I knew Earl well as his co-worker and friend during my tenure as the Vice President for Comcast’s Southwest Region. He was, in every way, a total gentleman and the essence of what we all admire in a businessman, leader and friend.

Earl was tasked with growing our Grants. New Mexico business in an environment that would have overwhelmed anyone else. Grants had been continually left off the list as we upgraded the technical capacity and product lines of our major market properties in the Southwest. So Earl had to compete with a much more robust satellite competitor, without the High Definition, without digital television, and without the Internet or telephone products the rest of us had in our toolboxes. At the same time, it was his job to attract and retain a first rate employee team of a half dozen people to do everything from balancing the books to responding to cable trouble on nights and weekends.

Despite these monumental obstacles, Earl not only sustained the Grants operation, but grew it in every way. Our customer base remained strong as Earl’s laser-beam focus on outstanding customer care turned every one of our subscribers there into personal friends. The customer satisfaction ratings in Grants are legendary across Comcast and still rank among the highest in the company.

At the same time, working with Earl was a true joy. He fostered a team of can-do professionals, attracting veterans from other markets who came to the Comcast Grants office specifically to work with Earl as their mentor. During his long career, Earl graduated a ton of superb talent that went on to succeed in much larger roles with Comcast as a result of what they learned from him.

We used to kid Earl that he was the unofficial Grants Mayor-for-Life. I vividly remember my first visit. I asked Earl to take me around town to inspect the cable plant and point out where I could finally invest the funds to bring his system to the state-of-the art. Instead, I found myself on a Chamber of Commerce tour. At every stop, Earl was pointing out where Comcast employees had helped rebuild this playground and had contributed to the funding of that community initiative. After an hour of this, it was clear that I was in the presence of one of the most selfless community servants I had ever met.

Comcast Cares Day is our annual day of philanthropy, when thousands of our employees take time off to give back to the cities and towns we serve. Earl turned Comcast Cares Day into a week long celebration of service. He inspired such a high volunteer turn-out that his numbers even surpassed those in our largest markets. I challenged our leaders in Las Cruces and Albuquerque to beat Earl’s numbers. They never did, but the Southwest Region always had some of the highest participation percentages of any Comcast market. This was directly due to Earl’s influence.

When it became clear that Earl’s cancer had returned, he faced his final adventures with good humor and a saintly selflessness that taught each of us the true meaning of courage. I tried to make it a point to call him during the days he was in Albuquerque getting chemotherapy. The nurses were all in love with Earl and I learned later that he was more concerned with how the other patients were feeling, to the point where people had trouble believing that the guy connected to all of those IV bottles had ever been sick. Whenever he came to Albuquerque on business, he was always cheering on his peers, ready to offer his help or an encouraging word. We all considered Earl to be the elder statesman, the man we turned to for advice, the man we all wanted to become.

My term as the head servant for Comcast Southwest came to an end last December. Earl was the first person to call me to wish me luck. I told him that he was the quintessential Comcaster: Employee centered, customer focused and community oriented.

At the center of Earl’s world, though was his family. It was abundantly clear to all of us how much he loved Pam and his sons. When I talked to Earl for the last time, two weeks ago, I asked him if he had any fear facing death. “None whatsoever,” he said in that strong, positive voice… a voice that only cracked when he told me, “my only worry is for my family.”

A world without Earl Chavez in it is something none of us ever really contemplated until Pam alerted us that he was in the home stretch. His death leaves an incomprehensible void that we know we can never totally fill.

But Earl’s life of accomplishment, philanthropy and friendship far surpasses anyone else I’ve ever met. The seeds of greatness he planted in his sons, and all of us who had the honor of knowing him are a legacy that will continue to bear wonderful fruit long after the Comcast name may fade from memory.

We mourn his passing, celebrate his release and freedom from earthly suffering, and will all endeavor to live our lives… Like Earl.

Scott Westerman
Area Vice President Emeritus
Comcast Southwest
Employee Centered – Customer Focused
scott.westerman@gmail.com

The “Real” Scott Westerman will be 85 on July 10th. I’m the third in a line that started with his dad back in 1895. I’ve always felt richly blessed to have been born into a family with the father and mother I was dealt. And since Sunday was Father’s Day, I sat down to ask dad what lessons he learned from his father. I present them here, not necessarily as recommendations, but solely for your consideration.

Make a difference for all the world - Grandpa was a distinguished music major at the University of Michigan, turned Methodist Missionary, turned distinguished Ohio pastor, turned electronics enthusiast. He and grandma worked the mission field in the darkest corners of the Bolivian Andes. As pastor of Grace Methodist Church in Dayton, he built an army of choirs totaling over 200 of the congregation’s 1400 members. He offered free voice lessons to every choir member who wanted them. I have a box of his sermons in my closet, each one succeeding in translating the often confusing chapter and verse into meaningful messages that inspired his parishioners to model the Golden Rule.

