tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-63332071800914861042017-11-13T06:48:08.828-06:00(Formerly "Carrying a Cat by the Tail")Spuds Crawfordnoreply@blogger.comBlogger154125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6333207180091486104.post-34815385825778977802017-03-17T14:16:00.001-05:002017-03-17T14:27:28.148-05:00

I've protected her for 20 years now... I've stood between her and every single monster that scared her in the middle of the night. I slept on the floor at the front door when she drove the car the first time she went out with friends. I didn't sleep. I held her hand when she walked to her first day of school. I hummed and grumbled promises to always look after her and protect her while I

Spuds Crawfordhttps://plus.google.com/111005645706035461692noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6333207180091486104.post-66355414945495194512016-09-25T00:48:00.000-05:002016-09-25T00:48:21.113-05:00

My oldest daughter confided in me that it makes her sad to see her older brothers move so far away for school and work, and that she is scared that we will all lose touch with each other. Mostly because she has noticed the way my brothers and sisters and I have grown so distant. It's a difficult fear to resolve as a father because I have the benefit of the years to help me understand how actions

Spuds Crawfordhttps://plus.google.com/111005645706035461692noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6333207180091486104.post-32057862955265448052015-06-30T20:52:00.002-05:002015-06-30T20:52:41.596-05:00

I had heard the knocking on the bedroom door while I was in the shower, but I felt certain the child who was knocking would be able to wait for me to finish. Then the phone rang. You have to understand, my phone never rings. My friends know that I'd rather text than talk, and I hadn't given out my number to anyone other than friends... and important places! "DAMMIT!" I scrambled for the

Spuds Crawfordhttps://plus.google.com/111005645706035461692noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6333207180091486104.post-73459396043454072752015-04-14T05:00:00.003-05:002015-04-14T05:07:36.610-05:00

Spuds Crawfordhttps://plus.google.com/111005645706035461692noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6333207180091486104.post-68344288911765017462014-06-27T06:41:00.002-05:002014-06-27T06:56:32.065-05:00

I don't want you to get the impression that I'm a chronic blasphemer, but I do dabble from time-to time. I wouldn't say that my transgression is transgressed in an unholy way, but more of an ironic way... almost accidentally. I say almost, because I do realize that a person can't really say that they were just walking along, minding their own business and they happened to trip over a dogma and

Spuds Crawfordhttps://plus.google.com/111005645706035461692noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6333207180091486104.post-18449362606284025012014-06-24T04:12:00.000-05:002014-06-24T08:21:19.478-05:00

      Let me set the scene for you:      Spuds is sitting on the floor with his legs crossed and his arms stretched high above his head with his hands clasped tight together. His eyes are closed and he's taking in slow deep breaths as he obviously enjoys the way his back and lats are being stretched.  (You can feel safe in assuming that he looks CUT and that his back and shoulder muscles are

Spuds Crawfordhttps://plus.google.com/111005645706035461692noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6333207180091486104.post-57075109379898952342014-06-23T15:44:00.000-05:002014-06-23T15:44:24.903-05:00

The Square, the Groovy, the Hip, the Cool… and the Posers. If you don’t know what these labels mean, I'm not talking to you. But if you ARE old enough to know what it means to be Square versus being Groovy, and if you are familiar with the subtle differences between being Groovy versus being Hip, you need to come to grips with the fact that you’re old. Just deal with it. You may think you’re

Spuds Crawfordhttps://plus.google.com/111005645706035461692noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6333207180091486104.post-29593073926927321282014-06-23T09:59:00.001-05:002014-06-23T10:47:59.254-05:00

I. Brief Intro Much to the relief of at least one of you, I’m not publicly blogging again to discuss how I've been hurt, or to expose personal betrayals.  In fact, I hope that the “least” of “one” to whom I am referring is doing well…  I mean that.  I’m blogging again because I’m feeling good… REALLY GOOD!  It’s been a long time since I've felt this good… too long.  I would go so far as to

Spuds Crawfordhttps://plus.google.com/111005645706035461692noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6333207180091486104.post-60798068277878316282014-01-29T14:58:00.000-06:002014-01-29T14:58:15.637-06:00

