it. And I buried it.

Until now.

Everyone’s fighting a battle you know nothing about.

I’ve seen this phrase more and more recently. It’s a hallmark of the era we live in.

Those eight words are meant to serve as a powerful reminder. A reminder not to judge others for what they show us through their actions. And a reminder to not be so secretive ourselves.

I’ve long struggled to heed this advice.

I do my best not to cast stones at others. But I’m often hesitant to show my own cards. Even when doing so might help clarify my actions.

This dichotomy came into sharp focus some years back. I’d recently entered the world of competitive running, ramping a modest exercise routine into a full-fledged recreational hobby.

My commitment to the sport was notable – and intense. And soon everyone around me was asking one question: Why?

Why was I doing this? What kept me going?

I’d often provide stock responses to these inquiries.

I do it because I’m good at running!

I do it because I love running!

I do it because no other experience matches it!

All those statements were technically true. But none of them represented my why.

They weren’t the reason why I showed up in an empty parking lot at 5:30 in the morning. They weren’t the reason I cranked out the miles until my legs and lungs hurt. They weren’t the reason I spent hundreds of dollars on gear and entered every race I could.

No, the reason – the real reason – I did all these things was my family history.

I was haunted by the legacy of heart disease in my lineage. I was determined to stay in shape and avert an early demise. And when it came to this objective, no other cardio workout quite compared to running.

So, I ran with vigor and determination. I made friends in the running community. I won medals in distance races.

I gained the upper hand in my hidden battle with heart disease.

And then I got injured. Four times over.

And a new set of hidden battles began.

There’s a famous video on the internet of a baby giraffe learning to walk.

The calf first struggles to stand up, then to steady itself, then to move on its own four feet.

Running for the first time after a hiatus is somewhat like this. You’re tentative and skittish at first, but eventually you get the hang of it.

But those first steps back are only half of the experience. The other half occurs the next morning, when you feel like you’ve been hit by a truck.

It’s hard to explain the level of soreness that accompanies that first time back running. Muscles you didn’t know existed now radiate with pain. You find yourself shuffling about, hunched like an elderly person with sciatica.

It hurts to do just about anything, and it takes days for your body to loosen up.

I know this sensation all too well. After all, I’ve experienced it four times in less than two years.

Yes, this full body soreness has become a constant for me. A painful milestone I keep passing in a bevy of injuries and recoveries, of setbacks and comebacks.

This strange purgatory is foreign to many competitive runners. Some have stayed healthy throughout their journey. Others ran through an injury without taking a break. Their bodies have been spared the trauma that comes with starting all over again.

Even those who are forced to reboot will likely only go through this ritual once or twice. Rapid injury recurrence is somewhat rare in this sport. And those facing such affliction often step away for good.

So, I’m one in a million. Which makes me one of one.

I put myself through hell time and again, just to get back in motion. And others couldn’t possibly comprehend the struggle as well as I.

This has become my hidden battle. One that I’ve worked hard to keep under wraps.

But what good has that done me? Surely none.

Suffering in silence is still suffering. It brings me no closer to closure, and it pushes others away from understanding.

So, I’m changing course. I’m coming clean. I’m putting my cards on the table.

I’ve had my ups with running. And I’ve had my downs.

I’ve enjoyed the thrill of running free and easy. Of setting personal bests and standing on podiums. It’s scintillating.

But I’ve also felt the pain of running. Of acute injury, of drawn-out rehab, and of head-to-toe soreness that comes with every reboot. It’s miserable.

The peaks and valleys don’t always sync up. A return to glory as no more guaranteed than a fall from grace. Yet, I stick with it anyway.

For the alternative is not palatable.

I refuse to walk away from the fight. To bury my head in the sand. To willingly succumb to the ailments that have dogged my lineage.

I’m determined to stay active. To give myself a chance for more chapters to be written.

That’s worth the battle. Whether its fought in the shadows or the light.

The Rationality Trap

The email got straight to the point.

Unfortunately, we have made the difficult decision to close your nearest TGI Fridays location.

The email went on to list the location that would be shuttered. I was then encouraged to visit another TGI Fridays in the future.

That wouldn’t be happening.

This was the third Fridays location to close near me. Each of them had been within range of the brand’s headquarters – also a short drive from my home. And now, they were shuttered.

If I were to follow the prompt from the email, I’d need to travel 40 miles round trip to go to Fridays. And few meals were worth that.

