The 1953 National Champion University of Maryland Terrapins

Scot A. posted this on my wall in Facebook.

My Dad was #44 fourth from right, second from the top. It was his Senior year and he always did say he was pretty small for every position he ever played. Standing behind that giant #77 kind of brings the point home. He looks fierce. He doesn't look anything like I remember him. It is definitely his Marine face expression but on a much different face. The guy in the picture looks like a handsome tough guy. That guy isn't my big jovial dumb dumb daddy-o. That guy is a champion!

Sometime early in his career at Maryland he had taken a knee to the top of his helmet and it shattered most of his teeth. He said he spent everything he had on the gold the Dentist students at U of M installed for free as a bridge and fake teeth. He said he spent months in the dentist chair. He said he didn't miss a game or a practice. He said it was only a mouthful of shattered teeth.

Maybe this was the source of one of his daddyoism, "It only hurts when I breathe!" When I would get hurt or injured and I did that a lot. He'd say something like, "Come on, you'll be fine, it will only hurt when you breathe!"

University of Maryland 1953

Facebook rocks!

Scot A. pposted this picture of his grandparents and father. I love the V for victory! So much more class than we are number one! But they were number one and I have Dumb Dumb Daddy-O's letter jacket to prove it. It has a Sugar Bowl National Champion patch on it.

Look at the joy on their faces. Mr A. looks awesome, he was twenty, strapping, handsome. Talk about the best of times.

I  asked my Dad what it was like winning all those bowl games and he said it was kinda like winning the war. But at the end of the games you knew the season was over and it was OK to celebrate. But after marrying your mother and having you children those things don't mean as much as you might think. It's who you choose to be right now that matters!

KUng Fu

Emma's first bath

I gave my daughter, C Kung Fu Panda 2 for Christmas. Big J said it was a great movie and that he always likes a good story with a moral. He wouldn't share what that moral was and said that would be up to me. So last night the Fruita Keith's had movie night and we loved it. I asked Chloe what she thought the moral of the story was and she said, "What really matters in life is what you are doing right now in the present and that the past and the future don't mean as much." OMG

I was thinking a little different about it, but realized she was clearer about what I was thinking than I was. I said, "Bamm, you are exactly right!"

I said I would apply it to my life by not beating myself up all the time about all the mistakes I've made and start enjoying all the things I've been doing right lately. Your past doesn't make who you are, you are what you are doing right now.

Right now I'm being Dumb dumb daddy-yO and enjoying it. Thank you God. Merry Christmas.

"You have to let all that stuff in the past go...What really matters is who you choose to be right now!" Po

J

Spent last weekend with my brother and mom and our kids in Denver. Big J's got new ink. Live every day...forearm, initials of his daughters, wrist and two memorial tats on his leg. One for Dad with a Md flag and one for our sister Karen who died from leukemia in 75...a dogwood flower. Friends of ours gave us a dogwood tree when she died. J went on to tell, "The Legend of the Dogwood" as written. From the wood box I knew this legend too.

Another Mouth to Feed

I am a new big daddy, Suzy is the big mommy, Chloe is the little mommy, Kayla and Mary are aunts and Tyler is little daddy or big brother. It has been a little crazy with a new baby in the house. Emma is a joy and a blessing and smart and an old soul and at 11weeks in possession of all our hearts. Welcome to the family Emma. Love always, DDD

My Dad's 1921 Silver Dollar

I tought this was going to be a very merry Christmas this year when I saw that three of my Dad's silver coins from the wood box could fetch $29,000. I remeber thinking it's too good to be true. I thought even if I got a third, what would I do with an extra $10,000 this Christmas? I decide I would buy three computers for myself and my daughters so Suzy could have her's back. With the remainder I would fully finance the Key Think Foundation's disaster relief efforts and lauch the Tithe Loan Project for economic development through micro finance opportunity. This is going to be great!

So I see this “Road Show” advertisement for buying valuables. A couple of coins my Dad left me in the wood box were advertised for big money! A 1921 Silver Dollar for $5,000! I had two Indian Head Buffalo nickels for $12,000 each! Yahooo! I jumped in my car a drove to the Sheraton in Lakewood. I had a bunch of other coins I wanted appraised, ten Kennedy Silver Half Dollars pre 1969. Three old worn silver dimes from 1917 and the guy on the other side of the table lines them up on his little white board and snaps a picture. First thing we see here that none of these are graded or rated. None of these are mint quality or collector packaged.

