Recently, this blog has discussed some heavy topics and looked at some dark movie clips, so I’m lightening up a bit for this post. We are in the middle of the high school football playoffs, the college bowl season is about to begin, and the Super Bowl will be here before we know it. In short, it’s a perfect time to talk about football.

Football has taken a hit lately (pun intended) with all its injuries and now the threat of chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE, resulting from too many blows to a player’s brain. But it’s still America’s sport – at least for now. In the 2013-2014 school year (the latest year I could find statistics for), 1,093,234 boys played high school football, compared to 541,054 who played high school basketball, 482,629 who played high school baseball, and 417,419 who played high school soccer. Why is football so popular? Perhaps there is a smidge of truth in what New York Times best-selling children’s and young adult author, Laurie Halse Anderson, once said: “The same boys who got detention in elementary school for beating the crap out of people are now rewarded for it. They call it football.” More likely, the popularity of football is due to what fantasy novelist Terry Pratchett said: “The thing about football – the important thing about football – is that it is not just about football.” Said another way, football teaches its players and fans not just the rules and strategy of the game, but many truths about life.

There have been at least 180 movies made about football, and there are some important life lessons we can learn from many of them. Here are just a few:

We should celebrate Diversity. Not everyone can play quarterback, just as not everyone can be the head of an organization. To be a successful football team, you need players who are good at offense, defense and special teams. And within each of those, you need individuals who have different skills. Most wide receivers do not make good interior linemen and vice versa. And kickers and punters are generally not exceptional at anything other than kicking and punting. The key, then, to a great football team (and any organization) is realizing what your needs are and drafting (or hiring) different persons who fit those needs. Do you remember the scene from Leatherheads[i] where Dodge, played by George Clooney, attempts to find the right role for each of his teammates? His kicker is a huge man, and when his kickoff goes sideways directly into the crowd, and his field goal attempt goes directly into the rear of the lineman in front of him, Dodge realizes his more natural position might be as a blocker. Dodge moves the kicker into position and tells him to hit anyone that gets close to his quarterback. Taking Dodge’s directions literally, this giant of a man punches two rushing defensive linemen, followed by the referee who steps in to stop him. But you get the idea. Just ask Dak Prescott what it’s like to play quarterback when your All-Pro left tackle, Tyrone Smith, is out with an injury. You end up getting sacked eight times in a single game. Likewise, just ask a CEO how her workday goes when her staff is not around to handle the numerous tasks of a functioning company.

Merit is (or at least should be) rewarded. I realize some coaches have blind spots and sometimes play their favorites, even when someone on the bench is more deserving. But all sports put heavy emphasis on statistics that reflect results, so those who produce generally play more. Here is a scene from the movie, Invincible,[ii] the true story of Vince Papale, a 30 year-old bartender, who is given the chance by the Philadelphia Eagles at an open tryout and ends up making the team, even though he would be considered too old for a rookie, didn’t play college football, and played only one year in high school:

At 30 years old, Papale became the oldest rookie in the history of the NFL, and played three years for the Eagles. He was a special teams standout and voted a captain of the Eagles in 1978 (as well as “Man of the Year” due to his many charitable activities). Papale is an example of the way life should be – those who produce should get the rewards, regardless of who you know, how you look, how well you play politics, or regardless of your social or educational background. I know, I’m a foolish dreamer, but companies should be more like football teams. I have found, for example, that the best attorneys are not always graduates of the highest regarded law schools, but it is hard to convince some employers (including mine) to look at anyone who didn’t graduate from an Ivy League college or another highly rated law school.

Great things are accomplished through preparation, teamwork and hard work. Jerry Rice, generally considered the greatest wide receiver of all time and who still holds the NFL records for the most receptions, the most touchdowns, and the most receiving yards, said, “The enemy of the best is the good. If you’re always settling with what’s good, you’ll never be the best. Today I will do what others won’t so tomorrow I can accomplish what others can’t.” First it takes preparation, both physical and mental. Good coaches know the best players are the ones that are both physically and mentally prepared. Or as the future Hall of Fame quarterback Peyton Manning once said, “Pressure is something you feel when you don’t know what the hell you’re doing.” But football is more than just 11 guys congregating at the stadium. That group of guys must become a team by putting aside different backgrounds and especially their egos for the betterment of the team. Remember the Titans[iii] is the true story of the T.C. Williams high school (Alexandria, Virginia) football team that is racially integrated for the first time in 1971 under a federal mandate and how that team became a unifying symbol for the community as the players and their parents learn to trust and depend on each other. Here is a montage of scenes from the movie, illustrating how they ultimately became a team:

That team went undefeated, winning the state championship despite racial prejudice, school board politics, and maybe worst of all, a devastating injury to one of the team’s best players, rendering him a paraplegic for the rest of his life. Even sadder, that same player (Gerry Bertier) is killed when hit by a drunk driver ten years later, just after he had won a gold medal for the shot put in the Paralympic Games. As leaders and teammates in life, there is little we can’t accomplish if we have the same attitude and drive as the coaches and players from the T.C. Williams 1971 football team. Legendary college football coach Lou Holtz may have said it best: “Ability is what you’re capable of doing. Motivation determines what you do. Attitude determines how well you do it.”

We compete not just against the opposition, but with ourselves. We’ve all heard the expression, “practice makes perfect,” but a friend once taught me the expression ought to be, “perfect practice, makes perfect.” We will perform as we practice, whether in sports or in life in general. In life, though, we don’t really get to practice, but how we handle the small, everyday tasks will have a major impact on how we handle the major drama in our lives. If we can learn how to do the little things effectively, the big things will take care of themselves. But in a world where we all admit nobody’s perfect, how can we ever practice perfectly? Coach Gaines in Friday Night Lights[iv] has the right idea:

In sports, we will always be able to point to someone who is faster, stronger and more athletic overall than we are. In life, we will always be able to point to someone who is smarter, better educated, and more talented than we are. If we compare ourselves to others, then, we will always end up disappointed. So instead of comparing ourselves to others, we should compare our performance against our own abilities. The question we should be asking ourselves is, did I do a given task to the best of my ability by using my best judgment and putting in the appropriate amount of time and effort? If we can say yes to that, in the final analysis, we performed perfectly.

Although winning does matter, you can’t win all the time. Unfortunately, in life there are very few participation trophies; the world’s highest rewards are reserved for winners. But even the best and brightest don’t win all the time. Not every pass is completed, not every run results in a touchdown, and tackles are sometimes missed. But maybe that’s a good thing. It is through our failures that the best lessons are learned, as we think about what went wrong and resolve not to make the same mistake again. How we react to our failures, is the measure of the type of person we are. As Winston Churchill said, “Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.” There is a difference, then, in experiencing defeat and being defeated. And even when we are riding the high of success, we should remember that it can all change in an instant. Just ask Gerry Bertier from Remember the Titans. Or Joe Theismann after his leg injury ended his career. Or just recently, All-Pro quarterback Eli Manning, being benched after starting 210 consecutive regular season games and leading the New York Giants to two Super Bowl titles. Sadly, sometimes, even though we give it our all, we still come up short, as illustrated by this second clip from Friday Night Lights as the Panthers end up a yard short on the last play of the state championship game:

Sometimes we don’t get that promotion. Sometimes a deal falls apart. Sometimes the girl we think we are madly in love with chooses the other guy. If we won all the time, life would be easy. But it’s not. So the journey becomes as important as the destination. What can we learn along the way? What relationships do we foster? What memories can we log in our play book of experience? These are the important matters that can make winners of us all.

[i] Leatherheads

• Production Company: Universal Pictures, Casey Silver Productions, Smokehouse Pictures
• Director: George Clooney
• Screenwriters: Duncan Brantley, Rick Reilly
• Starring: George Clooney, Renée Zellweger, John Krasinski
• Release date: April 4, 2008

[ii] Invincible

• Production Company: Walt Disney Pictures, Mayhem Pictures, Who’s Nuts Productions
• Director: Ericson Core
• Screenwriter: Brad Gann
• Starring: Mark Wahlberg, Greg Kinnear, Elizabeth Banks
• Release date: August 25, 2006

[iii] Remember the Titans

• Production Company: Jerry Bruckheimer Films, Run It Up Productions Inc., Technical Black
• Director: Boaz Yakin
• Screenwriter: Gregory Allen Howard
• Starring: Denzel Washington, Will Paton, Wood Harris
• Release date: September 29, 2000

[iv] Friday Night Lights

• Production Company: Universal Pictures, Imagine Entertainment, Friday Night Lights LLC
• Director: Peter Berg
• Screenwriter: David Aaron Cohen (based on the book by Buzz Bissinger)
• Starring: Billy bob Thornton, Jay Hernandez and Derek Luke
• Release date: October 8, 2004

I love family dinners. Of course I do; I love to eat. I also love my family. And this time of year is a great time for both. Some men are born lucky; others have large families. I’m one of the latter, but I also feel lucky because my family generally gets along with each other even though my wife and I have five adult children (four with spouses) and 14 grandchildren ranging in age from 17 to two. With that many people in one room (assuming we can find a room big enough), there are bound to be problems from time to time. Sometimes our discussions turn to dentistry (we have three dentists in the family who like to talk about teeth, which can lead to boredom for the rest of us), religion (with some believers and others not so much), or politics (with liberals, conservatives, and moderates all being represented).

Our first two Thanksgivings after law school graduation were two of my most memorable. At the first one, we had recently moved to Denver, and as the holiday began, so did the snow. And boy did it snow! We received over 20 inches within a 24-hour period. The roads were clogged, meaning we were essentially locked-in at home for the weekend with no Black Friday online shopping available, as Al Gore hadn’t invented the internet back then. But we loved being together, and were grateful that we had a beautiful little home to protect us. The next year (actually the day after Thanksgiving), our third son was born happy and healthy, which reminded us how miraculous life is, and amazed us at how feelings of love just kept expanding as we added another little one to our family.