Give your all – Dad admits that he learned much from his father.. from a distance. Grandpa was always working. Both Dad and I have comforting memories of seeing the reflections of the car lights dancing across our bedroom walls late in the evening when our respective fathers came home. Grandpa’s dedication sometimes surpassed his physical stamina. One terrifying memory dad has was a Sunday when the pastor did not show up at church at the appointed time. When calls to the house went unanswered they rushed home to find him sleeping so deeply that he did not hear the phone, or respond to the loud pounding on the front door. It took two weeks for him to recover, but he was soon back at it.

Seek balance – Dad believes that it was the work load and not Grandpa’s milieu of childhood health issues that brought on his first heart attack, at age 45. To be sure, it did not ultimately stop him from grabbing life by the mane. He would have three more attacks before finally succumbing in his 80s.

Be inclusive - Both my father, and my own personal commitment to diversity have roots in grandpa’s courageous integration of the church boy scout troop, long before it was the common thing to do. And grandpa and grandma had a habit of adopting church members with disabilities and going the extra mile to help each get the most out of life.

Develop diverse interests – Grandpa was a musician, vocalist, a basketball, track, gymnastics, swimming and boxing enthusiast. In addition to his passion for fishing, he was a bird watcher, gardener and dog lover. Late in life, he developed an interest in electronics, building antennas for his shortwave receiver and recording television and radio programming for soldiers serving in Viet Nam.

Have faith – Grandpa’s was a Christian life, but like the Dali Lama, my own father would encourage you to seek your own spiritual path. Faith, whether it be in deity or the ordered mysteries of science is at once alluring and baffling, exuberant and frustrating. If you build your own foundation of faith it can keep you grounded through the strongest hurricanes, the harshest spotlight and the darkest night.

Be well read - Being up on current events and the latest literature was part of all our lives growing up. The things we discovered in newspapers and between the covers of good books danced through our minds, leaving notions that often sprouted like seeds into new and even more powerful ideas.

Get an education and seek to become a better person – Most of us are but a generation or two away from a time when college was the exception to the rule. In our parents and grandparents time, education meant drinking knowledge with a desert thirst, trying to fully understand and sometimes challenge what we were taught. Good grades a goal but were secondary to the desire for real comprehension. Those learning skills served our forefathers well as we recovered from the Great Depression, fought a World War and learned to make sense of things like the Iron Curtain. Having the courage to face any personal demons you may have will also teach your children that we are all imperfect, it’s ok to recognize it, and that life’s too short not to get help while you enjoy the ride.

Don’t do it all yourself – Both my grandfather and my dad were the first ones to admit that they could not have been effective parents without help. In our home, my mom was well prepared and totally dedicated to providing that help. But it went well beyond their union. They made sure that when we needed them, the right teachers appeared. They exposed us to a diverse array of role models (mostly good and a few bad) and had the courage to ultimately let us make our own choices. They empowered and supported our teachers to correct our self defeating behaviors soon after they occurred, nearly always in private unless a public lesson was a teachable moment.

Be joyful – Whenever I would call grandpa on the phone during my youth, he was -always- glad to hear from me. He was fascinated by new ideas. Even as the years slowed him down, he was always able to find a mother lode of silver lining surrounding every cloud. My own children report the same phenomenon when they call dad.

Be present and be who you are – My father harbors a not-so-secret regret. He attacked the other things on this list with such intensity that he feels he was not present enough in our lives. I disagree. There was never a key question I had that he didn’t patiently answer. There was never a major event in my life that he didn’t attend, and whenever and wherever he was, he always responded to my phone calls. In those times of rebellion that inevitably touch each generation, he was patient when he needed to be, firm when he had to be and was always true to his beliefs, even when they were not popular.

Ponder this list. How does it parallel some of the other success traits we’ve been discussing?

As you think about your relationship with the father figures in your life, how many of these dimensions define them?

And what if very few do?

I had an interesting conversation with a young woman this week. Her father is what some might describe as her “sperm donor”. His own challenges made it hard for him to be the dad she desperately wanted him to be. Despite this, she has grown into a caring, contributing, joyful and complex woman. I encouraged her to remember that he did at least one thing right, because the world is a better place with her in it.

And it wouldn’t have happened with out him.

Have a great week!

Feedback welcome to scott@spartanology.com or @MSUScottW on Twitter.

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I admit it. In 1968, I was addicted to Tiger Baseball. That was the year that Denny McClain, Mickey Lolich and the bengals won the pennant from Bob Gibson and the St. Louis Cardinals. At Slauson Jr. High, our principal piped the WJR audio from the day games over the PA. And the entire state of Michigan rejoiced when Detroit prevailed.

A lot of water has gone over the dam since then. We pay our major leaguers way too much money. And the drive to compete has seduced too many athletes in the game to take drugs to give them an inappropriate edge. The commissioner’s office was way slow in coming down on steroids. And after one to many players strikes, demanding more money than we pay our teachers, firefighters, soldiers and police (the real American heroes), I gave up on the baseball.

Then came the events of June 2nd, 2010. The world knows that Armando Galarraga pitched a perfect game and that umpire Jim Joyce blew the call and stole it from him.