He held up my Dad’s 1921 Silver Dollar and said this is a very common coin. I pulled out the advertisement and said then why is it valued at $5,000. He said that is the maximum value. It does have value he says. Let me do some calculations and see what I can give you. He starts plugging away at his calculator on his clip board for ten minutes. He says I can give you $28 for all of them and shoves the clip board in front of me and says sign here. I blew a fuse. I started to collect back my coins when he says hold on what were you hoping for? All I could say was not that! He said wait! I can call HQ and see what they can do. He jumps on the phone and he’s got me for another ten minutes. He hangs up the phone and with a big smile says they were very generous and have nearly doubled the offer and for $44 we’ll take the lot. Sign here and this offer is limited to today only. I said, “double of $28 is $56 no thank you.” Scooped up my Dad’s old coins and went home. What a knucklehead I am. I think what my Dad would have done in that situation. He wouldn’t have been as polite. He would have gotten really mad. My Dad did not suffer fools easily. On the long drive home I thought a lot about being a dumbdumbdaddyo and I held that 1921 Silver Dollar in my hand the whole way. I felt a closeness to my Dad I hadn’t felt in a long, long time. As I held it it warmed. I had a pocket full of silver from my Dad. Infinitely more valuable than $44, his jersey number was 44. It was his favorite number.  I was thankful I was more curious than desperate and could turn down the offer. My Dad was number 7 in baseball and 44 in football, his whole career. Every password or code my Dad ever used was 744. Those were my Dad’s numbers.

On the phone with my wife she said it was one of those if it’s too good to be true things!

I said it was one of those dumb dumb daddy-o things!

Dumb Dumb Daddy-O: Soundtrack #1

Dumb Dumb Daddy-O: Soundtrack #1

My friend Thomas...

...was a fellow Viking Hurler back in high school. He is now on his thirteenth visit to the south pole. Here are some incredible pictures he's been sharing! Inspiring! He is my first follower. And my only follower not counting my wife and the little cartoon guy. God's speed Thomas.

Letter from the grave.

This letter was written to be delivered to us kids if my parents did not return from one of their global travels. I think my dad wrote it before their trip to China as part of the Nixon envoy. First official American visit or something crazy like that. My Mom said everyone wanted to touch her hair. First blonde woman any of them had ever seen. She said your father at 6' 3" was a giant and you could see him in the crowd from blocks away.

Not so heart warming. Looks like I never listened very well. Ever. Nice, "do what they say better than you do for us" crack! I what, 2 or 3!

Letter 2

Bootsie and me

Bootsie and me were the same age. She died when she was 12. We were in Ocean Pines for the summer and had dropped her off at the Vets to be groomed and when we got back to pick her up was told she had died from a stroke. My Mom cried hard. She cried too hard for her to be able to start the car. We sat there a cried for a while and then we went home.

I remember back in Cleveland Bootsie got sprayed by a skunk! I remember my Dad soaking her in a big metal tub with about 20 cans of tomato juice to help wash out the smell. For weeks she smelled of skunky tomato juice.

I remember my dad calling Bootsie into the garage from across the street. She came running full speed into the garage and in full stride smashed headfirst into the close inside door to the house. She bounced off knocking herself out and landing in a sprawl unconscious in a pile of upturned bikes. I thought she was dead. My Dad scooped her up in his arms and by the time he got her to the coach she had come to whimpering.

I remember him looking at me  with sincere pain in his yes. He said, "Your Dumb Dumb Daddy-o didn't mean for that to happen. I didn't even think that could happen!"

Boots, best first dog ever!

Readers Digest article from 1954 in the Wood Box! The Power of Love.

I didn't realize my Dad was such a student of love. The lesson of the trans formative power of love he taught me with his letter to my Mom after the Gator Bowl when he confessed to, for the first time in his life, wanting to make something of himself was inspiring. This lesson I am still trying to absorb. This article was published three years before my eldest sister Carol was born. I'm sure from the moment he tore it out and put in his little wood box he had decided definitively that he wanted kids and the sort of powerful love the author of this article speaks. I feel it too. The love I have for my wife and children is powerful, life giving, life sustaing, magical. My Dad has this love. He loved us. He loved me. It feels good realize this. To see it articulated in a 67 year old Readers Digest article.

Great Wood Box Clipping About Business

My Dad used to work for the Lumbermans Association right out of law school. I said earlier he used these clippings in speeches he gave at various association functions like conventions and fund raisers. I'm sure at a Lumberman's convention this joke would bring the roof down. I can see it, my Dad had the balls to pull off this joke in front of a thousand suites in some hotel grand ballroom in some far wawy city.

