Category Archives: Food, people

Stories with lunch about ordinary people who have inspiring stories. Everybody has a story…everyone can inspire.

Biography, Faith, Food, Food, people, Inspiration, Inspiration, People, Travel

Burning bushes, burning faith – Part 1

July 28, 2016 marjorie@lunchwithmarjorie.readmstradinger.com 1 Comment

Writing about Jane Logsdon is emotional. It’s difficult to find focus because there is so much to tell.

We were dining at Roma’s Pizza in Roscoe, Ill., turning this take out place into a dine-in one. I ordered baked tortellini; Jane tried the stuffed shells with cheese and spinach.

Our friendship over five years had been mostly emailing, so I hadn’t really learned about her background.

“I’m from a southwest suburb of Chicago,” she began. Her family moved to Dixon, Ill. when Jane was an adult.

“Did you go to college to be a teacher?” I asked, knowing she is a pre-school teacher.

“No, no. Didn’t want anything to do with kids. Now I love it,” she smiles, her blue eyes intense, her smile captivating.

What she studied was French and art.

“I wanted to be a designer, but didn’t get a job doing that right out of college.” It is easy to imagine this vivacious, trim blonde being in the art world. But she went in another direction.

“I became a tour escort for Senior Citizen Bus Tours, and traveled. You have your fall foliage up the East Coast, Florida in February, New Orleans in February and March, th-1 Door County fish boils in season. You narrate, take care of the seniors, make sure their needs are met, and tell jokes. You probably can’t picture yourself standing up for an hour and telling jokes,” she said.

“Actually I can,” I defended. “I’ve been to Disneyland’s Jungle Cruise.”

Roma’s owner served us our baked pastas.

“Parmesan? he asked, maitre’d style in this humble take-out place. He was creating ambiance for us. And the food was great, even using plastic utensils.

Jane continued, “You cover a lot of miles on a bus. Picture me, and the bus driver, the only ones under 30, uh, under 60. They were good people. They appreciated it. To sit and cover miles with them talking about their life stories…senior citizens have a lot of wisdom and experience. They’re just wonderful, they really are.”

“That’s great,” I said.

“I didn’t know when I should quit. What did it was a New Orleans trip. Feburary, coming up by Champaign, Ill. on Route 55, our bus hit three semis. I remember talking to the lady that did die, she lying in the aisle. The bus hit ice, swerved and swung.”

I listened, rapt

“The thing that saved me, the bars in the front seat.”

“Did you see it?” I asked.

“I don’t remember, the impact was so…I mean you slide then, bam, bam, bam, you’re just hanging on. It happened in a second.”

“I’m always surprised buses don’t have seat belts,” I mused. (They do now.)

th-2 “The bus was totaled. What I remember is I always took my shoes off traveling on the bus. It was a long travel day.

“So…I said, I gotta get my shoes out. All of the sudden, these big arms just picked me up and carried me. It was a truck driver. I was in shock. I had walked through the bus, and talked to the lady who was in the aisle, dripping in blood…then I got off because I knew I couldn’t help anybody in the ice storm without my proper shoes. But, this guy just sat me in the cab of his own truck.”

Jane did one more trip, and then married Bean, in June, 1978.

“Bean (his nickname for Larry) and I went right into campus life, Youth for Christ.”

They did that for 18 years until 1995, when their lives dramatically changed.

“The underlying factor is that God is good,” she said, “under all of the journeys He takes us on, which can be a lot of stress and emotional trauma.I was comfortable doing professional ministry. I had my Bible studies, helped with fund-raisers. Bean had been restless for about two years. He knew God was leading him to something else, but God hadn’t made it clear yet.

“Then Bean heard God’s still small voice, booming: Take your family and move to Israel.”

Bean waited two weeks to tell Jane, to see if this thought would re-occur in his mind.

“Marjorie, I directed my own pre-school. I had been a stay-at-home mom for eight years. The pre-school was my baby. I didn’t want to go to Israel, I thought. I didn’t think it would help me to see a rock that Jesus walked on. I even asked Bean, ‘Do they have highways and grocery stores?’ My image of Israel, I’m so non-political. I didn’t watch international news. It was Sunday school picture.”

After two weeks, Bean did tell Jane.

“I was looking up at the bottom of the barrel. My whole world was crashed. I told Bean it would take a burning bush to get me there. That’s where the real testimony comes into power,” she said.

Note: This story originally appeared in Lunch with Marjorie, in The Rock River Times, in the late 1990s.

Biography, Food, Food, people, Inspiration, People, Theatre

Getting ready for Boomer theatre

June 26, 2016 marjorie@lunchwithmarjorie.readmstradinger.com Leave a comment

Getting read for Boomer theatre I met Joan for lunch at Denali’s in Beloit because I knew she was directing a play at the local theatre.

