The Kid

This morning - a Wednesday - JP got up at 5:15 a.m. an ran six miles.  Absolutely on his own with no prompting from me.  This isn't unusual behavior for him, as he has been running one or two mornings a week and on weekends, too.

He was one of three or four freshman to make the junior varsity baseball team and the season is only just underway with practice every day and a scrimmage on Saturday morning, weather permitting.  His workload at school, of course, is demanding.  Homework every night and quizzed or tests every day.  Two today, in fact (Latin and Geometry).  

Still, he runs.  

It's an amazing thing, as a father, to be inspired by your 15 year old son.  

I've had a pretty good start to 2024 with my running, in part because I'm inspired by JP's running.  Yes, I've stayed relatively health so far this year but seeing him put the miles in motivates me to do the same.  

I wonder what motivates him to run in the cross country offseason, while he's playing baseball.  I know he keeps up with what other runners in the state are doing this spring through the MileSplit website.  I suspect he doesn't want to fall behind other cross country runners who are running track and, therefore, running almost every day.  I also think he wants to be ready to crank up the mileage this summer, in June and July, when he and his cross country teammates start running in the mornings at Vaughn's Gap.

Simply put, I think - no, I know - JP wants to be the best runner he can be.  I admire him for that, too, of course, because it takes dedication, discipline, and desire.  

I wonder if at some point his running will conflict with other sports.  Unless something changes, I have a hard time seeing JP playing basketball next season, as a sophomore, even if he could make the junior varsity team.  My guess is he will want to run in some indoor track meets after cross country season is over.  I also suspect he will find a way, next winter, to run regularly and get ready for baseball in the spring, too.  

I guess seeing me go out to run - really, for his entire life - may have had some small impact on him.  He has seen how important it is to me.  Still, what JP already has accomplished as a runner and his dedication to the sport is something completely different than anything I have ever done.  His ceiling as a runner, I think, is higher than mine ever was, by about a mile.  Way higher.  

JP's combination of talent, desire, desire, and competitiveness is very rare, especially in a boy his age.  It's early, I know, and a whole lot of things have to fall in the right directly for him to have the success as a runner in high school that I know he wants to have.  He's got stay healthy.  He's got to continue to love running and I think he will.

What I really hope, though, is that JP learns that the dedication he has to running - to putting in the work and being disciplined - is something he can apply to whatever he does in life, personally and professionally.  That's what I want him to learn most of all.  

The Kid.  

 

No. 12 for Joe

I woke up today the proud father of 12 and 15 year old boys.  Somehow, it all seems surreal.  How can I be so close to having two teenaged boys?  How does time pass so quickly?

My Joe.  The best little brother JP could ever ask for.  In Joe's eyes, JP can do no wrong.  As I've always said, JP is Joe's superhero.  

By way of illustration, Joe's advisory teacher at USN, John Kleiner - one of our family's favorite educators of all time - recently shared something Joe had written in class, in which he identified JP as someone he admired.  When asked why, Joe has written that "JP always seems to make the right decision."  High praise from a little brother, to be sure.

Lord, I miss the days when I strolled Joe around the neighborhood on Saturday and Sunday afternoons while he napped in the City Elite stroller.  Those times seem so carefree an innocent in my memory.  

Most weekend afternoons, I'd load Joe up in my truck and play Stars and Satellites, Trampled by Turtles 2012 album.  Joe would sing alone to the the second song, Alone, his favorite.  Even now, I can see him sitting in his car seat behind me, singing the words to himself as he began to doze off.  Next, I'd stop on Belmont Boulevard, unfold the City Elite, quickly transfer a sleeping Joe into it, and off we'd go for our afternoon walk.  

For me, those days were heavenly.  I'll remember and treasure them always.  