But few families, including ours, can keep the fun in dysfunctional each and every time we get together. Statistics show the holidays are the peak time for family violence, emergency room visits, and crises for those struggling with mental illness (which is probably all of us to some degree). With differences in personalities and philosophies, on occasion the discussions within my normally happy family can get a bit … loud. But usually we end up agreeing to disagree, and move on. Although my family is far from perfect, and since the only food that never goes up in price is food for thought, here are a few tips that I have learned over the years from movies centered on Thanksgiving or the dinner table that might help all of us have a happier Thanksgiving:

1. Don’t set your expectations too high, either for the meal itself or for how everyone will get along. Family therapists tell us that one of the keys to family happiness is lowering expectations, for if our expectations are low, we are rarely disappointed. I’m not sure that’s always true, but it is at Thanksgiving. In short, no family is perfect. Few of us can cook like Wolfgang Puck so expect something to go wrong with the meal, or at least expect someone not to like everything on the table. For example, our family often debates whether yams should be simply baked, candied, or on the menu at all. With high expectations, we sometimes will find ourselves feeling like this mother from Home for the Holidays[i]:

So expect something to go wrong. More importantly, plan ahead on how you will react to the unexpected. If you had an unhappy experience at a prior Thanksgiving, think about what went wrong and how you might fix it this time around, or at least find something soft you can throw so no windows or furnishings get broken this Thanksgiving.

2. Don’t ask a family member to do something they are uncomfortable doing. If you have a cousin that doesn’t (or can’t) cook, don’t ask that cousin to prepare the green bean casserole (or any other dish requiring time in the kitchen). If your dinner is to be pot luck, have that cousin bring the wine or other drinks, or chips and salsa or something similar as an appetizer. Or, if a family member hasn’t been in a church for decades, don’t ask that person to lead the family prayer, unless you want it to go something like this scene from Meet the Parents[ii]:

These kind of situations may be good for a laugh, but at someone else’s expense. It is much better to keep everyone’s feelings from turning raw if we can.

3. Family dinners are a great time for family talk, but be careful of the subject matter. It might not be a good idea to ask Aunt Harriet how her diet is going (unless she’s noticeably lost weight, and then maybe you should bring it up), or why your 35-year-old cousin Bill isn’t married yet. And try to avoid those subjects that might be a trigger to some members of the family. Religion and politics are the usual suspects here. When it comes to family dynamics, I try to remember this scene from The Big Chill[iii]:

We all tend to see things from our own perspective, and others might see that perspective as manipulating or rationalizing, with each of us intending, sometimes unconsciously, to do whatever is necessary to get what we want. You know things are getting out of hand if attacks turn personal and more and more family members are joining the fray. For those situations, try to have an exit strategy. Change the subject, suggest going on a walk or try to inject some humor into the situation. If you anticipate trouble between certain family members, you might consider a different seating arrangement this year in which the potential combatants are separated and surrounded by those who tend to be family peacemakers.

4. Develop Family traditions. Whether it is playing touch football in the backyard, having ping pong or board game tournaments, or having a particular food every Thanksgiving, family traditions and rituals help sustain family happiness and strengthen family bonds. With traditions in place, each family member will know what to expect. Even if you personally are not into traditions, those traditions might be important to other family members, so ease up on them and just try to enjoy the day. We had the family tradition of going around the table and having each family member say something they were thankful for. And you couldn’t repeat something another family member had already said. This was one of the few times any of our children volunteered to go first at anything. We thought this tradition would lead to some heavy discussions about being grateful for things that really mattered. Usually, we were somewhat disappointed, as most would say the same old trite things, but at least it got everyone to think about gratitude, at least for the moment.

I recently heard one suggestion for a family tradition that I really liked. Each family member tells a story that they remember about another family member. Each family member would tell a story about the family member on that person’s right so no family member is left out and no one becomes the center of most of the conversation. Hopefully, if you try this tradition, it will go better than this family’s ride to Thanksgiving dinner in this scene from Pieces of April[iv]:

Expanding this tradition to asking older family members to tell something from their childhood might make this experience even more enriching.

5. Be grateful and focus on those who might not have a family, or at least not as great as your own. One of my favorite movies about Thanksgiving is Planes, Trains and Automobiles, which deals not so much with Thanksgiving dinner itself, but with the difficulties in just getting there. I love the last scene, which sums up better than I could the attitude, feelings and family remembrances we should have at this time of year, and which reminds us that we are all part of the same family – the human family:

During this holiday season, I hope we can say, with Henry David Thoreau, I am grateful for what I have and am. My thanksgiving is perpetual.

[i] Home for the Holidays

• Production Company: Paramount Pictures, Polygram Filmed Entertainment, Egg Pictures
• Director: Jodie Foster
• Screenwriters: W.D. Richter (based on the short story by Chris Radant)
• Starring: Holly Hunter, Anne Bancroft, and Robert Downey, Jr.
• Release date: November 3, 1995

[ii]Meet the Parents

• Production Company: Universal Pictures, DreamWorks, Nancy Tenenbaum Films
• Director: Jay Roach
• Screenwriters: Greg Glienna, Mary Ruth Clarke
• Starring: Ben Stiller, Robert DeNiro, Teri Polo
• Release date: October 6, 2000

[iii]The Big Chill

• Production Company: Columbia Pictures, Carson Productions, Columbia-Delphi Productions
• Director: Lawrence Kasdan
• Screenwriters: Lawrence Kasdan and Barbara Benedek
• Starring: Tom Berenger, Glenn Close, Jeff Goldblum
• Release date: September 30, 1983

[iv] Pieces of April

• Production Company: United Artists, IFC Productions, InDigEnt
• Director: Peter Hedges
• Screenwriters: Peter Hedges
• Starring: Katie Holmes, Oliver Platt, Patricia Clarkson
• Release date: October 19, 2003

If you are like me, this past month you have been trying to make sense of the senseless. When I first heard of the mass killings at the concert in Las Vegas, my first thought (after the initial shock of it all) was, what possesses a person to do such a horrible thing? The shooter must have been a terrorist, or mentally ill, or had some other depraved motivation. See, as humans, we want to believe that everything happens for a reason. Journalists and law enforcement personnel began combing the shooter’s background and associates, even flying his girlfriend back from the Philippines, to make sense of what happened. But everyone has come up empty. There was no clear motive; there was no underlying cause. In this case at least, the horrific act was just senseless. And now we grieve for the loss of at least 58 individuals that were caught in the wrong place at the wrong time, not even knowing their killer. Las Vegas is now added to the other places we associate with mass shootings: Orlando, San Bernardino, Washington, D.C., Newtown, Aurora, Fort Hood, Binghamton, Virginia Tech, Columbine, Killeen, Jacksonville, Edmond, and San Ysidro. And these are only the ones that happened in America during the last 25 years where at least ten people were killed. Despite our desires otherwise, not all things happen for a reason. As Daniel Kahneman, the Nobel prize-winning psychologist, said, “After a crisis we tell ourselves we understand why it happened and maintain the illusion that the world is understandable. In fact, we should accept the world is incomprehensible much of the time.”

The title of this post is from one of my favorite musicals, Next to Normal. All of us have experienced loss because all of us have experienced love. But despite that heavy cost, we can’t exist without love, even though we know, regardless of the circumstances, it will ultimately end in loss. How do we handle that loss or separation? Unfortunately most of us do not do it very well. Grief is a part of life, and something we should embrace. As Rabbi Dr. Earl Grollman said, “Grief is not a disorder, a disease or a sign of weakness. It is an emotional, physical and spiritual necessity, the price you pay for love. The only cure for grief is to grieve.”

Simply said, we grieve when a connection is lost. It is often the result of a death of a loved one, but it can occur whenever we experience a change in a relationship, for example, a divorce, a good friend moving away, or even giving up the religion we grew up in.

In 1969, Elisabeth Kubler-Ross categorized grief into five stages. These have become well-accepted by psychologists and grief counselors as a general guide to the grieving process. But everyone grieves a little bit differently, so these stages are not necessarily linear; sometimes a person might experience more than one stage simultaneously or not experience a stage or two at all.

Stage One: Denial – This is the result of our attempt to try to make sense of the loss. Sometimes it comes in the form a shock, where we are so traumatized we can’t even do basic things for ourselves. Dallas Buyer’s Club[i] is the true story of Ron Woodruff, who was not LGBTQ, but who contracted HIV in 1985. Woodruff figured out how to work around the pharmaceutical industry and FDA to help AIDS patients get the medication they need. In this scene, Woodruff first learns he has contracted HIV. He doesn’t believe it for he doesn’t fit the stereotype of that time (if you are offended by F-bombs, you might want to skip this scene, although his reaction to the news is authentic):

If I were in Woodruff’s shoes, particularly back in the 80’s, I would feel the same way he does, and I’d probably spew a string of profanities, too. The news of a loss is never fun to hear, and our first reaction is generally some form of denial.

Stage Two: Anger – Life isn’t fair, and when something happens to us that demonstrates that, particularly when loss is involved, we get angry at someone, anyone, and often at God. In Rabbit Hole,[ii] a couple joins a grief support group following the death of their young son. In this scene the wife, Becca, never raises her voice, but it is clear she is not happy with God:

 Anger, though, can be a good thing, as it often helps us get back to reality and to start effectively dealing with the loss.

Stage Three: Bargaining – Often, our immediate reaction when we learn we have lost or might lose a relationship is to attempt to bargain with a higher power to prevent the loss. It is our way of trying to take control of the situation. Religious people tend to bargain more than others, and often guilt is a part of the bargaining. “If I had only been a better person,” we tell ourselves, and then we promise God to be that better person. In House of Sand and Fog,[iii] a dispute over a house spirals out of control, ultimately ending in the shooting of a young boy. In the middle of this scene, the most gut-wrenching one of the movie, Behrani bargains with his God for the life of his son:

There is much we can learn from this movie, including this great example of how we are willing to promise almost anything to turn back the clock and prevent whatever is causing our grief. Unfortunately, we can’t roll back time, and more often than not, it seems that God is not listening.

