If my math is correct more than 50% of you have no idea who Buck Wheat is, or why I refer to my girlfriend Gaetana as my fiancéeic.
Which is complicated.
But the reason you’re in the dark is simple: Since I began covering the sudden shutdown at Kelly-Moore readership is up more than 300% and since that time, I've had scant space to share word of my daughter and life partner!
THE Hardest part
I await THE news that Charles Gassenheimer’s dream of keeping Kelly-Moore out of court has come to an end, which I expect to report to you in the coming weeks based on draft documents I have recently been shown.
More are coming, enough to bear witness to the absurdity of Gassenheimer’s statement!
While waiting I recorded a new podcast episode which many of you saw earlier this week. Not late, but I feel like it took longer to create the episode than I originally had promised.
Which was not from a lack of desire.
In the weeks after the Kelly-Moore shutdown I found myself working full-time just to keep up with my inbound contacts, which was not the only delay.
Others were caused by the investigation itself and the time that it takes to turn rumors into facts. A waiting period I’m unaccustomed to as my podcasts to date were limited to interviewing guests or presenting news using facts from public sources.
And some time to consider THE title.
If you want to see how long my beard has grown you can watch the episode on YouTube and on my own site. If you'd rather just envision that, you can listen here: SoundCloud, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, Spotify and my own site.
Boyz II Men
My college fraternity was in touch recently asking if I'd be willing to serve as chapter advisor for a new group forming at the University of Connecticut.
THE appointment marked the second such opportunity I’ve had to serve my brothers in this way, the first being more than 20-years ago as the chapter advisor at Columbia University.
THE commute to Columbia was a New York minute, with just 10 stops on the one train between my store in the Bronx to Columbia's campus in Manhattan's Morningside Heights.
THE trip from Stamford to Storrs not nearly as convenient
But the energy of these young men is more than enough to fuel the long drive. This weekend that drive includes an extra leg as I join the group for their initiation into brotherhood planned for Saturday in the fraternity's chapter at Boston University.
As initiation approaches–I find myself as excited for the young men as they are for themselves.
Standing Room Only
Already drained from months of dangerous hazing which was common while pledging any fraternity in 1981, two members of my pledge class abandoned the effort just as Hell Weekend, the pledge period's final task, began.
Leaving the remaining pledges sitting waist deep in ice, and chest high in shame.
I wanting to join the pair as they climbed from the ice as they simultaneously ended their bids for brotherhood and reclaimed their dignity, though I found no strength to do so.
That failure igniting a regret which burned in me after the ice had melted.
Lesson One
As an initiated brother I organizing an anti-hazing campaign, those efforts teaching early lessons about how boards and organizations work, and how to lead them.
As chapter advisor the national fraternity charges me with turning these boys into men and the men into leaders, which seems a bit optimistic for a two-semester commitment.
Whatever my effect, I had better get to work. With such an aggressive timetable I'd better get to work.
Lesson number one: How to spot a liar.
