The Kid Smokes

This Christmas gathering was really very special at the Collins house. We had two additional guests, freshmen in the strange brew of a mongrel collective. And I say that with a great deal of affection. We have backgrounds from Central Europe, the British Isles, Africa and First Nations of America. We speak two languages, Hungarian and English. This year there was an infusion of Pittsburghese; one thing common to all this was love and mutual respect.

The nubees included a new husband of Monika's step mom and a young member of a tragedy-plagued wing of the family. The older fellow is a great guy, with a wealth of practical knowledge and a friendly disposition. The younger man's father and baby sister both died inside of 16 months of this holiday, and for someone barely 21 years-old, EC has had his share of very bad luck. This Christmas was a welcome break from his bleak reality, and this distant family represented some return to the stability that had been snatched from him in such a painful way. He is looking to the Marine Corps for a little direction to increasingly aimless life. I wish him God's Speed.

Our young one is growing up very quickly. We are very proud of her, especially the way she has overcome great challenges. Her all-too infrequent visits are the highpoint of our lives. That's not an overstatement; she means that much to us. Several years ago during one of our visits to Chicago she coyly admitted that she was a cigarette smoker. Monika and I are both reformed smokers, with more than 20 years each away from our last smoke. She was embarrassed to step away from us while heading to Ikea. The next visit she had stopped. But we have a history of addictive personalities in the family and I knew it was not going to be easy. It wasn't.

During the Christmas prep – always a stressful time – she looked at me with an expression that said, "I'm sorry," and excused herself for a cigarette. It was the first time she admitted that the cessation of a few years ago had failed. It was not really a surprise, but parents hold out hope over reason. When it comes to looming problems facing families this holiday and the New Year, this seems like a small thing. But we tend to find a way to take some of the sting out of the big by focusing on the small things, perhaps things we can control, things we can fix. I can't fix this smoker, not with love nor threats nor graphic pictures of diseased lungs. Just have to let it go.

Many will take this flip of the calendar to change something about their lives. Self improvement is always a good plan and giving up such a dangerous addiction needs no holiday. So if you are using 2009 to give up smoking, I wish you all the strength you and I can muster.

Blood from a Stone

Your mission, Mr. Phelps, should you decide to accept it, it to go the heart of GM county – on a Thursday and Friday when the headlines are bleak and bleaker – and ask for donations for a Children's Hospital. Mr. Phelps? I think I have self-destructed a little early… Mr. Phelps, can you hear me?

Yeah, I hear you. That was pretty much the way it went this past week in Lansing, Michigan. Oh it was fulfilling and uplifting. I met some great kids and wonderful families as the video below illustrates. But at the end of the day the calls and the donations just weren't there. Hours went by without a single call. And it wasn't just us. There was a very popular morning show that also experienced a "Dead Zone." Trust me, it was not The Network. This market is stunned.

We began on Thursday with tons of energy and great support from the hospital and the foundation. The docs were there and the kids kept on coming accompanied by some of the strongest parents I have ever met. We pumped the phone number hundreds of times an hour and built a great story of hope and need and accomplishments and goals. We built it, but they did not come. By Friday night I was feeling the love from other participants, but as is human nature, I certainly thought it was my fault. Was I coming off too strong? Was I scaring good-hearted folks away with tales of sick kids and serious challenges? Or were the challenges of a potentially failing auto industry just settling in, and a reality too great for even the commitment of a few dollars a month? We'll never know.

Last year we raised nearly $70,000. If I'm to believe the centralized call center we'll be lucky if we raise a small fraction of that.

At the end of the three days all I have is the knowledge that we did our level best. When people are afraid for their jobs, staring at a dismal future and inextricably tied to a troubled industry, then any amount is too much to ask. All the other factors really don't matter, and the feeling that I let the kids down is pretty useless as well. But putting that out of my mind is a real impossible mission.

Click To Play

The Day The Earth Stood Still

I have always loved good Sci Fi. I was raised on The Twilight Zone, Friday night "scary movies" and I couldn't get enough of earth invasions and the undead, classic monsters and body snatchers. But if you pin me down on exactly what is my favorite of all these films it would be the day Michael Rennie spun into Washington DC and began a small panic. He had the sleekest ship serious posse of one – a nine-foot robot named Gort – and a simple mission: Earthlings, don't screw it up. Of course, we always do.

There was something very subtle, very un sci fi about this movie. Even for 1951 there was very little monster-movie stuff going on. It was more the psychological nature of mass fear that this story explored. The movie came out two years before I was born, but I can remember watching it on TV at probably at age 6. I was hooked. I was sure we were just days from being visited and by aliens not nearly as nice as Klaatu. The adults, on the other hand, were concerned about more earthbound monsters: nuclear war, the Soviet threat, racial injustice. It was a time of bomb shelters, fire hoses and commies in every department of the government. The early Twilight Zones dealt with this fear in a creative and calculating way. It was always just beyond the edge of edge of reality; just enough for those who didn't want to face the reality head-on. Today's fear comes in the form of foreclosures, bank failures and automakers begging for another chance.

Until that 1951 premiere the few celluloid space invaders were jokes. The movie monsters were still rehash versions of the old Universal demons and mutants from 30 years earlier. Then that single saucer made its way to a park in the nation's capital. No death rays, no dripping tentacles, instead it was a very serious diplomat with a warning. Now there is a remake of the film with Keanu Reeves, all the 21^st century special effects, and infused with all the self-loathing of today's human race. We are so sure we have been such poor stewards of the planet that whomever might come to call from beyond the Van Allen Belt will certainly reinforce that notion. The earth is much better off without us.

It's funny how we never seem to get tired of movies that vaporize, freeze or drown New York City. Judging from the trailers this one is no exception. Gort, the interplanetary MP who in the original film was left as a sentry against bad behavior, is far more menacing. I'm going to see this movie Friday night in Lansing surrounded by hard working people who are anything but self-loathing. Here there is another Klaatu and Gort on the ground as the automobile industry is dealing with a final warning. I hope this one has a happy (sort of) ending like the 1951 version. And I'm not talking about the movie.