I don’t know what it is about grocery shopping that turns me into a grumpy ho, but I dislike everything about it–the meal planning, the list making, the coupon clipping (HA!–As if)–I’m already stressed out and I haven’t even left my house yet! Now, with most chores I find unappealing, I find that once I stop procrastinating and just do them, they’re really not so bad after all.

Grocery shopping? Not so much…

My disdain for the grocery store is well documented. In my post I do not heart grocery shopping, I took you along as I trudged through the aisles of the local Kroger, where you met the beloved Pornographic Cheese Buttler. You then shared in my outrage at the removal of said PCB in Say it ain’t so, Kro! Say it ain’t so!

Is it any big surprise that the same local grocery store would be the object of my latest incessant rant?

Back in March of this year, Billy Coffey wrote a post called Grocery store goodness where he describes the latest phenomenon encouraging excellent customer service: the “Ring bell if you received excellent customer service” bell. 

In a nutshell, here’s the concept at my store: 

• There’s a bell with a sign at each register.
• If your cashier gives you excellent customer service, you ring the bell. 
• Upon hearing the bell, the entire staff of store stops what they’re doing and applauds for the cashier a-la Pavlov’s dog. 

In his typical style, Billy ends the story with an important life lesson on the importance of doing good not for the sake of recognition, but simply to give of yourself without expecting anything in return. And while I could also go this route, I figured he already covered it, so I’m just gonna gripe. You’re welcome.

Don’t get me wrong–I’m all about appreciating good customer service. Especially since it seems so rare these days. I’m not one of those people who are rude to store employees because I’m having a bad day. I worked retail back in the stone ages when the customer really was always right. Believe me, I’ve smiled and bit a hole through my tongue more times than I care to remember rather than telling some jerk with a superiority complex who talks down to a sales associate what I really thought of them. I get it. I go out of my way to be nice to people who often have jobs I suspect they would rather not have.

But this bell crap? Not a fan. Now, if they had an option for bad customer service I might be more inclined to participate in the celebration of the good service. 

For example:

Cashier carries on conversation with bagger about how many hours the manager screwed him out of this week without acknowledging the customer whose groceries he is ringing up…

Ding!

Employees park grocery carts in the covered walkway of the shopping center instead of in the designated shopping cart area inside the store, forcing customers to push their grocery laden carts in front of the store where all the thru traffic is. For some reason, this only happens when it is raining.

Ding!

Customer seeks assistance checking out groceries from one of the five cashiers standing around the customer service desk and is told, “The self-service lines are open.”

DING!

Store management removes the Pornographic Cheese Buttler display from the store and ruins any remote possibility of me having fun at the grocery store…

DING! DING! DING!

Enough with all the positivie reinforcement stuff already if you’re not going to acknowledge and correct all the things that make grocery shopping an unpleasant experience. And bring PCB back. His public awaits…

Kazuko Hosokawa Dishman (aka - my mom)

This past Sunday, in celebration of Independence Day, I posted the Declaration of Independence in its entirity along with my own personal reflection as to importance of what that historical document set out to do. I am proud to call myself an American first and foremost. My ancestors on my father’s side arrived and settled in what is now the Commonwealth of Virginia in the 1600′s. But that’s only half my ancestry.

My father met and married my mother in Japan. She was born Kazuko Hosokawa. The Hosokawas were one of the ruling samurai clans of Japan for many generations, and the family coat of arms (my mother was happy to report after a recent visit) is proudly displayed in the Tokyo National Museum.

So, while I am VERY much American, I am also very proud of my Japanese heritage, and I wanted to share a little of it with you today.

Miyamoto Musashi

In the second month of 1641, Miyamoto Musashi (considered to be the greatest samurai who ever lived) wrote a work called the Hyoho Sanju Go (Thirty-five Instructions on Strategy) for Hosokawa Tadatoshi. This work overlapped and formed the basis for Go Rin No Sho, more famously known as The Book of Five Rings.

