I guess it’s the world economy. I haven’t seen so many glum-faced suits in all my life. Yesterday, I had a meeting in a part of Washington, DC, about ten blocks from my office. It was pleasant, so I decided to walk.

As I walked there and back, I looked at the faces of the people on the street. Of the hundreds of people I passed, nary a one had even the faintest of a smile on his or her face. Most were actively sneering, with their face all wrinkled up into a frown. So sad, really.

I thought about myself, and figured that I didn’t need to look that way. I decided to smile. I looked at people right in the eye as I walked along, and smiled directly at them. Sheesh, you’d think that I had the plague or something by the way people reacted. They seemed startled. One guy even jumped off the sidewalk … I kid you not … to get away from me. A few people smiled back, and one even said, “thank you… I needed that.”

And it seems that sadness runs all over the world. For example, some dolt in the U.K. must have shared one of my YouTube videos with a group somewhere, and then he and a bunch of his friends decided to slam me by attempting to post comments on the video with all sorts of negative, silly, and hateful messages. Jealous types, mostly, with a few homophobes thrown in. There’s no need for that; seriously, these guys ought to get a life. They are engaging in this behavior probably because they’re sad, scared, and bored. Yeah, some are homophobes, too, so they feel better by spewing venom, just like a kid on a playground calling someone else a name. As a Gay Man, I’ve heard it all before. Sticks and stones, and all that….

I will ask God to look after them when I say my prayers tonight. And meanwhile, I just go about deleting the attempted comments and blocking the user. They’ll soon realize that they can’t get anywhere and go bother someone else.

My personal email has been rather active lately with all sorts of neighbors and community activists complaining about this-or-that. Mind you, most of their concerns are legitimate and we need to work together on resolving or working through the issues. But the volume of these messages seems to have increased over the past two weeks. If I did an analysis, I would figure that my “whine and rant” file is about 20% more full than it was before.

Certainly, the bad state of the world economy, led to ruin by the United States and the mismanagement at the top (in both the public and private sectors), has caused many people to become angry, frightened, worried, and afraid. The whole world, it seems, is on edge. It’s just too bad that people express themselves in such negative ways. Heck, I’m affected by the bad economy as well. I do what I can to protect our interests and assets, as meager as they are, but there’s no reason to spread sadness and gloom. I choose to do the opposite.

H. Jackson Brown Jr. said, “Today, give a stranger one of your smiles. It might be the only sunshine he sees all day.” Today more than ever, I will remember that, and do it.

On Saturday afternoon, 71 volunteers (including my partner and me) went around a local retirement community to install a new battery in each of 1,000 smoke alarm units in 788 homes in the community. (Some homes had more than one smoke alarm). This was purely a voluntary effort. Many of the volunteers were from the community itself, while others were from a supporting company that donated the batteries.

We got the job done in about three hours, and I accomplished it all while wearing my banana-colored Frye Campus Boots. (Nobody said a thing about the boots, by the way.)

The community had done a lot of work to line up those who would admit us volunteers to their home and do the battery change-out. We also distributed some home fire safety information produced by our county — and whose messages were based on content I wrote years ago. (Small world.) We even had a crew from a local television station cover our event, and a two-minute interview appeared later on the late-evening news, though I didn’t see it. My e-mail this morning was brimming over with messages from family and friends who saw it and sent kind messages of congratulations.

It was a lot of fun, with great spirit and camaraderie among all who participated. I have to tell ‘ya, though, I was wiped out. I got my annual flu shot first thing Saturday morning, and despite taking aspirin, the mild side-effects of the vaccination took their toll. By the afternoon, I was achy and sore, and got really tired. But it was all well worth it to know that my neighbors and friends are just a bit safer in their homes.

After going to bed at 8:00 last night and sleeping soundly, I awoke at sunrise refreshed and feeling great! I snuggled with my honey for an hour, then rose to prepare a great home-made waffle breakfast. That will give me energy to ride on a planned motorcycle ride on a gorgeous, clear, bright, and beautiful day.

Change YOUR smoke alarm batteries if you haven’t done it within the past year. And remember: life is short — wear your boots!

This was the single word that my Italian grandmother used when any of us kids became impatient with something. This was her way of saying, “patience is a virtue.”

That’s a virtue that is difficult for me to achieve. When I see something wrong and it is within my means to try to fix it, I certainly try.

