Marines are known for their toughness. Down through the years the battlefields on which they have served have become legendary examples of America’s greatest warriors. The reality is that those battlefields, while fostering a legendary status, also cost untold lives on all sides. Nevertheless, when I enlisted I knew those destinations were a possibility. So…
Tuskegee Airmen
I took my grandson Connor to dinner at a steak chain in Solon, Ohio. Connor was roughly seven years old. It was a Saturday evening and like many restaurants was packed. This resulted in patrons needing to wait for their tables and they are given the little coaster alarm that buzzes when their table is…
Me and John Wayne
In Ohio the licensing laws require student drivers to have a certain number of hours before a student can test for his license. My Grandmother Esther lived in Ravenswood West Virginia and I lived in Cleveland Ohio with my wife and kids. Timothy, my youngest son, had his learner’s permit and I decided that some…
Goodbye Gambler!
Thunder ripped across the darkened skyline as the bearded gentleman walked down the path. It was dark but in the distance he could see lights and, far out on the horizon, a beautiful dawn, one far different from any he had seen before. Just ahead was a gate. It was tall, with lighted poster cabinets…
Impromptu Rifle Range and lessons learned!
I enlisted in the United States Marine Corp in 1981 and did my boot at the legendary Parris Island Recruit Depot in South Carolina, 3rd Recruit Training Battalion, Platoon 3033. Over the course of eleven weeks I learned what it means to be a United States Marine. We worked out physically, mastered the basics required…
Space Rep., Selling ads, not logic…
One of the tasks marketing communications professionals handle, and it’s one many of us dread, is buying media. It used to be a simple equation; you are buying media, for example a print ad. The process is: Determine the price break based on number of ads (find the best deal) Figure out which books hit…
Now What Do I Do?
WOW did I make a mistake on a recent project. I was working for a client that publishes textbooks, posters, training materials, and other items. The professional they hired to produce this material had no experience in publishing. She had access to the entire suite of Adobe products but preffered to use Word and Powerpoint,…
Why writers can be challenged in technical environments?
I work for a software development company and the teams with which I am associated are some of the most talented folks with whom I have ever worked. Their expertise includes coding, business analysis (for application development), quality assurance, and the ultimate brilliant-bad writer, engineers. I say that so that what I write here is…