It reminds me of my brothers favorite movie line. He just used it the other day when we were visiting. Its from Tin Cup. Costner's character is lying in bed with his girlfiend and he says, "Sex and golf are two things you don't have to be any good ta to enjoy." Big J cracks me up!

I am a New Man a.k.a. Dumb Dumb Daddy yO

This is a little embarrassing, but if it can help any of my ageing friends, so be it!

So I have  lot of health challanges. Nothing I can't handle, but I now have a deeper understanding of chronic conditions now that I have a bunch of them. I'm not complaining. I'm sharing. I'm sharing two of them because maybe it can help one of my good friends who are also facing middle age.

Testosterone

It’s not the best of times when your urologist doesn’t even want to say it out loud. “Testicular Failure” she had written it and pointed to it. Do you know what this means she asks? It means you’re low on Testosterone, you are at 200 and “normal” is 300 to 1,000.

How could this be? Me. Low on the man hormone. No way. I have kids. I have sex. This can’t be right. I am manly if I do say so myself. Come on throw me a bone.

What did you say that made me suggest we test you? I said, “I feel older than I should be. I am not the man I used to be. I’m weak.” OK OK.

So I’ve been getting a Testosterone shot every two weeks for about three months now and have been confirmed “normal” and I must admit that the results are anything but!

Call me a new man! I’m still 45. BUT I AM STRONG and I’m not tired all the time! I’M NOT OLD!!!

Thyroid

Seventeen years ago something similar happen to me when my thyroid decided to go super hyper active on me and Grave’s Disease almost did me in.  Prior to diagnoses my brother said our mother wants to know if you moved to Aspen to die of aids? I said I don’t think I am dying of aids, shouldn’t be dying of aids, but since I was so sick again I would go the doctor to find out. I got a blood test and took a serious personal inventory. I had lost 60 lbs. was on my third case of bronchitis this year, had the shakes, sweat profusely, my hair was falling out, and was having trouble keeping up with my two jobs. I was also seldom sober.

Dr. Mass said I got good news and bad news. You are HIV negative! But your Thyroid is higher than I‘ve ever seen. If this is Graves we are going to have to radiate your Thyroid and put it out of service. You will then take a supplement for THE REST OF YOUR LIFE. I was young and I was dumb. At 6’ 3” 205 lbs. I was still strong. I was not fat for the first time since college! I was going to heal my Thyroid. That didn’t work out so well for me. I remember I was on a favorite hike with a few good friends. We were going up to Hanging Lake near Glenwood Springs and I couldn’t make it. Half way up I got really weak and my strength never came back. I saw fear for me in the faces of my friends. When I went back to Dr. Mass I was just under 150 lbs. and suffering from another nasty respitory infection. I asked for that radiation thing and she said she was afraid I may have waited too long. I said too long for what. Too long for you to recover. I was too tired to argue.

So I made it to my appointment the next morning at the Aspen Valley Hospital’s Nuclear Medicine Department to receive my single massive dose of radioactive iodine in a single giant horse pill. For the rest of the year I felt like Superman!

So I take a Thyroid pill every morning and a Testosterone shot every other week and for the second time in my life I feel like I can take on the world! If you’re a man and not feeling like the man you used to be, test your hormones. I did and it changed my life, twice.

Newest member of the family Emma Kippling Keith October, 2011

PEPI!

Pepi

We had just moved to Potomac and was shopping at Tysons Corner. My Dad, brother and me found this beautiful Springer Spaniel in a pet store and my Dad said we could get if our Mom agreed. We ran to find her and brought her back to the pet store. The Spaniel never got a look because Pepi was in the cage above. As my sister and mom were cuddling her and holding her in their palms my Dad said, "That's it boys. Unless you can take her away from your Mom." It was obvious that some things were just meant to be. Pepi was one of those. She look a lot like this little guy. She was a baby toy fox terrier. Best little dog ever!

Must Be Fall! Bring on the Snow.

More Wood Box Wisdom form Mark Twain

The fall colors have been so beautiful and inspiring. Hope it's enough to sharpen my imagination and allow an improvement in judgement!

Some wood box wisdom about fear.

My Dad wasn't afraid of anything or anybody. I know because I asked him. What are you most afraid of? He scoffed. "Fear is a waist of time! I haven't been afraid of anything in a very long time, but fear will keep you safe. So when I feel it I trust it."

I use this daddyoism frequently with my girls. Do it. I say, "Fear is a waste of time!" they respond with, "BUT IT WILL KEEP YOU SAFE!"

