September 23, 2011 -- Expectations

I haven’t had a chance to catch the new TV show “The Playboy Club”, but it got me thinking about my first trip to one of the Clubs and how I viewed a similar trip a decade later. All of this relates to how things change in life with regard to expectations as we grow older and learn more about life and the things around us.

Those of you that know me well know that I have never been much of a partier. I have gone to my share, but never made it a big part of my life. During my college years, I’m not sure I ever attended one. That sounds absolutely pitiful as I now actually type the words, but it just wasn’t that important to me. Either that or no one ever invited me.

On the same hand, I wasn’t much of a bar fly either although it was legal back then to drink 3.2 beer (the 1970’s version of Lite beer) when you turned 18. The problem there was that I have never liked the taste of beer. The thought of drinking it to excess was even less of an enticement.

So at this point, it has been established that I was a pretty boring engineering student while in college. However, there was one night that I stepped out of the mold and made my way down to the Cincinnati Playboy Club. It was a Saturday night during my freshman year and several of us were sitting around the dorm with nothing to do. One of the rich kids was bragging that he had a key to the Playboy Club and could get us in. All of a sudden the boring engineering kids had something exciting to do.

The real problem was that none of us were 21 and knew we would have to pull something off to make all of this work. For some reason, and this tells you just how much of a nerd I was, I had two sports jackets in the dorm with me. What I ever thought I was going to do with those I will never know as this was the era of platform shoes, plaid bell bottoms and straggly hair. We scoured the dorm for two more so that we would look older and more sophisticated.

After an hour of searching, we found two more and were off on the geek version of a rumspringa. We piled into my 1968 powder blue four door Ford Falcon and ventured downtown. We got the oldest looking of the guys to act like he was the key holder as we all held our breath that they would let us in. Amazingly, they let us in without even a hint of suspicion that we would out of our league.

We now had to spring into the second part of our scheme and that was to make $43 last for a couple hours. None of us had a credit card and ATMs were science fiction at the time. We decided that each of us could get a drink and then do a shift of two and then the other two would get drinks. This was the only way we could conceivably make it work. Engineering minds at work.

I approached the bar and realized when I got there that I really hadn’t thought this through because I had no idea of what to order. I had left the pack and found myself in no man’s land. I quickly used my rapid engineering mind and remembered that my dad liked something that sounds like a Seven-Eleven. So I proceeded to order that and the bartender looked at me like my hair was on fire and asked me to repeat what I wanted. I again said “Seven-Eleven” and he just shook his head and gave me a drink. I had survived my first Playboy Club interaction and didn’t even realize that I would likely be the butt of jokes between bartenders later that night.

We grabbed a table and sat there ogling the waitresses like we had never seen a beautiful woman before, giggling like 4 year old girls. Despite the fact that we saw attractive girls on campus (never in our classes though as there were no female electrical engineers) these women were different, they were amazing, they were goddesses and we were not even drunk.

Part three of the plan was now put in place as two of the guys ordered a second round and the other two of us sucked on ice. The drinks arrived and we continued to stall as we tried to gather in all of the excitement that faced us that evening. After a couple attempts to get us to order more drinks the waitress finally realized what was going on and busted us. She just smiled, we paid our check and we scurried to another room in the Club.

We were down to about $12 at that point but thought we could stretch this out a little longer. We then had our bubble burst as we noticed that there was a $5 cover charge in that room, obviously because of later entertainment. We quickly left, just happy that no one had completely discovered our sham. It was one of the nights that I will never forget despite falling short of a full evening.

Ten years later, the Playboy Club came to Columbus and I was given a key by my girl friend and we made a trip. My expectations were huge as I fondly remembered my first trip. However, the evening was a huge disappointment as the women were no better that you can now see in a typical Hooters or any one of the other breastaurants as they have now come to be known. Obviously the thrill had been lost and I never went back.

Same Club, same concept, but different reaction. It seems that those ten years had changed my view of the world and my expectations. We all change expectations in life as we experience more and expect more. I always marvel at how much fun a child can have with very little. A two year old can go up and down a slide and laugh as if it were the greatest experience in the world. A five year old can play with the same toy car for hours and do the same thing the next day.

As adults, we expect so much and often have to go to extremes to even crack a smile. It’s too bad that expectations become so big that life isn’t as wonderful as it was when we didn’t know any better. Too bad a Popcicle doesn’t make my day anymore. Keep enjoying the little things, they should always be important in our lives.

September 13, 2011 Failures and Regrets

We live our lives far too often just worrying about the present. We often forget that both the past and future should be part of our decision making process. It can be something as small as the decision to eat dessert to something as complicated as whom we should marry.

It isn’t easy to admit this, but I have probably lived most of my life worrying more about potential regrets than potential rewards. We tend to forget our triumphs and remember the failures that turn into regrets.

I’m sure you all have regrets in life, I know I do. One of the questions that I always ask people when I am interviewing them for a job is, “What is your biggest failure in life.” I really don’t care about what the failure is, but more about how they dealt with that failure. If I get the answer, “I really don’t feel that I have had failures as I have learned from my mistakes,” they immediately get crossed off my list. If you cannot deal with and admit to failure, you are not going to be successful in life.

One of my biggest failures in life was my inability to get through Engineering School. In the end, it was probably one of the best things that ever happened to me as I would have been miserable as an engineer. I think the recovery that I made from that failure is one of the things that makes me who I am. Certainly a failure, but not a regret.

Shortly after that, I stumbled into my second biggest failure and that was my first marriage. I was naïve and probably not as experienced in relationships as I could have been at that stage of my life. Certainly a setback at the age of 24, but again not the end of my world. If you would have asked me at the time would I have regretted the decision to marry, I would have said yes. If you would ask me that question today, I would have a much different response.

After Ann and I divorced, I took my time finding the right woman the second time around. In fact, it took me a full decade to find the love of my life. It wasn’t always easy traversing those years, but in the end it was worth it. Do I have regrets from those years? You bet! Not so much who I dated, but some of the decisions I made along the way and some of the mistakes I made in how I ended relationships.

Was my marriage a failure? That is an easy answer, but I would never regret the experiences that formed me over the next 10 years.

If there is one great regret in my life, it happened when I was still turning into an adult. I was 22, just graduated from college and soon to be married. I was too much about me and not enough about others. You would think at 22 I would be smart enough to understand the world around me, but sadly, I didn’t. It was during that time that my mother was fighting a losing battle with cancer.

It was a very different time when there were not many tools to fight cancer. She had half of one lung removed, but no chemotherapy or radiation. She was withering away to little more than skin and bones, but I was too blind to see what was happening. Soon she would be dead and I was content to stay 90 miles away and live my life like nothing was happening. As a result, I never really got to spend the time with her at the end and tell her the things that I should have. Even saying “I love you” was difficult for me at the time, let alone all of the thanks I should have given her. I miss her to this day. It is difficult to replace the unconditional love of your mother. In her eyes, I was perfect despite all of my flaws.

Knowing my mother, I’m sure it hurt her a great deal, but I’m also sure she forgave me before she died. The thing is, I still haven’t forgiven myself. It is 36 years later and I think about it constantly. It is probably why I have lived much of my life avoiding regrets.

I often have conversations with Justin and Jason about regrets and how terrible they can be. Do not let opportunities slip by in life because they often do not return. I let one slip away that I wish I hadn’t. Don’t make the same mistake.