A sobering trip downtown

Once a month, my wife takes an hour and a half off to go serve meals at the Dorothy Day Center. It is located in downtown St. Paul, just a couple of blocks from the Xcel Energy Center. But it is as if you are in a different universe.

Going down there is not heroic. Indeed, it's a little gesture. But, as the saying for a commercial goes, the rewards are priceless.

Yesterday, my wife needed help because one of her regulars wasn't available. As was the case for most of my less-than-stellar athletic career, I came off the bench to join in. I had been there a couple of times before and knew the drill. This time, I had dessert duty, dispensing donuts and cookies.

It is an amazing, humbling experience. About 11:45 or so, the door opens and people of all shapes, sizes and ages come through. Some seemed my age of 55. Some seemed a lot older. Some looked half my age.

But they all had just one thing in mind -- to get a full, warm meal. The gaunt, tight looks on their faces stay with you for a long time. A few of them grumbled a bit as they went through line. But the good majority of them said thank you when they got to me, mostly because I was at the end of the serving table.

A few folks asked for a specific type of donut. Although this is something that is discouraged (mainly because it holds up the line), I tried to do as requested. In just about every case, I would slyly smile and say, "Don't tell anybody I did that. Our secret, okay?" In most cases, the person smiled back. I suspect they liked the idea of having a happy secret with a fellow they didn't know.

There would be occasional breaks in the action when the room was filled. A supervisor would then get on a loudspeaker and ask folks to move along when they were done with lunch so others could come in to eat. It may surprise people to know most did just that.

There were the many expected sights - folks with walkers, young mothers with kids in strollers. But there were some sights and sounds you might not have thought would occur.

One fellow walked through with a blue tooth, the latest and greatest in cellular phones, attached to his ear. Another guy came through in an overcoat that, from afar, looked off the rack from Macy's. Upon closer inspection, I saw the seams that had been sewed back together. It takes all kinds.

Another guy walked through in shabby clothing muttering anti-Obama rhetoric. Even at Dorothy Day, you couldn't escape the election.

Then, in roughly 80 minutes, it was over. The supervisor said the final meal had been served. He said 403 people had come through line. As we spoke, I saw other workers were quietly moving folks along, sending them back to the sunny, but chilly outdoors.

After all, dinner would be served in another four hours or so and the room needed to be cleaned.

And the beat goes on.

Oh, What a Night!

Went to see Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons last night. I don't go to many concerts but I must say Frankie Valli can still go pretty good ... at age 74. He sang all his old hits (He hasn't had a new one for 20 years or so) and a few songs I had never heard before.

The whole thing went rather quickly -- it lasted just over an hour and a half. But there was little down time and I have no problem admitting I was singing and bopping along with my wife and our good friend Steph Harris. That's not the easiest thing to do (and it was probably not a pretty sight) at the Orpheum Theatre, which is designed more for plays and more stately concerts than these guys. But it was still a lot of fun.

Two things struck me, though.

1) There was a woman behind us who seemed positively annoyed to be there. She hissed at us when we tried to snap a picture (without flash to be courteous). Later, when Valli encouraged the crowd to sing and clap along, she was as stationary and as unhappy looking as a Detroit Lion defensive back. The whole idea of going to see a guy like that is to sing, dance and clap along. I don't know what this woman was doing there. But she walked out glaring at the world.

2) When I go to one of these concerts, I always find myself wondering if today's singers will be able to draw crowds (the place was packed last night) and still perform their stuff 30 years from now. I don't claim to be an expert on, say, rap, but I find it hard to believe those fellows will be bopping like this to crowds like we saw last night in 2038.

I do think, however, that lady will still be scowling.

Another life lesson learned

A while back, I mentioned a friend of mine who is battling breast cancer. They threw a fundraiser for her yesterday. Originally, we had been told she didn't feel well enough to attend. But she did come and it was great to see her. Here was a woman who had every reason to feel sorry for herself. Yet she came with a big smile and a hug for everyone who was there.

It suddenly made things like getting downsized out of a job and seeing your favorite football team get beat seem small in comparison.

I'll get another job somewhere. The football team will win games at another time.

But seeing Mary there making jokes about her wig and throwing barbs at everyone was about the most uplifting thing I have experienced in a long time. And it was a reminder that having a glass "half-full" attitude helps more than just your disposition. It makes people around you feel better, too.

Mary has tough days ahead. I can only imagine how painful and downright chemotherapy is to endure. But days like yesterday are the ones that will pull her ... and those of us who are battling lesser problems ... through.

Good News! Something to celebrate

In case you haven't noticed, we have been having a bit of what the English call "a bad run" lately. The daily news has been downright depressing. So, when you get a chance to celebrate, you have to jump at it.

My sister-in-law bought a house the other day. At age 41, it's the first house she has ever owned. It's a major accomplishment for her. She has worked very hard to be successful in her career. She has battled hard to overcome what most of us run into at one time or another - obstacles in her personal life. Through it all, though, she has kept up the one constant I have always seen in her - a big heart. You want to see people like that get rewarded.