The Way of Walking Alone
(or The Way of Self-Reliance)
✦
Do not turn your back on the various Ways of this world.
✦
Do not scheme for physical pleasure.
✦
Do not intend to rely on anything.
✦
Consider yourself lightly; consider the world deeply.
✦
Do not ever think in acquisitive terms.
✦
Do not regret things about your own personal life.
✦
Do not envy another’s good or evil.
✦
Do not lament parting on any road whatsoever.
✦
Do not complain or feel bitterly about yourself or others.
✦
Have no heart for approaching the path of love.
✦
Do not have preferences.
✦
Do not harbor hopes for your own personal home.
✦
Do not have a liking for delicious food for yourself.
✦
Do not carry antiques handed down from generation to generation.
✦
Do not fast so that it affects you physically.
✦
Do not be fond of material things.
✦
Do not begrudge death.
✦
Do not be intent on possessing valuables or a fief in old age.
✦
Respect the gods and Buddhas, but do not depend on them.
✦
Though you give up your life, do not give up your honor.
✦
Never depart from the Way of martial arts.

Second Day of the Fifth Month, Second Year of Shoho (1645)
Miyamoto Musashi

“The basic difference between an ordinary man and a warrior is that a warrior takes everything as a challenge, while an ordinary man takes everything as either a blessing or a curse.” – Don Juan

P.S. – If you haven’t done so already, head on over and wish Billy Coffey a Happy Birthday!

Many of you know Billy Coffey as a small town southern man. Lover of all things country, from his cowboy hat, to his boots to his choice of music. But it hasn’t always been that way.

Billy was once an affectionado of screaming guitars and heavy metal music. In honor of his birthday today, I present Billy Coffey: The early years:

Billy Coffey: The Early Years

Happy Birthday, Billy!

(Sorry/you’re welcome)

image courtesy of photobucket.com

Though my workdays are normally filled with all the commotion and stress that a thousand college students can generate, the days between June and mid-August are mine alone to enjoy. It’s only slightly ironic and more than a little unexpected to me that summer break means even more to me now than it did when I was in school, but it’s true. Never let it be said that a little separation between yourself and others is a bad thing.

Despite the fact I have plenty to keep myself busy, I also have plenty of time to myself. Time that will be spent writing. Which is what I tried to do just a bit ago, and with unfortunate results.

I had just started typing when the buzzing began. First in one ear and then the other and then back again. My right thumb punched downward on the space bar and trampolined my hand upward, waving through the air.

“Stupid fly,” I muttered.

The buzzing returned, and this time the fly actually bounced itself off my head. More waving. More missing. Then the creature circled around and landed right on top of my computer screen, staring at me.

Black, juicy one. Hairy legs and monstrous eyes. And a wingspan that seemed almost unnatural.

Where it had been and how it had gotten into my office escaped me, and I really didn’t care. All that mattered was that I went back to work. I shooed it away and went back to my typing.

SMACK!

Against my head again.

I wheeled my chair around and swiped at it, missing the fly but not the stack of books on the opposite table, all of which tumbled to the floor.

SMACK!

“Dang it, you come back HERE!,” I yelled. “I’m gonna KILL YOU!!”

I roamed around my office for the next five minutes. Found nothing, of course. No buzzing, and no kamikaze attacks. So I sat back down and started writing. Four paragraphs later,

SMACK!

And then after that SMACK!, it stuck. To my head. And I swear, I swear to you, that fly made a beeline toward my ear. I was convinced it was going to burrow in and eat my brain.

I jumped up, slapping at my head and flailing my arms in every direction. The fly somehow managed to retreat back to whatever hell it came from and left me alone. For the moment.

But I knew it would be back. Oh yes, I knew. Which is why I put on my cowboy hat (to prevent any future burrowing) and started to fake type.

Two minutes later, buzzing again. And just at that moment I transformed myself into some strange Jedi/Mr. Miyagi/redneck hybrid, sliced through the air with an open palm—

—and connected.

The fly tumbled backward through the air and crashed against the far wall.

That was five minutes ago.

I’m back at my computer now. Order has been restored. But now I’m suffering through the fits and stops of trying to write, because every sentence I’m trying to type is interrupted by more buzzing.

The fly is still alive, though just barely.

It managed to right itself a bit ago by flopping back onto its legs, but it can’t do much else. Every attempt to take to flight has been both paltry and meaningless.

And now I feel guilty.

There are certain religious adherents who would say I sinned a bit ago, that every creature is worthy of respect and life and that by denying those things to them I deny them to myself. Others would say the sin was letting both haste and anger lead me to do something I now regret.

I suppose a sort of atonement is called for now, though I’m not sure what the proper course of action is. Should I walk over and euthanize it with my boot. Or should I try to nurse it back to health with small tweezers and bits of rancid meat? I’m not sure.

I am sure of this, though. We can try to model our lives to the Good, to walk straight and never wander, to be our very best selves. And sometimes that will work. But who we truly are deep down in our broken souls will always be there, ready in an instant to bare its teeth.

