Five Things You Don't Know About Me

Greg Stielstra tagged me in this game of 5 things people don't know about me.  I know this has been making the rounds of the blogosphere.  However, I haven't thought much about it personally until Greg's email came.  This is one of those things that removes all doubt about who really are cool people. Read Greg's there's some cool stuff there.

OK.  Here goes. I'll get the embarassing stuff out of the way first.

1. I'm not physically coordinated. Twice as an adult I've ended up in the ER with self-inflicted injuries.  Once I cut a gash in my thumb with a cheese grate.  Another time, I was pulling vines off trees in our yard, the vines broke and I slugged myself just above my right eye.  Lots of blood. Wish I had a picture of it. So, I'm good from the neck up and I don't play with power tools. I should have realized this in 7th grade when I ran my hand through the backdoor window trying to get my sisters to unlock the door.

2.  My great-great grandfather Alfred Horatio Belo was the founder of the Dallas Morning News newspaper. The story starts at the beginning of the Civil War in the town of Salem, N.C.(Now Old Salem, a part of the city of Winston-Salem.)  Alfred ran a general mercantile with his father.  When the war broke out, his father gave him a choice, stay and continue to run the store, or volunteer to fight on the side of the Confederates.  He chose to fight, and the store was closed.  He quickly rose to the rank of Colonel and during the war fought a duel over a stolen artillery piece and was twice wounded, once the first day at Gettysburg and later at Cold Harbor.  The Cold Harbor injury was a bullet wound in the upper left arm that shattered the bone. When he was taken into the surgery tent, there was his family doctor, and he made sure that they didn't cut his arm off. When the surrender was made, he and a friend took off for Texas to fight with Kirby Smith in Texas.  However by the time they got there, the war was completely over. He ended up in Houston teaching for a year, and then went to Galveston where he began his newspaper career. The owner of the Galveston Times made him a partner, and they began to spread the influence of the paper westward in Texas. Each night trains would leave Galveston for Houston and Dallas.  On the train was a printing press, and when the train arrived, a freshly published daily paper was ready for readers.  Later, Alfred realizing that growth in the Dallas area was going to happen, he began the Morning News and later moved to Dallas. His house is still downtown and is today used as the Legal Education Center for the Dallas Bar Association.

3.  I spent the summer of 1981 in Pakistan doing refugee work with Afghan families fleeing from the Soviet invasion of their country. It was a fascinating cross-cultural experience. It was where I first saw the flattening of the world that Tom Friedman writes about.  How so? I remember twice sitting in a Pakistani restaurant on the border of the disputed territory of Kashmir eating dinner and watching television on a Russian made TV. What were we watching? In the first instance it was John McEnroe defeating Bjorn Borg in the Wimbledon singles finals. Then it was the marriage of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer.   Here we were half way around the world from our homes interacting with people who basically didn't share our century much less our cultural values, and yet we saw such commonality at the most basic human level.  It affects how I view the Iraq war.

4. I'm a huge fan of the Lewis & Clark Expedition.  It is a great story about exploration, team work and the American character.  I see them as the first 21st century leadership team. You can read some more of what I think about them over at my L&C for the 21st century blog.

5. I am a big fan of Cowboy music and poetry, and find a deep affinity for Western culture and history. Even though I live in the South, I find a deep fondness for all things Western.  I think it is because like Southerners, Westerners find their identity shaped by the land. This is less true in the South today as we become more homogenized with the rest of the country.  But still in the West you can find strong cultures of people who live the Cowboy way. Many people are familiar with this through Baxter Black's commentaries on NPR.  There are others who are worth listening to or reading, not only for the enjoyment, but also because of what they have to say.  Let me recommend a few.

Poets: Waddie Mitchell (That No Quit Attitude)- Waddie was the 2000 Salt Lake City Olympics poet. That No Quit Attitude is the Olympic poem for those games.  Paul Zarzyski (read Wolf Tracks on the Welcome Mat) is a wild man poet. Ian Tyson calls him the Charlie Parker of cowboy poets.  If that makes any sense to you, then you'd probably appreciate his poetry.  Also check out the 2CD disk of poets from the annual Elko (NV) cowboy poetry festival. What is unique about cowboy poets is that they tend to be average people doing regular ranch or agricultural work and have no expectations of fame and richest coming from their creative endeavors.  They capture a picture of the West that travelers and city folk will have a difficult time finding, yet worth knowing and valuing.