Carol and Brent's going away party at Gem and Doc's in 1983

Carol and Brent moved to L.A. shortly after this picture. They lived in Manhattan Beach. I think this was the spring of my junior year of high school. We look good. My Dad looks good. He is about to face some serious health challenges. He is about two years from his first angioplasty to clear blockage in his coronary artery. He looks heavy and jovial. Jay looks dapper as always in his suede bucks. We're both wearing Polos. Carol looks great and Brent looks ready to conquer the world (and he does). My Mom looks great, we are all so tan. We all have poofy hair. We looked pretty good back in the day! Our little family.

A clipping in honor of my three day sales meeting in Denver next week.

The truth hurts.

"I never let my schooling interfere with my education."

How true!

My favorite Mark Twain quote is, "I never let my schooling interfere with my education." I think this because tomorrow my schooling will interfere with everything in my life. I start my ninth out of thirteen, six week courses with University of Phoenix on line. I'm trying to get my MBA and it's turning out to be way harder than I thought it would be.

Recently I've been doing a lot of extra training and testing at work because I have been placed as a whole portfolio representative and have had to train and certify on three new drugs. Pfizer is where my education starts and my generous employer is sponsoring my schooling as well! Pfizer gives me access to an extensive library of training books on cd for the many hours I spend driving the 1,000 miles a week it takes to cover the Western Slope of Colorado. This education has been priceless. Most recently of note, Gladwell's "The Tipping Point" and "Blink" have changed the way I look at people and myself. Covey's "The Four Principles of Execution" fundamentally change the way I organize my week and manage my territory. With wildly important goals (WIGs) for guidance and managing the Whirlwind of getting my job done. Jack Welch's "Winning" has been great career advice from an experienced mentor. I took, "The Stregthfinder2.0" strengths assessment profiler test and followed that up with reading "How Full is Your Bucket" and have since started maximizing my strengths and making my shortcomings irrelevant. My boss makes strengths based management his mission. I listened to, "Who Moved My Cheese" and "Peaks and Valleys" and it helped give me barrings and insight into my own motivations.

I now steel myself to take Operations Management in Technology four nights a week and then some. Between school, Pfizer and being a dumb dumb daddyo I may have less time for posting my father's "Wood Box Wisdom" but I will try because it has been so enjoyable.

Wood Box Wisdom...now is our time.

It is my time to be the best dumb dumb daddy-o ever.

"Carpe diem all diem long!" Phineas and Ferb

"That one your gonna wanna remember forever."



Kayla Marie Keith 7/10/2002

This is the day I officially became a dumb dumb daddy-o. Prior to going to the hospital Suzy and I had some time to kill, so I made about a dozen sandwiches. I remember her making fun of me for making so many. It was a long hard labor for Suzy. It was way harder than I ever thought it would be. Kayla got stuck. Twice we almost had to go with C-section after loosing her vitals. They screwed a device into the top of Kayla's head to monitor her vitals and on it went. After about ten hours of struggle, the doctor brought out the vacuum, thankfully we had seen it during our hospital tour. It still looked like some sort of mid-evil torture device, but with it the doctor was able to manipulate Kayla's head past Suzy's pelvic bone and out she came! Our doctor let me cut the cord. Kayla had a big bruise on her forehead from hitting it on the exit and a cone head form the vacuum, but otherwise was in perfect health.

Shortly thereafter, Suzy said she was starving and asked if she could have one of those sandwiches. Sorry honey, Kayla's Dumb Dumb Daddyo ate them all.

What can I say. I'm a nervous eater.

Here's a good example of extreme parenting. This dad rocks!

This book rocks. My Dad would always say if I haven't taught you the difference between right and wrong by now you will never learn.

The father in this book made some dramatic impressions in the short time he had with his son. Definitely a good read. Crazy for the Storm is the first entree on the Dumbdumbdaddyo Book Club must read list.

