Bob & Ron - What Really Matters

“Wander. Let in the unknown. That’ll make all the difference.” Mr. Nelson Pixabay Shutterstock Mike's Old Man In 1962, Mike Nelson's old man was in his sixties. Mike and I were 16 and best friends. If you’ve seen American Graffiti, you know all about our lives: filled with dreams of fast cars and cute girls. Mr. Nelson was the neighborhood's Obi Wan Kenobi in khakis and a flannel shirt. He arrived home about the same time we got out of school, so we followed him into the living room and flopped on the couch to watch his afternoon ritual. Ebay A Beer and a Smoke Carrying a cold can of Coors from the fridge, Mr. Nelson slid into his favorite chair, levered two holes into the top and tilted the can. He never just drank it. He savored it, the taste, the bubbles, the significance of it, toasting the fact that his workday was over. It was fun to watch him enjoy a beer like that.  Sitting the can on the smoker’s table next to him, h...

YOUR VOYAGE Image by Sabine Van Erp from Pixabay Are you at the beginning of the caregiving voyage? I'm a widower, at the end of mine. I'm not a therapist, but I've spent years living with the same challenges you may be facing today. Thirty years ago, my family and I cared for my mother while she fought colon cancer. Fifteen years ago, my wife and I helped her beloved mother move into an independent living center. She died in 2015, in a memory care center, a year after my darling wife suffered her own cerebral hemorrhage. I cared for Michelle at home until she died in March, 2019. YOU Maybe you're wondering how your family should talk to your mom about moving into a "home." You've searched the internet. You've seen the blizzard of unnerving stories out there. Nothing can scramble a family like this dreaded, but necessary, conversation. Your voyage may not be identical to mine, but I've learned some things that may help you on yours. Y...

Cows The cows on the other side of the fence don’t even look anymore, they’re so used to seeing me walking this road. Above their backs and fifty miles to the east, snow covers the Northern Cascades. The Olympics are dead ahead, I’m walking fast and the oxygen is pumping endorphins into my brain. I’m writing this blog in my mind as I go, so I apologize for the bombast. It’s a beautiful day to be alive. Yaks I’m almost to the Olympic Game Farm, where I usually turn around. I can already see the peacocks preening for the rolling cars, hoping some people will throw them some bread. Seagulls are landing on the car roofs and, wily and fast, they get most of the whole wheat slices that land in the dirt. Over there are some yaks, and fallow deer and, sad to say, a bald eagle on a fence post, looking for a snack.  I turn around and head for home. The irrigation ditch on this side of the road is packed with watercress and Nootka rose, its red ...

Uncertainty Risk isn’t a scientific word, but uncertainty certainly is. Fear, doubt, and anxiety balance on a shaky foundation of uncertainty. When a girl is uncertain and is pushed by friends urging, “Don’t be scared, just do it,” it can lead to consequences that definitely leave a mark. When my daughter Sara was approaching puberty, I thought all the combat ribbons I’d earned traversing those same mine fields would help me get her through her trials, when a person’s physical changes  begin to outrun the brain’s ability to keep up.  In our book, Letters in a Helmet , Bob and I talk about risks we’ve both taken in the last fifty years, and the wildly different consequences associated with them. I guess you can say we both recognize the humility that’s been hammered into both of us over the last fifty years. But in 1987 I didn't understand the challenges girls face. Guys relate more to physical risk. Do I climb this tree? What are the consequences ...

Col. Rocky and Carmela Tierno are interred at the cemetary at West Point Military Academy in New York. I was privileged to escort my parents to the 200th Anniversary of the founding of West Point. In a profound moment during the graduation ceremony, my mother said, "This is where it all started for your father." In 2015, a group supporting Wreaths Across America contacted me about placing a wreath on their gravestone in early December of every year. Since then, my gift to them from our family has been a wreath placed on both sides of their headstone, since they are buried together. Every year I get  a picture of their gravestone with the wreaths. Wreaths Across America is a wonderful way to  honor our fallen veterans. $15.00 for a single wreath is a bargain, and volunteering to place wreaths is even better. The mission is very simple. Many cemetaries are participating and they are far short of their goal of placing a wreath on every veteran's headstone. In a p...

I In an interview with my co-author Ron Sorter about our new book,  Letters In A Helmet, A Story of Fraternity and Brotherhood , Ron and I discuss the importance of support and friendship through hard times, Vietnam, bereavement, and cancer. Published on ProstateCancer.net Ron’s service to his country Ron relishes the challenges of leadership. In 1970, he was a First Lieutenant commanding a rifle company in  Vietnam . After eight months in combat, he was severely wounded, losing a leg and spending over a year in an Army hospital. His life is a  story of service  in the public, private, and community sectors. Ron assisted his brother amputees by leading Prosthetics departments in the Denver and San Diego Veteran Administration hospitals, earning their first-ever Hands and Heart Award. After obtaining a graduate degree in Artificial Intelligence from San Diego State University, he moved to the private sector as the Director of Prosthetics for a San Diego fi...

LEST WE FORGET "...a date which will live in infamy..." President Franklin Delano Roosevelt Bob Tierno, my co-author, is immensely proud of his dad, Rocky. Here’s one reason: A Special Day On January 6 th , 1941, in Pleasantville, New Jersey, Rocky Tierno celebrated his 18th birthday. On that same day, at the Brooklyn Navy Yard a hundred miles north, the Navy held a keel-laying ceremony for the last Iowa-class battleship it would build. She and her three sister ships were the most heavily armed gunships the Navy would ever put to sea. Besides her other armaments, she carried three separate turrets, each holding three massive 16” guns capable of shooting a 2750-pound armor-piercing shell 24 miles. Rocky’s plans were also substantial. He wanted to be an infantry officer but, since an appointment to West Point hadn’t been in the cards for an Italian boy from Jersey with his Irish congressman, Rocky enlisted in the United States Army four days later...

"Every child is an artist..."  Pablo Picasso "Painting is easy when you don't know how, but very difficult when you do."  Edgar Degas How do you compute value? Money? Sentiment? Value is often measured both ways, and it usually increases by the rarity of what one is missing most. In our book, Letters in a Helmet , Bob and I reflect on the value of our fifty-year friendship, in very honest terms. But, are there other ways to determine value? You bet. A few years ago, I didn't know that what I was missing most, and would value most, was a work of art by Charlie. The Painting I went over to the grandkids' house one day and they were both sitting at a table glueing popcorn onto paper. The youngest was checking YouTube for popcorn designs when Dad says, "Hey, Gramps, look what Charlie drew today," and peels away the protective sheet. I looked and...wow. You know? The kid had just graduated kindergarten. I picked it ...