After an hour and a half or so, Joe would begin to stir and oftentimes I was already in Bongo Java, seated at a table, reading or maybe writing for this blog.  One of my barista friends - EJ, George, A.C., Adam, Chuck, Hunter, etc. - the list goes on and on - would fill Joe's sippy cup up with milk.  He would smile up at me when I handed it to him, as he began to drink contentedly, looking around in wonder at the students working and talking quietly.  He would grab a handful of cheerios from me and all was right in the world.  

I remember one spring weekend afternoon in particular, not terribly long after Joe started walking.  We ended up in the courtyard of the apartment complex on Belmont Boulevard a block or two down from Bongo Java.  Joe was a wearing a light green onesie, as I recall, and as I sat on one of the concrete benches, he teetered in front of me, walking from my bench to the other bench and back again.  For some reason, I used my cell phone to video Joe that afternoon, which I too often failed to do.

That memory, though, is so vivid to me.  I wonder why some moments - snapshot moments, I've called them - stand out in one's mind so much more than others.  

On occasion, after a run, I'll walk down into that courtyard.  I can still see Joe, almost like a ghost, walking carefully from cement bench to cement bench.  Like a ghost.  

Jude and I are so blessed.  Joe is such a joy to be around.  Funny.  The best laugh.  Competitive.  Kind.  Caring.  Intelligent with an amazingly expansive vocabulary.  A voracious reader.  A lover of all sports, just like his brother and just like me.  A born leader.  

How I could strike the lottery and have two boys, Joe and JP, that are as close to perfect for our family as two boys could be is beyond me.  

Happy 12th birthday, Joe.  My love for you is endless.  

Farewell to the Wolf

As Joe and I were driving to his basketball game Saturday afternoon after a birthday lunch for his grandmother at M.L. Rose on Charlotte Avenue, I got a call from my old friend, Carl Spining.  It was an odd time for Carl P. to be calling - Saturday afternoon - so I wondered if anything was wrong.

I find myself at an age where a call from an old friend can be disquieting in the sense that I immediately hope everything is all right.

Sadly, my fear was well placed as Carl P. was calling to tell me that Richard Sebastian - the Wolf - died the previous night.  

I was stunned, as I hadn't even known he was sick.  In typical Richard fashion, he had kept his illness a secret since he was diagnosed in early January, less than two months ago.  Richard was relatively private about his personal life to almost everyone except his closest friends, I think. 

I've known Carl P. for 40 years.  We grew up in the same neighborhood and went to high school and college together, although he was a year behind me.  He was my closest friend in law school.  We started together law school at UT together in the fall of 1990 and were in the same section, so we had almost all of our classes together.  In fact, I drove Carl P. to the hospital when Erin went into labor with their oldest, Molly, while we were sitting in class during our second year of law school.  I was the first one in the hospital room - after her immediate family - to see Erin holding Molly after she was born.  I also was at Molly's wedding a few years ago, too.  Bookend experiences for me.

As we talked on Saturday, I could tell Carl P. was stunned by Richard's death.  They worked together at Ortale Kelley, an old school Nashville law firm, for almost three decades.  On top of that, they were extremely close, particularly in the years when Carl P.'s four children were younger.  

Those were different days to be sure, when everyone - attorneys and staff - worked at the office every day. There was a camaraderie and a closeness between attorneys at law firms that I don't think exists now in the same way, given that so many attorneys and staff work remotely at least part of the time.  The pandemic changed all that, to be sure, and what was a profession seems to have become more of a job.  

At any rate, Richard and Carl P. spent a lot of time together, at the office and away from the office.  I'm sure Carl P. was profoundly affected by Richard's death, which is understandable.  59 is too young for anyone to die.  

Why the Wolf?

That has been my name for Richard for many, many years.  I took it from Harvey Keitel's character in Pulp Fiction (1994), Winston Wolfe (aka the Wolf), a cleaner for the mafia.  In real life - to me, anyway - Richard was the Wolf.