DDD rating ****
Crazy for the Storm
by Norman Ollestad

"There are moments in sports and in life that make all the hard work worth it." DDD

Here is a picture of one of those moments. A picture is worth a thousand words. My Dad's teammate making a spectacular catch for a touch down against LSU made it into the Wood Box. It shows so much of what it was like to play back then. Hard helmets with no face mask (are you kidding me)?! This Lou must have been a tight end because of his size and jersey number. In high school I was a starting defensive tackle as a junior. My Dad suggested that I try out for tight end because it looked like I wasn't going to get big enough to play DT in big time college ball. He also taught me how to long snap, said, "every team needs a good long snapper and you'll see that no one else will want to do it." He was right on all counts, my senior year I played DT, TE and long snapper (only left the field for kick-offs and concussions)! In college I was the third string TE and second string long snapper for four straight years. My junior year we won the MAC Championship and beat LSU when they were rank #4. My senior year we played Jimmy Johnson's #1 ranked, undefeated Miami Hurricanes in Miami in the Orange Bowl Stadium. Miami University didn't beat the University of Miami that day, but it was a great expeirence. My Mom and Dad made the trip and I got a lot of playing time (Rose didn't want the starters getting too beaten up). My Dad said it brought back some good memories seeing me play on a field he had also played on. My college carerer wasn't very impressive, but at least I earned a business degree! Coach Rose and I never really did hit it off. In fact, it was more of a hate / hate relationship, but at least we knew where each other stood.

My Dad said remember the good times

In his Wood Box there were only a few sports related newspaper clippings. The picture of his teammate's leaping fingertip grab for a touchdown against LSU, the article from Alabama about him playing in the upcoming Gator Bowl and me (legging it out)! The articles from my baseball career were a real surprise. During my freshman through senior years of high school I played a lot of baseball and my parents came to almost every game. In the summers I played in two leagues, the county league (Mon., Wed., and Friday night games) and the American Legion select team (Tues. and Thurs. nights with double headers on Sat. and Sunday), that's nine games a week.

These articles chronicled my career pretty well. From the bottom up, we were "Challenging the Establishment" my sophomore year, I can't believe I was batting .533 half-way through  the season. I remember batting in clean up that year with our lead off batter hitting .900! I made the Legion select team that year and we went to the State Playoffs. The middle article was from my junior year and brings me to another dumbdumbdaddyoism, "You're gonna wanna remember that one forever!" He said you have to remember the good times and do your best to forget the bad.

The articles chronicle a day where me and two teammates won the Legion county championship sending us to the state playoffs for the second straight year, jumped in our cars, rushed across town and then won the county rec. league championship! I remember him clipping it, saying you don't see that every day, you're in two articles winning two championships on the same page of the newspaper.

The article below is from my senior year, we had just won our third straight American Legion League Championship. In the article I am described as unheralded, because mt senior year I was recovering from a nasty post surgical staph infection in my knee. On the first day of high school ball I went into the emergency room at Holly Cross and didn't leave the hospital for 31 days. Almost lost my leg. I remember during try-outs for Legion that year my coach, Coach Bovelo, said, "You're so slow you're going to get a sun burn running to first!" I limped along that season as a platoon starter and did some relief pitching, but was a shadow of my former self. I would have forgotten this if it wasn't for my Dad clipping it and stashing it in the bottom of his Wood Box, my last at bat in my baseball career was as a DH and I hit a three run homer over the left center field fence at the University of Maryland to tie the game in the league championship! "THAT ONE you're gonna wanna remember forever!" Thanks for helping me remember the good times Dad.

I was twelve when I started throwing 80+ mile an hour heaters and that's when I realized my Dad wasn't exactly young anymore. He would get so mad when I would zing one in there on him hurting his hand. He say something like, "Take it easy on your dumb dumb daddy-o, I'm too old to ketch the heat!"

On the Dock with My Parents, Nephews and Pepi! 1992?

My daughter looked over my shoulder while I as looking at this picture and said, “That picture’s funny.” I asked what she thought was funniest about it and she said my poofy hair. I asked my wife what she thought was funniest and she said the v-neck tie dye shirt and the poofy hair. I remember that shirt, it’s not a v-neck, and it was a regular t-shirt just all stretched out because I had just gotten back from two very sweaty Grateful Dead shows at the sPectrum in Philly. What I thought was funniest is the look on my Dog Pepi’s face. She 14, that’s 98 to you and me, and she always knew when to look at the camera, she was so smart (toy fox terrier) best little dog ever. My nephews in their diapers and undies are pretty funny. Check my Mom’s poofiness! Seeing the laughter on my parent’s faces is what makes this picture so special to me. Pepi is definitely smiling. Seeing Pepi means this was near the beginning of my life with Sam.

#10 "...the simplicity of true greatness, the open mind of true wisdom, the meekness of true strength."

Knowledge is powerful self knowledge is empowering!

This worked when I re-read it inserting the feminine for my daughters. Already I have not lived in vain.

Wood Box Clipping #9 to sipp of the sweet nector of life...

My Dad quoted this clipping from his box during his Best

Man's toast at my wedding in 1999. It was magical moment.