Lately, my patience has been tried on various fronts. Fortunately, after several trials, I’m pleased to say that for the most part, some bad things are now rectified. Like the monopoly telephone company in our area that wouldn’t fix my 93-year-old aunt’s telephone when it shorted out due to rain last Saturday. Navigating that company’s horrid automated answering system is a test of anyone’s patience. I think they make it so difficult simply to drive people away from even registering a complaint. Excuse-after-excuse didn’t wash with me. Finally, after being deliberately disconnected more times than actually getting through to a human being, the phone got fixed and my aunt can move out of our guest room back to her own home. (There was no way she could stay at home alone without a working phone.)

Or the complete nitwits on some internet sneaker forum (and other forums too) who say silly, stupid things and link to my website. I hope it makes them feel better to be so nasty. They sure prove their ignorance, and that their momma didn’t bring ’em up right. I have tried to block them, as well as install a system to record every IP address from every visitor to my website linked from those forums. Next script to write and install is one that takes those IP addresses when they visit my website and automatically re-directs them to a … (hmmm, still thinking about where; perhaps the FBI’s website? Might they get a message?)

My patience was worn very thin when I saw someone fall in a store parking lot yesterday. After checking to make sure there weren’t any neck or back injuries, I helped him up, but needed some more help to get him stable. No one would stop — people literally ran past me. I finally got some more help, but it took much longer than it should have taken.

Then a challenge with my new ISP at home. We went with a new fiber optic internet service. It’s fast, that’s for sure. But when you register and accept the mandatory terms of service, they force you into signing up for entertainment services that you don’t want. No opt-out option is available. Now I have to call them and waste more time navigating through their horrible automated answering system to have them remove those auto-added, expensive services. I also will be spending time on writing a firm and formal complaint to our state’s regulatory agency and the State AG about deceptive business practices. (That’s me, “rent-a-kvetch”. I’m pretty good about writing formal complaints on behalf of myself and others when a company is clearly in the wrong.)

When my partner’s patience is tested, he repeats a phrase from time to time which comes from his Western Pennsylvanian roots: “hooray for me, to hell with you.” He says he hears people say that where he grew up, and behave that way. That tends to reflect how unfortunate it is that more people care about themselves than take a minute out to do anything for anyone else, or even consider how someone else may feel. I just can’t do that. It is not how I’m wired, or how I was brought up — nor my partner. Thank goodness we share the same values this way.

Life is short: show those you love, as well as those you don’t know but can help, that you care. Act. Responsibly. With thought and consideration for others.

Now that I have your attention, this is just a reminder that if you have smoke alarms in your home that use batteries, if you have not replaced the battery in the last year, DO IT.

If your smoke alarm is more than ten years old, replace it. Smoke alarms lose sensitivity with time. All responsible fire safety agencies and organizations in the U.S. recommend changing smoke alarm batteries once a year, and the entire alarm every ten years.

Don’t fall for the catchy marketing phrase that a certain battery manufacturer began in the 1980s: “change your clock, change your battery.” This phrase was invented to sell more batteries. You only have to replace smoke alarm batteries once each year — not more frequently. It is environmentally unsound to dispose of perfectly good batteries in the trash more than once a year. Also, since (in the U.S.) the time changes occur in April and November, the difference between the time changes is not half a year. It just doesn’t make sense to change batteries when you change your clock (if you are in a state where time changes from daylight to standard time; not all do).

This weekend marks our tenth anniversary in our house. Today, as a present to our house (and to ourselves), my partner and I replaced all of our smoke alarms with new units. All nine of them! We got new alarms that have easy-to-reach battery compartments, but are still hard-wired into the home. The new alarms also have a “hush” feature. That means that if I set off the alarm when I’m cooking, for example, I can press a button on the alarm and it silences it for about 15 minutes. This feature is great, because people who have it will be less likely to take a battery out of an alarm when it goes off for a nuisance situation, such as cooking smoke. The battery back-up feature is great to have in case the power goes out. All of our smoke alarms are interconnected, so if one goes off, all the rest of them do. (This was a code requirement and one that we think was a great idea.)

Almost every day we read stories in the newspaper about people who have died in the place they feel safest: in their home — because of a fire. I often read that there was no working smoke alarm in those fires. In fact, ongoing studies show that about one-third of smoke alarms in homes don’t work on any given day.

Don’t let your home be unprotected. Test your smoke alarm once a month by pushing the test button. Replace the battery once a year. Replace the whole unit every ten years.

In a future blog post, I’ll explain why we also have residential fire sprinklers in our home. These were not required by law, and we paid extra to have them. But our peace-of-mind was well worth the cost.