Stage Four: Depression – We think of depression as bad for us, and clinical depression generally is. But it is common for someone grieving to go through a period of depression where they have a sense of hopelessness. But it is these sad feelings that help us understand our underlying grief. In Inside Out,[iv] it is through the emotion of deep sadness that Riley is finally able to come with grips the loss of former home:

As this clip illustrates, all of our emotions are important to our overall well-being, even though while we are going through periods of sadness, we would do almost anything to put them past us.

Stage Five: Acceptance – Acceptance does not mean that we are OK with the loss; it just means that we have learned to live our lives differently. After the loss of a relationship, we are never the same, and often have to remake our lives. The grief doesn’t leave us, it just becomes somewhat easier to bear. My sister died when she was 17 and when my mother was 50. My mother died at age 100, and I don’t believe there was a single day in those 50 years my mother lived after my sister’s death that my mother didn’t think about her daughter and grieved, at least a little. Like the emotions in Inside Out, we need to experience sadness to appreciate joy. Acceptance comes when we have learned to live with all our emotions and have added (not replaced) new or strengthened existing connections.

When we are grieving, we often hear we need closure; that somehow we need to pack up our grief, stuff it in a box, and put a lid on it; that we need to move on. But what we really need to do is face our grief head-on. Embracing our emotions keeps us alive and functioning, whether we are glad, mad, sad or scared. We can’t – and shouldn’t – move on from love. Instead, grief needs to be heard. As Nina Sankovitch said it: “The only balm to the pain of losing someone we love is celebrating the life that existed before.” And how do we celebrate that life? We share stories. A previous post on this blog talked about what movies can teach us about helping others to grieve (See, We Came Over to Sit dated June 16, 2016; here’s a link: https://lifelessonsthroughfilm.com/2016/06/16/we-came-over-to-sit/ ). It is hard to know what to say to someone who has lost a love one, but one of the best things we can do is simply tell a story about that loved one and ask the grieving person for a story in return. During these sharing of stories, if your experience is like mine, you will laugh, cry, ponder, appreciate, and celebrate together.

And don’t forget to keep your sense of humor. I love this sad, but hilarious, scene from Steel Magnolias,[v] which captures all of the emotions we go through when we lose someone dear:

I close with these words of Lin-Manuel Miranda from his hit musical, Hamilton:

• And when my time is up,
• Have I done enough?
• Will they tell our story?
• Who lives, who dies, who tells your story?

May we show our love for those we have lost by sharing their stories.

[i] Dallas Buyer’s Club

• Production Company: Truth Entertainment (II), Voltage Pictures, r2 films
• Director: Jean-Marc Vallée
• Screenwriters: Craig Borten and Melisa Wallack
• Starring: Matthew McConaughhey, Jennifer Garner and Jared Leto
• Release date: November 22, 2013

[ii] Rabbit Hole

• Production Company: Oylmpus Pictures, Blossom Films, Oddlot Entertainment
• Director: John Cameron Mitchell
• Screenwriter: David Lindsay-Abaire
• Starring: Nicole Kidman, Aaron Eckhart, Dianne Wiest
• Release date: January 28, 2011

[iii] House of Sand and Fog

• Production Company: Dreamworks
• Director: Vadim Perelman
• Screenwriter: Vadim Perelman (based on the novel by Andre Dubus II)
• Starring: Jennifer Connelly, Ben Kingsley and Ron Eldard
• Release date: January 9, 2004

[iv] Inside Out

• Production Company: Pixar Animation Studios, Walt Disney Pictures
• Directors: Peter Docter and Ronnie Del Carmen
• Screenwriters: Peter Docter and Ronnie Del Carmen
• Starring: Amy Poehler, Bill Hader, Lewis Black
• Release date: June 19, 2015

[v] Steel Magnolias

• Production Company: TriStar Pictures, Rastar Films
• Director: Herbert Ross
• Screenwriter: Robert Harling
• Starring: Shirley MacLaine, Olympia Dukakis, Sally Field
• Release date: November 22, 1989

To kneel or not to kneel, that seems to be the question a lot of people are asking themselves lately. Taking a knee during the playing of the national anthem at NFL football games was started last year by Colin Kaepernick, then of the San Francisco 49ers, as a protest of police violence against African-Americans and other minorities. From all appearances, Kaepernick’s protest has backfired, as he is now out of a job and apparently unemployable, as the Tennessee Titans recently signed Brandon Weeden over Kaepernick as its back-up quarterback, even though the mobile Kaepernick seems much better suited to run the Titans’ offense than the relatively slow of foot, pocket-passing, Weeden. But perhaps the saddest thing of all for Kaepernick is the protest he started is now about respecting the American flag and the U.S. military. Kaepernick’s original goal of focusing the public on the issue of police violence against minorities is rarely even talked about any more. Instead, we have Twitter wars and the President and Vice President of the United States protesting the protests, and the NFL and its owners trying to tiptoe around both sides.

If each of us stops and thinks for a moment, we could come up with at least a handful of social injustices or other wrongs we would change if we thought we could. But we assume we can’t change anything, and so we do nothing. And as I learned from my own recent experience, even when we do try to influence an organization or people’s mindsets, our efforts are often squashed by those in authority.

This past month I have been mentally transported back to the turbulent 60s and 70s, and the social unrest that went with those decades of my youth. It started by me watching Ken Burns’ and Lynn Novick’s documentary, The Viet Nam War. It continued by me attending the anti-war, anti-establishment, free love musical, Hair, put on by the Dallas Theater Center. It continued further with me watching the recently released movie, The Battle of the Sexes.[i] There were plenty of protests in all three, although as history has shown, it took many years, and in some cases, lives lost, before change occurred, and some of those same battles are still being fought today.

Many movies have focused on righting wrongs and changing social injustices. While I could list dozens of these movies, in the interest of your time, here are just five favorites of mine, some new, some old, with scenes I especially enjoyed:

• Stand and Deliver[ii] – The true story of Jaime Escalante, who adopted unconventional teaching methods to help Hispanic gang members and no-hopers learn math:

• 42[iii] – The true story of Jackie Robinson, the first African-American to break the color barrier of major league baseball:

• Amazing Grace[iv] – The true story of William Wilberforce’s fight against England’s parliament and public indifference to end Britain’s transatlantic slave trade:

• Erin Brockovich[v] – The true story of an unemployed single mom who became a legal assistant and almost single-handedly brought down a California power company that had been polluting a city’s water supply:

• Battle of the Sexes – The true story of the 1973 tennis match between Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs, and the backstory of professional women tennis players’ fight for gender equality (you can stop watching after the first part, but the rest – the trailer for the movie – is quite entertaining):

Our hearts are warmed by the successful efforts of the heroes and heroines of these movies, but still we do little to change the world around us, whether it is in politics, religion, education, business or otherwise. Many of us have tried to change things by the ballot box, but as we have seen through the last several administrations, regardless of the political party, nothing of substance ever seems to get done, as politicians are too concerned with their images for their reelection campaigns to actually try to effectuate any meaningful change. The art of compromise has become a lost one, intelligent conversations of issues have become shouting matches, and those entering politics on any level with hopes of making a difference are soon frustrated and beaten-down, with little change to show for their efforts.

So how can we make a difference? With the help of these movie clips, I offer a few suggestions.

First, find a cause that you feel passionate about, in a realm small enough for you to influence. Jaime Escalante in Stand and Deliver did not set out to change all stereotypes of Hispanics. He focused on math (his passion), and determined to change one classroom in one school. But like ripples from a rock thrown in a pond, his influence on his students, and his students’ successes and their influences upon others, would spread over a larger area over time.

Second, use your particular talents to instigate change. Jackie Robinson in 42 let his baseball skills do his talking for him. As fellow players and fans saw his unique skills, they started to realize that race did not define a person’s ability. Granted, few of us in any area have the superior skills that Robinson had, but all of us are good at something, whether it is writing letters, organizing meetings, talking to strangers, donating time, raising money, or when all else fails, simply saying something when we see an injustice. The other beautiful thing about Jackie Robinson in 42 is, as his coaches and teammates got to know him, they began to see him as a person and not a face from a different race, which leads me to my next suggestion.

Third, help people empathize with your cause by giving them experiences with those you’re trying to help. In Amazing Grace, William Wilberforce didn’t just talk to others about the plight of African slaves, he took others to a slave ship where they could see the conditions in which the slaves were transported and, perhaps even more impactful, smell the smells of death of so many slaves that didn’t survive the journey. In my own experience, my positive feelings toward LGBTs intensified when one of my best friends came out as gay, and several daughters of good friends announced they were lesbians. It confirmed to me that regardless of sexual orientation, people are people and should be treated with love and respect and allowed to enjoy the same right and privileges the rest of us do.

Fourth, whatever you are trying to change, make sure you know as much as anyone on that subject. Research and analyze every point of view. In Erin Brockovich, Ms. Brockovich was able to out-negotiate the high-priced attorneys on the other side because she knew the facts better than anyone, and relayed those facts through real live persons. And a bit of polluted water didn’t hurt.

Fifth, sometimes you need to take a chance and be the change you want to see. Billy Jean King and her fellow women professionals did more than just bemoan the disparity in tournament prize money between men and women. They were willing to risk their livelihoods by walking away from the established system and start their own association. Instead of just complaining about the current system, they became the solution.

