Old Guys Rule

"Old Guys Rule".   You see it on bumper stickers, t-shirts, coffee mugs.  It's a simple statement really.  Mostly it's about middle age men and above who want to boost their morale and self-esteem, a self declaration that they're still relevant, have something to offer, and deserve respect. 

At least, that's this "old guy's" perspective as I continue through the second half of the 40s.
So naturally, gotta give a shout-out to some "older gents" who not only deserve respect for what they have accomplished, but what they are STILL accomplishing in their 40s, 50s, 70s, and beyond.


Chris Horner, 42


Source: USA Today

The three grand tours in professional road bicycle racing are Il Giro in Italy, the Tour de France, and La Vuelta in Spain.  All races are three weeks long, and have the riders covering more than 2,000 kilometers, with mixed terrain, including several mountain stages that are particularly grueling. 

Maybe one of the most exciting grand tour bike races in recent memory was the 2013 edition.  This race became the crowning professional achievement for Horner, who at 41 became the oldest winner of a grand tour, and he did it in epic fashion.   It was on the mountain stages that Horner won the race, proving he was the strongest rider in the peloton.

So great was the effort, so compelling was the result, that cycling website Velo News named Horner the Rider of the Year for 2013.  BRAVO!

Jens Voigt, 42

Source: Veloimages/steephill.tv

Jens Voigt has been racing his bike a long time.  What started out as a means for his parents to help him expend some of his enormous reservoir of energy as a youth, right up today, he likes nothing more than to peddle his two-wheel stead to the front and ride faster than everyone else.

This season Voigt demonstrated once again that his basic philosophy encapsulated by the simple phrase he tells himself when racing, "Shut up, legs!" is still effective.

He took the 66th win of his career in May 2013 at the Tour of California.  He was 41 at the time.

Asked if his innate racing sense is something he can mentor a younger rider to do, Voigt replied, “I have a big engine; I can handle a big work load. I’m willing to work hard. I think this instinct is just part of who I am. It’s hard to teach because the decision-making is done in just a split second. It’s like a voice talking in your head, saying, ‘Go now! Go now! Go now!’ And then listening to the voice. I try to teach the boys to be brave, be courageous. On Sunday night if you have some energy left, it’s too late. There is no stage on Monday. Get it all out now. Don’t be afraid. Don’t be intimidated.”

Last year after the California time- trial which had Voigt on the podium in second place, he commented that he enjoyed every moment because he didn’t know how many more opportunities he would have to be there before his career was over. But last August he produced a stage win in Colorado and won a race in Germany two weeks ago, along with today’s win, making podiums look like a regular thing for 41-year old Voigt. 

“I like to call this the ‘Indian Summer’ of my career, not the twilight,” he laughed. “Think how beautiful it is in Indian Summer. That’s where I am, in the Indian Summer of my career. Yes, I hate to admit it, I am getting older, and my career will come to an end one day. For the second year in a row I am the oldest licensed holder in the world. The oldest bike rider! But age is just a number, apparently. 

"I think that you can’t only talk the talk, you have to walk the walk. If you can do that, there is no reason to stop or slow down or give it up.” Asked about earning himself another year’s contract with the win, he answered an emphatic, “I hope so! If someone asks me if I am ready to sign again for another year, I say ‘Hell yeah!’ ”

Great attitude, great life approach, great inspiration for us all.  Thanks, Jens!

Gary Stevens, 50

Source:  New York Times

When I heard the news about Steven's Preakness win earlier this year, I knew nothing about him.  I don't really follow horse racing, though I admire the work and team effort that somehow brings world-class trainers, riders, and horses together to push their combined limits to the maximum.  

Reading on Wikipedia about Stevens, I came to understand his career accomplishments, and most impressive to me, his win at 50 years of age of the prestigious Preakness Stakes, the second leg of the three races combination that makes up the Triple Crown in horse racing.

In 1993, Gary Stevens became the youngest jockey to surpass $100 million in earnings.
He won the Santa Anita Derby a record nine times, and he's won eight Breeders' Cup races, making him the fourth-leading money winner in Breeders' Cup history so far. At the time of his 2005 retirement, his mounts had collected 4,888 winners in the USA and over 5,000 wins when including overseas victories. 

Coming back in 2013, he won the Preakness Stakes on the horse, Oxbow,  and added additional wins to his lifetime total.

Stevens had been in the winner's circle three times each during his career at the Kentucky Derby, Preakness Stakes and Belmont Stakes. 

A great inspiration throughout his career, right up today, showing his peers how it's done.


Wayne Lukas, 77

Source: www.cleavland.com

Born and raised on a small farm, D. Wayne Lukas grew up with an interest in horses. He began training quarter horses in California in 1968 and after ten years of considerable achievement that saw him train 24 world champions, he switched to training thoroughbred race horses. 

The first trainer to earn more than $100 million in purse money, he has been the year's top money winner 14 times. Lukas got his big break in 1980 when he won the Preakness Stakes on Codex.