Now, I’m off to my aunt’s home and several of her friends with new batteries for their smoke alarms.

Life is short: show those you love that you love them — replace the batteries in their smoke alarms!

I have spent much of the day listening. I have visited with five older people who live in a retirement community near me. Each of my older friends lives alone. They get lonely. Sometimes, I just go visit, and listen. I learn a lot, and enjoy providing a way for my friends to share their stories, background, history, and occasional advice or insights.

I might lift a hammer, wrench, screwdriver, or a can of WD-40 and fix something while I’m there. That’s why I tell them I’m coming. But the real reason I am there is to give them someone to talk to, in person. It makes a world of difference — to them and to me. Meanwhile, that squeaky door gets fixed, or the light bulbs get replaced, and that ding-danged leaky faucet stops leaking.

Just a way to spend some time with some important people in my life. And a great thing to do on a rainy day. Kick off my boots at the door, give a warm smile, a big hug, share a cookie, fix something, and just listen.

Life is short: show those you love that you love them, each and every day.

I guess it’s how I was raised and how I am wired. It’s a foundation of my deep, personal faith. It’s how my Mom and Dad expected us to live, and how they demonstrated through their own actions that what’s more important is others before self. Simple as that, and sometimes as hard as that.

This morning as I dodged commuters rushing onto the Metro train, pushing people out of their way so they could be first, I thought, “others before self.” As I was getting off the train, I blocked the way for an older person to get off the train before I did, and protected her from the thundering, thoughtless, masses streaming toward us.

Last night as I was mulling over a decision on a local development project in my role as a local community activist. I thought that perhaps it wouldn’t be so bad, but then again, I thought “others before self.” What do those most affected think? I asked, and we formed a position that was more inclusive and better focused. (Thought I must say that I have little tolerance for NIMBYs).

When the local water utility painted their water tower and lowered the antenna for a cell phone provider that was on top of the tower, thus causing poor signals in the area and people not being able to connect to their service, I thought, “so what?” Personally, I detest those annoying devices. But then I thought, “others before self.” There are others who truly felt that they had a serious problem. So I in my role as a community leader, I helped the affected neighbors negotiate with the cell carrier for a COW (cell on wheels) to be brought in until the antenna can be raised back to its former height.

When my uncle was in the winter of his life and had made the decision to stop taking his meds and suffer the consequences which would lead to certain death, I initially tried to talk him out of it. I didn’t want my uncle to die; I truly enjoyed every minute I had with him and selfishly wanted more. I hadn’t finished writing the book about his life. I didn’t want to let go. But then I thought, “others before self.” My uncle had lived a rich and wonderful life, and now he had made the decision to die. Five days later and with the support of home hospice care, he passed away. I was holding his hand as he took his last breath. He died with dignity and honor, at home, with his loving wife of 64 years nearby. “Others before self” had never been so hard, but never felt as good.

When my sister was dying and needed a kidney transplant, all us siblings were tested. I was a close match. I was warned about potential future health consequences if I donated a kidney (and certainly I have suffered those consequences). But “others before self” … my sister is fine now. (Though I suggest to the doctor during our annual checkup that he knock her out and we switch kidneys, because she got the “better” one, and now I can hardly eat anything anymore without either getting sick or gaining weight or both).

I’m no saint. I have many faults, failures, and foibles. But thinking about how things affect other people is more important to me than how things affect me. There are so darn many conceited, ego-driven people in the world, I often wonder how we manage to survive. Fortunately, I know that I am not the only one who takes time to think of others before self. Certainly my siblings do, and those who I call my close friends do, as well. And my partner deserves a medal for how he thinks of “others before self” as he demonstrates his care and concern for his mother, and for me.

Life is short: wear your boots, and give a little thought to someone else today, and remember to smile — that’s the easiest and least costly way to think of others before self. A smile brings sunshine and makes everyone around you feel better.

Last night, a bunch of us with flags flying rode our motorcycles through our county in memory of the events and the people affected by what happened on September 11, 2001. By the way, as we were queuing up to ride, a sunbeam broke through the otherwise heavy overcast and shone on me. I truly believe that my Mom was smiling on me this evening. Man, I still miss her since her death on September 11, 1998, but am glad to know that she is still thinking about me and bringing me sunshine on a cloudy day.

Now, to the point of this post: September 11, 2001, is a date, not a number. It just drives me nuts to see it referred to as “9/11”. That term was invented by the media several weeks after the attacks, and has stuck because the media and people in general look for the lazy way out (short-hand) to refer to memorable events.

