Walk Fast

Once somebody turns forty, providing that person has committed no serious crimes, they are qualified to be an uncertified life coach.  I have been practicing uncertified life-coaching for about four months now, and I am pleased to say that only a fraction of my clients have asked for a refund.  Life coaching is neither an art nor a science, but, as its name suggests, is an extracurricular activity we should all take more seriously.  Today I will use this forum to share with you a handful of real-life dilemmas that I was able to life-coach away just this year.  You are welcome.

Client One:  “My dog won’t learn any cool tricks.  I thought border collies were supposed to be smart.”

Life Coaching:  “One thing to keep in mind is that border collies, like all dogs, are merely the descendants of lazy wolves.  Back in cave times, while the good wolves stayed in the forest and killed elk, the lazy wolves started hanging out with us.  Eventually these misfits turned into the dogs we know and coddle today.

“Considering dog ancestors, perhaps the problem has less to do with your pet’s behavior and more to do with your bloated expectations.  Your dog is a predator.  Any day it doesn’t attack you is a win.  If you want a family member that does tricks then maybe you should adopt a magician.”

Life-Coaching Outcome:  This client went on to sell his border collie to a circus.  I think he misunderstood me, but I still count this one as a success because the dog is much happier.

Client Two:  “I’m having trouble getting respect at work.  Although I am the boss of many people, most of them roll their eyes at me when I speak.  Any advice?”

Life Coaching:  “This is only conjecture, but one reason you might not be getting respect is because you don’t actually have enough talent to be the boss.  This happens sometimes in the work force, where the ineffective employees are promoted so as to minimize their destructive influence on the people doing the actual work.  Regardless, one way to compensate is to walk fast and carry a clipboard.

“Walking fast and carrying a clipboard conveys the very basic message: ‘I have many things to do and will most likely need to write some of them down while standing.’

“One particular boss I had used this strategy to good effect.  Granted, he was also tall, handsome, articulate, personable, and incredibly hard-working, but deep down I know it was that fast-moving clip board holding it all together.”

Life Coaching Outcome:  Client two did buy a clip board and a pair of comfortable walking shoes to help him move around his workplace.  Unfortunately, he worked construction and ended up stepping into wet cement.  The left shoe was salvaged, as was the clipboard, but this actually brings up a teachable moment in and of itself:  Tell me if you work around wet cement.  That information will influence my coaching tactic.

Client Three:  “Help me out.  Should I purchase the boat with no money down or the snowmobile with the crazy-low interest?  I love to go fast so please answer quickly!”

Life-Coaching:  “As a general rule, things with motors shouldn’t be purchased on interest.  If you can’t pay cash then you need to find a less expensive hobby, like walking or watching clouds.  The exception to this rule is if you need that motor to either do your job or get to your job.  So, I’ll answer your question with some questions of my own.

“Are you a professional fisherman or water skier?

“Do you live on an island and work on the mainland?

 “Are you an Inuit hunter tracking narwhal to help feed your family?

“If you answered ‘no’ to these questions, do not buy the toy with a motor.  Be an adult and save your money.”

Life Coaching Outcome:  This client actually did ask for his money back and then used the cash to buy water skis.  He will own his boat in ten years and his snowmobile in eight.

Client Four:  “I’m having a birthday party for my daughter and am already stressed out about inviting two of my uncles.  They love to drink and argue politics and they almost always ruin the evening.  Is there something profound I can say that will help them see each other’s points of view?”

Life-Coaching:  “No, not really.  Many experts believe that a person’s political schema is mostly influenced by a combination of their innate personality and individual life experiences, so any information you give them will be filtered through a partisan lens.  Most reasonable people are able to interact with other humans without this lens being a detriment, though, while those who can’t end up yelling at each other on cable news.  It sounds like your uncles need to find jobs on television, so your best bet is to seat them at the same table with a case of beer and just record it.”

