Author: Andy Smallman

There are sad stories and there are near misses. The sad one that comes with this photo is about two years old. It goes like this.

I was early for picking up Ella from her evening soccer practice so took a walk around the park where the practice was taking place. I came upon a poster attached to a pole. It moved me so much I took this picture of it. Then I pondered how sad some child must be, missing her beloved bunny.

This almost happened to me when I was a kid. My bunny fell out of the car at a remote gas station. Just before driving off I noticed him missing and opened the door. There he was. I snatched him up and held him tight, scared over what almost happened.

Does this touch you? Are you a Mr. Rogers fan? If so, take all the time it requires to read this article. It may be the best piece of nonfiction writing ever.

Yesterday I received an email from Derek Sivers, founder of the brilliant online music retailer CD Baby. The company has always had great customer service and a dedication to helping independent musicians reach a wide audience. In 2008 Mr. Sivers sold the company for 22 million dollars and promptly put all 22 million dollars into a charitable trust for music education. He said he didn’t need that much money.

His email to me said, “Long long ago you bought a CD called “Prozak for Lovers”. Do you remember it?”

Indeed I do. In fact, I love it. It includes a lounge version of Elvis Costello’s “Pump it Up,” for Pete’s sake, and another of the Ramones’ “I Wanna Be Sedated.”

Anyway, Sivers short message goes on to say that the CD is going out of print and will likely not be available again, nor ever on iTunes. Rather than chuck the remaining discs, Sivers said CD Baby is selling them at cost for $4.

I wrote him back to see if it was really him writing and sent him a link to the PSCS “Kindness School” video, figuring he’d like it. He wrote me back today, saying yes, indeed, it was he and that every city should have a kindness school.

Impressive.

I’m having one of those “nostalgia nights” (okay, okay, it’s true – I could pretty much make every night into one those “nostalgia nights,” being the sappy guy that I am). But let me just tell you that a year ago today my family was having an incredible time in Italy.

Going further, today’s photo was taken exactly one year ago today while Melinda and I went on a little walk after a little train ride. The girls were sunning themselves on the beach while we went exploring. You can learn all about it from this post from this day last year.

But what was really funny happened the next day on May 3, 2011. That’s when we traded Melinda for Rick Steves. Really.

It’s late and Melinda and I are just back from a PSCS board meeting. As such, I’m keeping tonight’s post brief. And it’s one of those times in which I don’t have a blog post idea in mind, nor a photo.

What to do?

Well, when all else fails I like to write about kindness, specifically, in this case, my current kindness “class.” A group of people are participating by reading chapters from a book, completing acts of kindness inspired by the reading, and posting about their experiences. This is all happening on a public blog so feel free to check it out.

By the way, today’s picture comes from my kindness class illustrator, Fish Astronaut. It’s being used to illustrate this week’s theme.

I’ve mentioned before how I lived in Seward, Alaska in 1982, the year I turned 19, working as a deejay. I was a year out of high school, disillusioned about education, and lucked into the gig, thanks to my good friend, Hank. Hank finagled a deal with a man who owned a string of stations and then persuaded him to give me a job. It was an absolute blast and a year of great personal growth for me.

The radio station, KRXA, was housed in the Liberty Theatre building in Seward, a beautiful old movie house owned and run by a kind couple, Skip & Marie Fletcher. I learned last night that they still are there, in charge of the theatre in Seward, me having come across this blog posting from March with great photos (today’s photo is one of mine from 1982 – the theatre is the green building in the foreground).

One of my duties was to make a new commercial each week to promote the movies playing. They always started out like this, “This week at the Liberty Theatre…”

First, I took this picture in France, using the Photo Booth application on my Mac. I had just received a package from PSCS that included this file folder containing bits of magic. By the way, I highly recommend receiving packages containing bits of magic.

How that connects to Ode Magazine, I’m not sure, but I have no doubt the connection is there. You see, Ode just published my second blog post for them, are apparently printing something I wrote in their May/June issue, and asked me to contribute to their online auction. Regarding the latter, four high bidders will get the chance to hang out with me talking about kindness, maybe even completing some random acts along the way.

Chloe and Alex, her longtime boyfriend, pulled in at about 4:30 this afternoon, her first year of college behind her. She reported much sadness at saying goodbye to all of her college buddies, knowing she won’t be seeing most of them again until she’s back at school in August. Ah, now it’s both ways. Sadness at leaving home, sadness at leaving school.

But now it’s happiness both ways, too. 🙂

Chloe requested we go out for a healthy meal of predominantly raw food in celebration of her return so we went to a restaurant called Thrive not far from our house. She also requested that Ella do the driving, which put Chloe and me in the backseat, the place from which I took this photo.

I took a PSCS student, Maddie, to The Evergreen State College today, the place from which I earned my undergraduate degree in 1988 (Maddie starts there this fall). “Evergreen” was HUGELY influential in my subsequent life, as any good college should be. One of the first things it taught me was to question the cookie cutter style education I had received in high school, something that caused me to delay starting college until I was 22, so turned off to education was I at 18.

So I took Maddie around campus, showing her places that were important to me, each time saying something to the effect of, “This is the place where…”

The place in today’s photo is where I remember, during my first few weeks at Evergreen, asking myself, “Why couldn’t I have been in a school like Evergreen when I was 13?” That question is one of the pillars of PSCS, Puget Sound Community School, the middle & high school Melinda & I founded in 1994.

So said the subject line of the email Melinda & I received last night from Chloe on the eve of the last night of her first year at college (complete with the emoticon). There was no text to the email, just this photo. Indeed, as of today Chloe is no longer a college freshman but a sophomore.

I wrote to her earlier this week, saying something to that effect, to which she responded, “I’m pretty pumped to be a sophomore! Sad to be leaving… :(”

Sad to be leaving her friends and all the great experiences of a first year at college. Complete with the emoticon.

This unflattering self-portrait was taken on our doorstep about 10 minutes ago. I had just arrived home on foot after spending part of the evening with an old friend, Lance, getting a beer at a nearby pub.* It’s pouring rain outside and the pub is about a 10 minute walk so I am reasonably wet.

Anyway, one of the things I intended to do post sabbatical was spend more time connecting with old friends. I’ve found I haven’t done that as much as I planned. Often, after work, I just want to come home and not go out again. But connecting is a good thing; in fact, it’s related to the theme in the current kindness class I’m facilitating. Take a look.

*Incidentally, Melinda was excited to learn from our Downton Abbey viewing that “pub” is short for “public house.” FYI, in France, pub is short for a TV commercial.