About
What’s a Worthydog?
August 2004: I participated in a New Warrior Training Adventure. During a guided visualization, I imagined myself as a yellow Labrador Retriever, like my childhood family pet. Later in a profound individual process, I unloaded more than 17 years of spiritual baggage, regained my sense of self worth, and claimed the animal name of Worthy Dog.
For me, the training was a healing, life-changing rite of passage into manhood, introducing me to healthy friendships with other men and sparking my desire to become a father.
Today, my life’s mission is to create a world of security and connectedness by affirming worth in myself and others. As a man among men, I am enough and I matter.
Following my adventure, my friend Irving wrote this poem for me:
A Day in a Worthy Dog’s Life
It was a cool day in August,
You came up the hill with many questions and fears.
You trusted your brothers…
and kept on.
The following day, you shed so many false gods,
that were serving you not.
You touched the face of God,
and you became a man.
In the morning you were purified with your sweat,
as the Light of God entered your body.
As you were leaving going down the hill,
You realized the world had not changed…
But you had.
You had become the change you hoped
The world to be.
August 20, 2004
Chronology
1971 Born hungry, illiterate, incontinent and unable to express myself well, I arrived on Sept. 28, at 12:37 a.m., in Independence, Missouri.
1972 Blah blah blah
1973 Mi Mi, my maternal grandmother, died
1974 Blah blah blah
1975 Blah blah blah
1976 Blah blah blah
1977 Blah blah blah
1978 Blah blah blah
1979 Blah blah blah
1980 Blah blah blah
1981 Blah blah blah
1982 Nanny, my paternal grandmother, died. I purchased my first vinyl record album, “Business As Usual,” by Men At Work.
1983 YMCA, Colorado, Utah, Nevada, California
1984 I purchased my first cassette, “Synchronicity,” by The Police.
1985 Blah blah blah
1986 Pa Pa, my paternal grandfather, died
1987 Blah blah blah
1988 England. As part of the Congress-Bundestag Youth Exchange program, I studied for 10 months abroad as a foreign exchange student in West Germany
1989 Berlin Wall That fall, I Neil Simon’s “God’s Favorite” The Berlin Wall. Man, I should’ve been an exchange student THIS year! I purchased my first compact disc, Violent Femmes’ self-titled debut.
1990 Graduated from Truman High School. Attended the Blair Summer School for Journalism in Blairstown, New Jersey. The University of Missouri-Columbia
1991 88.1 FM KCOU
1992 By May, I’m Disillusioned with I dropped out of college and joined the U. S. Army. Basic Training at Fort Jackson in Columbia, South Carolina. New Year’s Eve with George Clinton and the P-funk All-Stars.
1993 Advanced Individual Training at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio, Texas. Permanent Party Stationed at Fort Benjamin Harrison, Indiana.
1994 Dental hygienist training at Fort Sam Houston
1995 Primary Leadership Development Course at Fort Knox, Kentucky. Fourth of July in Washington, D.C. Army Community Theater
1996 Honorable Discharge. Back to school at Anderson University Eloped with a marketing major after knowing her for only 3 1/2 weeks
1997 Left, filed for divorce. Enrolled to finish out my final year of undergrad studies at the University of Missouri-Kansas City.
1998 Divorce finalized. I parlayed an internship into my first real post-college job at Children’s Mercy Hospital in Kansas City.
1999 Trolling the Internet I met an elementary ed teacher from Houston. We began a long-distance relationship
2000 I left job, home and family and moved to Houston, Texas, home of Enron, Attended wedding in North Carolina. Joined Memorial Hermann Healthcare System.
2001 I proposed to my girlfriend at a Burt Bacharach concert. Began individual and couples therapy
2002 Blah blah blah
2003 After suffering for nine months with increasing low back pain and sciatica, I elected to undergo a laminectomy in February. My fiancée and I married May 10, in a beautiful and meaningful outdoor ceremony. We honeymooned in Hawaii, three nights at the Kahala Mandarin on Oahu and five nights at the Princeville on Kauai. In November, I joined M. D. Anderson Cancer Center as a senior communications specialist.
2004 Maui. I unloaded more than 17 years of spiritual baggage. I became a man that weekend. and I was ready to be a father. For my birthday, an iPod.
2005 I helped launch the Access wayfinding system at work. Pregnant, Maui, U2 Vertigo concert, Boudreaux
2006 With no preparation, I jogged/walked/faked my way through the Houston half-marathon. I fell in love at first sight with a younger woman who’s not my wife…our daughter, born Feb. 21. Dirty diapers, sleep deprivation
2007 Joined a new I-group, Missy died, laterally tranfered to business trip to Chicago, caught Nick Lowe live at Park West, December vacation to Maui with the family, Robert Earl Keen show at Verizon, an iPod nano
2008 Guiness, our last Rottweiler, died, followed by our goldfish two weeks later.
And the adventure continues….
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