That is, I suppose, why we are all three people in one—there’s the person we want to be, the person we are, and the person who must daily choose which way to lean.

To read more from Billy Coffey, visit him at his blog What I Learned Today and follow him on twitter at @BillyCoffey

Ah, yes gentle reader. It is once again time for another installment of the epic and never-ending series of blog fodder known as the katdishionary. For your convenience, I have combined all previous posts in one place. (See the katdishionary tab) If there are other words you have observed me using that have yet to make it into the katdishionary, please feel free to share them in the comments section of that page. And as always, sorry/you’re welcome.

And now, on with the katdishionary:

Awesome Cat – (pronounced: Ah-sum-kat)

Definition: Awesome Cat defies definition. He is awesome. The end.

Origin: My friend Shaun sent me the picture, which he found on Digg. As soon as I saw it, I knew Awesome Cat must be the unofficial mascot of the brain trust that is the Fellowship of the Traveling Smartypants.

Badgertastic - (pronounced ba-jer-ta-stik)

Definition: Very definitively and enthusiastically having to do with badgers.

Origin: Sleep Talkin’ Man Blog - a blog that chronicles the nocturnal ramblings of a seemingly mild manned English chap by day who tends to get a tad profane whist sleeping: “My badger’s gonna unleash hell on your ass. Badgertastic!” (Note: not suitable for all audiences.)

Example: Did you read SCL’s post about proposed VBS games? My favorite was Badger in a Bag. Badgertastic!

Badger in a Bag – (pronounced: ba-jer-in-a-bag)

Definition: A VBS game concept described as follows: “Let’s hide pieces of caramel in a bag and then put a really angry badger in the same bag. To win, you have to successfully grab a piece of candy from the bag without losing a finger.” ~ Jon Acuff

Origin: Stuff Christians Like Post #275 – Playing Red Rover at VBS

Example: To heck with our liability insurance! Let’s bring badger in a bag back to VBS this year!

Faction – (pronounced (fak-shun)

Definition: A memoir written by a relatively unknown and unpublished author with no ties to celebrities (in or out of rehab) which is rewritten as a novel in order to draw a larger audience.

Origin: Very savvy and smart publishers. (And no, I’m not being sarcastic. It’s brilliant marketing.)

Example: Snow Day by Billy Coffey. Available October 11, 2010 at bookstores everywhere. Buy one. Heck, buy 100. They make great stocking stuffers!

HRM – (pronounced: H-R-M)

Definition: Acronym for Helen of Random Musings. HRM is used to differentiate Helen when she interviews herself on her blog.

Origin: “I first thought of interviewing myself when Former Governor Blagojevich was causing a media circus by going on any show that would have him claiming that he shouldn’t be impeached because he hasn’t been convicted of a crime. (And that he is innocent, and Rahm Emmanuel should be subpoenaed to testify on his behalf at his impeachment hearing, blaj blaj blaj (sic)….) His antics were driving me crazy, and it occurred to me that by using a split personality as a literary device, I’d be able to demonstrate to people reading just how crazy. My friends liked the interviews and suggested I do them more often, so I have.” – Helen (aka HRM)

Examples:

Blagojevich Part I

Blagojevich Part II

How I Didn’t Become a Nun

Dancing With the Kumquats (My Supermarket Salsa Post)

About My Fortieth Birthday

My New Year’s Resolutions

Midyear New Year’s Resolution Update

Skunkalicious – (pronounced: skun-ka-li-shous)

Definition: The state of not wanting to leave the house due to an excess period between root touch ups which gives me the appearance of wearing an odoriferous rodent on my head.

Origin: Genetics. Asian DNA which causes premature graying. I started going gray in my late 20′s. Sadly, the math gene was not passed on to me.

Example: Sorry. I can’t meet you for lunch today. I’m feeling a bit skunkalicious.

This concludes this edition of the katdishionary. Always a pleasure to educate the internets.

“You need to build your author platform.”

If you’re a writer seeking agent representation and/or looking to get your manuscript published, those words rank right up there with:

“It’s not you, it’s me”

and

“We need to talk.”

But it may not be as difficult as you might think. I’m certainly no expert, but I’ve learned a thing or two about how to effectively market an up and coming author on the internets over the past year, and I’m sharing a few of my secrets over at Author Culture today. Hope to see you there.