Someone once said, if no one is complaining about your ideas, you are either brilliant or the boss. Most of us are neither brilliant (or at least few acknowledge our brilliance) nor the boss. We are not like those good shepherds whom the sheep naturally love and will follow anywhere. Instead, most of us are like cattle herders. If we get too far out in front of the herd, the cattle scatter in all directions behind us. So to get the cattle to go where we want them to go, we must work the edges of the herd and patiently steer them in the desired direction. It is tireless work, but the rewards can be great.

Let’s all find a cause we can believe in, even if it is as simple as making our homes and neighborhoods places of love, respect and safety. Rather than just take a knee in protest, let’s be part of the solution.

[i] Battle of the Sexes

• Production Company: Cloud Eight Films, Decibel Films, Fox Searchlight Films
• Directors: Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris
• Screenwriter: Simon Beaufoy
• Starring: Emma Stone and Steve Carell
• Release date: September 29, 2017

[ii] Stand and Deliver

• Production Company: American Playhouse, Olmos Productions, Warner Bros.
• Director: Ramon Menendez
• Screenwriter: Ramon Memendez, Tom Musca
• Starring: Edward James Olmos, Estelle Harris, Mark Phelan
• Release date: March 13, 1988

[iii] 42

• Production Company: Warner Bros., Legendary Entertainment
• Director: Brian Helgeland
• Screenwriter: Brian Helgeland
• Starring: Chadwick Boseman, T.R. Wright, Harrison Ford
• Release date: April 12, 2013

[iv] Amazing Grace

• Production Company: Bristol Bay Productions, Ingenious Film Partners, Sunflower Productions
• Director: Michael Apted
• Screenwriter: Steven Knight
• Starring: Ioan Gruffudd, Albert Finney, Michael Gambon
• Release date: February 23, 2007

[v] Erin Brockovich

• Production Company: Universal Pictures, Columbia Pictures, Jersey Films
• Director: Steven Soderbergh
• Screenwriter: Susannah Grant
• Starring: Julia Roberts, Albert Finney, David Brisbin
• Release date: March 17, 2000

Spoiler Alert!! This post contains a lot of personal information about me, so if you are one that does not appreciate true confessions, this post might not be for you. It is also a little longer than usual, although most of the clips are relatively short.

Someone once said only the good die young because only the young die good. During the past two weeks I have thought a lot about getting older. I guess I should be grateful that I worry about aging, because when you stop doing that, you’re dead. It all started when my weekend was ruined by a pain in my back. I thought I might have hurt it that morning exercising, but it turned out to be a kidney stone. I went to the emergency room for strong drugs (one of God’s greatest creations), but came home with the added bonus of pneumonia. Both ailments really wiped me out. Our counter looked like a pharmacy. I had no appetite, so I ate little, but still managed to gain four pounds. How is that even possible? After several days of this, I finally announced to my wife, that if this is how I am going to feel when I’m 80, please, God, let me die when I’m 79. To add to my glumness, during my recovery, we met with our financial planner, who focused on my upcoming retirement (a good thing!), but also making sure “our affairs were in order” when death ultimately comes (a depressing thing). That same night, we went home and watched the little known movie, The Last Word,[i] on Netflix.

The basic premise of The Last Word is Harriet, a retired businesswoman, decides to write her own obituary, and seeks the help of Anne, the local newspaper’s obituary writer. It is a tense relationship at the outset, as Anne explains, “She [Harriet] puts the bitch in obituary.” In this scene from the film, Harriet tries to tell Anne how to do her job by explaining to her what makes a good obituary:

As these elements of an obituary illustrate, a dull, useless person has either never existed or has never died. I don’t read obituaries often, but when I do, they typically tick off the accomplishments of the deceased, as if each one is a necessary building block of their mansion in heaven. I guess most people feel a little like Maximus in the movie, Gladiator[ii] – that we need to somehow leave a great legacy behind us – one that will “echo through eternity”:

If I were to write my own obituary, it would simply say, “He lived a relatively long and mostly happy life in which he loved his family and friends and felt their love in return. He learned a few lessons about life, saw some beautiful things, and had plenty of interesting experiences along the way. He died with the belief (but with little help from him) that the world he left was a little better than the world he entered.”

During this obituary obsession, I thought about two of my favorite movies about death. In the original Flatliners[iii](the remake was just released), five medical students try to learn what the afterlife is like by putting themselves in near-death experiences. But instead of learning about the next life, they learn more about this life, and the traumatic experiences that shaped their lives. In this scene (which is really a collage of several scenes), one student flatlines and discovers a young boy waiting for him that he had bullied growing up:

A less intense, but still thought-provoking movie of a similar vein is Heart and Souls[iv] where people who have died find themselves on a purgatory bus, with something they must resolve on earth before they are taken to heaven. Here is a scene where a mother is able to find her son that she gave up for adoption many years ago:

A few years back an Australian nurse wrote a book entitled, The Five Top Regrets of the Dying: A Life Transformed by the Dearly Departed.[v] You may find the regrets surprising. Here is a link to an article about the book:

 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/03/top-5-regrets-of-the-dying_n_3640593.html

Are there things in our own lives that we regret, need to resolve or find out about before we die? I am basically satisfied with my life, but I do have a few regrets. In a rare state of vulnerability (and in an effort to avoid ghosts from the past), I am sharing with you my top five regrets of the dying and my plans for attempting to atone for those regrets:

Regret No.1: I wish I would have put more emphasis on wellness and less emphasis on right and wrong, particularly in connection with religion. Crazily, my favorite book in the Bible is Ecclesiastes. I mean, how many people have even read it other than the famous verses about a time for every purpose under heaven? Solomon is credited with writing both Proverbs and Ecclesiastes. As I read Proverbs, everything is black and white, good and bad. But things become more nuanced for Solomon by the time he writes Ecclesiastes. Truths are now shades of gray, and tempered by experience. I wish I had had a bit more of the Ecclesiastes outlook much earlier in life. I grew up in a religion that puts an emphasis on absolute truth, and the only sure way to get into heaven. Although I have never fully believed all that my religion taught me, I went along to get along. Our kids did not always see things the same way as that religion did, and although we were more liberal than most members of the religion, it led to disagreements and in some cases mild rebellion, as we drew certain lines in the sand that our children had better not cross. In hindsight, I wish I could have been more supportive of allowing our children to find their own truth and way in the world. While I think most of our now-adult children have gotten over some of that tension of the teenage and early adult years, I know there are still some scars that have not entirely healed.

Atonement No. 1: It is never too late to apologize for sometimes being too narrow minded, and to openly discuss with others how my actions might have affected them.

Regret No. 2: I wish, career-wise, I had been able to have done more to help the world and less to make rich people richer. I think I’m a good lawyer and have had great experiences doing many very large transactions. But no matter how well I handled those deals, the bottom line (pun intended) was to make rich people and companies even richer. I wish that somehow the work I did would have translated into easing economic disparity. The gap between the top one percent (especially the top of the top one percent) and the middle and lower classes continues to widen.

Atonement No. 2: Having been fairly good at making money, I have tried to be generous with it in an effort to help others in need, particularly extended family. I have worked hard the last ten years to develop a decent charitable giving account that I will use to help others, especially those that are hungry and homeless.

Regret No. 3: I wish I had bought fewer houses and taken more family vacations. I say this one with my tongue firmly planted in my cheek. But I counted the number of houses and condos I have owned or still own, and the number is 22(!) including the home I am currently building (and a few rentals). Of course, I have relocated for work six times, which added to the number. But for whatever reason, a nice home was my psychological sign of success. In hindsight, I wish we had taken more family vacations and put a little less emphasis on having a nice home. The real culprit of our lack of vacations, though, was sports. All of our kids were heavily involved in youth sports and played something all year round and we felt like the teams were counting on our kids being to all the games. That commitment didn’t leave much time for family trips. While our kids enjoyed the sports, did very well at them, and learned some important things from playing them, looking back, those sports were not nearly as important as we thought they were at the time.

Atonement No. 3: It’s never too late to spend quality time with family and friends and I still have a few more years in which to enjoy a family vacation or two together.

Regret No. 4: I wish I had maintained better contact with friends and neighbors from the past> I have kept close to a few good friends, but there have been many good friends from my past that I have not had any contact with for many years.

Atonement No. 4: I joined Facebook for the first time a couple of years ago as a start of this atonement, but there is so much more I could (and will) do to catch up with lost friends from the past.

Regret No. 5: I wish I had danced more, read more, written more and learned to play the piano. In short, I wish I had taken more time to pursue personal interests. As a kid growing up, I though it would be cool to learn how to tap dance. But that was something little boys just didn’t do back then, so I never brought up the subject with my parents. I didn’t learn to enjoy reading until years after I got married and I say how much my wife read and how much she enjoyed it. And I didn’t start writing anything other than legal documents until about 15 years ago. I doubt I ever would have been able to make writing a career in and of itself, but since starting to write, I have learned  how therapeutic it can be, at least for me.

Atonement No. 5: I look at my upcoming retirement as a time to do some of these things. Although I might never become a tap dancer, it’s not too late to take a dance lesson or learn to play an instrument. I have a list of writing projects I intend to work on, and hopefully will have a lot more time to enjoy reading. I look forward to retirement for these reasons alone.

There is never a wrong time to take a few minutes to evaluate how we are doing in life. Are we happy? Do we have strong connections with family and friends or are there new or improved connections we need to foster? Are there new interests or talents we could be developing? Are there past offenses that need to be righted? Is there someone in need that we have the power to help? I hope each of us will take a few moments and go through such an evaluation, and repeat that evaluation often.

