We all have light bulb moments at times in our lives. Those moments—big or small—when you suddenly say, “A ha.” That happened to me recently, and this blog comes to life because of my “A ha” moment while reading on the shore of Lake Petenwell.
I was reading Blue Highways: A Journey Into America, by William Least Heat Moon, and on his journey, he encountered a man by the name of Mr. Watkins. As William Least Heat Moon and Mr. Watkins talked about their lives, their travels, and their work, Mr. Watkins stated, “A man’s never out of work if he’s worth a damn. It’s just sometimes he doesn’t get paid… A man’s work is doing what he is supposed to do…” That was my light bulb moment.
Since leaving the coaching profession, I have aspired to be a writer. I have worked on a couple of different ideas for books; I have written a series of essays on various topics; and I write in a journal almost every day. The books are still in a very early rough draft stage, honestly, more of a development stage than even a rough draft. The essays sit on my hard drive and have never been submitted for publication, and the journal remains private. Like the old philosophical riddle of, “If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?” For me, am I really writing anything if I am not asking a reading audience to read what I wrote?
As a teacher and a coach, my occupation was very much at the heart of my identity. Since leaving the coaching profession, I still exchange my labor for wages in a variety of ways. I will continue to exchange my labor for wages, but Mr. Watkins reminded me of what I really think of as my work at this point in life. My work is to read and to write. I don’t need to get paid for that work to still make it my work. Currently I am a far better reader than a writer, but like with any skill, I hope that my writing continues to improve with practice.
The greatest opening sentence to any book I ever read was Daniel Boorstin’s opening sentence in The Discoverers. “My hero has always been man, the discoverer.” As a boy, my heroes were ball players. As a young adult, my heroes were great coaches. As an old man, my heroes are writers. Kurt Vonnegut wrote, “We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.” All the hours I spent pretending I was a ball player as a boy never made me a major leaguer. The hours spent coaching (pretending I was great) never really made me a great coach, probably fair to say average at best. However, I have never regretted those hours pretending/working because they made me who I am and created relationships that I will cherish forever. So now I pretend to be a writer, and I think of that as my work, and I hope through trial and error to write some things that are worth reading.
You might be wondering—why a blog and not Substack? One reason is that while there are several writers on Substack that I read on a regular basis, it seems to me that we all get too many emails already. I don’t want to ask you, the reader, to grant me permission to send you more emails. If you find what I am writing worth your time to read, I hope you will come back again to my blog, but I will not be adding more clutter to your inbox.
Another reason for using the blog format is that most of the writers I read on Substack are narrowly focused on the topics they are writing about, whether that be about health and medicine, sports, or politics. They are writing from a level of expertise on a specific subject area, and they stick to their area of expertise. I am not an expert on any subject area, but I am curious and fascinated by a wide range of topics, so blogging seems to fit me better than Substack.
Finally, I am always behind the times when it comes to technology. I did not start buying CDs for music until the rest of the world had already quit using CDs and were streaming music online. My first “smart” phone was a Blackberry, but I didn’t get that until Blackberry was already becoming obsolete because the rest of the world had already transitioned to the iPhone. For me, using a format that started in the 1990s feels more in line with who I am compared to trying to use 21st century technology.
The original name for this blog was going to be “Tuescher’s Take.” The problem with that is it makes my opinion seem far too authoritative. The reason I chose “Perspective from Petenwell” is because I am writing to crystallize my own thinking more than to offer you my opinion. There are things in sports, education, and yes, politics that I want to write about. However, I also want to write about funny stories that happened when Brenda and I travelled. I want to write stories about my time as an Uber/Lyft driver, as well as my adventures as a substitute teacher now after being away from the classroom for two decades. These stories are meant to amuse more than inform or persuade. Time will allow for writing about the serious and the trivial. Whether a topic I am writing about is significant or not, everything I write about is simply me trying to make sense of the world around me while living my life on the shore of Lake Petenwell.
It is my intent to offer a new essay each Friday. If my writing ability improves to where I can get multiple essays out in a week, I will do that. Currently, my writing process is slow and laborious, so for now, I would rather focus on trying to get one good essay out a week. As the saying goes, “quality over quantity.” If this resonated with you, I would love for you to come back next Friday for a new Perspective from Petenwell.