Billy Coffey’s debut novel Snow Day will be released in October of this year. Stay tuned for more details…

image courtesy of photobucket.com

I never knew their names, never even saw their faces, and so for a week they were referred to as The People Next Door.

That sort of thing tends to happen a lot when you’re on vacation. You share space with people who are on different schedules and live different lives. The one thing that ties us all together is the fact that we’re all sharing a building that overlooks an ocean.

There is an implied non-intervention pact between the temporary residents of the hotel. We nod and say good morning on the elevators and in the hallways, but that’s where our societal responsibilities end. Aside from that, we are ensconced in our own familial lives.

The only loophole as far as The People Next Door and me was the late nights, when we found ourselves on the balconies outside our respective rooms. I was on mine to get some writing done while the family slept inside. They were on theirs to watch the people on the boardwalk below and the dark blue water. All that separated us was a five-inch wooden partition that offered much privacy of sight but little privacy of sound.

So I typed and listened, and they stared and spoke.

Husband and wife. Older, by the sound of them. Empty nesters, perhaps. Enjoying life or trying to.

“It’s pretty, isn’t it?” the woman said on the first night.

“Very,” said the man.

“I think I could sit here and listen those waves all night.”

“Hmm.”

I divided my mind between the sentence I was writing and the analysis of the man’s answer— “Hmm.” Not necessarily agreement. That would have required a “-mm” at the end: “Hmm-mm.” But there was none. I supposed that last little part could have been drowned out by the series of waves that crashed just below us, but I doubted it. It was just “Hmm,” and nothing else. Not an agreement. A question.

The next night brought more and livelier conversation. Two towels had been draped over their railing, peeking at me as they flapped in the warm breeze.

“Did you enjoy your day?” the woman asked.

“I did,” the man answered. There was more conviction in his voice than the night before. A good thing. “The book I’m reading is getting good.”

“The book?” she said. “You can read a book at home. What about the weather or the beach? The dinner?”

“Oh they were fine,” he said. “Really just…fine.” And then, perhaps to steer the conversation another way—

“Did you enjoy your day?”

“Yes,” she said. “Those teenagers don’t have much in the way of modesty, do they?”

“No,” he said, “they surely don’t.”

“It was crowded today.”

“Yes.”

“And sandy.”

“Well,” he said, “it is the beach, dear.”

“Yes.”

“So did you enjoy yourself?”

“Yes.”

But I wondered.

I’ll be honest—the next night I went out onto the balcony more to listen than to write. I wasn’t disappointed. They weren’t simply speaking more, they were saying more.

“Three days left,” the man said. “Will you be sad to go?”

The woman left that question unanswered by saying, “I’ve had a nice time so far.”

“Do you think we made the right decision?”

Silence, and in that silence was her answer—not a no, but not a yes either. The in-between answer of a divided heart.

“Do you remember the night you proposed to me?” she asked him. “You gave me that ring and I cried like a baby.”

“I seem to remember I was doing my own share of crying,” he said.

“I don’t think we should have sold it.”

More silence. Then the man said, “We don’t need a ring to let people know we love each other. And you’ve always wanted to see the ocean. It’s a long drive from Missouri. Gold’s worth a lot nowadays.”

“Three days left,” she said.

There was no towels draped over the railing the next night. No teasing. No conversation. Just the silence. So much so that after a while I did the unthinkable and craned my head around the wooden partition. Darkness.

They had left a day early.

I supposed the man was right. They didn’t need a ring. Taking his bride to a place she’d always wanted to see was a wonderful gift. A loving gift.

But I wondered. Making new memories that comfort us is a good thing, I thought. But not by sacrificing old memories that sustain us.

To read more from Billy Coffey, visit him at his blog What I Learned Today and follow him on twitter at @BillyCoffey

From Merriam Webster:

Passion:
(4b) intense, driving or overmastering feeling or conviction
(5b) a strong liking or desire for or devotion to some activity, object or concept

Compassion:
sympathetic consciousness of others’ distress with a desire to alleviate it

Some of you probably know the story of how I happened to stumble across a blog called What I Learned Today a little over a year ago. You may even know how an offer from me of a weekly guest post developed into a working partnership between Billy Coffey and me. What you may not know, or fully understand, is why I offered to help Billy. In a nutshell, it’s because I have compassion for his passion: writing.

If you haven’t already done so, I would recommend reading his post today: Compassion in the Cold. It give a glimpse into just how long he’s been pursuing this almost lifelong passion of his. It is a story of one of the many crossroads in his writing career. Our chance meeting through the blogosphere (if you want to call it that–I don’t believe it was) is another.