President Franklin Roosevelt said, “December 7, 1941, is a date which will live in infamy” when he spoke to the nation after the bombing of Pearl Harbor by the Japanese. Every year, we remember “Pearl Harbor Day” — NOT “twelve-seven”. Those of us old enough to remember talk about where we were when President Kennedy was assassinated on November 22, 1963. We don’t call it “11/22”. Okies refer to the 1995 “Murrah Building Bombing,” and the rest of us call it the “Oklahoma City Bombing,” not “4/19”. Get it?

So that’s my blog post for today — to ask that if you refer to the attacks on the U.S. that happened seven years ago, to call them that — the attacks that happened on September 11, 2001. Please don’t call it “9/11”. And remember, three locations were involved, not only New York’s World Trade Center. It also drives be absolutely bonkers when people only talk about NYC and forget that a plane was crashed into the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, and brave souls aboard United Flight 93 commandeered the plane and lost their lives when the plane crashed in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, on its way to who-knows-where, on that same fateful date.

September 11 has a very different meaning to me than it has for many others. That was the date in 1998 when my mother died. I will not be blogging on the 11th of September in memory of her, and for this post to last a little while longer.

September 11, 1998, was a Friday. I was at work. My Mom had just learned to use e-mail, and she sent me a very funny joke. I responded with a wacko-pun. She replied with a smiley. Such was a common interaction with a wonderful woman who at the age of 80 wasn’t afraid of learning new things.

The house in which my partner and I now live was completing final construction. I had gone to his apartment in Virginia after work to have dinner, spend the night, and then get more stuff together for our big move into our house later in the month.

As usual, I called my Mom. It was my routine to call my Mom every day. Just check in, say “hi”, ask if she needed anything, tell her about the day’s news, get her opinion on things, etc. When I phoned, there was no answer. Since she had stopped driving, it was not likely that she had gone out. I thought perhaps she was in the bathroom and couldn’t reach the phone. I called again a half-hour later and still there was no answer.

I became alarmed. I called my sister who lived closer and got no answer there. I kept trying to call my Mom, and the phone just rang and rang. My partner said, “let’s go over there.” I’ll never forget how agonizing the slow crawl through rush-hour bumper-to-bumper traffic was going from Virginia to my Mom’s home in Maryland (which was in a retirement community around the corner from where we live now.)

When we got to my Mom’s, my sister was there and the look on her face told me what I didn’t want to know. Our Mom had died of a cardiac arrest, peacefully at home, in her usual chair in the den. She had the plans for our house on her lap.

It was so neat the weekend before when my partner and my mother were talking about decorating our house and how the furnishings would be organized (and I was rolling my eyes, muttering, “I never got those gay genes”). Their interaction and conversation clearly indicated to me that they had bonded. I was so happy about that. It took my Mom a number of years to accept that she had a gay son and he was in a permanent relationship with another man.

Suddenly things were very different. How can one describe how one feels when you discover your own mother whom you loved very much, dead?

I don’t remember very much from that night. I do remember calling my sisters and a couple brothers, then lots of people started coming over. The police came (since my Mom died alone), then the coroner to pronounce death, then Lurch and someone else from the funeral home. My oldest niece (my Mom’s first grandchild) practically went to pieces. I remember walking with her arm-in-arm around the parking lot outside while they were removing my Mom’s body from her home. It was so surreal. So strange. And yet so “final.”

I cried, I wailed, and was heartbroken. My partner was so very good to me, and so very supportive. He supported me even though his own heart was broken. He really loved my Mom. Bless him for he quietly dealt with being shunned in the first four years of our relationship.

Then we found “the notes.” My Mom, the ultimate planner for everything, had left notes. Who should receive what… and how she wanted her funeral to be managed, why In the Garden [listen to it by clicking on this link] was the only song she wanted sung at her funeral by our vocalist sister, and why I should stop crying (calling me out by name) and give her eulogy.

She asked in one of her notes that my partner be a pall bearer, which was a big deal. He was the only “in-law” to serve in such a position, the rest of the pall bearers being grandchildren. Her acceptance of my partner by this recognition spoke volumes.

I gave the eulogy at her funeral on September 14. I was never so nervous, but never so proud to do one more thing for Mom.

So while the world will recognize September 11 for other reasons for what happened in 2001, I will remember it for something much more personal to me, and to my family. Ten years ago I lost my mentor and champion. I live my life today through the lessons that she taught me from Day One, and for all of her gifts, I am enrichened beyond belief.

Life is short: show those you love that you love them, each and every day.