Everyone has a junk drawer somewhere in their house, or apartment, or office. It's where you throw the stuff you think you may need, but you're not really sure, but you're certain that you'll suddenly need  that thing if you throw it in the garbage. So you shove in your junk drawer. I was cleaning out a junk drawer in my office this afternoon. Before I even opened the drawer to peek at it's

Spuds Crawfordhttps://plus.google.com/111005645706035461692noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6333207180091486104.post-89378279482909596812014-01-28T17:17:00.002-06:002014-01-28T17:17:54.004-06:00

Orson Welles has a great, life-changing quote, "... sometimes you have to step outside of the person you've been, and remember the person you were meant to be, the person you wanted to be, the person you ARE." Have you ever thrown something and then fixated on where you thought the ball should go, rather than follow the ball's trajectory to see where it actually went? It takes practice to be

Spuds Crawfordhttps://plus.google.com/111005645706035461692noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6333207180091486104.post-26601420793351424282014-01-27T05:32:00.000-06:002014-01-27T05:41:08.998-06:00

The more people I meet, the more I realize that wisdom and age aren't usually included in everyone's Happy Meal. Not that wisdom is guaranteed to make you happy, but it helps the rest of us put up with you a bit more. And it's the people who I'd expect to have the greatest amount of wisdom who surprise me the most. Because to look at them you'd think they had some inkling of experience and

Spuds Crawfordhttps://plus.google.com/111005645706035461692noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6333207180091486104.post-80650839485581048752014-01-26T11:28:00.001-06:002014-01-26T11:33:52.305-06:00

This has been a weekend of tremendous change, all of it in the positive direction. Have you ever made a change that you thought would be difficult, but immediately feel a huge burden lifted from your shoulders when you finally make the choice? Why do we take so long to make these changes, even when we know that the thing we need to change is not good for us? Is it out of contrived loyalty that

Spuds Crawfordhttps://plus.google.com/111005645706035461692noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6333207180091486104.post-91524071036906661652013-10-24T08:39:00.000-05:002013-10-24T08:58:23.442-05:00

My neighbor's kids are rather young, five and six years old, and they enjoy running outside to play with Calvin and Ramona whenever they can. Calvin is patient and puts up with them tagging along, but Ramona has fun being their big sister, of sorts.  Like Calvin and Ramona, they are a boy and a girl and for the sake of this post I will call them Joey and Rhonda, Rhonda being the younger of

Spuds Crawfordhttps://plus.google.com/111005645706035461692noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6333207180091486104.post-87396511986624120502013-10-22T03:47:00.000-05:002013-10-22T09:13:56.141-05:00

I'm not a very good baseball player, but as a kid I was a fairly decent batter. I would play baseball and be content to know that, if nothing else, I could make my contribution to the team with my bat. At about the age of ten, our coach began to warn us not to become lazy with our batting skills. He was talking to all of us, but mostly those of us who were complacent players. We had to learn

Spuds Crawfordhttps://plus.google.com/111005645706035461692noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6333207180091486104.post-82642961571682212172013-10-17T14:46:00.003-05:002013-10-17T15:44:39.664-05:00

Geez... I've missed writing on the blog. Is anybody still out there? It's nice to finally have a bit of time where I can write again. I'm in between contracts right now so things aren't quite so insanely busy as they usually and I have a bit more time to write. Besides writing, I also thought I should finally bite the bullet and take the PMP exam by the end of the year, so I've been spending

Spuds Crawfordhttps://plus.google.com/111005645706035461692noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6333207180091486104.post-61099896947053134592013-10-09T12:55:00.001-05:002013-10-09T13:00:59.474-05:00

Mark Twain said, "The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why." Ironically, the more birthdays we celebrate, the more apt we are to become secretive of both of those days, and for the same reason. That's because we feel inadequate and unsure about having taken so long to figure it all out. After all, everyone else seems to have figured it out

Spuds Crawfordhttps://plus.google.com/111005645706035461692noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6333207180091486104.post-30797239078006900652013-10-08T15:42:00.002-05:002013-10-08T17:19:02.337-05:00