[i] The Last Word

• Production Company: Franklin Street, Myriad Pictures and Parkside Pictures
• Director: Mark Pellington
• Screenwriter: Stuart Ross Fink
• Starring: Shirley MacLaine and Amanda Seyfield
• Release date: March 5, 2017

[ii] Gladiator

• Production Company: Dreamworks, Universal Pictures, Scott Free Productions
• Director: Ridley Scott
• Screenwriter: David Franzoni
• Starring: Russell Crowe, Joaquin Phoenix and Connie Nielsen
• Release date: May 5, 2000

[iii] Flatliners

• Production Company: Columbia Pictures, Stonebridge Entertainment
• Director: Joel Schumacher
• Screenwriter: Peter Filardi
• Starring: Kiefer Sutherland, Keven Bacon and Julia Roberts
• Release date: August 10, 1990

[iv] Heart and Souls

• Production Company: Universal Pictures, Alphaville Films, Stampede Entertainment
• Director: Ron Underwood
• Screenwriter: Gregory Hansen
• Starring: Robert Downey, Jr, Charles Grodin, Alfre Woodard
• Release date: August 13, 1993

[v] Bronnie Ware, The Five Top Regrets of the Dying: A Life Transformed by the Dearly Departed, copyrighted 2011, 2012.

The past two weeks have been hard ones for America (as well as Mexico and the Caribbean). We have been pounded by two monster hurricanes, and we just had the 16th anniversary of the tragedy of 9/11. I would never wish harm on anyone, but sometimes it takes a tragedy for us to realize (or remember) how resilient people can be. Whether done from survival instinct, fear or love, I am constantly amazed how ordinary people often do extraordinary things. And these past two weeks saw many examples of that.

If you are like me, you remember clearly where you were and what you were doing when you first heard the horrible news of the events of 9/11. I often still think about a fighter pilot, stationed in the Boston area, who was one of the first to be scrambled in response to the attacks on the twin towers. His job was to take out any other aircraft that might be a threat to America. He was up to the task. The only problem was the fighter had to take off before his plane could be armed. In other words, if he encountered an enemy plane (hijacked or otherwise), the only weapon he had was his own plane, which he would use as a self-guided missile to take down the enemy, thus giving up his own life to prevent the loss of many others. Fortunately, he didn’t have to make that suicide run, but he would have done it if he needed to. I wonder if I would have had the courage to do the same.

We have heard many stories about the courage of first responders: those firefighters, police and others who run toward the dangers the rest of us are fleeing from. Again, ordinary people doing extraordinary things. The movie, World Trade Center,[i] pays homage to the courage and dedication of the first responders to the attacks on 9/11 – 412 of whom died in trying to rescue others. While the movie focuses on Port Authority officers, the attitude and commitment of almost all first responders are similar to what we see in this clip:

These dedicated officers didn’t really understand what had just happened, and they realized saving anyone that high up in the towers was unlikely, but they had to try, regardless of the odds or the dangers to themselves.

We have come to expect the extraordinary from our first responders and military. But extraordinary courage and commitment are not limited to them. United 93[ii] tells the story of the passengers of United Flight 93, the fourth plane that was hijacked by terrorists on 9/11. We don’t know the exact destination of this hijacked plane, but it appears to have been another target in Washington, DC, perhaps even the White House. By using their cellphones, the passengers figured out what was going on and realized their fate. Determined to stop these hijackers, the passengers decided to change the course of history beginning with these now-immortal words, “Let’s roll.” While we don’t know exactly what happened at the end of the flight, here is the filmmakers’ take on it:

Everyday people became extraordinary heroes, giving their lives so others could continue theirs. Perhaps the bravery of these passengers saved the life of that Boston pilot.

First responders continued to do extraordinary things in Houston during the rain (pun intended) of terror of Hurricane Harvey. By the end of the fifth day after Harvey hit Houston, almost 52 inches of rain had fallen. In that same period, Houston’s first responders and the Coast Guard had saved over 3,500 people and 300 animals. There were 9,100 refugees at the George R. Brown convention center. But the first responders were overwhelmed. During Harvey, 911 operators received over 700 calls a day. A normal day would rarely see more than 14. But as often happens when tragedy strikes, ordinary people stepped up. We witnessed many examples of everyday heroes in Houston, where ordinary people gave extraordinary service to their families, neighbors, and often total strangers. These ordinary people doing extraordinary things never considered race, religion, political affiliation, economic class or any other way we often categorize or label each other. I was constantly moved to tears when I learned of these simple, yet extraordinary things:

• People standing in line, city blocks long, not for water, food, shelter or other handouts, but to volunteer to help with the rescue and relief efforts.
• People breaking into song at shelters, or playing the piano in knee-deep water, to lift others’ spirits.
• Bakers, trapped in their bakery, baking over a thousand loaves of Mexican bread to donate to flood victims.
• Neighbors creating human chains to help each other through the cascading currents of the flood waters.
• The Texas and Louisiana “navies,” using their personal flat-bottom boats, personal water craft, canoes and kayaks, to rescue hundreds of those trapped by the floods. A reporter asked a boat owner, launching his boat from a freeway exit ramp, what he intended to do. “Save some lives,” he nonchalantly answered, as if driving your boat down city streets was a normal, everyday occurrence. And saving lives is what they did.

Tragedy is often the catalyst to make bad people good and good people better. Oskar Schindler was not a particularly good person before World War II. He was an opportunistic industrialist who was primarily motivated by profit. But the war somehow changed him. Through initiative and dedication, he is credited with saving the lives of 1,200 Jews during the Holocaust. As illustrated by the movie, Schindler’s List,[iii] at the end of the war, he had only one regret:

During World War II, like Oskar Schlinder, many ordinary people did extraordinary things to help save lives, as this clip from The Zookeeper’s Wife[iv] illustrates (notice how many people are involved – people that we never hear much about if anything at all):

No one should hope for tragedy, but unfortunately it comes to all of us. It might not be a monumental hurricane or earthquake, a world war or other titanic event. But in everyone’s life, some rain must fall; we all must deal with something. How do we react when bad things happen? As Holocaust survivor, Vicktor Frankl, said, “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of human freedoms – to choose one’s attitude in any given of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.” the movie, Forrest Gump[v] taught us that shit happens. But it also taught us we can still find beauty in the middle of it, in this, my favorite scene from the movie:

There is no one more normal that Forrest Gump, but boy did he do extraordinary things. Thanks to the people of Houston, Florida, and other areas who also have done extraordinary things, and led us by their example of love and caring. My hope is that we can avoid tragedy in our lives. But being somewhat of a realist, my bigger hope is that each of us can somehow make it through the hard times we face, whether it be the loss of personal possessions, a job, or a loved one, or the loss of a “normal” life due to injury or illness. My biggest hope, though, is that we find hope, beauty and peace in the middle of our personal tragedies, and the awareness, love and concern to help others get through their own, for we never know when we might be the answer to someone else’s prayer.

[i] World Trade Center

• Production Company: Paramount Pictures, Double Feature Films, Intermedia Films
• Director: Oliver Stone
• Screenwriters: Andrea Berloff and John McLoughlin
• Starring: Nicholas Cage and Michael Pena
• Release date: August 9, 2006

[ii] United 93

• Production Company: Universal Pictures, StudioCanal, Sidney Kimmel Entertainment
• Director: Paul Greengrass
• Screenwriter: Paul Greengrass
• Starring: David Alan Basche, Olivia Thirlby and Liza Colon-Zayas
• Release date: April 28, 2006

[iii] Schindler’s List

• Production Company: Universal Pictures, Amblin Entertainment
• Director: Steven Spielberg
• Screenwriter: Steven Zaillian based on the book by Thomas Keneally
• Starring: Liam Neeson, Ralph Fiennes and Ben Kingsley
• Release date: February 4, 1994

[iv] The Zookeeper’s Wife

• Production Company: Scion Films, Czech Anglo Productions, LD Entertainment
• Director: Niki Caro
• Screenwriter: Angela Workman based on the book by Diane Ackerman
• Starring: Jessica Chastain, Johan Heldenbergh and Daniel Bruhl
• Release date: April 7, 2017

[v] Forrest Gump

• Production Company: Paramount Pictures
• Director: Robert Zemeckis
• Screenwriter: Eric Roth based on the book by Winston Groom
• Starring: Tom Hanks, Robin Wright, Gary Sinise
• Release date: July 6, 1994

When I see the number 42, I am immediately reminded that 42 was the number Jackie Robinson wore on his baseball uniform when he broke the racial barrier in major league baseball on April 15, 1947. Now, on April 15 of each year, every player of every major league team wears number 42 in Robinson’s honor. But this year, if I had a Robinson jersey, I would have worn it on August 28th. You see, this past Monday marks 42 years of marriage for my wife, Janene, and me. Or as I like to say, “I became alive in 1975.” Being married to my wife for 42 years is one of the things I am most proud of, and putting up with me for 42 years is one of my wife’s greatest accomplishments. I like the way Ed Howe said it: “No woman falls in love with a man unless she has a better opinion of him than he deserves.” Or in the words of a sports fan, I clearly out-kicked my coverage.

Love often leads to marriage, but sadly almost as often to divorce, as almost 50 percent of marriages now end in divorce. Said another way, the world would be a better, happier place if love were as easy to keep as it is to make.

So what’s the secret to a long relationship with someone you love? Romantic comedies can be unrealistic and sometimes downright boring, but occasionally they teach us about love and relationships. Here are three truths I have learned from watching them:

1. Do whatever is necessary for your partner to fall (and stay) in love with you each and every day. Admittedly, you can’t force someone to love you. I know. I’ve tried and failed several times. But sometimes you might be able to influence a love interest to lean a little in your direction. In 50 First Dates,[i] Henry falls for Lucy, but Lucy has short-term memory loss and repeatedly forgets him the very next day. Henry remains determined, though, and every day he works at getting Lucy to first notice him, and then fall in love with him. Here is one of my favorite scenes from the movie:

Few people have short-term memory loss the way Lucy did, so most of us have to worry less about hoping someone falls in love with us, and more about someone staying in love with us. I constantly ask myself if I am doing things each and every day to help keep the love alive between my wife and me. Do I treat her today with the same amount of respect, interest, concern and excitement as I did when we were dating? Or have I let work, church, kids, sports, friends or other interests become greater priorities than our partnership? I realize priorities can be tricky. We have to find balance in our lives among competing values. Too often, though, after the honeymoon, we allow the time we focus on our partners to become a smaller and smaller and smaller part of each day.