What stunned us all was the way that these two athletes handled the incident. Galarraga was the essence of class. He didn’t throw a tantrum. He didn’t argue. He just smiled. And Joyce. Joyce was instantly contrite. When he saw the replay, he knew he missed the call by a mile and had wrongly denied this incredible young man his rightful place in baseball history. In an unprecedented act, Joyce told the media he had made a mistake. He went into the locker room and tearfully apologized to the Tiger Pitcher, who magnanimously accepted.

Joyce realized the magnitude of his error and wanted to make it right. Galarraga knows that what Baseball is all about is sportsmanship. Sportsmanship includes playing well, but it also includes behaving well.

MSU’s Draymond Green understands this. His bear hug in the Final Four saved coach Tom Izzo from a technical foul, and spoke volumes about what competition is really all about.

In the ultimate display of class, Galarraga delivered the line-up to Jim Joyce before the start of the next night’s game. Joyce was still deeply upset, yet grateful for the display of character and class.

I’m beginning to think that I might follow baseball again. But it depends on Bud Selig.

The whole issue now sits in the lap of the Major League Commissioner.

What should he do?

As leaders it’s a given that we will make mistakes. Real leaders realize it and make it right.

When I was a Comcaster, I passed on a candidate for a senior leadership position on my team. Since others in my group had interviewed him, one courageous soul stood up in our staff meeting and said, “I think you made a mistake. This guy deserves a shot.”

He turned out to be one of the best hires we ever made.

When a new design for the Michigan State University Spartan helmet logo leaked out on the Internet, MSU Athletic Director, Mark Hollis, did the right thing. He listened to the unprecedented feedback from the Spartan faithful (his key constituency) and chose to keep the current logo.

That was the correct decision.

Joyce would take back the call if he could. He knows it was wrong. But Major League rules don’t let him do it.

But Commissioner Selig can, and should award Galarraga with a perfect game.

We live in a world where a lot of big shots don’t understand the power of listening to, and responding do their customers. They do it at their peril.

AT&T customer Georgio Galante sent two notes to CEO Randall Stephenson and received a response from the phone company’s legal department. Incredibly, they threatened Galante with a “cease and desist” letter. The groundswell of negative feedback in the market place forced AT&T to send an apology, but Stephenson’s image is irrevocably tarnished.

My guess is that Stephenson didn’t have had his minions apologize to Galante because he feared a customer… and shareholder revolt. He should have apologized because it was the right thing to do.

Judge Kennesaw Mountain Landis gets the most ink in baseball history books for his iron fisted leadership of the Game as Commissioner. But it was his successor, Happy Chandler, who integrated the game. He did it against strong opposition, only one of the owners supported him.

He did it because it was the right thing to do.

Chandler told Dodgers skipper Branch Rickey, “It isn’t my job to decide which colors can play big league baseball. It is my job to see that the game is fairly played and that everybody has an equal chance.”

Rickey signed Jackie Robinson, and the rest is history.

Baseball needed to be integrated because the American Game must reflect America’s diversity.

Rochelle Riley, an accomplished African American sportswriter for the Detroit Free Press is one beneficiary of Chandler’s decision. She writes that Selig should reverse the call..

“… for umpire Jim Joyce. And he should do it for history…A hundred years from now, they won’t remember the regret expressed by Joyce, who called Cleveland’s Jason Donald safe when he was out at first base, thus robbing a young pitcher of the 21st perfect game in baseball history.A hundred years from now, they won’t remember that Joyce said he was wrong. And that the well-respected professional cried the next time he took the field.Record books don’t mention almost-perfect games.Here on the island, where men are chasing the governorship and business leaders are searching for ways to make Michigan great again, it has been hard to focus.

The talk has been about the call.

Baseball has enough asterisks. Commissioner Bud Selig should overturn the bad call, the obvious bad call, the heartbreaking bad call.

I agree. Commissioner Selig should award Galarraga a perfect game. Not because of the extraordinary sportsmanship he displayed. He should do it because Jim Joyce realized he screwed up the call and admitted the error.

From the time we were kids, we were taught that Baseball was THE American Game. We were also taught that when you made a mistake, you admitted it, and should do everything you can to make it right.

That’s an important leadership lesson.

Selig needs to do what’s right. And reversing Jim Joyces call at first base on the night of June 2, 2010 is the right thing to do.

At Ann Arbor Pioneer High School in the 70s, the road to your license required enduring Driver’s Education. It was a program staffed mostly with varsity coaches and their support staffs, with uneven results. My classroom instructor was the team trainer and it was more our determination to succeed than his teaching ability that got us through the curriculum.

Behind the wheel was totally different. Fred Karr was the erstwhile tennis coach, but he had a true passion for teaching that was reflected in every moment we spent together. Mr. Karr taught us the vehicular arts as a surgeon might train an intern. He let us make mistakes, using the instructors brake pedal that was installed on the riders side as a corrective aid. I have a vivid memory of almost heading up a one-way street near Fingerle Lumber, only to have Mr. Karr slam on the brakes just as I began to roll in the wrong direction. We winter babies took instruction fall term and it was a magic moment when I got my “drive with your parents” permit, 30 days before my January 13th birthday.

