The following article was first published on April 26, 2016. In the fall of 1952, my mom carefully dressed me in my yellow raingear, kissed me on the cheek, and sent me down the long road that would take me to Larrabee Elementary School. There, far from Mother’s focused tutelage, my first year of grade …

When my partners and I first organized our company nearly thirty years ago, we were surprised by the stance our employees took on snacks. That’s right, snacks. The day we opened the doors of our burgeoning consultancy, we decided to stock the communal refrigerator with tasty fruits and juices. The company would purchase these snacks …

In the spring of 1964, as I approached my eighteenth birthday, my dad concocted a harebrained scheme (is there any other kind?) to help save money. His plan was to take advantage of our family’s health insurance by having me undergo medical procedures that our carrier would stop paying for—the day I turned eighteen. So, …

This article was originally published September 18, 2012. When I was seven years old, I learned how to ride a bike. I learned on my brother’s old, stripped-down, J.C. Higgins. It was a pathetic little thing possessing no fenders, no handle bar grips, no hand brakes, no . . . just about everything. Then, of …

I suppose that the Christmas traditions we cling to the most as an adult are the ones we enjoyed the most as children. This means that, for some people, pine trees covered with lead-foil tinsel are a must. For others, if the family wassail doesn’t contain fresh pineapple juice, why, it’s simply unacceptable. And, of …

Hollywood, 1983. For almost ten hours, I had been waiting to shoot a video clip that, one day, would become one of my favorites. Our production team had started early that morning by taping an example of how to get a meeting back on course. Next, we shot a vignette demonstrating misapplied motivational techniques—and so …

In the spring of 1952, Lydia, a woman who lived up the hill from our house, purchased the neighborhood’s first power lawn mower. Had the circus marched up 25th street while P. T. Barnum himself juggled flaming chainsaws, it would have drawn less attention. After all, Lydia was now packing a gas-powered, carbine action, rotary …

June, 1954. It was a glorious Saturday afternoon—one of those rare spring days in Bellingham where the clouds pull back and provide a glimpse of Her Majesty in all Her splendor—the sun, that is. On this particular Saturday, the sun was effortlessly converting 800 million tons of hydrogen into 750 million tons of helium (every …

The following article was first published on June 21, 2016. One day, during a particularly boring stretch at church, I leaned back and noticed, for the first time, the laminated beams supporting the chapel’s roof. The beams reminded me of my summer job after my freshman year of college when I worked at a plant …

As a boy growing up in the 50s and 60s, I faced threats from all sorts of juvenile delinquents, “hoods,” and other shifty teenagers we now call bullies. Modern experts suggest that mid-century hoodlums were unhappy with their lives and consequently determined to bring a balance to the universe. They accomplished this by striking fear …