Spending time with and on our partners is critical, but the importance can’t always be measured simply in the amount of minutes or hours spent. I have found that sometimes a few minutes of uninterrupted focus with my wife is much more important (and therapeutic) than an hour together where we are constantly distracted by phone calls, social media or other interruptions.

2. It is easier to love in spite of faults than because of virtues. No one is perfect, and I believe no one is perfect for us when it comes to love and marriage. If we look for faults in our partner, we will always find them, as they will become as obvious as the nose on our partner’s face, as illustrated by this scene from Roxanne:[ii]

Finding your true soulmate rarely happens. Circumstances are never perfect. As we learn from Notting Hill,[iii] there will always be reasons to say no to love:

I believe in the importance of compatibility, but marrying your best friend doesn’t always result in a great marriage – and is certainly no guarantee for passion. Finding the “right” mate involves finding someone you can generally get along with, but also someone who turns you on. Maybe the best we can hope for is to find someone who excites us and loves us for whom we are and not some perfect person they want us to become. And interestingly, a person who loves us just the way we are, without saying a word, often motivates us to be a better person:

I love the message of that clip. Wanting to become a better person for our partner is one of the best compliments we can give them.

3. A long-lasting relationship with somebody, usually requires a long-lasting relationship with somebodies. Whether we like it or not, when we marry, we not only marry our partner, we marry our partner’s family. And if it happens to be a second marriage with kids involved, it gets even more complicated. The Big Sick[iv] is a newly-released, charming movie about how a Pakistani-American comedian and an all-American young woman fall in love. But the comedian’s parents, immigrants from Pakistan, insist on their son following the Muslim tradition of arranged marriages. On the other hand, the comedian, although raised in America, is not entirely familiar with the culture of an American family, as illustrated by this scene:

What do we do, then, if we fall in love with someone with a different racial or cultural background, or even a different economic experience than ourselves? The best thing we can do is realize that different does not mean inferior, it’s just – different. And there can be great strength in diversity. Take the time to learn the history and culture of your partner’s family and embrace those parts of it that are beautiful and good. Listen and learn. Remember that listen and silent are spelled with the same letters.

But even without any language, ethnic or cultural barriers, extended family members can be troublesome sometimes. Take a look at this scene from Notting Hill:

How do you deal with bizarre in-laws? Someone once said a man shouldn’t be judged by the company he keeps, especially if they are his in-laws. And often, it’s not the by-laws of marriage that causes most domestic troubles – it’s the in-laws. One solution would be to move out-of-town! I often joke that I took a job in another city after I graduated partly to put some space between my mother and my family. But joking aside, I found our relationship worked better at a distance. Weekly phone calls and semiannual visits was just enough contact to keep all of us happy. I realize now what I was doing was tacitly setting up working boundaries between us. Sometimes, at the beginning of a relationship, we are so intent on being acceptable to extended family members that we let them walk all over us. But workable boundaries need to be set near the beginning of a relationship – but in a nice way. Sometimes we need to do as Julia Roberts did in the previous scene and just smile and go with it. And always remember, most of the quirky or threatening things extended family members do is more about them, and less about you. Tell yourself, that’s just the way they are. If something an in-law does makes you feel you are not accepted or good enough, talk to your partner or even the siblings of your partner. Chances are your in-laws have been that way their entire lives and treat their own children, their spouses or other extended family members the very same way they are treating you. But regardless, I have learned that if you treat them calmly with love and respect, in their own way, they will treat you with love and respect in return.

But what if children are involved, especially minor children? With in-laws and extended family, you can always move, or at least get away to your own home. But those minor children are going to go with you wherever you go. I have no experience in this area, so I have to draw on the experience of others – and movies of course. In Dan in Real Life,[v] Dan, a widower with three minor daughters, falls in love with his brother’s girlfriend. But he realizes that his daughters are more important to him than his love life:

You can never go wrong with honest conversations with your children. Let them know how you feel about someone, and let them express how they feel. Perhaps surprisingly, children want to be happy and feel secure, but they also want the same for you. So make your new love interest a family affair. Help your children realize this new beginning for you is also a new beginning for them, without necessarily destroying the old.

Well, it’s time to get off my soapbox. Thanks, dear readers, for listening. I would love to hear what your favorite romantic comedies are, and any tips you might have for dealing with love, marriage and all that goes with it.

And here’s to you, Janene, for 42 wonderful years of marriage, and hopefully, for at least 42 more.

[i] 50 First Dates

• Production Company: Columbia Pictures, Happy Madison Productions, Anonymous Content
• Director: Peter Segal
• Screenwriter: George Wing
• Starring: Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore
• Release date: February 13, 2004

[ii] Roxanne

• Production Company: Columbia Pictures
• Director: Fred Schepisi
• Screenwriter: Steve Martin
• Starring: Steve Martin and Darryl Hannah
• Release date: June 19, 1987

[iii] Notting Hill

• Production Company: Polygram Filmed Entertainment, Working Title Films
• Director: Roger Mitchell
• Screenwriter: Richard Curtis
• Starring: Hugh Grant and Julia Roberts
• Release date: May 28, 1999

[iv] The Big Sick

• Production Company: Apatow Productions, FilmNation Entertainment, Story Ink
• Director: Michael Showalter
• Screenwriter: Emily V. Gordon and Kumail Nanjiani
• Starring: Kumail Nanjiani, Zoe Kazan, Holly Hunter and Ray Romano
• Release date: July 14, 2017

[v] Dan in Real Life

• Production Company: Touchstone Pictures, Focus Features, Jon Shestack, Productions
• Director: Peter Hedges
• Screenwriter: Pierce Gardner and Peter Hedges
• Starring: Steve Carell and Juliette Binoche
• Release date: October 26, 2007

Almost every movie lover will recognize the title of this post comes from the classic movie, The Wizard of Oz.[i] I have thought a lot about home the last few weeks as my wife and I moved out of our dream home into a one-bedroom apartment. We went from this:

And this:

To this:

I don’t own any ruby slippers, but I have wished several times since the move I could click my heels three times and return to that dream home. But upon further reflection, I realize, even though our little apartment has less than 800 square feet, it has everything I need: food, shelter, clothing, air conditioning(!), and more importantly, a spouse who loves me unconditionally and other family members and friends close by.

So why did we leave our beautiful home for a small one bedroom apartment? Someone once quipped, “Home is where the mortgage is.” But we didn’t move because we couldn’t make the mortgage payments. As far as I know, my job is secure – at least for another year. My company recently announced it was moving its offices from Fort Worth to Houston next summer. That is another good reason for me to retire when that move occurs. Instead of moving to Houston, we hope to build a new, but smaller, dream home closer to most of our adult children and grandchildren. So there is some method in our madness.

My decision to move was entirely my own choice. Most of my fellow employees, however, are not so lucky. The company announcement has caused a lot of angst around the office, as my fellow employees must decide if they want to leave their current homes to keep their current jobs and create a new home in Houston. Notice I didn’t say “find” a new home, as I believe homes are more than just brick and mortar. A home, where we feel love and acceptance and hopefully safety, is created by the people living in it. Kendal Rob said it this way: “Home is where you go to find solace from the ever changing chaos, to find love within the confines of a heartless world, and to be reminded that no matter how far you wander, there will always be something [or someone] waiting when you return.” That is pretty much how Dorothy felt in The Wizard of Oz,[ii] when she makes it back to Kansas:

Movies often center around the home, and some of the best ones, like The Wizard of Oz, focus on finding a way to get back home, or, if we can’t get there immediately, at least making some kind of contact with those at home. Who doesn’t remember this scene from E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial:[iii]

George A. Moore said, “A man travels the world over in search of what he needs and returns home to find it.” I enjoy traveling to fun places, but I must admit that usually the best part of any trip for me is returning home. There is no better way to appreciate our homes than to be away from them for a while. But it’s not the house that I miss as much as the home. When I drive by houses I used to live in, I am often reminded of some great memories and experiences I had there, but the feelings of love, comfort and safety I experienced while living there have moved along with me, turning that prior home into just a house again – at least to me. Anyone can build a house, but love is the most important ingredient in building a home.

Many people have left home because they felt no love there. And without that feeling of love, all other pleasures of a house are largely meaningless. I recently saw the movie, The Glass Castle,[iv] based on the memoirs of Jeannette Walls, growing up in a dysfunctional family. I was interested in seeing it particularly because I had read the book upon which it is based. Here is a scene from the movie where the family moves into a “new” house, which is a lot nicer (believe it or not) than many of the other houses they had previously lived in:

The movie does not do justice to the abuse the parents put their children through, forcing them to live in places that had no running water or indoor plumbing. But even in such squalor, there were times when love among the family was felt, especially among the four children who had to band together just to survive.

Even sadder are those who have been forced to leave a loving home and functional family, but circumstances will not let them return. One of my favorite movies from last year is Lion,[v] based on the true story of a five-year-old Indian boy name Saroo who is separated from his family, and adopted by a loving Australian couple. Despite the love he feels from his adoptive family, Saroo sets out to find his lost family, 25 years after his separation from them. The problem is, he doesn’t know where to find them. Through Google Earth and tracing possible train routes within a giant circle he has drawn on map, he searches for the village of his childhood. After many failed searches, one day he starts looking outside the circle, and discovers a hillside that causes a flashback of memories. This is followed by finding a river that he remembers he used to swim in. This leads him to a train station with a water tower behind it he remembers, and ultimately to the village he grew up in. He has found his first home. Here is the emotional scene where he returns to that home and is reunited with his birth family:

Gratefully, few of us have to live in abject poverty like Jeannette Walls did in The Glass Castle or spend years from our home and family like Saroo did in Lion. But what kind of home are we making for ourselves and our family? Is it that place of love, respect and trust? Is it that place where all family members can rest from the scars of the outside world? Where everyone’s opinions are respected, even if they differ from our own? Let us remember that the richest, most priceless possessions we have on this earth is the great love we have (or at least should have) for a family member.