I had many questions, among them why she spells her name with lower case letters. “Let me say, there’s no money in theatre,” she began.

“You cannot make a living at it. so one of the things that I had was my own consulting-training company. I found a font I absolutely loved. I did it as a marketing tool; it drew people’s attention.

“Now,” she says. to untrain them to do it the regular way would be far too challenging, and I like it.”

Her simpler explanation: “It’s little letters for a little lady.”

This petite lady has a passion for theatre that is not petite. Joan is completing her second doctorate. Her thesis: Creating a theory of directing for senior theatre production in a community theatre setting.

“Because..?” I asked.

“Senior theatre is growing by leaps and bound,” she explained.

“In year 2000, there were 2000 community theatres. Now there are closer to three times that.

“Boomers,” she continued, “will be different than today’s seniors. It’s not OK anymore to just do plays, charge people for it, and watch seniors make fools of themselves. Horrible,” she winced.

“A serious thing is very funny because it’s so bad, but don’t charge people to come to see that. My position is that when we increase the standards, the professionals will come.”

She believes Baby Boomers, as they age are different than seniors of past years.

“They are going to be actors, designers, or audience members. They have far more education than today’s (typical) seniors. They have far more experience in professional occupations, far greater exposure to the cultural arts. I”m talking about doctors, lawyers, accountants, plumbers, electricians. Those people will bring with them a certain set of expecations into a theatrical setting.”

“How long before they’re here?” I asked.

“Not very long,” she smiles, almost rubbing her hands in glee.

“Here’s my goal: Not everyone wants to go play golf and make quilts, or go to Florida and play tennis. They’re not going to pay $25 to see someone sitting in a wingback chair and talk about what it was like the first time I got a computer. They want somethings intellectually stimulating, entertaining.”

Joan is from Michigan, where she earned a bachelor’s degree from Michigan State. She spent summers apprenticing at The Barn Theatre in Augusta, the oldest company in Michigan. That gave her experience and a philosophy.

“All those equity actors who moaned and groaned about how little work there was. I mean, I loved it, I just loved it, but in the back of my mind was, I have to support myself, and I’m not going to be able to do it in theatre.”

Joan’s hummus and pita arrived.

“Oh that looks wonderful!” with charateristic enthusiasm.

“What do you look for in a good hummus?” I asked.

“Cumin, coriander, garlic. This is good,” she said. A circuitous route took Joan through California, Ohio, Florida, and Colorado, where she completed her first doctorate in interpersonal communication at the University of Denver. But she was dedicated to community theatre. She met husband Carl at a grocery store in Colorado, and soon after were transferred to San Francisco, and then to Illinois, not Chicago.

“I felt like someone had reached across Lake Michigan with a long hook and pulled me back, because I said I would never return to Michigan until it became a cosmopolitan as Chicago.”

After a period of adjustment, Joan’s love for community theatre led her to direct for several community theatres. She became President of Main Street Players in Boone County, Illinois.

“Oh look what the board has done in three years (there) she,” she said. “We have people who are repeaters, who have 40-hour jobs, kids, family.”

“What brings them back?” I asked.

“Every time we do a show, we up the ante. That was my goal. Every show we did quality directing, scenes, publicity, organizing the theatre, and keeping it going. It’s wonderful. It’s established our credibility. It’s inspiring to the board to look at where they were and where we are.

“Community theatre is the training ground for professional theatre. That’s where the opportunities are for actors and directors. It’s the place for people who’ve never been on stage.”

Watch out for joan e Kole, Baby Boomers! she has the experience, the standards, the passion to take our local community theatres to the stars.

NOTE: This story originally appeared in The Rock River Times in early 2000’s. Joan is currently the Artistic Director at St. Mary’s Care Center’s AgeQuake Theatres in Madison, Wisconsin.

Biography, Food, people, Inspiration, Inspiration

Beanie Babies, Coins and Memories – Part 3

May 27, 2016 marjorie@lunchwithmarjorie.readmstradinger.com 1 Comment

Don and I continued lunching on our take-out pasta from Anna Maria’s in Roscoe, as we sat in his Rockton coin and Beanie Babies shop. Unknown

We continued talking about his love for collectibles, and why he opened his store after retiring from the Rockford Police Department in 1993, even though he continued working at the courthouse for the sheriff’s department.

“You could have just retired, instead of this,” I pointed out.

“My wife died,” he said. “I didn’t want to just sit at home watching the stupid television all alone. I got tired of watching the…doggone stock market.”

“Speaking of markets, this doesn’t seem like a good time to be in retail,” I commented.

“I couldn’t get into my third bedroom anymore,” Don said. “Boxes all over. Beanie Babies,” he chuckled.

I wanted to know about investing in gold and silver, and about Franklin Roosevelt making it illegal to own gold bullion–punishable by prison, even though only 22 percent turned in their gold back then.

