Tragedy In Perspective

Today is the tenth anniversary of the most horrific event in American History. With nearly 4,000 lives lost from the terrorist attacks we find it hard to imagine that anything worse than that can happen. Truly for families that have lost loved once both from that fateful day and for families that have sacrificed in service to our country since it has been a great burden.

But just for a moment lets look beyond ourselves and see what else has been going on in the world. The earthquake in Japan killed 15,781 people; 4,086 people are missing, and 83,000 people were left homeless. Have we given much thought to that over the last 5 months? What have we done to honor those innocent people? Have we made any donation to those people? Have we had that tragic event play through our heads like our mental playbacks of the airplanes hitting the towers? Are we as a nation putting any time to helping those build new shelters to live in like we are putting our monies to building some new shiny office towers? It is very sad that we are a very egocentric and self absorbed nation. So many other countries dislike Americans, I wonder how much of that has to do with our selfish nature? Now don't get me wrong, I love living here and I am very grateful that I was born at such a time in such a place. To some extent the selfish self serving nature of Americans (myself included) has enabled us to become such a nation of riches. We have some of the highest living standards in the entire world. The danger is that with selfishness runs the danger of self imploding. We do need to be very cognoscente of the historic date of 9-11 and we need to understand that innocent people died because there is an element of people that will do anything to kill us, and we do need to protect ourselves from this element. But, we also need to have perspective.

Suffering is suffering and it doesn't matter if it is a child dying from hunger in Somalia, a family wiped out from a earthquake, or a Dad lost from a terrorist attack on the World Trade Center.

There is plenty of tragedy in the world to go around. The term "God Bless America" is used at the end of every politicians speech, and to that I add "God Bless Humanity". It's time for everyone to become involved in a global effort to to care for our fellow man, woman and child. I think one person can make a difference if they just decide there is more in life than living for oneself. Is there something small you can start with, make a commitment to do something this week, or this month. Just do something.

The Places We Live

The Legacy of Louis A. Laramee

Being that this is the day in the year of 2006 that my Dad passed away, I would like to take just a few moments to reflect on what he meant to me.

When I think of my Dad, I get a very warm sense of what a decent, caring and patient man he was. If any one knew me in my younger days you would understand. I must not have been the easiest child to raise. I did have my moments, but as a teen they were few and far between. My Dad was patient, and very giving towards me. I must have nearly drained his bank account with the number of years I went to college. Yet if it weren't for his patience, I wouldn't be where I am today.

I know that he was a very warm man. Until recently I didn't understand how years later, he still affected others. I had made a comment about my Dad on a popular media site and someone else saw the comment, and made his observation known by saying he was one of kindest persons any one would be lucky enough to meet. Even though this person was young when he knew him, he remembered him well enough to know him by his 1st name.

I knew he was well respected by some very influential people, like my Mom. As an adult at dinner one evening, my Mom said to my brother and I that she "couldn't have asked for a better dad for you two boys". One night, he received a call from a drunk girl that I had dated only a couple of times. She was looking for a ride home from some bar. My dad, never having met this girl went out, gave her a ride home...and shortly after that she ended it. On another evening I brought home my very special girlfriend. He pulled me aside and said, "you can bring her around anytime". I did bring her around, a lot; and when we told him that we were wanting to get married, he said, "You two are perfect for each other, your both immature"! 27 year later the special girlfriend and I are still together.

He was always there for me, in good times and bad times. I can remember from a very early age he was active in supporting me. He was there in the snowbank in the freezing cold watching me play House League hockey. He was the one influential in bringing hockey to the High School level in Mankato, and pushed for the 1st indoor hockey rink there. He was there teaching my how to play golf at the mini par three that was at Hazeltine. In fact I can remember the 1st set of clubs I got when I was a tike. They were the old oversized plastic headed Playskool type clubs with the big plastic ball. All of the father son tournaments that we played in - I guess it should be no surprise that when I walked out of the pro shop with a brand new set of clubs for my graduation present, and told my dad what he just bought me for graduation, he didn't even bat an eye.

In business, he had some hard days, he didn't complain. maybe it was the old school mentality that you don't tell your kids about difficult work days, or your salary, or what your boss is like. But, just maybe there are some lessons to be learned from that as well. There is no reason to burden your kids with that kind of stress; I would call that being gracious.

So once again, as I ponder just what my Dad was like, it makes me want to be a better man than what I am today, and look forward to the future. Can I accomplish the goals I have set for me in areas of my life? If at the end, I have the respect, love and gratitude from my family. I have accomplished the most important things in life, everything else is secondary and trivial.