While I’m no expert, here are a few suggestions on how to help make your house a home:

• Create family rituals and traditions, from game nights and (of course) movie nights, to special ways to celebrate birthdays and holidays.
• Eat at least one meal a day as a family, and turn off social media and just talk to each other (as painful as that can be sometimes!). If you don’t know what to talk about, try having each family member tell three good things that happened to them that day. It will help your family develop an attitude of gratitude, and grateful people are generally happier than those who are not.
• Do chores and other projects together, which helps our children become self-sufficient. Your kids will complain about doing their own laundry and cleaning their bathrooms, but one day they will thank you for teaching them those skills – at least ours did.
• Provide a place (bedroom or otherwise) where a family member can just go and be alone for a while, and respect that space by asking permission to enter it.
• Collect or create family collections and heirlooms, whether it be “art” on the refrigerator door or souvenirs from family vacations.
• Share your home with extended family and friends.
• Enforce family rules that make sense for safety and respect of others’ property and rights, but at the same time allow each family member as much freedom as practicable to express their own individuality.
• Find something each day to laugh about. Nothing is better for the soul than a good belly laugh. But be careful you are laughing with someone, not about someone.

By making a comment to this post, I would love others to share things their families did (or are doing) to help make their house a home.

Be it ever so humble, there truly is no place like home, and a happy home is but an early heaven.

[i] The phrase, “There’s no place like home,” first appeared in the John Howard Paine song, “Home, Sweet Home,” written in 1822. The first two lines of the song read: “Mid pleasures and palaces though we may roam, be it ever so humble, there’s no place like home.”

[ii] The Wizard of Oz

• Production Company: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM)
• Director: Victor Fleming
• Screenwriter: Noel Langley, Florence Ryerson
• Starring: Judy Garland, Frank Morgan, Ray Bolger
• Release date: August 25, 1939

[iii] E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial

• Production Company: Universal Pictures, Amblin Entertainment
• Director: Stephen Spielberg
• Screenwriter: Melissa Mathison
• Starring: Henry Thomas, Drew Barrymore, Peter Coyote
• Release date: June 11, 1982

[iv]The Glass Castle

• Production Companies: Lionsgate, Netter Productions
• Director: Destin Daniel Cretton
• Screenwriter: Destin Daniel Cretton and Andrew Lanham, based on the book by Jeannette Walls
• Starring: Brie Larson, Woody Harrelson and Naomi Watts
• Release date: August 11, 2017

[v] Lion

• Production Companies: The Weinstein Company, Screen Australia and See-Saw Films
• Director: Garth Davis
• Screenwriter: Luke Davies, adapted from the book by Saroo Brierley
• Starring: Dev Patel, Nicole Kidman, Rooney Mara
• Release date: January 6, 2017

When I was in ninth grade, I had the (mis)fortune to be a participant in an arm wrestling contest. I am small boned, and have never been recognized for my strength, so I anticipated from the outset that I would lose. The only problem was my opponent was a girl. This girl was no shot-putter-type female (I know, a bad stereotype). She was a normal-sized, attractive young woman – and one of my best friends at the time. I found out a couple of years later that she was also an excellent kisser! But I’m digressing.

I gave it my best effort, and put off the inevitable for a while, but ultimately my (girl)friend was able to slam the back of my hand against the table. My close (boy)friends assumed I had let her win (but they were wrong). My not-so-close friends ribbed me for days about how I was weaker than a girl. Where is the rule book that says all successful men must be handsome, well-built, show little emotion or vulnerability, work outside the home and be naturally strong and heroic? Where is it written that women must be beautiful, well-built (but in a decidedly different way than men), emotional, work only as housewives and mothers, and be weak and helpless (i.e. they need a prince to save them)? Why must little boys play with trucks and little girls play with dolls? Those were the gender stereotypes of my growing-up years. Fortunately, for both men and women, we have come a long way since then. But we still have a long way to go.

The movie industry prides itself in being a champion of equality, but it is far from it. In 2014, the Geena Davis Institute conducted a study on gender in media.[i] Here are just some of the facts this study revealed about films released in 2014:

• There are 2.24 male characters for every 1 female.
• Only 23.3 percent of films had a female lead or co-lead
• Females made up only 7 percent of directors, 19.7 percent of writers, and 22.7 percent of producers
• Female characters are more than twice as likely than male characters to be shown as skinny, wearing sexy clothing, and either partially or fully naked
• Comments made by characters that refer to appearance are directed at women five times more than men
• Men are more likely to be seen as attorneys, judges, academics or doctors at a rate of 13 to 1; females made up only 13 percent of characters who were business executives.

A few years ago I attended the Broadway production of Cinderella. It was magical. But what was surprising to me was how many young girls in the audience had dressed as princesses. What kind of role model is Cinderella, or any Disney princess, for these young girls? Emulating princesses from the early Disney movies, young girls learn that physical looks are more important than intellect, all unattractive women are evil (and often overweight), women, in general, are weak and need a man to protect them, and a woman’s place is in the home. Poor Cinderella is trapped in a life of thankless cleaning and cooking until a handsome prince rescues her (whom she falls in love with at first sight). Ariel, from The Little Mermaid,[ii] is even worse. Originally, she appears to be a self-assured, strong young woman, well, mermaid. But then she falls in love with the handsome Prince Eric (at first sight again) and then gives up her home, her family and everything she is (even her voice) to be with him. How much more interesting and thought-provoking would the movie be if it was Eric who gave up everything to be with Ariel under the sea? Here is one of the climatic scenes from the movie. Note how evil is personified in an ugly, overweight woman:

But Disney has changed some through the years, like all of us. Its recent remake of Beauty and the Beast [iii] is charming, and Belle is the epitome of a modern woman. She is intelligent, strong, and a no-nonsense, successful inventor in her own right. The problem is not with Belle, but with the movie’s treatment of men. Gaston is the classic boorish male chauvinist pig, and the Beast is simply abusive, as demonstrated in this scene:

The good news is the Beast learns and changes – but including his looks from the ugly beast to the stereotypical handsome prince. How more interesting would the movie be if the Beast remained a beast, whom Belle had originally fallen in love with despite his looks? On second thought, falling in love with an actual beast might be a little too creepy!

Along with movies, I love live theater. One of the most interesting plays I have ever seen was the Dallas Theater Center’s recent adaptation of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. Most of the main characters were opposite genders from the originals. In other words, Scrooge, Marley and all the spirits were women. It was still the same, beautiful story of change, but the role reversals not only caught my attention, they gave the familiar story a new look and feel.  Geena Davis would be proud. As a solution for making Hollywood less gender biased, her Institute’s study recommends, when scripts are being reviewed, change the “he” to “she.”

I close with a discussion of two of my all-time favorite movies. I love these movies for many reasons, including that both take gender stereotypes and turn them on their heads. In The King’s Speech,[iv] we see one of the most powerful men in the world (England’s Prince Albert who becomes King George VI) show his vulnerability – something no “real man” is supposed to do. Check out this scene:

Billy Elliot[v] (spoiler alert!) is a young English lad who must grow up without a mother. His father and older brother are coal miners. As all good coal miners are, Billy’s dad is a man’s man, and he expects, like his brother before him, to be the same. So Billy’s dad enrolls Billy in boxing classes. The trouble is, Billy has no boxing ability, and finds himself more interested in the ballet classes that start immediately after the boxing lessons. Soon Billy is skipping the boxing classes and attending the ballet classes – until his father finds out. No son of a man’s man would take ballet over boxing, as ballet is only for “puffs:”

But Billy not only likes dancing, he’s good at it. Here, he shows his dad a few of his moves:

Ultimately, Billy’s dad let’s Billy pursue his dream of being a dancer. He is even willing to cross the picket lines of the miners’ strike to be able to pay for the dancing lessons. With the help of his teacher, Billy tries out for the Royal Ballet School. It is not the typical tryout, and Billy is sure he won’t get in. Here is the scene where Billy gets his letter from the school:

This scene is called “Acceptance” both because Billy gets into the prestigious school, but more importantly, Billy’s dad has come to accept Billy for being Billy, not forcing him to fit a stereotype or be something he wishes Billy to be. All parents should be more like the “new” Billy’s dad. Who didn’t fell the joy and pride of Billy’s father as he hears the news about Billy’s success, even though it might not have been the kind of success he originally wanted for Billy. Perhaps Sheryl Sandberg, Chief Operating Officer and a Director of Facebook, said it best: “We can each define ambition and progress for ourselves. The goal is to work toward a world where expectations are not set by the stereotypes that hold us back, but by our personal passion, talents and interests.”

If only the whole world were so.

[i] As reported in the Huffington Post on September 24, 2014, updated on November 24, 2014.