Shortly after he started guest posting for me, he mentioned to me via email that he had a manuscript he was trying to get published. He had had several rejection letters from agents and publishers, many of them telling him the same thing: You need to build a platform. What I Learned Today was that platform. Again, many of you may already know this part of the story.

Now here’s the part you may not know. By the time I offered the weekly guest spot on my blog, Billy Coffey was once again ready to give up his dreams of ever being published. Billy is a strong, determined person, but rejection and obscurity after years of trying can wear down even the best of us. Having read his manuscript, there was no way I was going to let that happen if I could help it.

So help I did, and continue to do so. Because it was the right thing to do. Because a world without his stories would be a little bit darker and a little less hopeful.

I’ll be the first to admit that I had no idea what I was doing when I first agreed to help him. It’s been a learning experience for both of us. But I know one thing for certain: that small, still voice telling me to offer my help was not my intuition, it was God’s voice, and I have seen His hand over and over this past year:  Billy signed with well known literary agent Rachelle Gardner, signed a two book deal with FaithWords, and has received generous praise for his debut novel, Snow Day, including the following from his childhood hero:

“Everybody needs a snow day! To slow down and take a breath of what is really important.” (Don Mattingly, 1985 American League MVP)

The latest bit of exciting news came last week. Billy sent me a link to FaithWords Fall/Winter catalog, which just so happens to have the cover art from Snow Day gracing its cover. Here’s the link:FaithWords Fall 2010/Winter 2011 catalog.

If you scroll through the entire catalog, you will find on page nine a description of first time author Billy Coffey’s novel Snow Day nestled between football legend James Brown’s new book and New York Times best selling author Philip Yancey latest offering. I’d say those guys are in very good company!

This is not a post about what I did to help out a struggling writer. Billy Coffey’s work is well deserving of all the attention it has received and will continue to receive. I write this because I want to challenge you. If you know someone who has a dream, and can’t seem to get over the hump by him or herself, offer to help them. If you believe in what they are doing, have compassion for their passion. You may just find, as I did, that helping others is a passion of your own.

“There comes that mysterious meeting in life when someone acknowledges who we are and what we can be, igniting the circuits of our highest potential.” ~ Rusty Berkus

This post is part of the blog carnival on Compassion, hosted by Bridget Chumbley. To read more, please visit her site.

The truth is this—men are just as vain as women, and maybe even more so. We look into mirrors, too. We primp and trim and flex. We do. Even me.

We understand the rules of inevitability. Time will march on and drag us with it. Hair will turn gray and fall out. The six pack will turn into a keg. And for the most part, we’re good with that. The point isn’t to stand in the breach and beat back the ravages of our days. The point is to walk with it gracefully.

Here’s another commonality between men and women—they’re both easily insulted when it comes to looks. I’m not talking about things like, “Dang, you’re ugly.” We don’t mind that. Things like that actually make us laugh.

I’m talking more this: “Dang, you’ve really let yourself go.”

Ouch.

From my own personal research, this is the single most destructive thing you can say to anyone, man or woman, from the age of about thirty-five on. No one wants to hear that they’ve let themselves go. They want to hang on and keep up. They want to master and not be mastered.

And yet as I write this, I’m about to do just that.

I’m letting myself go.

By the time the sun rises over the mountains in my front yard, I’ll be heading over them. For one very short and much-needed week, I’m trading country for ocean.

It’s a good trade.

Family legend states that my ancestors were fishermen and voyagers, brave men who sought refuge from a crowded world by fleeing to lonely seas. And even though time and circumstance has put the mountains in my blood, the ocean still calls to me. It doesn’t tell me to relax in the sand with a good book.

It tells me to let myself go.

It tells me to walk down to the shoreline and leave my stress and worries where the tides can whisk them away. To feel the salt air grip me and wrap me into itself to form a boundary both thin and unbreakable to keep the nasties away.

That’s why I go to the ocean.

Not merely to rest, but to find my better me.

One of these days, I’m going to figure out a way to bring that better me home. I keep trying and I keep getting better at it, but I just can’t seem to make it stick. Sooner or later, the rhythms of the waves begin to fade into the sound of wind through the trees, the salt air turns sweet with honeysuckle, and I realize I’m back home.

And then I think that maybe I’m not. Maybe this place, this small town nestled at the bottom of ancient mountains, is merely where I live.

Maybe my home is indeed among the lonely seas of my ancestors, where there is freedom and wind and sail.