His horses have won the Kentucky Derby four times, the Preakness Stakes on six occasions, and have claimed victory four times in the Belmont Stakes, including winning all three of the Classics in 1995 with Thunder Gulch (Kentucky Derby, Belmont Stakes) and Timber Country (Preakness), making him the first trainer to sweep the Triple Crown Classic races with two different horses in a season. In 2013, he surpassed Sunny Jim Fitzsimmons for the most Triple Crown race victories with 14.

With a keen sense of the practical and the business of horses and racing, Lukas will hopefully carry on for many more years.  Everyone around him will benefit.


David Perlman, 94

Source: The Chronicle

San Francisco Chronicle Science Editor David Perlman is 94 and chasing down stories 72 years after he first got into the business. He’s been at his current post for six decades – and counting.

“It’s being able to work and at something you really like,” he enthused. “I mean, I have fun all the time, working, you know, discovering things that make good stories.”

Perlman's simple philosophy should be inspiration to all the "old guys" (and gals!) out there who think they are in their twilight...or worse, have nothing more to contribute.

Find your passion (or find a new one), hone your skills, never stop learning, trying, believing you have something to offer.  

You do.  We all do.  Old and young alike.

Just what does that mean, "half full, all good"?

"Half Full, All GOOD" was a phrase that came to my mind some time ago as perhaps the most succinct description of the attitude I try to maintain, and energy I try to share with those around me.  

The gist of phrase (and the blog, the tweets, the message, the mission) is to find and share positive stories woven through our shared humanity. The Half Full, All GOOD Blog will do just that:   

Encourage others to...

Think Positive.  

Maintain a Positive Perspective.  

Find good things where ever and whenever you can.  

Look on the bright side.  

And bundle all that GOOD up, to share it with those around you.  

Such a path in life will create more GOOD.

That's what I offer, that's what I'm about, that's why I'm here. 

Hope you take a little good away when you leave, and spread it around.  

And come back often to get more.  I got plenty more where that came from!

Cheers, folks -- 

I Believe in Relationship

From my "This I Believe" submission in 2006. Didn't make the cut with NPR, but wanted to offer it as another sliver here.

I believe in relationship. 

With people and places, experiences and emotions, plants and animals; with old shirts, ball-caps, music, writing and cooking. I’ve searched for it in all endeavors, and have only been really satisfied with an experience when I’ve managed to secure a foothold, a rapport with the people and things around me. I’m relatively sure that I can’t be alone in the feelings I have associated with this idea: connecting with the temporal world we live in. As I reach middle age, however, I’m very certain that I’m more sensitive than most when it comes to the practice. For me it means survival, success, and inner peace.

Whether it’s the first time or only time, meeting someone, or visiting with a friend I’ve known all my life, I always am in flux until I’ve felt the sense of that certain comfortable something that tells me I’m connected to the other. For me relationship is the way to get the most out of the present and is a primer for the future.

On the grade school playground, in the many classrooms of my life, the wrestling room, football field, committees, the fraternity, the swimming pools of summers past, teaching swimming, then later teaching English to Soviets. In Santa Clara, in Moscow, in Rivas Nicaragua, Beijing, Florence orMunich or Hong Kong, in South San Francisco, Sunnyvale, or Morgan Hill, all the experiences in all those places have become worthwhile to me only and ultimately through relationship. 

Like most everyone I’ve had my share of successes and failures. I’ve tried to learn what I can from all of them, tried my best to savor the successes; persevere and even gain something through the failures. I am certain that it’s been my relationship with both the good and the bad that has solidified my attitude toward both.

I recently went through a divorce. I only reached a sense of peace and acceptance of the loss through the support of the many good people that let me share the experience with them, relate with them, and thereby process my complicated thoughts and feelings. It was also only by reaching a new, truer relationship with my ex-wife that I was able to find closure in the marriage ending, and begin a promising, connected relationship with someone new. 

When I consider this attitude juxtaposed to my faith, it all makes even more sense to me: connecting with others, befriending others, helping others. God in all things and in all people. My relationship with the world around me strengthens my sense of proper path, somehow brings me a bit closer to the Divine.

I believe in relationship. It is the surest indicator of my place in time and space on this Earth, speeding along with everyone else toward the most we can get from life.

Onward!

That's the one-word mantra I quietly say to myself, the gesture I offer, when I face adversity.  

At work or at home, on a run or in the yard, dealing with our kids or our parents, there are inevitable bumps that pop up in front of us from time to time as we live our day to day lives.

So often we let the situation, the problem, the obstacle, the conflict spin us out of control, or to stalled inaction, to frustration.   And while we may not be able to control our initial emotional reaction, we can certainly control how we process, how we actively respond.

That's when the choice must be made.  Blow up, or chill out?   After decades of effort I know the best path for me is to pause, chill out, access, re-set my positive attitude and move forward.  

To try again, to take positive action to resolve, to reconcile, to improve the situation.  Every time, that's the right path, at least for me.

My inspiration, my mission! is to instill and spread and foster and strengthen this attitude in every single person around me, given the chance.      That's why I post, that's why I tweet, that's why I write these words on the page.  

This is another, better beginning to that end. 

So I say, here comes the power, here comes the positive, join me, and soak up the GOOD.

Onward!