Life's Rings

Yes, Sunday was the 30th reunion party of the Michigan Mafia, a humble softball team that, alas, has finally retired from the Bay Area Media Softball League it helped create back in 1978.



We played 29 seasons, which is probably more than even Julio Franco or Gordie Howe could imagine, but we were rarely very good. I'm pretty sure we had a losing record over those three decades, but until Joel and I get the statistics finished, no one can know for sure.



In any event, our team motto, "Only the mediocre are always at their best," stood in stark contrast to the bludgeoning belters who eventually came to dominate the league. Very few of these hulks ever worked in a media company, I'm quite sure. They just didn't look like reporters, who tend to be skinny guys and girls with glasses.



Inevitably, reunions stir up the kinds of memories that yield written memoirs by those inclined to write. I've spent a lot of time in classrooms over the past 38 years, most recently teaching memoir-writing to Baby Boomers.



Each and every life, IMHO, deserves a memoir. As I continue to lay down my own story, with brutal emotional honesty night after night, I am beginning to believe that every life deserves a blog. If you feel shy about it, you need not share the blog with anyone; there are ways to have a private blog, or one you share only with your intimates. (Please contact me for help.)



I've chosen a public venue partly because if I have anything to hide from strangers, I simply don't care to, and I love meeting new people in this manner. Rarely a week passes that I do not connect with new people all over the world, courtesy of this humble url.



Now I have become quite suddenly self-employed, I'm turning to my network of friends, old and new, seeking opportunities to work, earn money, have fun, and ever so possibly, make a difference.



Tonight I am grateful to a slew of friends who have already shown such support and enthusiasm for my transition to consultant status (David Weir Consulting, Inc.) Actually, we do not have any clients yet, but the following folks have been encouraging and forthright with their support: Tamara, Tom, Perla, Julie, Susan H., Jeff, Joy, Mark, Bob, Michael B., Allan, Doug, Valerie, Helen, Richard, my son-in-law Loic, Susan L., John, Carey and Cis, Heather, Dave, Holly, Kelsey, Aaron, Christa, Erica, Clark, George, Michael S., Pratap, Mary, Alana, Carol, my sister Carole, Connie, Wei, Jaimie, and Junko...plus, of course, my six children

I hope I haven't forgotten anyone.

Like trees, we have good years and bad ones. Times when the nutrients are rich and times when they are weak. We never live in isolation from our environment, and that is as true socially as it is ecologically.

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