“Then he closed the banks, and things were bad,” I stated.

“They haven’t gotten better still,” Don said. “Then (we started) the Federal Reserve. It’s that guy Obama’s got for running the Federal Reserve. You’d think someone like Obama, who’s an attorney, would realize this.”

“Why don’t they?” I asked.

“Politics.”

“Does it make you angry?”

“No. I just wish they’d do something else. What I’m afraid of is socialized medicine. I don’t like that. I’ve talked to people from Canada and different places that have (it). It’s not very popular because their taxes went through the roof. I’m not happy about it. I didn’t vote for it.”

“Will we ever go back to the gold standard?” I asked.

“Not as long as we have Obama. They’re talking about getting rid of the paper, and going to the European-type money system.”

“Based on what?” I asked.

“Socialism,” he laughed.

“Everyone will have the same money. It will all be worthless. This guy came in (here) all upset, worried to death that our money isn’t going to be worth a nickel.”

“Well, it’s not worth much more than that now,” I laughed.

“My concern is for my children and grandchildren,” I added. “You watch CNBC and wonder if these Wall Street people are confused, or whether they know.”

“They’re confused,” Don said.

“The Obama administration has told everybody not to say things bad…to get people all calm.”

“We’re not getting the real news?”

“No. You’re getting phony news–politics. He knew when he went into office…everybody knows he’s…lying.”

“Do you think we’ll ever go back to prosperity?” I asked.

“I do,” he said. “it’s not a fall-apart situation. If they keep lying long enough, people will start trusting…trusting…politicians…again.”

“It’s still precarious prosperity, I think. A bomb waiting to explode,” I mused.

“The politicians will make it look prosperous,” Don said. “It will take three, four, five years. We’re going to do it, and then it will drop again. It’s alway done this since we’ve been in this country–(like) back in ’29.”

“History tells us that every nation that got greedy fell,” I said. “Americans think they’re invincible.”

“They’re finding they’re not invincible…especially people losing their jobs. As long as they don’t have socialized medicine,” he reiterated. “If we get (it), taxes will go up about 50 percent, I tell you.”

One of Don’s two daughters called. His loving tone told me lots about his parenting. He has two grandchildren.

He loves family and gardening.

“I’d help my (mom) out cooking…raise stuff in my own garden,” he told me. “We used to doggone can stuff. Pint jars, quarts.

We’d pick black raspberries and make jellies and jam and stewed tomatoes. Big deal down in the basement…a whole wall full.”

“You’re rather domesticated,” teased.

He smiled.

“Free tip on coin collecting?” I asked.

“Get an education,” he said. “Read. Depends on what you want to collect. I pay 90 cents for Indian head pennies, and sell them for a buck.”

“They’re worth more than Mercury dimes?” I asked.

“People want ‘em,” he said.

“Pitfalls?”

“Right now, China,” he said. “Major counterfeits–Morgan dollars, peace dollars, and other valuable coin from other countries.”

Unknown-13 — counterfeit Morgan dollar from China

“We’re getting bad fish, bad pet food, bad toys from China,” I said. “Now you’re saying counterfeit coins and collector stuff too? Do they have an agenda?”

“They’re going to win without shooting a shot,” Don surmised. “They’re buying pieces of our country from businesses and from the government. Counterfeit (coins) from 1949 or earlier–it’s legal in China.”

One of these counterfeiters brags about selling them on eBay.

“Costs him 50 cents to make a counterfeit Morgan dollar,” Don said. “He makes a thousand a day selling them to the U.S. and all over the world.”

“Does this affect your quality of life?” I asked.

“It’s going to when we get socialized medicine and all this other…socialism that Obama’s pushing,” he said.

“Parting words?”

“Watch the politicians,” Don said.

“Live life like you’d like people to treat you.”

(Note: this story originally published by The Rock River Times in 2009)

Biography, Food, Food, people, People

Beanie Babies, coins and memories

March 5, 2016 marjorie@lunchwithmarjorie.readmstradinger.com Leave a comment

It’s Donald. He prefers Don. “I don’t like my middle name either,” Don informed me over our carryout baked mostaccioli from Roscoe, Ill.’s Anna Maria’s.

He wouldn’t leave his shop, Don’s Coins and Collectibles, long enough to talk with me over lunch.

“What’s your middle name,” I goaded.

“Denton.” After his grandfather’s middle name.

I had lots of questions about his trend-sensitive business, especially since I have quite a collection of Beanies myself.

Don reflected on how his late wife, Regina, had inspired his love for collectibles.

“She worked with the newborns at Rockford Hospital, and was known as the Beanie lady. She’d sit in a chair, rock the babies and the girls, the nurses, couldn’t get downstairs to the gift shop where the Beanies were. So she’d go get the Beanies for them.