Having a license opened new vistas of freedom, both for us and for our chauffeur parents. It also taught us instant financial responsibility as we saved our nickels for that first automobile. Mine turned out to be a 1961 Plymouth Valiant that was well worn even before I got my hands on it. The first order of business was building plywood sandwich board to cover the gaping holes in the floorboard. My buddies joked that I could power the thing, like Fred Flintstone, with my feet. My folks didn’t have to worry about me speeding, because the car struggled to make 50 and accelerated with all the intensity of a sloth on a hot summer afternoon.

So it was natural that I envied Matt Townsend.

Matt’s dad was a doctor, so the son had access to a 1967 Ford Mustang. “The Horse” was metal flake blue with a white vinyl top, a four on the floor and a 310 Ford V8 under the hood. It was one of the few things that could focus my adolescent mind on something other than radio, rock n roll or my then girlfriend, Terry Deniston.

Beyond their generosity with the car, the Townsends shared my parents liberal curfew beliefs, so Matt and I had the run of the world until at least midnight and often later with permission. We used the privilege to discover how far and how fast we could get the Horse going and still make it back before bedtime.

As the Summer of ’71 drew to a close, we had explored most of the roads in the county and learned that it was possible to crack 120 mph on Scio Church and still be able to stop safely at the Main Street intersection.

Thats when Matt got the idea to try our luck at Summit street.

Summit starts at the edge of what is now Wheeler Park, crossing Main Street and rising slowly into the neighborhoods of the northwest side of town. It’s key feature is a railroad track that crosses the street roughly 1200 feet west of the park. We had confirmed Ford’s boast that the Horse could accelerate from zero to sixty in 4.8 seconds and calculated that 60 ought to be enough to launch us airborne as we crossed the tracks.

After all, it was 1971. Evil Knievel was doing the same thing on his motor cycle and we’d seen the Hurricane Hell Drivers do it at the Detroit Auto Show. So why couldn’t we?

Such was our thought process that August evening as we backed the Horse up to the park’s edge, timing the main street stop light, just to make sure we could cross without running it red. The fact that there might be traffic, pedestrians, police officers or witnesses never crossed our mind.

I turned up the radio. CKLW covered Ann Arbor like a blanket at night, but my tastes were for the skywave stations that jumped the lake after dark. We were tuned to Bob Dearborn on Chicago’s WCFL and The Who’s “Won’t get fooled again” pounded our eardrums.

Matt popped into neutral and revved the engine as if to warn the machine that we were about to test it’s limits. My job was to count the seconds, so that we would hit the intersection just as the light turned green. We cinched our seat belts, still a relatively new accessory on many vehicles, leaned back against the comfortable vinyl bucket seats and grinned at one another. We were young, stupid and about to learn a lesson.

“Three, two, one, hit it!”

Matt jammed the gears into low and transformed about five dollars of his dad’s rubber into smoke and stench. The transaxle slammed 355 horsepower to the rear wheels and we were off. Houses started to fly by and we crossed Main. The speedometer said 65.

“We’re gonna hit 80 before we get to the tracks,” Matt yelled. He shifted into high gear and, in an instant, we were there.

The tracks are cut into Summit’s 22 degree incline to provide a level road bed for the few freight trains that occasionally made the crossing. It wasn’t much, but it was enough of a ramp to lift us about five feet into the humid evening. We both gave the traditional male “yeeee haaa” scream and felt an instant of weightlessness before the Mustang’s 3897 pounds of steel responded to Newton’s most basic law.

Until that moment, we didn’t realize that the Hell Drivers had some advantages. Like beefed up suspension, 12 point safety belts that strapped them into a hardened cage cockpit, and a lot more training and brains than a couple of 16 year old Pioneer High School Sophomores.

That all became clear when the car slammed into the pavement. The whiplash was minor. I felt worse after a night of snow skiing at Mount Brighton. Incredibly the struts held together and Matt was able to keep the car between the gutters. But the loud crash and a bright orange glow in the rear view mirror told us that all was not well. The engine’s normally mellow baritone suddenly exploded into a full throated roar. We looked behind us to see the Horse’s entire exhaust system trailing us, dancing along the uneven pavement and throwing off a display of fire and sparks worthy of Burr Park on the Fourth of July.

It was time to think fast.

Matt was the ships captain and started barking orders. “Go back and grab that thing and let’s get the hell outta here.”

Porch lights were starting to come on, and the thought of exposure didn’t appeal to a former Superintendent’s son. “It’s your car and your idea,” I yelled. “-You- go back and get that thing and let’s get the hell outta here.”

Matt shot visual daggers in my direction. “Roll down the fricking windows then.”

That was something I was willing to do.

He set the parking brake, left the motor running and launched out of the door. Balancing the white-hot exhaust system wasn’t easy, but the adrenalin was flowing and he was back in an instant. We did the best we could to slide the uneven metal snake with it’s muffler payload cross wise in the car, the two ends sticking a couple of feet out of each window.

