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You Get What You Get
Tuesday night I was taking the trash out when I bumped into my neighbor Jim who asked me how I was doing. Wearing shorting unironically in September I turned to him and said, “I am ready for some fall weather.”
He said, “you know what man, you get what you get” and when back in the house.
I stood there for a second in wonder at his ability to boil down universal truths to the simple syrup of down-home wisdom (which he does often) and thought:
Because here is the thing, is it difficult to enjoy pumpkin spice lattes, infinity scarves and Ugg boots when it is 96 degrees out? Sure. But we get another week of slip n slides, sprinklers, neighbors pools if they are still open, long walks to the park at night, BBQ parties, and you get to keep that tan a bit longer before turning to the tanning booth.
But the real lesson is about energy and your use of it. There is nothing to be gained by shouting at the sun to turn it down or complaining about how hot it is because wisdom is understanding the difference between the things you have control vs. those you do not.
This week has reinforced the idea that you get one trip around and that we should all be a bit more mindful of how we spend those minutes so if you get 7 more days of summer — celebrate it in the same way you will complain when it is snowing next March.
Have a great weekend.
Make a Mark
I am not sure I blinked for nearly an hour because if I did, I knew it would be over. I cried, hugged, and shared stories but I didn’t want to blink.
We laid Brandon Homrich to rest this morning after a long fight with a very aggressive form of lymphoma, friends and family filling a church to celebrate the life of a man who left us far too soon.
Last night while Angie and I were drifting off to sleep she turned to me and asked, “when did Brandon start as your intern?” For the life of me, I could not remember because for as long as Brandon blessed my family’s life — he was just always there and while he was here, he was going to leave a mark.
One of my favorite stories about Brandon (there are many) is when he decided he was going to take over mixing songs for a show on 104.5 WSNX called “The Beatdown.” At the time it was the top rated hour of radio in Grand Rapids, big shoes to fill for a kid who had never tried his hand at being a DJ. But that was the perfect scenario for Brandon, he was going to put in the work and take over that show — and he did. Brandon loved competition but approached it with a humility that was infectious, he was any easy man to love.
I shared earlier in the week on Facebook the video of him hitting me with a steel chair, which was perfectly Brandon. But the thing about Brandon I will miss the most is that he always put others before himself.
In fact, this morning during the service Father Stephen Durkee shared a story about the first time that he visited Brandon and when he went to minister to him Brandon told him he didn’t want to talk about that now, he wanted to know how Father Durkee was and what he liked to do. This week when Brandon was in tremendous pain he was worried about Father Durkee standing for so long and asked for him to sit. Brandon worried about others first and was unshakeable in the face of terrible trials — there is a big lesson here.
All week I have heard stories of Brandon walking the halls of the hospital making sure other people were doing ok, spreading a kind word, or sharing a word of faith — do something bigger than yourself.
When we left this afternoon there was a peace in the air that was not there earlier, it was a profound feeling. The feeling that funerals are not for the dead. Funerals are for us to gather as a community, to share a cry, a story, a laugh. Funerals are for all of us left behind to understand that the true richness in life is that you leave the world better than when you received it. Brandon Homrich is the Webster’s Dictionary definition of this idea and has inspired hundreds of people to be better, love deeper, care wider, and make a mark on the world around you.
Now, go make that mark.
-Eric
I Am Your Biggest Fan
The first time I met Ken Evans (1998) I stopped by his shift at I-96FM (whichbecame RadioX, MAX-FM, and now ESPN 96.1FM but that was a loooong time ago) and at the time I was the assistant program director and you could see on his face he was not quite sure why I was in the studio on a Sunday. Despite my awkward introduction we became fast friends, drinking together, playing hours of wrestling video games, and working together to build up that radio station until we purchased WSNX in August of 1999.
We worked together until 2006 when Ken got a chance to become a program director in Kalamazoo and while distance kept us from working together on things like the MMA podcast I would start that year (Way of the Warrior) we saw each other regularly and swapped employees who were looking to move to GR or from GR to Kalamazoo.
If you are doing the math I have been friends with this man for nearly two decades and in that time I have had the pleasure to watch him grow as a broadcaster, a leader, a father, a friend, and most recently a husband.
In 2012 I was blessed with the ability to bring Ken back to WSNX as the morning show host where he was until January of this year when he was fired.
For 8 months Ken was off the air, Can you imagine being away from what you were born to do for 8 months? However, like a shark, he never stopped moving working with charities in town, continuing to podcast, networked and interviewed. That entire time he spent every moment with meaning, purpose, and a zest for life I had not seen in quite a while and with that I knew something good was going to happen for him — because he was leaning into the discipline of creating and connecting instead of the trap of bitching and complaining.
Today Ken took the air as the new morning show host for 105.3 HOT FM and I could not be more excited. Excited because Ken is someone who deserves to be on the air and is a gift to whatever company takes a chance on him (in this case it is Cumulus Media) and excited because Rachel Grey, his co-host, is someone I have long thought was insanely talented and even tried to hire when WSNX was looking for a co-host a couple of years back.
This is a team I want to root for and a team I want to celebrate. I cannot wait to see where this next adventure takes Ken because outside of his family, I am his biggest fan.