Robservations: The wisdom that changed my entire life

Long before I had aspirations of being the friendly neighborhood sports editor I am today, I was planning on ? of all things ? a government career.

Put bluntly, I wanted to run the city of McMinnville one day, and embarked on a college career with the thought of doing just that.

One problem. I didn’t understand my political science courses, and enjoyed attending class even less. I was flunking out, and one December morning in front of City Hall, my dad read me the riot act. In so doing, he changed the entire course of my adult life.

“You’re not going back,” he said. “You can get a job down here, but I’m not sending you back to school to fail out.”

But, I assured him, it wasn’t my fault. (Of course it completely was, I just wouldn’t admit it.) The material was too hard, the tests were too difficult, and I just didn’t get it!

One sentence from my father was all it took for me to re-evaluate everything.

“I can’t understand how you can know all those baseball stats, and play those fantasy leagues, and rattle off all those facts and figures,” he said, “and yet, you can’t understand political science.”

Bingo. Big light bulb over my head.

Flash forward a few weeks, and suddenly my dreams of a political career had been replaced. I was going to do something in sports. And, since I kind of had a knack for storytelling (something I have since come to realize was completely inherited), that’s what I would learn to do. I’d study the games, and how they were covered. I’d be a newspaper man.

A few years passed, and I had achieved that goal. I was the No. 3 sports man at a pretty major daily paper, I had covered everything from elementary schools to the pros, and I had my dad’s stern admonishment to thank for it all.

But one thing I’ve learned is you’re never too old to take some more advice.

Things eventually started getting a little shaky at the big paper, so much that I reached the point where I began to dislike my job. Fortunately, I remembered this advice: “If you ever get where you hate the thought of going to work, don’t go. Turn in your time, and find something else.”

Once again, one man’s words of wisdom caused me to change my life.

I made a quick call to James Clark, who was good enough to give me this current position, and the rest is, as they say, history.

Two conversations, resulting in two life-changing decisions. And I’ve never regretted either of them.

I’ll never be able to get any more of that advice. But I know what I learned over 33 years will never be forgotten. And I’ll pass it along, to anyone who will listen, in the hope dad’s words may help them, the way they’ve so often helped me.

The last half of 2005 has been difficult, to say the least. But everything ? suffering, sickness and sadness included ? one day comes to an end. So many people have shown so much kindness to me, my father, and the rest of my family, that a simple “thank you” will never be enough. But please know that we do thank you all, from the bottom of our hearts.

And thank you, Dad. Everything good about the man I’ve become is because of what you taught me.