Musicians: Sons of the San Joaquin (Retrospective album), Don Edwards (Best of album), Ian Tyson (Live at Longview) and Wiley Gustafson (Ridin' the Hi-Line).

History, Science and Literature:  Read Bernard DeVoto's trilogy - The Course of Empire (beginning with the Moors in 8th century AD Spain up to and through the Lewis & Clark Expedition), Across the Wide Missouri(History of fur trapping in the West) and The Year of Decision: 1846 (Historical events that led to the US's control and acquisition of the remaining Southwest and Western coast), as well as his version of the Lewis & Clark Journals. They are great stories of fascinating people doing extraordinary things.

Science: Read John McPhee's Rising from the Plains - the story of the geography and people of Wyoming and then Creation of the Teton Landscape: A Geological Chronicle of Jackson Hole & The Teton Range,  by J.David Love, John C. Reed, Jr and Kenneth L Pierce. Love is one of the characters in Rising from the Plains. McPhee's Annals of The Former World includes Rising from the Plains along with four others about the geography of America. Two of the books compiled in the volume - Basin and Range and Assembling California -  are about the geography of Utah/Nevada and northern California.

Contemporary Western issues: Daniel Kemmis (This Sovereign Land).

Literature: Wallace Stegner, Ivan Doig, and Larry McMurtry. 
Of course, there are dozens other, but these are some that I find notable.

That's my five. I'm now tagging Bill Kinnon, Linda Zdanowicz, Ellen Weber, Michael Wagner & Andy Sernovitz. Visit their blogs and enjoy their insights.

UPDATE: Michael was tagged in December. Here's his list.

Comments

[Galba Bright]

Hello Ed:

It was interesting to learn more about you. Your 4 Questions Every Leader Must Ask has been prominently on my wall for months and it's guided me considerably in looking at evaluation issues in my work. I'm taking this opportunity to thank you for the inspiration.

[Bill Kinnon]

Ellen, 'twas a feeble attempt @ humour. (Note the correct spelling of that word.)

[Blaine Collins]

Hi Ed,
Interesting history about your Belo ancestry. We love the Belo Mansion on Ross Ave. The Belo corporation has become a media conglomerate, owning Dallas' only daily newspaper and the ABC Network affiliate in town.

[Ellen Weber]

Not me though Bill, I LOVE being Canadian, and say it often. In the past 10 years of being in the US I've come to enjoy and value good parts of this country. What's my one beef?

That we miss opportunities daily to share talent and build together - with the many strengths on both sides. What do you think?

[Deb Goodrich]

So, Ed, the Belo House at Old Salem is named for your ancestor? I live in the West now (Kansas) but grew up just north of the stateline in VA and worked for newspapers in Winston-Salem. My daughter is Moravian. My husband & I write the blog for Wild West magazine and I love your comment about the similarities between South and West, and am actually writing about that.

[Ellen Weber]

Ed, this challenge happens to be what I value most about the blogosphere and the privilege of new opportunities to connect with a circle such as the one you tagged here. Thanks for making me a tag with a challenge to start the day!

[Linda Zdanowicz]

That was more fun than a barrel of monkeys. I can't wait to visit the other 4 sites and see what they wrote. Thanks for tagging me.
Linda

[Bill Kinnon]

Hey! Ian Tyson's not only a Westerner, he's a Canadian. (We Canadians are so insecure we have to point it out anytime one of our American cousins likes one of us - all the while saying nasty things about our cousins behind their backs. We just pretend to be nice.) I'll try to get to the five things ASAP. Thanks, Ed. My response will be much less erudite. I doubt I'll mention that my great grandfather invented the Basketball net, at the YMCA in Montreal - especially as I managed to lose the paperwork in my misspent twenties.