I was forced to intervene in an argument between two of my children last night. They were arguing over which one of them was supposed to take the clean dishes out of the dishwasher and which was supposed to put the dirty dishes in the dishwasher. They had even taken the time to count the number of dirty dishes and compare it to the number of clean dishes waiting to be unloaded from the

Spuds Crawfordhttps://plus.google.com/111005645706035461692noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6333207180091486104.post-81899655217909420432013-10-06T09:47:00.001-05:002013-10-06T10:55:57.706-05:00

As a young Spud, I remember being teased by family and some friends of the family because I made the mistake of trying to explain to one of them that I wanted to be an Army Truck when I grew up. Go ahead and be incredulous. I am more than accustomed to the mocking and teasing surrounding this aspiration, but it doesn't diminish the fact that I have become an Army Truck. I have come to terms

Spuds Crawfordhttps://plus.google.com/111005645706035461692noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6333207180091486104.post-43650295264143709662013-10-04T10:37:00.002-05:002013-10-04T10:37:20.853-05:00

  Calvin, with his "Welcome Home" sign for Tanner. You can tell that he has my sense of humor.

Spuds Crawfordhttps://plus.google.com/111005645706035461692noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6333207180091486104.post-47754778580882727602013-10-03T17:18:00.001-05:002013-10-03T17:18:12.607-05:00

Tanner (Elder Crawford) just landed at the Atlanta Airport on his way home. He's back in the USA... It feels like I can breathe again....

Spuds Crawfordhttps://plus.google.com/111005645706035461692noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6333207180091486104.post-81537222020369799642013-09-10T17:53:00.002-05:002013-09-10T20:28:02.194-05:00

A friend of mine sent me a picture of his son. He and his wife have given their son a proud name, a famous name in Military History. But for the sake of this post, I'm going to call their son Thor, the son of the god of Thunder--- and let me tell you why. Even with his birthright, the mythological Thor was born to fight. He had his hammer and his keen sense of purpose and it is difficult to

Spuds Crawfordhttps://plus.google.com/111005645706035461692noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6333207180091486104.post-78518876446429949832013-09-05T10:08:00.000-05:002013-09-05T10:08:50.679-05:00

It's all a bit maddening at times, all of it--- life, I mean. And I'm not talking about life's purpose and I'm not alluding to life in the eternal perspective. I'm mostly talking about being stuck in the same metaphorical swimming pool with all the rest of you. Why, you may ask, am I so down on people this morning? Because I once again feel the need to ask why some of you are such ass-holes

Spuds Crawfordhttps://plus.google.com/111005645706035461692noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6333207180091486104.post-91931223039039317892013-08-06T07:24:00.000-05:002013-08-06T07:24:19.726-05:00

I'm getting old and the well-worn adages from earlier generations are coming home to roost. I've spent my whole life rolling my eyes at such things as, "Early to bed and early to rise", and "At least you have your health", to name just a couple of them. But where there's truth, there's timeless validity and I'm discovering the applicable validation of these wise adages more-and-more every

Spuds Crawfordhttps://plus.google.com/111005645706035461692noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6333207180091486104.post-38671637945720133512013-08-04T20:48:00.001-05:002013-08-04T20:48:24.417-05:00

Ramona is starting Middle School this year and I can already tell it's worrying her. Being a father of both sons and daughters I've learned that Middle School provides a completely different experience for the girls than it does for the boys, and not in a good way. For the girls, as it turns out, the experience is akin to running a gauntlet of fashion critics, character assassins, and

Spuds Crawfordhttps://plus.google.com/111005645706035461692noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6333207180091486104.post-49121625160123040522013-08-01T14:25:00.000-05:002013-08-01T14:25:20.553-05:00

For those who are old enough to remember, today is the 32nd anniversary of MTV. In probably the first and last real effort at being clever, MTV launched their programming on August 1, 1981 with the well forgotten classic "Video Killed the Radio Star" by the Buggles. By "well forgotten" I'm not saying that it wasn't a good song, that fact should be very evident by listening to the song itself.

Spuds Crawfordhttps://plus.google.com/111005645706035461692noreply@blogger.com0