Richard was the managing partner at Ortale Kelley for almost 20 years, succeeding Bill Ortale at a relatively young age.  Running a law firm is no easy task, particularly since so many of the attorneys have egos and strong opinions on almost everything, especially money and how it's divided among partners.  Every law firm is organized differently, of course, but it's very unusual for one person to be a managing partner for more than a few years.  Richard was in that position for nearly two decades, which is very, very rare. 

Always quietly and always behind the scenes, Richard got things done.  He just did.  Inside Ortale Kelley and in the Nashville legal community, as well.  If you needed something, you called Richard Sebastian.  Always discreet.  Always able to keep a secret.  Richard always "knew a guy," just the guy you needed to talk to if you had problem.  

If you had procedural or legal question in a complicated piece of litigation, Richard was your guy.  If you needed a transmission pulled from your car and a new one installed, Richard was your guy.  If you had a complicated real estate transaction with multiple players that needed to be closed, Richard was your guy.  If you needed to dispose of a body or launder money, Richard was your guy. 

I'm kidding about the last part.  Sort of.  

If you needed help - and this isn't a joke - with anything at all, you called Richard.  My guess is that no single lawyer in the last 30 years helped more people, including lawyers, than Richard Sebastian.   

Richard was loyal to his friends - inside and outside of Ortale Kelley - and he always was willing to help you or your client.  No questions.  He was everyone's consigliere and because of that, he probably died keeping more secrets than anyone in Nashville.   

Years ago, a divorce client of mine was in a bind because he had committed to buying a couple of condominiums in a new development in the Gulch.  The economy had turned, he was getting divorced, and money suddenly was very, very tight.  He desperately needed out of the deals and called me after he had gotten a letter from a young lawyer at Ortale Kelly threatening legal action to enforce the contracts if the deals didn't close as planned.

I called Richard, of course, and he told me he'd look into it and get back to me.  Within a day, Richard called me back.  He had talked to the developer - someone he knew well, of course - and intervened on my client's behalf.  Richard told me to write him a letter explaining, in detail, my client's financial difficulties and circumstances, which I did.  He talked to the developer again.  And, just like that, my client was off the hook and I looked like a hero because I had saved him three of four hundred thousand dollars.  

I didn't do anything other than know who to call.  Richard did all of the work.  Gladly and without expecting anything in return.  Why?  Because he was my friend. 

The Wolf. 

Richard and I stayed in touch over the years and, occasionally, our paths crossed.  He might refer a client to me or ask for help on someone's behalf.  He had relationships like that with lawyers and people all over the city.  

If I had to venture a guess, not many lawyers outside of Ortale Kelley and the Nashville real estate community are lucky enough to have known Richard Sebastian the way I did.  That's their loss.  

Richard Sebastian was a legend.  It's very hard to believe he's gone.  I'll miss knowing he's out there, a phone call away, nodding his head and smiling when I call him to check in or ask for a favor.  

Long live the Wolf.  

The End of the Line

MBA's freshman basketball season came to an ignominious but not unexpected end Monday night in a first round tournament loss to JPII, a team they defeated last week.  Three wins on the season and a whole lot of losses.  Most of the games weren't even close.  A season much like last season and, for sure, a season to forget.

This group of boys simply doesn't play basketball well together.  Yes, they're limited size-wise and athletically, too, but in the last two seasons they haven't played well as a team.  

Other teams jumped on them in the first quarter, and first half, all season long, which means they were rarely ready to play at tipoff.  Every game, it was the same thing, and yesterday was no different, with MBA quickly falling behind in the first quarter and trailing by 15 at the half, 20 - 35.

What was the most disturbing and frustrating yesterday to me, as a parent, was the lack of effort on defense and on the boards.  I saw players lose their man at the top of the key, then turn and watch as he drove unimpeded to the basket.  I saw a player turn the ball over in the front court in the second half, when MBA was trying to rally, then loaf up court behind the play as a JPII player converted the turnover into a layup at the other end of the court.    