A friend of mine found out the other day she is getting named to her college's athletic Hall of Fame. She was a terrific tennis player for them a decade or so ago. She stayed in athletics after graduation, eventually going back to a college job - one that she has become very good at. Like my sister-in-law, she has had her share of personal and professional heartaches but has remained stalwart and steady.

I mention the above because we just don't celebrate good tidings as much as we should. When good things happen to good people, we need to forget about our sagging 401Ks for a minute and simply go have a good time.

Instead, we seemed to have become a country where success is envied instead of being appreciated. Instead of applauding someone's achievement, we mutter to ourselves about bad luck. I don't know exactly when this started or whose fault that is. But I swear it is true.

A former employer of mine once told me he thought I was a "glass half-empty" sort of guy. I think he was actually talking about himself and his bosses. But, unless I have totally misread and misheard much of what is being said and printed these days, he is describing the mood of much of the country these days.

There may be good reasons for such pessimism. But that seems to me all the more reason why, when something good happens to somebody you really like, you need to schedule a celebration as soon as possible.

Gotta go now. I don't want some naysayer complaining this column is too long.

Highway robbery

Being an old official, I tend to cut them the benefit of several doubts at the various sporting events I work at or attend. Today I make an exception to that: the guys who worked the Detroit Lions game against the Vikings at the Metrodome absolutely, positively stole the game today. As bad as the Lions are, they played as well as they could today and deserved the win.

There was a pass interference penalty against Minnesota that was ignored that even the Vikings fans around me admitted was awful. This was followed by a questionable fumble call that wiped out a long gain and then a horrific pass interference penalty that led to the winning field goal.

Judgment calls are part of the game. You live with them. And when you haven't won a game, you know going in you are not likely to get any breaks. But this crew, led by referee Tony Corrente, apparently decided they needed to do all they could to give Minnesota chances to win. Eventually, the Vikings did so, 12-10. They were a disgrace to officials everywhere. If I didn't know better, I would say they had visited my favorite decadent western town earlier in the week. Since the spread was 13-13 1/2 points, their utter incompetency didn't change that part of the game. It wasn't for lack of effort.

When the election really hits home

The presidential election is still 26 days away. That's an eternity in politics ... and it means we have thousands of political ads still to digest.

But, for people like me, all the ads in the world don't mean much when you can't get answers to questions regarding personal issues.

John McCain said the other day he thinks health care is not a right in this country. He is not alone in this view. That may be fine for folks with money but if you are somebody like a friend of mine who is battling breast cancer, has a husband who can't work and a son in high school, it's a different issue. This person works in a business that pays on commissions and doesn't offer health care. So, if you work, you can pay for insurance. But if you can't work due to illness, that's a problem. Although he may not have meant it that way, McCain's answer made it sound like this: tough luck.

My friend isn't looking for a handout - just a helping hand until she can get back working. Government, after all, is supposed to be for the people. A civilized society is supposed to offer assistance when necessary.

But what you hear from a lot of folks these days is it is every man for themselves, a sort of survival of the fittest.

This morning, I filled out all the necessary information to apply for unemployment benefits. It isn't a lot of money and there is a limit to what I am eligible for. And I hope I don't get to that limit. I want to get back to work.

But the money that is out there will help us get through at the moment. And it is money that I put into the pool at one time or another. So I will accept it and try to put it to as good of use as I can. You won't be seeing me buying dinner at Manny's.

The presidential candidate who assures me he understands that government is NOT supposed to be about ideologies is the candidate who will get my vote. I don't thimk I alone in that view.

That's why I think anything about any candidate's past associations with a person he no longer deals with isn't too important. Barack Obama isn't calling William Ayers for political advice and John McCain isn't calling Charles Keating for financial advice. I want my candidate to to tell me how my economic future will be ... and whether my family will be safe in the streets. The pundits can argue about the rest of it until they're blue in the face.

But I suspect my friend isn't thinking about Ayers or Keating when discussing mammograms and chemotherapy. And I know I don't think about them when filling out a job application. It's all about priorities.

Downsized

My reporter's nose doesn't get used that much any more. But it still works ... sometimes too well.

Last week, I sensed something was wrong in our tiny little office. The boss was unusually quiet and even had a closed-door meeting with someone, a very unusual occurrence.

On Thursday, I found out why. The boss stopped into my office and told me to stop what I was working on. Seemed he had been talking with his consultant and that person said he needed to downsize his office. Since there was only one other fulltime person (another person works four days a week), I could see where this was headed.

Downsized.

In a sense, I was a victim of the current economic crisis. The boss said it was simply a matter of his consultant (whoever that is) telling him he had to cut a corner somewhere. Not as much money as needed was coming in (via advertising). And getting a loan for more money is, for a small company, a lot more difficult now than it might have been, say, a month ago.

The timing could have been better. My wife is going to have an operation in a week that is going to keep her out of work for at least two weeks (and more likely, four).

But bosses can't worry about that anymore.

I am sure we'll do fine. But when you hear talk of Congress getting billions of money to save companies who pay their CEOs millions a year ... and you realize you are being downsized to say a salary of ... er ... quite a bit less than millions a year, well, it is frustrating.

C'est la vie.