I’m back…for a Moment

Just got back from my golf trip. It rained two of the three days we played, but we still got all of our rounds in. While I was gone, though, some interesting things happened.

We had trouble finding breakfast on Sunday morning. Our tee time was at 8:45 a.m. and we couldn’t find a place to eat in all of Fairfield Glade, TN. No fast-food. No Waffle House. No local diners. We ended up eating at the Shell gas station. It was delightful.

All of the locals were gathered at the Shell station for coffee and conversation. It was a bunch of old men—maybe eight of them in all—sitting around tables at the front of the gas station. Emily and I like to refer to gatherings like this as the “table of all knowledge.” It’s where old men gather to talk about how things were better 20 years ago and how they’d fix things today. Old people gather at Shell stations. My generation gathers at Starbucks. It’s all the same.

One of the old men at the Shell station came up and asked where we were from. He didn’t really care where we were from. He was just looking for an excuse to tell us about his life…his entire life. He was a retired engineer. He graduated from M.I.T. Guess that’s what happens if you get a degree from M.I.T. You end up sitting at the “table of all knowledge” at a Shell station in central Tennessee. I’m glad I went to Bowling Green State University.

After the second day of golf, I was pretty worn out. I slept hard that night. Among other things, I dreamed I was on CNN. I was interviewed by Lou Dobbs. I’m not sure why Lou Dobbs would be interviewing me in my dream. And, more importantly, I’m not sure why anyone would ever watch CNN. Besides, I’ve already turned down an interview with Fox News, so I certainly would never entertain the thought of doing an interview for that other news network.

I had the chance to read the first six chapters of Naked Conversations. Love it so far. My favorite nugget in the first chapters this: “Companies need to offer something so unique, valuable, or compelling that people will want to tell others about it… The single best way to accomplish word-of-mouth publicity is not with a clever web site or tell-a-friend software or cash rewards. The best way to do this is to make something worth talking about.” That same principle works for churches as well. I’ve seen it happen.

I’m home for a day before I take off to D.C. for the Buzz Conference. It’s going to be a fun few days. To the best of my ability, I’ll tell you all about it. Watch for my play-by-play notes coming in the next couples of days.