Life-Coaching Outcome:  This did not end well.

In closing, we all need help on occasion, so never hesitate to contact me or some other life-coach, certified or otherwise, to guide you through your day.  Remember, the life coached well today becomes the legacy created eventually. 

And, on a related note, please also contact me if you are good at coming up with slogans.

Walking Beans

I don’t really miss walking beans.  I miss the money, I guess, the cash that I probably spent on Spider Man comic books, but walking beans?  Walking beans was hard. 

Unless you live near an organic farm, you most likely don’t see people walk beans anymore.  Some of you might not even know what walking beans is, but many years ago, before the advent of Roundup Ready seed, soybean fields were full of weeds, and about the best way to get rid of them was to grab a weed hook, walk the rows, and then kill them one by one.

            The first thing to know about walking beans is that it was good to start before the sun got too hot. This can be hard to do in July, though, and especially hard to do when your crew consisted of sleepy children and teenage boys.  Still, my dad tried.  He would have the thermoses full of ice water.  He would have the weed hooks sharpened and laid out across the bed of the pick-up truck like spears.  We would meet out back by the shed at dawn, choose our weapons, pile into the trucks, and begin the day’s march. 

We often walked beans down in the river bottoms.  Here the Kaskaskia, its banks hidden a half mile behind us to the north, snaked its way to the Mississippi in a jittery, south-west crawl. Around us on all sides stood the three shades of green of my childhood:  tree-line, soybean, corn.

Back then soybeans were planted in thirty inch rows, twice the width of today, making a suitable path for a boy to walk down with a weed hook slung across his shoulders like the weapon it was.  Usually weeds could be cut up at an angle with the hooked edge of the blade. Thicker stalks made a satisfying “thwok” before lurching to the ground.  Smaller weeds often needed stabbed to death with the straight-edge top of the tool.  Some weeds could even be pulled up by their roots and tossed toward the brother or cousin in front of you, dirt clods exploding off of it like tiny bombs.

Despite this violence, though, I don’t truly miss it.  I miss the water breaks, I guess, and the miracle of how cold water on a hot day can make you feel truly alive.  Regardless, I can’t say I would volunteer to do it again.

To help us, my dad often hired some of our neighbors, fascinating young men in their late teens who lived in a haunted farmhouse down the road.  These boys shot each other with B-B guns for sport; they drank, smoked and cussed.  They also lived with their girlfriends and a newborn baby that was treated like a last-minute birthday doll.  When dad asked them how they would spend their bean-walking wages—a few hundred dollars, probably—they quickly told him about a new video game called Super Mario Bros.  Mario, they explained, was the plumber-hero from Donkey Kong.  Dad suggested they spend their money on more sensible things, like baby food, but I think he eventually gave up.

Bean-walking was a hot, wet job.  Despite the heat, you had to wear long pants because the leaves scratched, but then the dew soaked through your jeans.  By mid-morning things below the belt were pretty rough, a bad combination of water and sweat.  If you were lucky maybe you stopped for the day around noon, sometimes later if it wasn’t too hot.

The first hour, though, despite the dew, could be rewarding.  Once the sleep had been walked off and you had conquered a whole long row, once you had accomplished something of market value, once you had rescued thousands of beans, but before the sun had really warmed things up too much, bean walking, then, I guess, could be OK. 

Still, I can’t say I actually miss this part of growing up.

I do miss riding in the back of the pick-up truck, I suppose, down the hill past grandpa’s house to the creek bottom, down the road toward the river.  I miss working with my brother and my dad on something simple, tangible and profound.

I miss being very, very young and the feeling that comes with being very young, when the future is opened so big and broad it feels like you’re standing on the edge of a sun-soaked prairie.

But I don’t think I would really want to walk beans again.

Sometimes, though, when I watch my own kids play their video games, and I tell them to go outside and they look at me like I’m crazy?

Sometimes I do wish they had beans to walk.