It all happened in a lot less time than it takes to tell, and Matt didn’t worry about the noise as we rocketed west into the anonymity of the neighborhood.

“What are you gonna tell your dad?”

I asked the question as we carefully coaxed the Horse onto Matt’s street while trying to keep the engine’s unfiltered audio output to a dull roar.

Matt thought for a moment. “What a piece of crap! We were coming out of the McDonalds parking lot on Stadium and I misjudged the curb just one little tiny bit.. And the whole damn exhaust system fell off right there on Arbordale.”

“I hope you’ll clean up the language.”

“Of course I’ll clean up the damn language. How does the story sound?”

“OK.. if nobody recognized your car on Summit and if nobody thought to right down the license plate number and if nobody called the police and if the cops didn’t run the plate and if they didn’t call your dad.”

“You’re a ton of help. Not a word to anybody, ever! I expect you to back me up on this.”

“Till the day I die.”

I buckled into my ’61 Valiant with extra care and set the radio to WJR and Nightflight 760. Paul Desmond’s sax whispered “So Long Frank Lloyd Wright.” Matt turned the Horse gently into his driveway. He got out, shook his head and inspected the tubular wings that were it’s newest design addition. He flipped me the finger and turned toward the house.

I watched the scene recede into the night as I crept out of his neighborhood.. and obeyed the speed limit all the way home.

Matt’s dad bought the tale. Nobody called the cops. And we were back in the Horse the next weekend with a brand new exhaust system and a bit more respect for the deadly machines that people so often underestimate.

Ahead was band camp at Interlochen, weekend gigs at WPAG and all the joys and heartbreak of Junior Year. Terry dumped me for a guy from Ypsilanti and we ended up becoming better friends than we ever were as lovers.

To this day, every time I cross the intersection of Main and Summit, I think of Matt Townsend… and the night we rode his flying Horse.

And I almost kept my oath of secrecy. I changed enough of the details of the story so Matt’s dad won’t recognize the car, or his kid. I know it’s almost four decades since it happened, but even an 80 year old can exact retribution.

These were the dog days of an Ann Arbor summer in 1969.

In August, little league, swim team and band are over.  The Michigan summer camps return a legion of sunburned, bug bitten, poison ivy pocked kids from extreme structure to no structure.  The heat can be stifling one day, sending inhabitants of un-air conditioned homes to our basements. And the next day we can be totally soaked by perpetual, ice cold, monsoonal rain. All the cool movies have been seen, the new kids who moved in during June are no longer interesting and all that remains is the monotonous count down to the first day of school.

Such was our mindset as Mark Maynard and I pondered how to pass the day. The Hendersons, leaders of much of our neighborhood kid activity, were all at the country club. We couldn’t find Tom Reis and the rest of the neighborhood rug rats were either too young or too old for our society.

We sat on the big sedimentary boulder that Mark’s dad had put at the edge of their corner lot to keep the hill traffic on Ivydale from cutting across their front yard. That’s when we saw Charles Kernaghan.

Charles was the youngest in his family. He came on the scene late enough to escape the close scrutiny that parents give their older children. I don’t ever remember seeing his mom or dad.  He pretty much did what he pleased.

Charles lived on the ragged edge of our kid fraternity. He was almost too young to make the cut. But on a day like today…

Mark and I shrugged at one another and started to saunter towards the Kernaghan house.

It was located at the edge of our court, deep right field when we all played our tennis ball version of America’s Pastime. The lone second story window that faced the outfield had been broken more times than we could count. Being a lefty, I’d done it twice, inspiring the rest of the right handers to swing as late as possible to try and top my record. It didn’t help the law of averages that any hit on the house constituted an inside the park home run.

As we approached the garage, we could smell the piercing aroma of mineral spirits. A small human form was focused intently on the disassembled parts of a go cart engine. Apparently Charles actually had something productive to do.

We found him soaking the smaller accouterments in gasoline. His working space was one of those metal flying saucer sleds that cracked our tailbones every winter at Veteran’s Park.

Our nostrils were already burning and I thought of the big signs at the gas station that said, “Do Not Inhale”.

Mark was the more inquisitive of the two of us. He regarded the scene before us. “Whatcha doing?”

Charles didn’t look up. “What does it look like I’m doing?” He said it with no small degree of impatience, as if he’d been assigned a key task in the Apollo 11 moon program.

“It looks like you’ve totally screwed up your brothers go cart,” I observed.

He squinted through the haze of gasoline. “Kiss my ass, Westerman. When you take the small gas engine course, then you’ll understand.”

Charles flipped a spark plug into the saucer, splashing gasoline onto the cement.

The minutia that was once Dave Kernaghan’s 5 horse Briggs and Stratton was scattered across the garage along with assorted socket wrenches, screwdrivers and a hammer. There was no way that Charles would ever put it back together.

I walked into the garage and hunkered down to see. Mark was more cautious. “Shouldn’t you be careful about sparks with all that gas?”