The lack of effort and lack of toughness was dispiriting.

MBA lost almost every 50-50 ball all game long.  I saw one of our post players fail to block a kid out - on a damn free throw - and give up a layup.  

On offense, turnover after turnover after turnover.  It amazes me that kids that ostensibly play so much basketball appear to know so little about how to actually play basketball.  Team basketball.  Situational basketball.    

The one bright spot was that, again the team rallied late and actually cut JPII's lead to five points late in the third quarter.  They had the ball and only a 3-pointer that rimmed out prevented them from cutting the lead to two points.  JPII pulled away in the fourth quarter, though, and was the better team - last night, anyway - and won, 51 - 64.

I want to be clear as I close - these are good boys.  Good students, good citizens, and smart academically.  I thoroughly enjoyed my limited interactions with every one of them.  Great parents, too.  For some reason or reasons, though, this group of boys doesn't fit together to form a cohesive basketball team.  This was a bit of a lost season for all of them, I think, and maybe, in the end, they were ready for it to be over.  

 

Once a Coach, Always a Coach

As usual, our weekend consisted of running transportation for the boys to various sports activities.  

And running, for me.  6 miles on Saturday and 4 miles on Sunday.  It's been a good, fairly consistent start to the year for me and I'm very happy about that.  I've felt good and strong on almost all of my runs, which is fantastic.  It's such a blessing - and one I do not take for granted - to go outside and just . . . run.

Saturday, JP met one of his cross-country teammates at MBA mid-morning to go for a run.  After I dropped him off, I picked up Joe and we drove to Christ the King to get some shots up, outside, before Joe's 11 a.m. game at J.T. Moore.  Then, I drove him to the game.  His Bucket Squad team lost a tough game to a decent team, one they likely would have beaten had Nash and Preston been there.  

I drove JP back to MBA after Joe's game to play squash.  Squash?  One of his classmates, Charlie, has been playing and challenged JP to a game.  As I understand it, JP lost all three games but every game was closer than the one before it.  

It reminded me of my abbreviated squash career - on the squash courts at Vanderbilt - over a couple of weekends 20 + years ago.  I triumphed in a Battle of the Sexes match - not unlike Billie Jean King vs. Bobby Riggs - defeating Carrie Plummer, talking trash the entire time.  John Scala - his name is a blast from the past - beat me in a couple of close games.  My quads and hamstrings were so sore the next day that it hurt to sit on the toilet.  I'm not even kidding.  

Yesterday, I took Joe to a birthday party while Jude and JP went to church at St. Patrick.  After grabbing a quick coffee from Steadfast Coffee in Germantown, I grabbed Joe early from the birthday party and drove him to a Braves' baseball practice at D-BAT.  When we got home, I went for a run, then drove JP to baseball while Jude drove Joe to basketball.  

Weekend sports' chauffeurs.  I wouldn't have it any other way.

The best part of may weekend, though, other than the two runs, was helping at Joe's baseball workout at D-BAT.  My friend, Scott McRae, who is coaching this spring, has 23 or 24 boys on the roster.  Enough for two teams.  He's going to need some help coaching and I'm happy to provide it whenever possible.  

Yesterday, Scott didn't have any help, so he asked me if I would throw short toss to half of the boys in one of the batting cages while he worked with the other half on pitching and fielding.  It felt so damn good to be sitting on a stool behind the screen, throwing soft toss to boy after boy.  Most of them I knew and had coached but some I didn't.  

Throwing batting practice or soft toss, for that matter, is so special to me.  It's a change to get one-on-one time with a boy and make a real connection with him.  I can drop a word or two of encouragement and really make a difference in how he sees himself as a baseball player or, maybe, as a person.  In short, it's a chance to make a difference in a boy's life with a brief, meaningful interaction.  I can learn so much about a boy's personality and his competitive makeup by throwing batting practice in the cage.  It's the best.