I shared the news with my sister. We had grown up on Fridays, enjoying many family meals there after the Red Robin location we had frequented closed its doors. We loved the brand, the food, even the flair on the restaurant walls that was lampooned in the movie Office Space.

We were both despondent. But I was cleareyed.

I’d seen all the pivots the Fridays brand had made. The restaurant had tried to upscale its image, and it had recently added sushi to the menu. Yet, its restaurants remained mostly vacant – even as rival chain Chili’s was bustling.

I explained all this to my sister, sprinkling in some tidbits from a Wall Street Journal article I’d read. That feature detailed the steps Chili’s had taken to return to success – including streamlining its menu, making its restaurant kitchens more efficient, and consolidating its discount offerings into a single $10.99 value meal.

Fridays had done none of these things, at least not overtly. There seemed to be no plan to make the financials add up in the notoriously challenging restaurant industry. The brand was dying on the vine instead.

My sister said she understood. But she chided me for taking the rational view and parting so easily with restaurant nostalgia.

It was an innocuous comment. But it touched on something substantial.

The Reasonable Person Standard.

If you’ve ever been impaneled for jury selection, you’re likely familiar with this concept. The Reasonable Person Standard is the lens through which the jury views the accused’s alleged actions. It’s a critical part of the judgement equation.

Jurors must not only assess if the defendant did what they’re accused of. They must also determine if a reasonable person would have done the same in an identical situation.

In some cases, the answer to this is obvious. A reasonable person would not murder anyone, for instance. Such action is not only against the law. It’s also one of the Thou Shalt Nots in the Ten Commandments of the Bible.

But in other scenarios, the Reasonable Person Standard is far more difficult to discern. Jurors must put themselves in the accused’s shoes – all while considering the norms of society. A society that’s decidedly irrational.

This reality can make deliberations fraught. It’s nearly impossible to fit the chaos of the human mind into a tidy box. Yet, that’s something juries across America are tasked with each week.

And they’re not alone.

Step out of the courthouse and head to the office tower down the street. High up there in the boardroom or a corner office, you’ll likely find the Reasonable Person Standard at play.

Why? Because business relies on returns. Returns on investments, returns to scale, and returns of revenue.

The steadier those returns are, the more sustainable a company is. It’s hard to get outside financing, to improve operations, or to even make payroll if there’s turbulence with the money coming in.

So, businesses strive to make their products and services regularly desirable, so that a reasonable person will buy from them again and again.

This is the theory behind the revamp of Chili’s – the menu makeover, the streamlined kitchens, and the $10.99 value meal. More generally, it’s the fulcrum of the famous 4 P’s of marketing – Product, Price, Place, and Promotion. And zooming out even further, it’s the backbone of the federal economic projections that drive monetary policy.

The evidence is everywhere. Our society relies on the premise of reasonable people acting rationally.

But that narrative is nothing more than fantasy.

In the early days of the global COVID pandemic, one activity saw its popularity skyrocket.

Namely, viewings of the movie Contagion.

The film had been released nearly a decade before COVID emerged. Yet, as the world shut down, many people started streaming the movie in their homes.

Many of those viewers were stunned by what they saw, for varying reasons.

Some couldn’t imagine a world as deadly and dystopian as the one portrayed in Contagion. (Remember, these were still the early days of the pandemic.) Others were horrified about how similar the portrayal already was to reality.

No one had any idea how much worse things would get. The mask showdowns, the verbal attacks on public health officials, the incessant shaming of others – those ugly scenes would soon become our reality.

We did our best to write off that behavior in the moment. To blame an unhinged few for

for setting a horrendous example.

But more of us were acting horrendously than not at the time – myself included.

Stress and uncertainty had ripped away our carefully crafted veneer. Rationality had left the equation. The Reasonable Person was nowhere to be found.

This was the environment that our institutions contended with as the pandemic receded. Courts deluged with cases after a spike in crime. Corporations riding the roller coaster of consumer demand. Once-thriving restaurant chains now struggling to hang on.

All because a black swan event laid bare an illusion they relied on.

Those institutions are still struggling to get the upper hand, all these years later. They’re still mired in The Rationality Trap, their systems dependent on a debunked principle.

And while some have persevered better than others, such victories have proved fleeting. Our institutions remain mired in quicksand, hanging onto the edges of solid ground for dear life.

So yes, my sister was right. When it comes to restaurants – or any other institutional staple – nostalgia matters. Connection matters. The suspension of assumptions matters.

Let’s hope that we are able to heed the call. That we can free ourselves from the clutches of The Rationality Trap.

Before it’s too late.