I thought back to the Fourth of July and our trash can experiment. A bunch of us were killing time before the fireworks and convinced Mark to steal three of his older brother’s firecrackers. Not the wimpy Black Cats but authentic M-80s, the nearest thing to dynamite that a kid could illegally buy in Michigan.

Freddy Revell, our model rocket guru, suggested we try to calculate how high a trash can lid would fly if we put an M-80 under it. We pondered the idea and after some group discussion, decided that three of those little red bangers would surely send it higher than just one. The consensus was about ten feet, the height of the Maynard basketball hoop.

In the twilight silence, we prepared the rocket range, Mark’s driveway. Thinking of the safety concerns, the group decided to talk Mark’s youngest brother, Joe into lighting the fuse. We had all seen what remained of Marty Dellbruk’s index and middle fingers after a bottle rocket he was holding blew up.

Joe hadn’t.

To give Joe’s hand a reasonable chance at survival, Jay Miller contributed one of the 12 inch matches his dad used to light their grille. John Henderson volunteered to hold up the trash can lid. John ran like a Warner Bros cartoon character and we always loved to watch his legs spin around whenever his brothers chased him.

Freddy Revell provided the official count down and Joe carefully lit the three fuses we had lashed together with a bread tie. John dropped the lid and entertained us with his best Wyle Coyote impression. We all plugged our ears.

The trash can lid, or parts of it to be more precise, did reach the top of the basketball hoop. We later found pieces on the roof of the house, in the back yard, lodged like shrapnel in the backboard and in the street a half a block away. The sonic boom is still talked about as one of the loudest ever in the subdivision.

Those of us who were caught only had to serve a brief suspension from circulation. Mark Maynard had to sit on the sidelines a bit longer after Joe told his parents how proud he was to have initiated it all.

All of this was still on both of our minds when Charles Kernaghan suddenly had an idea.

“Let me show you how to put a match out in gasoline!”

“There’s no way you can do that,” I laughed.

Mark was more precise. “Actually the gasoline vapors are much more flammable,” he said. “And you’ve got enough of those in here to power a Hemi engine.”

Charles was unfazed. “You guys don’t know anything. I’ll demonstrate it right now.”

Mark and I exchanged looks. It was one of those pivotal moments when you are torn between talking a knucklehead out of doing something that’s really dangerous.. and egging him on just to see what might happen. Being 14 years old, both Mark and I wanted to do the right thing.

“Sounds cool to us,” we said.

I slowly backed out of the garage, calculating how long it would take for the Kernaghan house to be totally consumed by flame and wondering if the fire trucks would make it here before the neighbor’s house went up, too.

Charles was the only smoker in his family. He’d learned how at age eleven when the Winklers rented the Swain’s house for a year. They brought cigarettes into the neighborhood and we all soon knew what Old Gold’s tasted like.

The love affair didn’t last. We were still glowing from the Tiger’s ’68 World Series win and all wanted to grow up to be Al Kaline. Anything that took away our wind was a bad thing.

But not so for Charles.

He had matches in the pocket of his bluejeans, the kind you used to be able to light off of the sole of your shoe.

Mark Maynard scanned the scene. He was already across the street in the Anderson’s driveway. “Maybe you ought to have a fire extinguisher nearby.”

Charles ignored him. He stood next to the saucer and lit the match on a cracked front tooth. He stood, like an orchestra conductor with his baton at the ready and addressed us in an academic tone.

“Gasoline, being in liquid form, will not ignite. You pussies can stand over there if you want, but I will be as safe as if I had dropped this match into a glass of water.”

It wasn’t the liquid that caught first. The match was barely out of Charles’ hands before the vapors did their work. The whole saucer seemed to explode with all the excitement and color of an olympic torch ceremony. The flames mushroomed in beautiful blues and oranges, licking the ceiling and painting a parabola of charcoal swaths in all directions.

“Maybe I’d better get a hose.”

In our rapt awe we only now realized that Charles’ voice was right beside us. He had broken John Henderson’s 50 yard dash record and stood panting in the Anderson’s driveway.

“You don’t wanna put out a chemical fire with water,” Mark advised.

Charles had jettisoned his erudite tone. He rubbed his chin with a blackened right hand leaving a dark goatee behind.

He looked toward the upstairs windows. “I don’t think anybody is in the house.”

By now, thick black smoke was billowing out of the garage and was curling into the windless afternoon sun. Up the hill we could hear Danny McMillan’s squeaky tenor exclaim, “Check that out.”

If Danny could see it, no doubt our parents could.

Mark and I instinctively knew that our best course of action was to disappear. It never pays to be at the scene of the crime when the adults start to arrive.

But witnessing history always trumps personal danger.

“There wasn’t that much gas in there,” Mark said. “Perhaps it will burn out before anything else catches fire.

And that’s what happened.

Charles couldn’t get the soot off of the garage ceiling before his parents came home. It was still there when the next family moved in. But it didn’t matter. Mr. Anderson had joined us at the curb and made sure that interested parties were alerted. “The Professor”, as Charles was now known, was grounded until school started.

