Alan C. Fox's Blog, page 11

Two captains of ocean-going tankers recently retired.  Each had enjoyed a career of more than thirty years.  Each loved the sea and had worked his way up from deck-hand to captain of ships that were more than one thousand feet long – so big they could not fit through the original Panama Canal.

One significant difference between their careers is that the more senior, Brig, always followed orders. Twice during his career he had saved his ship after he sailed into the heart of a storm.

The sligh...

This is a photo of me at age nine or ten pretending to play the French Horn.  Even though it was almost seventy years ago I can tell that I’m not really playing the instrument because I’m smiling, and also because I’m looking directly at the camera.  When you’re really playing the French Horn you can’t smile (because you have to purse your lips) and your eyes would be focused either on the music in front of you or on the conductor, not the camera off to your upper right.

Why is this important...

In 1991 I flew to the big island of Hawaii to witness a total eclipse of the sun.  The hotel required a six night stay, which was pleasant enough, but the highlight, or one could say the highdark, of my visit was the total eclipse of the sun scheduled for the next-to-last day.

The west coast of the big island of Hawaii boasts three hundred and sixty sunny days a year, so I didn’t even consider the possibility of clouds.  The first five days were bright and beautiful, but when I woke up on the...

Suppose you knew that you had one year to live.

I’m not going to ask what you would do with your remaining year.  I’m going to share with you what I wouldn’t do with mine.

I wouldn’t buy a new car.  I love my red Tesla. It accelerates so quickly that I don’t ever push the pedal to the floor because I’m afraid of what might happen.

I wouldn’t start any new relationships.  I’d spend my time deepening the friendships I already have.

I wouldn’t be silent about political issues.  Expressing my str...

“I had rather be right than president,” the well-known United States Senator Henry Clay of Kentucky declared in the U. S. Senate on February 7, 1839.

I don’t know if the voters of that time agreed that Senator Clay was right.  I do know that he was never president.

Being right, of course, is subjective.  I enjoyed the recent movie Wonder Woman, which scored highly on the review web site Rotten Tomatoes.  Is it a wonderful movie?  Many people would say “Yes”, and some would say, “No.”  Who is...

I’m not talking about a Peach Crumble Pie, for which you can easily find an excellent Martha Stewart or Betty Crocker recipe online.  (I like mine warm, with a dollop of vanilla ice cream.)

I am talking about a distressing pattern that any one of us can easily fall into.

The Grumble is complaining.

The Mumble is expressing your complaint indirectly.

The Crumble is the relationship which may be disintegrating.

I’m most aware of The Grumble Mumble Crumble when I hear someone speaking to a famil...

“Sometimes women in families put themselves last,” Angelina Jolie recently told Vanity Fair.  “Until it manifests itself in their own health.”

Jolie makes a very important point. We face decisions every day about whether to put ourselves, or others, first.  That series of decisions, repeated day after day, forms a pattern of behavior that has a long-term impact on our lives, for better or for worse. It is possible that Angelina Jolie’s pattern of putting herself last has contributed to severa...

I have run my own business for more than fifty years. One of my primary goals has been to earn a profit. The idea behind this is simple:  No profit, no business.  To stay in business you have to meet a payroll on time as well as pay your rent, electricity, and telephone bills.

When asked what I want from my business, or from my life, I have often answered with a single word:  More.

If you were to ask the owners, or top managers, of any “for profit” business in the United States how much profi...

Most marriages begin with deep love and high hopes.  Over a period of time, however, love fades, high hopes languish, and the relationship becomes burdened by disappointment that is revealed in overt and covert disapproval.

This decline can be prevented, and my faith was restored on a flight from Dallas when I sat next to Hank, a tall Texan, who spun the following tale which gives me hope for all of us.

“Alan, this morning Angela, my wife, left the lights on in our bathroom.  Again.  Now that...

Years ago I saw a comedy show in Inverness, Scotland. I still remember one of the comedian’s jokes.

“I’m on a seafood diet,” he said.  “I see food, I eat it.”

All too true.

I recently read a study about candy dishes at offices.  When the candy was placed on the edge of someone’s desk they ate more than when it was placed twenty feet away.

In my twenties, when I was newly married, a friend asked me why I didn’t often buy my wife a new dress.

“It’s not the cost of the dress that concerns me.  I...