[ii] The Little Mermaid

• Production Company: Walt Disney Pictures and Silver Screen Partners IV
• Directors: Ron Clements and John Musker
• Screenwriter: John Musker and Ron Clements
• Starring: Jodi Benson, Rene Auberjonois and Christopher Daniel Barnes
• Release date: November 17, 1989

[iii] Beauty and the Beast

• Production Company: Mandeville Films and Walt Disney Films
• Director: Bill Condon
• Screenwriter: Stephen Chbosky and Evan Spillotopoulos
• Starring: Emma Watson, Dan Stevens and Luke Evans
• Release date: March 17, 2017

[iv] The King’s Speech

• Production Company: See-Saw Films, The Weinstein Company, UK Film Council
• Director: Tom Hooper
• Screenwriter: David Seidler
• Starring: Colin Firth, Geoffrey Rush and Helena Bonham Carter
• Release date: December 25, 2010

[v] Billy Elliot

• Production Company: StudioCanal, Working Title Films, BBC Films
• Director: Stephen Daldry
• Screenwriter: Lee Hall
• Starring: Jamie Bell, Julie Walters and Jean Haywood
• Release date: November 10, 2000

The only lottery I ever won occurred in 1972. I didn’t win millions of dollars, but I could have won my life. It was the selective service’s lottery to determine who would be drafted to fight in Vietnam (and you thought this post was going to be on gambling). The government would draft young men based on their birthday, as each day of the year was randomly selected. All young men born on the first day selected would be drafted first. All young men born on the second day selected would be drafted next, and so on through the 365th day selected. The first draft lottery was held in 1969 and applied to young men born from 1944 through 1950. The men born on the first 195 birthdays selected ended up being drafted that first year. When my year came, my lottery number came up 308. No draft had gone that high so I felt like I was in the clear. It turned out it didn’t matter anyway, as the Vietnam War was winding down by that point, and no new draft orders were issued for men born in 1953 (my birth year).

I have thought a lot about war since that lottery and whether I would have been willing to fight. I doubt I would have had the courage to flee to Canada, like so many did during the Vietnam War. While no official records were kept of the numbers immigrating to Canada to avoid the draft, informed sources estimate the number to be between 30,000 and 40,000. I suspect I would have ultimately enlisted in a service that would hopefully keep me far from the front lines of Vietnam. I thought the Coast Guard would be a logical choice. But many, primarily those from poor or lower middle class families, did not have (or did not know how to take advantage of) those options.

We had three holidays here in America that reminded me once again of the sacrifices so many men and women have made for our country in times of war: Memorial Day, Flag Day and Independence Day. Plus, the anniversary of D-Day occurred on June 6. These men and women, as Abraham Lincoln described it, “gave the last full measure of devotion” so that our way of life would “not perish from the earth.”

Having never been in the military, I have learned much of what I know (or at least what I think I know) about war from watching movies. I realize that movies are not always a true depiction of what war is really like, but many are realistic enough for me to understand, as General Sherman said during the civil war, that “war is hell.” I like Edwin Starr’s description in his 1970 anti-war hit: “War! What is it good for? Absolutely nothing.” But we learn a lot, sometimes, by having to go through “hell.” Here are four truths about war I have learned from movies (I could have listed many more):

     1.  Generals and other military planners are very willing to knowingly sacrifice the men and women on the front lines for what they see as the larger cause.

U.S. planners in 1943 were predicting that 13 percent of U.S. troops on D-Day would be drowned, 25 percent would become casualties in the initial fighting on the beaches, and thereafter, 3 percent of U.S. troops would become casualties in Normandy.[i]

This scene from Saving Private Ryan[ii] is hard to watch, but it illustrates the fear of soldiers going into battle for the first time, many of whom were killed before they even got out of their landing craft.

I am no military strategist, but it seems like there must have been a better way.

Two summers ago I had the privilege of visiting the National D-Day Memorial in Bedford, Virginia. I felt a reverence there as I saw depictions of the Normandy battlefield and learned of the many heroic events that took place on D-Day. Bedford, Virginia, was chosen as the place for the memorial because the small town of Bedford lost more soldiers in the D-Day invasion than any other town or city in America. Their sacrifice has been immortalized in Bedford: The Town They Left Behind.[iii] Yes, “some gave all,” as the country song goes. And for Bedford, Virginia, most gave all, as 19 of the 34 young men from Bedford were killed on D-Day. Four more were killed on subsequent days.

     2.  The perils of war often bring out the best or the worst in soldiers.

Hacksaw Ridge[iv] is the story of Desmond Doss, a conscientious objector who served as medic during WWII. At the outbreak of the war, Doss worked in a shipyard, and could have been deferred from military service because of that, but he enlisted anyway, even though he refused to carry a weapon into combat because of his personal beliefs and religious training as a Seventh Day Adventist. He was repeatedly persecuted and branded a coward by his fellow soldiers, but, unbelievably, during the battle of Okinawa, he saved 75 wounded men atop Hacksaw Ridge. Here is one of my favorite scenes from the movie:

Doss was wounded four times in Okinawa, and was subsequently awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions. How many of us are courageous enough to put our lives on the line, to save “one more,” whether physically, spiritually or otherwise?

     3,  On the battlefield, soldiers fight more for each other than for love of country.

I believe most soldiers love their country, and are willing to make great sacrifices for it, but in the heat of the battle, they fight for each other. Anyone who has been part of a successful team – a true team – whether in sports, business or the military, realizes how important a teammate becomes. That bonding is often precipitated by the rigorous training the team undergos together. Lone Survivor,[v] is the true story of a Navy Seals team on a mission to capture or kill a notorious Taliban leader. The opening scene gives us a glimpse of the training required to be a Navy Seal. Most don’t make it. I know I wouldn’t.

Did you catch the words said near the end of the clip? “I like having my buddies that I can depend on, and I would like for them to be able to depend on me. You guys are our band of brothers” I also love this scene from American Sniper[vi] where Chris Kyle shares his regret to his therapist, and how that motivated him to continue fighting for his comrades even after they returned from deployment.

4. Sadly, we don’t fully understand and appreciate what our volunteer military is truly sacrificing for us.

One vet described it this way: “The American people as a whole don’t care about soldiers or veterans beyond face value to make them feel good about themselves.” And so we applaud them at sporting events, we let them board first onto airplanes, we give them a discount on admission to amusement parks. Those types of things are nice and appropriate, but they pale in comparison to how combat changes a soldier, even the toughest ones. Obviously, many return disfigured or crippled. But the emotional toll can be far worse. Studies show that about one-fifth of veterans suffer from PTSD. One-fourth suffer from depression. Many vets drink and smoke excessively, even if they did neither before deployment, and report problems dealing with conflicts with others. Little wonder. One study showed, of the Marines serving in Iraq, 94 percent saw dead bodies, 97 percent were shot at, 95 percent were attacked or ambushed, 92 percent received rocket or mortar fire, and 87 percent know someone killed or seriously wounded. Another study found that 22 veterans commit suicide on average each day. A different study found the suicide rate among veterans to be only seven per day. But even seven suicides a day among our veterans (or any group for that matter) is seven too many.

One of the most uncomfortable movies for me to watch was Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk.[vii] Few people saw it, but every American should. It realistically showed some of the internal turmoil our soldiers go through after returning home from a deployment – even those who are hailed as heroes. After a video of Billy saving his sergeant’s life goes viral, Lynn and his squad are invited to return to the U.S. for a promotional tour, including a halftime celebration at a Dallas Cowboys’ football game. The movie juxtaposes fireworks from the halftime celebration with battle scenes from Iraq, as if these soldiers haven’t experienced enough explosions. The halftime celebration experience and events leading up to it only alienate Billy from the rest of society (you and me) – a society that doesn’t truly understand or appreciate the sacrifices of our soldiers. Here is just one scene that shows the difference between the public face the military must show and what they are really thinking, and how even being a perceived hero is much more complicated than it appears:

Billy finally decides to go back to Iraq, largely because he doesn’t know what else to do. He is treated as a hero, but doesn’t feel like one, as he was just doing what he had been trained to do. He ultimately realizes that war has become his home and his squad has become his family. Only they fully appreciate what goes on in war. Here is the closing scene:

So what can we do to truly support our veterans? I did a quick Google search and there are a number of articles on this subject. Here is a link to the article I thought was best. It will give you some simple ideas.

http://www.cnn.com/2013/11/05/us/iyw-simple-ways-to-honor-veterans/index.html

Henry Emerson Fosdick said, “The tragedy of war is that it uses man’s best to do man’s worst.” Let’s support our best – those who have the courage to risk their lives to protect our way of life – even if it is only a one-on-one, heartfelt thank you. But most of us can (and should) do much more than that.

[i] George Henry Bennett’s Destination Normandy: Three American Regiments on D-Day.

[ii] Saving Private Ryan

• Production Company: Dreamworks, Paramount Pictures, Amblin Entertainment
• Director: Stephen Spielberg
• Screenwriter: Robert Rodat
• Starring: Tom Hanks, Matt Damon, Tom Sizemore
• Release date: July 24, 1998

[iii] Bedford: The Town They Left Behind

• Production Company: The Johnson Group
• Directors: Elliot Berlin, Joe Fab
• Screenwriter: Joe Fab
• Starring: Rich Parkerson
• Release date: January 11, 2009

[iv] Hacksaw Ridge

• Production Company: Cross Creek Pictures, Demarest Films, Pandemonium
• Director: Mel Gibson
• Screenwriter: Robert Schenkkan and Andrew Knight
• Starring: Andrew Garfield, Sam Worthington and Luke Bracey
• Release date: November 4, 2016

[v] Lone Survivor

• Production Company: Film 44, EFO Films, and Spiklings Entertainment
• Director: Peter Berg
• Screenwriter: Peter Berg (based on the book by Marcus Luttrell)
• Starring: Mark Wahlberg, Taylor Kitsch, Emile Hirsch and Ben Foster
• Release date: January 10, 2014

[vi] American Sniper

• Production Company: Warner Bros, Village Roadshow Pictures and RatPac-Dune Entertainment
• Director: Clint Eastwood
• Screenwriter: Jason Hall (based on the book by Chris Kyle)
• Starring: Bradley Cooper, Sienna Miller and Kyle Gallner
• Release date: January 16, 2015

[vii] Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk

• Production Company: Bona Film Group, Film4, Ink Factory
• Director: Ang Lee
• Screenwriter: Ben Fountain and Jean-Christophe Castelli
• Starring: Joe Alwyn, Garrett Hedlund, Arturo Castro, Kristin Stewart and Vin Diesel
• Release date: November 18, 2016