Mark and I escaped punishment, although I did pay for a third window when I extended my tennis ball home run record later that month.

And we never forgot Charles Kernaghan’s science lesson.

Early in our marriage, I flirted with a career in the Air Force. We decided against it because we didn’t want to constantly uproot our family. “Life is what happens when you make other plans.”

Our travels have taken us across Michigan, Illinois, Iowa, Florida and now, New Mexico. Each stop has challenged us and enriched us.

When I first set foot on desert soil here in the Southwest, I was immediately captivated.

From the Albuquerque Sunport on a sunny day you can see for miles. The sun climbs above the majestic Sandias every morning and sinks slowly across miles of mesa every evening.  With earth tones abounding, even the smallest patch of green gets attention.

Our house was located in one of the few non-xeriscaped neighborhoods. Coming home to our small carpet of grass felt like you were witnessing photosynthesis for the first time.

The historic sights of Santa Fe, the rushing Rio Grande on the approach to Taos, the perpetual snowscape at White Sands, the cool forests of Cloudcroft  and the sedimentary promontories at the Continental Divide on the way to Farmington… These are a few of the things that will be etched in our minds.

Like our Jacksonville experience, Albuquerque is populated with a wonderful mix of lifers and newcomers. We were immediately welcomed. And with Colleen in the house, deep friendships everywhere were inevitable. Even though electronic communication will keep us in touch across the miles, we will miss the smiling faces and direct interaction.

We’re excited about returning to Michigan. Our connections there are still strong and the prospect of contributing to our home state’s renaissance energizes us.

But every time we look toward the Southwest, we will think about Albuquerque.

And smile.

Our annual holiday missive is late this year because several of our adventures were under the radar until just recently. Here’s a quick recap of what will go down as a pivotal year for the WestermaNation.

The most wonderful experience was Shelby’s wedding. In November, She and Mike Brethour certified their partnership in an exquisite event in Jacksonville. Like Brandon’s union with Stephanie, it was a moment that was absolutely perfect in every way. Brandon was Mike’s best man and his wife, Stephanie was the maid of honor. Shelby’s favorite high school teacher officiated at the ceremony and Gracie, Shelb’s puppy, was a full participant. It was wonderful to see so many of our friends and family, too, including Colleen’s father, who took his first airplane ride in many years to be present. We’re delighted to connect with the Brethour family, just as we have thoroughly enjoyed the Vutera clan.

The 4th quarter was where the action was. At the end of October, Scott concluded his Comcast assignment in Albuquerque and as Christmas approached, he was in final negotiations to become the next Associate Vice President for Alumni Affairs and Executive Director of the Michigan State University Alumni Association. It’s truly his dream gig and will take us home, closer to our parents and to many of our favorite people. Scott is off to the Alamo Bowl on January 2nd to begin his new job and we hope to be ensconsed in the Great Lake State by February.

Most importantly, we received a final gift from Colleen’s late sister Anita. As many of you know, we lost Anita to Ovarian Cancer four years ago. Since then Colleen has been ultra vigilant and decided to proactively have a hysterectomy after Shelby’s wedding. We are glad she did, because they found one, small malignancy in the right ovary, Stage One and fully treatable. We have excellent oncologists who are using the word “cure” and not “remission”, and after a 6 visit chemotherapy course, they expect her to be cancer free by April. Follow her journey at colleenwesterman.com.

These three events are the highlights of the year and as 2010 approaches, we’re feeling richly blessed and particularly grateful for the support systems we enjoy and the positive attitude we have toward the adventures ahead.

We won’t have a permanent street address for awhile yet and will send a separate note when we’ve put down some roots in the East Lansing area. Until then, you can follow us on-line at www.westermanway.com or email cywesterman@gmail.com / scott.westerman@gmail.com.

Postscript: June 1, 2010 – Colleen finished her chemo on schedule and is now in full remission. Her latest tests came back squeaky clean. Her energy and her hair are starting to come back and we’re working on figuring out what our new “normal” will be. Follow her adventures at www.colleenwesterman.com.

It was a Sunday in August when we met, Steve Schram’s birthday. Laurie was already in his life and I was happy to sub for him at WVIC so that they could celebrate.

I was a Spartan, working my way through Michigan State University as the utility guy at the station. That meant I helped John Hanley on engineering projects, did a lot of commercial production and filled in for whomever had the day off, while holding down evening shifts on the weekends.

She was still in high school, although you wouldn’t have known it by the way she was dressed. Her sense of fashion and her maturity fooled me when she came to the back entrance of our Mount Hope Road studios with a public service announcement.

I was instantly smitten.

Because of our five year age difference, we courted the old fashioned way, under her parents supervision. I was nervous about the chronological gulf between us, but the Aldrichs were many, there were other kids my age, Colleen’s dad was a self-made inspiration and her mother was a great cook. That last fact wore me down and I soon found myself eating often at 9335 Warner Road.

We were married on September 23, 1978 at People’s Church in East Lansing. The guest list for the reception was something like 150, but the word got out and over 300 showed up. Every disk jockey in town took turns at the microphone and the Haslett High football team served as bouncers.