On top of that, Joe was absolutely raking yesterday.  I think the weekly practices with his HBC team are paying off.  It was awesome to throw soft toss to him and to have a front row seat as he hit ball after ball hard and with authority.  Joe's getting a seriousness about him when it comes to putting the work in and I'm very happy to see that.  School work, sports, and helping around the house.  It's a sign of maturity for him, I think.

After the longest of long weeks at work, particularly Thursday and Friday, I desperately needed the weekend respite with my family.  Hanging with the boys, and Jude, rejuvenates me and reminds me why I go to the office every day and pound the rock, so to speak.

I'm so blessed as a father and as a man.

JP, with Jane and Jim, after a recent basketball game.  

Five Years Without Mom

Five years ago today, my mom died in a room at St. Thomas Hospital.  She was surrounded by loved ones, as they say, including me. 

Did she die peacefully?  I'd like to think so, although who knows for sure.  Our weeklong vigil at St. Thomas Hospital after she had a stroke remains, in my memory, a blur of visitors, tears, and interminable waiting.  Time seemed to stand still for me that week.  There were a lot of trips to and from the hospital, as I tried to make sense of what had happened to my mom and, more importantly, how I was going to live a life without her in it.  

My mom was 31 years old when my father died at age 30.  Suddenly, she was a widow with two young children, living in California, far away from her parents and sisters in Tennessee.  How did she overcome such hardship at such a young age?  How did she get over losing someone she loved?

When I asked her this, she told me there was no real secret to overcoming such a devastating loss.  The answer was straightforward and uncomplicated.  It didn't involve therapy a long-term sabbatical from work, although she wasn't against those things and neither am I.  

Simply put, you get up every morning, put one foot on the floor and then the other, and start you day.  You love and care for those that need you, that depend on you.  In other words, you do what you have to do, what you need to do, each day.  Then, you get up the next morning and do it all over again.  

"Each day," she told me, "the hurt and sadness get a little bit easier to manage."  It's incremental and not really noticeable but things get better by the tiniest bit each and every single day.  

I think there's some Zen in this, somewhere, because it requires a focus on the present moment, the present day, that seems to be a necessary element of the healing process.  It's important, I think, not to get too lost in the past or too worried about a future without the one you love.  Stay present and get through this day, then get through the next day.  It's living, quite literally, one day at a time.  

Slowly, almost imperceptibly, you place days beside each other and stack them on top of one another, until you are well on the way to building a foundation of recover and of a new life.  Different from the old life, sure, but life nonetheless.  And you develop an appreciation for the new life.  That doesn't happen overnight, at least it didn't for me, but it did happen.

Most important, I think, from my mom's point of view is that you do all of this with an incredibly strong faith that God is with you, really WITH you, at every point in the journey through unimaginable grief and hurt.  Without faith, for her and for me, tool, I am not sure recovery is possible.  Not in the way she accomplished it or in the way I have tried to accomplish it after her death.  

Five years without having my mom in my life.    

There are so many things I would love to have shared with her, almost all of them involving JP and Joe.  Their academic and athletic achievements.  Their successes and failures.  So many questions I would have loved to ask her.  So many laughs I would love to have had with her the last five years.  

I still think about my mom all the time.  In fact, rarely a day goes by when a memory of her doesn't cross my mind.  In church on Sundays, I always think about her, and Carley, too, usually saying a prayer of thanks that my life was enriched by their presence when they were here with me and my family.

Five years is a long time, objectively.  This five years, though, seems to have passed by in the blink of an eye.  

I miss you, mom.  I love you.

      

Joe Gets It

Saturday morning, Joe's 5th grade basketball team, the Bucket Squad, played their rival, Outkast.  Much as it was with the Dirtbags and JP's Dodgers in the early days, the Bucket Squad hasn't quite been able to get over the hump and beat Outkast.  Not yet, anyway.