Maybe not.

Because at some point those very ancestors dreamed of a day when they could put away their nets and trade their dreary lives for better ones in a faraway land where freedom was real.

No more Irish winters spent in bitter waters and tossing seas. They wanted the easier seasons and the fertile soil of the Shenandoah Valley.

Here I am dreaming of their reality, while generations ago they were dreaming of mine.

I wonder of us. Not just of them and me, but you and me. We are all wanderers at heart, always longing for more and new, when perhaps if we just let ourselves go, we’d find that less and the same is all we need.

To read more from Billy Coffey, visit him at his blog What I Learned Today and follow him on twitter at @BillyCoffey

Paul Sancya/AP

There have been over 347,000 professional baseball games played since the sport began in the late 1800s. That’s a lot of ball, even for a guy like me.

And in all of those 347,000 games, only twenty have resulted in a pitcher facing twenty-seven batters and recording twenty-seven consecutive outs, giving up no hits, no runs, no walks, and no errors.

A perfect game.

It may well be the single most difficult thing to do in all of sports. And depending on your view of things, it almost happened last Wednesday night.

Chances are that even if you’re not a baseball fan, you’ve heard the story. A young pitcher named Armando Galarraga was pitching for the Detroit Tigers and had retired twenty-six Cleveland Indians batters.

Two outs, bottom of the ninth. The only person standing in the way of Galarraga and history was Jason Donald, the shortstop for the Indians. He hit a ground ball to the right of Tigers first baseman Miguel Cabrera, who tossed the ball to Galarraga, who touched first base one step ahead of the batter.

Game over. In the one hundred and sixteen years of the Detroit Tigers, no one had pitched a perfect game.

And no one still had. Because as it turned out, Jason Donald wasn’t the one standing in the way of history. The first base umpire was.

Jim Joyce has been a major league umpire for over twenty years and a favorite of both fans and players. But just as Galarraga, his teammates, and the fans began to raise their hands in triumph, Joyce did the unexpected.

He called the batter safe.

Chaos ensued. Boos from the crowd. Arguments from the Tigers’ first baseman, from the Tigers’ manager. Even Jason Donald, the batter, was confused.

But Galarraga did nothing. He merely took the ball and walked back to the pitcher’s mound, ready to face the next batter.

Jim Joyce knew his call was right. There wasn’t a doubt in his mind. But then he watched the replay after the game was over, and he knew.

“It was the biggest call of my career,” he said, “and I kicked the $%#! out of it. I just cost that kid a perfect game.”

He asked Galarraga to come to the umpire’s room and apologized to the pitcher.

Don’t worry about it, Galarraga told him. “Nobody’s perfect.”

Indeed.

Reaction was swift. There were pleas for the Commissioner’s office to overturn the call and award Galarraga the perfect game he deserved. Polls were conducted and found that over 85 percent of baseball fans favored giving Galarraga his place in history.

And of course the whole thing turned political. Pundits from Keith Olbermann to Sean Hannity said this was a chance for the Commissioner to make things right. Michigan governor Jennifer Granholm issued a proclamation declaring that Galarraga did indeed pitch a perfect game (whatever that’s worth). Representative Thaddeus McCotter wrote a letter to Commissioner Bud Selig imploring him to reverse the call.

Selig, though, didn’t. The call stood, he said. No perfect game.

I was never much of a fan of Bud Selig. But I was then.

Because he was right. The call should stand.

People from poets to Presidents have espoused the greatness of baseball. Not just because of the beauty of the game, but because it so closely mirrors the trials and triumphs of life. And rule number one of both has always been the same.

It’s not fair.

Bad things happen. Things you don’t deserve. It isn’t safe, it isn’t predictable, and sometimes you can do everything right and still have everything go wrong in the end.

Baseball has taught us much over the years. It’s shown the value in sacrifice, in hard work and practice. It’s taught us the inevitability of failure and the glories of success.

And last Wednesday night, it taught us something more.

It taught us grace.

It showed us the value in admitting one’s mistakes and the healing power of forgiveness.

“I blew it.”

“Don’t worry about it.”

We can all learn a lot from that.

The letter from Michigan Representative McCotter to Commissioner Bud Selig said in part, “Only the truth will uphold and honor the integrity of the game; and the truth is that this game was perfect.”

He was right.

It was perfect.

To read more from Billy Coffey, visit him at his blog What I Learned Today and follow him on twitter at @BillyCoffey