Army Supplies

I like to walk out of a restaurant with enough gas to open a Mobil station."



— Tom Waits

Diamonds and Stones

I live in peaks and valleys. My life is sort of like my golf game,bogeys with birdies and pars thrown in. Yet golf has taught me to handle my ups and downs, it has taught me to be the master of my emotions. With that said, here is how my friend Waits told me he handles his bad days at the Chili Parlor.

"This is about all the bad days in the world. I used to have some little bad days, and I kept them in a little box. And one day, I threw them out into the yard. "Oh, it's just a couple little innocent bad days." Well, we had a big rain. I don't know what it was growing in but I think we used to put eggshells out there and coffee grounds, too. Don't plant your bad days. They grow into weeks. The weeks grow into months. Before you know it you got yourself a bad year. Take it from me. Choke those little bad days. Choke 'em down to nothin'. They're your days. Choke 'em!"

— Tom Waits

Gorilla War Fare

My students say to me once in a while “Mr. Gillespie, you’re weird.” It always brings a smile to my face and reminds me of a story Tom Waits tells his own children;


"Why don't you have a straight job like everyone else?" they asked me the other day. I told them this story: In the forest, there was a crooked tree and a straight tree. Every day, the straight tree would say to the crooked tree, "Look at me...I'm tall, and I'm straight, and I'm handsome. Look at you...you're all crooked and bent over. No one wants to look at you." And they grew up in that forest together. And then one day the loggers came, and they saw the crooked tree and the straight tree, and they said, "Just cut the straight trees and leave the rest." So the loggers turned all the straight trees into lumber and toothpicks and paper. And the crooked tree is still there, growing stronger and stranger every day."

— Tom Waits

Patriotic

As I sit and watch the women in the FIFA World Cup Soccer Tournament, it reminded me of what a great honor it is to represent our country in international sports competition. I watched the British Open for a while this morning and it had a flag of the country each player was from.

Patriotism can be a fleeting emotion or it can be special. I will never forget the first time I heard the national anthem abroad as we prepared to play a German team in Russia, talk about emotional and moving. I cannot imagine what it would be like to represent our country in the Olympics.

Any athlete that has a chance to represent our country in international competition should do so proudly.