The players and parents on the two teams couldn't be any different.  The Bucket Squad, of course, consists of a bunch of white, privileged, private school boys who show up at the game five minutes before it starts and expect to play well without really warming up.  

On the other hand, Outkast's players and coaches are at the game 30 minutes before is starts and by game time, the players have broke a sweat and are ready to play basketball.  They're well coached.  They have white and black players, not that it matters.  Basketball is basketball and kids are kids.  I'd be shocked if there is a kid on their team that goes to private school.  In short, their players play harder and are significantly tougher than our players.

Outkast's parents are loud and proud.  Really loud.  It's kind of silly for youth basketball but they wear a variety of "officially licensed" Outkast gear.  Jackets, hats, t-shirts, etc.  I don't think I've ever seen a group of parents in a youth sport with so much team gear.  I'm sure their boys play travel basketball, although we generally play them in WNSL recreational league games and tournaments.

I want to be clear about this, though.  Their parents seems to be good people, as I've talked to a few of them before or after games.  Their kids are good kids, too.  Good kids that play hard and compete. 

And that's my problem, really.  With a couple of exceptions - Joe being one of them - our players are privileged, soft, and not as competitive as they need to be.  Our players whine and complain to the referees during games.  When a call goes against one of them, the classic move is to hold their arms out, palms facing upward, mouth shaped liked an "O."  The universal look of the entitled private school boy.  I detest that look.  Always have.  

As I've said for many years, dating back to when JP was young, the biggest challenge we face as parents is helping our boys understand that the lives they lead are unlike the lives lead by the vast majority of boys their age across the country and the world.  As a parent, I'm conscious - maybe overly conscious - of any sign that my sons feel entitled.  I want them to work and compete for everything, all the time.

Which brings me to Joe.  For the most part, I never see the palms of his hands during basketball games.  I can tell when he doesn't like a call because I can see him getting angry but he doesn't complain to the referees or look toward the bench for affirmation that the referee is out to get him.  He always plays hard from the beginning to the end of the game, regardless of the score.  He competes.  In basketball, he's not the most athletic kid on the floor - far from it - but he usually outworks everyone else.  And I love him for it.

Saturday wasn't one of the better games for the Bucket Squad.  They lost by 20 points or so ago Outkast, which was disappointing, as the more recent games have been closer.  This game was a step back, for sure.  

It was a solid game for Joe, however.  We arrived thirty minutes before the game and waited outside for WNSL to open up the gym at JT Moore.  He and I did some shooting drills and got warmed up, long before any of his teammates arrived.  When the game started, Joe hit two quick jumpers.  I'm convinced it's because he was warmed up and ready to play.  

For almost the entire game, Joe was matched up with Outkast's biggest player, a heavyset redheaded post player who is at least a foot taller than Joe.  Joe was physical with him and worked hard to front him when the ball was on his side of the floor.  Joe's not big - I hope that changes - but he played big, so much so that one of the referees mentioned it to me after the game.  He was impressed with how hard Joe worked guarding the big man.  

What impressed me the most, however, was not how Joe played in the game.  It was what he did after the game.  He singled out the redheaded post player with whom he had battled the entire game and slapped on the bag, telling him he played well.  He thanked Thomas and Charlie, his coaches.  He walked up into the stands and thanked my friend, Alex, whose son plays with Joe, for the instruction he had provided during the game from behind the bench and during timeouts.  Then, he jogged across the court and dapped up the referees, thanking them, as well.  

I was so proud of Joe.  He demonstrated sportsmanship, class, and maturity after the game, all qualities I'm trying to teach him.  He's growing up, I think, into the kind of young man I want him to be.    

In a game in which several of his teammates whined, played with little effort after they got behind, and gave up, Joe never did any of those things.  He competed his ass off with a good, positive attitude, and handle his business after the game like a champ.

Watching Joe post-game is part of what I love so much about being a parent.  It's so gratifying.