Stories from the Steps

Thank you to everyone for making 2025 a success for this little writing adventure. It began two years ago, a crusade of creativity into sports, music & pop culture. An effort hoping with each effort to equal creatives with words like Jimmy Breslin on culture, Jim Murray on sports or just once match words with the sonic genius of the Beach Boys Brian Wilson & “Pet Sounds”.
        As the journey has revealed itself, there’s not been much sports, music or pop culture. Certainly, no genius moments. Most days begin with the same prayer, as unexpected topics or topics I need to unload about reveal themselves, that Alan Shepherd uttered sitting on top of the first Mercury rocket. “Dear Lord, don’t let me screw this up.”
      2025 has revealed one of the souvenirs of our daily tour of thriving & surviving. We all spend time in our coloring books, occasionally with broken crayons, occasionally coloring outside the lines. That whether saint or heretic, street tough or poet, we all do a dance like Riff & Bernardo on a New York playground. A dance with the fractures of fear, hiding our weakness, & our insecurity dressed as bravado. A dance you’ve allowed me as I’ve detailed my mom’s battle with dementia.
     This is evidenced by the blue thumbs ups, red hearts, & shares that have caused people in 22 countries not under the umbrella of North America to read my words (& if one of you enthusiastic Canucks happens to be Mark Messier, that would be thrilling. Reader, if you don’t know who he is, he & a guy named Gretzky won a bunch of Stanley Cups together. After they split, Gretzky never got another one, but number 11 did. And hey, I worked in sports😃).
      There have been some quite kind & a couple of not so delightful comments this year. There was a “thanks for sharing” hug by the church coffee station by someone with a struggle I was unaware of. Revealing & healing conversations in the hall of both my church & school over words you’ve allowed me to write. In 2026, I hope to add another lane to this highway where, in the paraphrased words of Jim Valvano, along with me you can “laugh, think, or cry”. To make one person not feel invisible, because like it or not, we’re all we’ve got. 
     I’d be wrong to sign off without a thank you to my tribe, especially Miss Julie who lets me share on her timelines without asking, that has supported, financially & emotionally, this enterprise & puts up with that ruffian Miss Julie’s Pool Boy. To my dad, the founder & sometimes only admitting card carrying member of my fan club. The man that always told me I should write. And to my junior high English teacher, Mrs. Lillian Pitts. The last time I saw her in a downtown department store in 1988, she asked me if I was writing. I said “no” & with her dissatisfied look of eyes closed, head tilted, & lips pursed that I hadn’t seen since junior high, she told me I was wasting, not using, my gift.
      In 2024, for the first time, I believe I used it more than I wasted it. In ‘25 I’m certain there was more cultivation than waste while the muse that was the steps, the gym, the building of that junior high was taken down. Leaving me not just memories & a couple of bricks but a foundation. A foundation I still find every Sunday at my church in steps that remain. Steps I’ve climbed most Sundays since 1968. In 2026, I’ll try to waste God’s gift even less & honor my muses & my God more. Thanks for reading, Happy New Year!