Values drive one’s very essence of being. Values define who someone is and how he lives his life.

As I was musing about what to blog about today, I was thinking about a conversation I had with my partner as we were watching the sun rise on Sunday morning. As different as we are in personality, our core values are the same. That’s really what keeps us together, and continues to serve as the foundation of our relationship.

1. We value each other by respecting that each of us is different, but has much to contribute to the other. We appreciate that our differences make us who we are. We trust each other. Most of all, we are still both deeply in love with each other.

2. We value financial independence and common sense. Simply, we don’t spend what we don’t have. We act responsibly when it comes to money.

3. We value financial security. We each have a “rainy day fund” that can provide for our living expenses for at least 12 months should something happen to our respective sources of income. We also have been pretty good at saving for retirement since long before we met and have a diversified retirement investment plan.

4. We value family. My partner cares for his mother who is a rather difficult woman to love. I provide regular care and supervision for an elderly aunt. I’ve blogged a lot about my family, and certainly our love of family is deep and devoted.

5. We value caring for others. There are a number of people who we have included in our lives in a variety of ways. Often, we just sit and listen. Sometimes we help out with household repairs. Sometimes we provide transportation to medical appointments or the grocery store. I send countless birthday cards, “thinking of you” cards, and make tons of phone calls. Caring for others is a core value that my partner and I developed independently, but share equally.

6. We value integrity. We live honestly, openly, and with trust and confidence. We become very annoyed and sometimes angry with liars and cheats.

7. We value discipline and decisiveness. While I may seem to lead a very disorganized life with a zillion things going on and being rather forgetful, generally speaking, I don’t dither on a decision and if I say I’m going to do something, I do it. My partner is equally reliable.

8. We value patience. Goodness knows, the man in my life must be patient. I can be hard to handle; sorta like the Tazmanian Devil in the Looney Tunes cartoons. My partner also has his dark and moody periods, driven by chronic pain. We both have learned how to be patient with each other.

9. We value intelligence. We both do not suffer fools well.

10. We value others who share the same values. We gravitate toward others who share the same values of respect, integrity, and trust. That is among the reasons why I am so close to “AZ”, Clay, UTBR, and David [Bamaboy] (names of guys on “Boots on Line”) whose core values are beyond question. (If I haven’t mentioned you, it may be because I just don’t know you as well).

Am I a Boy Scout? Is my partner a saint? Nope… to either question. We’re both loaded with faults and frailties. But this statement of values expresses who we are, what we are, and what drives us to be “us”.

Have you thought of what you value? I tell ‘ya, this was an interesting writing exercise for me.

Some people have asked me what it’s like to have such a large family. With seven sisters and seven brothers, there are a lot of us … not to mention their children and now their children’s children. I love being an uncle and great uncle, but enjoy even more being a brother.

Dad was a diplomat, working in Europe many months every year. He would come home in mid-December. It took me a long time to figure out why 12 of us kids (including me) have birthdays from mid-August to mid-September. We call ourselves “Christmas Presents.” LOL!

I have a twin brother, and there are two other sets of twins in the family, one set of girls and one set with a girl and a boy. We also have two sets of triplets in the family, as well. But Mom and Dad were very careful to ensure that we each had our own birthday, our own special day to celebrate. If some of us happened to have a birthday on the same day, we would have our party on a different day, so we could have our own day.

To this very day, we still have our separate birthday parties. Since mid-August, I have been going to a birthday party or two every weekend. Not all of my sibs live near me, and for those whose birthdays happen about this time of year who do not live nearby, we celebrate on-line. I have a separate website dedicated to our family where we post funny messages, pictures, and memories for everyone to share.

I am very lucky to have a large family with whom we share so much. There is quite a bit of difference in our ages. My twin is four minutes younger than I am, and my oldest brother is 18 years senior. But that doesn’t interfere with our love and appreciation for each other’s gifts. So yesterday, despite Hanna’s rain, off I went to yet another birthday party, with funny hats, streamers, noisemakers, and the sunshine of our love. Today, off I go to another. What a blessing it is to have such a great family, who loves me unconditionally, respects my relationship with my life partner, and is just fun to be with. Especially when this bad booted biker uncle gets the kiddos all riled up with roughhousing, sugar, and motorcycle rides.

Life is short: tell those you love that you love ’em, and show your love in your actions. A large circle of love envelopes my life, to include my siblings, their spouses and their children & grandchildren, my partner, my eighth brother “AZ”, close friends, great neighbors, and a tolerant and accepting community.