Thus began a partnership that’s now in it’s fourth decade.

I got an email the other day from a recently married woman asking what to expect from the institution. These things happen when your hair starts to turn gray and you’ve put a significant number of years on the relationship board. I pondered her question and came up with an incomplete definition of a productive marriage.

• Its a union of two people who love and respect each other and continually build one anothers self esteem.
• Its a partnership of individuals who have something in common, besides a baby.
• Its a team where there may be some strife and disagreement, but the majority of the time is joyful.
• Its an environment where you live your own lives but can’t wait to be together.
• Its two unique and valuable human beings who still work toward their own life goals and continue to retain their individuality.
• Its a relationship where you keep doing the things that attracted you to one another in the first place, because you want to.
• Its a situation where you nearly always feel like you are happier than you were when you were single.

I’m sure I’ve missed some important points, but if focus on those seven, it’s a pretty good start.

Relationships are hard work. The people in them inevitably grow and change. You’re continually re-negotiating the rules of engagement, so candid communication helps, too.

But it’s worth the effort if you’ve got the right partner.

I can’t begin to describe the depth of my love and respect for Colleen. Her singularity of focus on raising our family produced two wonderful children who be came even more wonderful adults. She’s the best friend a person could have, always the first to call and check in, ever ready to provide moral support, even if the person on the other end might have disappeared from her radar screen for a decade.

Every boss who has met Colleen has told me that she’s my best career asset. She exemplifies the down-to-earth, gregarious first-lady that customers and team members instantly love. “The company can do without you,” my boss Ron Hartman once said, “but I’d never fire Colleen.”

Knowing she and I will be together at the end of the day helps push me through the bad ones, and helps me conclude the good ones on-time. She encourages me to dream big, puts me back on my feet when I fall, and reassures me that we can handle any challenge, as long as we’re together.

All my team members know that Wednesday has been our date night for 33 years, a time to continue to practice those things that helped us fall in love in the first place. We send each other morning, noon and night cards on special occasions. And we look forward to the two most important moments of each day: the smiles we exchange when we wake and the “I love yous” we say right before we drop of to sleep.

I love how she continues to grow and wants to learn from life’s twists and turns. She’s worked in a deli, a shoe store, a boutique, at credit unions, and in a hospital emergency room. When the kids went to college, she focused on her fitness goals. Its a passion that lead her to become a personal trainer who has helped countless others know the joys of health and self esteem.

Through it all, she has been my confidant, my soul mate, my best friend, my accountability buddy. She’s followed me across the country to a dozen different assignments and set up shop with courage and enthusiasm at every stop. Her sense of humor still cracks me up, her temper can still strike down a grizzly bear, and her faith that the next day can be better than the last is unshakable, even when terrifying events stare her straight in the face.

It seems to me that life is more fun when you have a partner to share it with. My adult life has been infinitely richer with her by my side. Imperfect for sure. We are an imperfect race. But I’ll gladly compare my “smiles-per-hour” ratio with anybody, and it’s all because of Colleen.

She had a big birthday today. She wouldn’t want me to tell which one it was. But it made me think again about how lucky I was that August day 33 years ago when she walked into my life.

And ever since… She has been the wind beneath my wings.

There are no ordinary days in New Mexico. The view from Academy and Tramway is an exquisite panorama that splashes a palate of earth tones more than 40 miles distant on a clear day. Its noon, and I’m watching a thunderstorm form far off in the desert. When the pressure systems that blanket the earth collide, storms are the inevitable result. Sitting in the Albertson’s parking lot I can see their confluence. Dark cumulus clouds slowly build. In time, rain will obscure the long dormant volcanoes that mark our western horizon.

Locals say that, depending on the winds, you can pinpoint the exact hour the storm will arrive by watching the shadows overtake familiar landmarks. A man with a “Go Lobos” sweatshirt passes me and, reading my mind, says, “œsix o’clock.”

And so it is that I find myself looking East from behind the big windows at the Whole Foods market at that exact hour. At 6000 feet, you get the Jimi Hendrix sensation, as if you could “touch the sky”. As the front converges, the heavens descend. A dark curtain of icy rain seems to explode from the clouds that are, even now, scraping the upper reaches of the Sandia Mountains.

The ground is cement solid in these parts and it’s impossible to absorb the precipitation as fast as it falls. If it rains long enough, the gutters are soon awash and the arroyas, the huge culverts strategically cut to divert rainwater from human dwellings, are transformed from parched moonscapes to rushing rivers.

But not tonight.

After ten minutes, the torrents subside and a rainbow appears, it’s arching prismatic spectrum leaping from one edge of the city limits to the other. The darkest of the thunderheads have cleared the mountains, leaving smoky white remnants among the alpine trees.

It’s colder now. The air is scrubbed clean. The subtle greenery that fights for life in this arid climate looks polished and bright. It’s a fresh, new world revealed in primary colors. In the west, rich vectors of pumpkin orange paint the evening. Another spectacular sunset is in store.