“Pretty soon,” Don remembered, “we’d end up driving around, picking up Beanies from different Ty wholesalers.”

“Did you anticipate their future value, or were you just helping your wife?” I asked.

“Just helping,” he said, matter-of-factly

“Then your entrepreneurial wheels started turning?”

“Yeah–there’s money to be made in this,” he recalled, punctuating the memory jog with his distinctive belly laugh.

“I would buy the meal to get the Teeny Beanie, then threw the food out,” I confessed.

“Yep. I did that too,” he told me.

“Are Teenie’s still valuable?” I asked.

“No. You can’t get even 50 cents for them. They gave millions of them things out. I couldn’t drink that much coffee, so I’d go throw that in the dumpster.”

Don recalled seeing lines around the block to stores in Beanie’s heydays.

“The people running these stores were selling out in about two hours; they wouldn’t have to sell another Beanie for the rest of the month. They paid the rent, the lights, the gas bills.”

That was before he opened his own store. At first they sold the collectibles from their own home’s front yard.

“We’d put up a tent, Saturday and Sunday. We’d make anywhere from $2000 to maybe $4000 on a weekend, at about a 60 percent profit. Back then we were paying $5 and selling them for $15. A dealer pays $2.50. Some sold for $50, $60, $70. Now they’re selling for less than $5.

“But you were always into collectibles,” I said.

“I was working for my dad’s grocery store in Rockford. My dad told me I had goofed up enough at 11, so I became a butcher.”

“Aren’t there child labor laws?” I half-kidded.

“Not when you’re working for your dad,” he explained. But it was at the store that Don began to appreciate collectible coins. There was nothing better than exchanging coins out of the cash register, a penny for a penny, a nickel for a nickel, to fill all those books up,” he said, pointing to the coin books in his shop.

“I had those too,” I told him.

“This bis good mostaccioli” I remarked.

“It sure is,” he agreed. “Lots of mozzarella on the top,” he added.

“When I was 16, I found out my brother was taking me.” he told me.

“He collected Indian pennies that came through the store. Problem was, I would put a penny in the cash register, take it home to him, he’d give me a penny for it, and he’d run to the coin shop and get a quarter apiece for ‘em.”

“How much older was he than you?” “He was younger,” Don said.

“Let me get this straight, your younger brother was taking you for a ride?”

“Yep. Probably looked through one of my books that I never bothered to look at, the red book with the prices inside.”

“The price of ignorance,” I echoed.

“Yep, he didn’t get no more pennies.”

“Did you end up in the grocery business?”

“I loved it. There was only one little problem. I went to college. I was going to be another (big name) grocer.”

“You wanted a chain?”

“Umm-hmm. I was going to move that store into a big store, then a bigger store, and then more stores.

Then after one semester away, my father sold the damn store.

“Right under your feet! Did he tell you?”

“No. He also decided to clean out the basement while I was gone. He got rid of all the 5- and 10-cent comic books, which are expensive now. I had boxes of those.”

“That would make you a little bitter,” I said.

“Yep.” Don’s stereotypic John Wayne style said much in a few words. …to be continued

Biography, Food, Food, people, Inspiration, People

“How you gonna keep ’em down on the farm, after they’ve seen Freeport?”

February 7, 2016 marjorie@lunchwithmarjorie.readmstradinger.com 2 Comments

“How you gonna keep ‘em down on the farm, after they’ve seen Freeport?” I could’t help but remember the lyrics from Judy Garland’s 1942 song from the film, For Me and My Gal.

“I grew up on a dairy farm on the northwest corner of Illinois between two small towns, Warren and Winslow. I have seven brothers and sisters, including an identical twin, all born in the 1950s. Every 10 years, we have a party. We had a 30-something party when we were 30. Then ten years later, we had a 40-something party. There are a few months when all the brothers and sisters are the same decade. That includes in-laws.”

They wait for the youngest to turn the next decade’s age and then have the party.

We were lunching at the organic foods cafe, Halsa, on Riverside Avenue in Rockford. It seemed right to talk to a farmer’s daughter in a natural foods place. (Unfortunately that gem of a restaurant didn’t get enough support from the Rockford folks, and closed shortly after our luncheon.)

“Growing up on a farm, we didn’t see our classmates every day like kids nowadays do,”Janet continued. “We grew up with each other, so we were pretty close. We played softball in the backyard. You know, when there are eight of you, you’ve got almost enough for a softball team.”

“And what about chores?” I chimed in.

“Well, just being on the farm, my dad always said, “I’m not a city slicker. We didn’t run to town just to see friends. We were three miles from a small town, six miles from school. Warren. In the summertime, we’d go to Monroe, 25 miles away. I remember trips to the dentist.”

“This was a special occasion?”

“For us it was. Monroe’s such a neat town, built on The Square. If we were good, and didn’t have cavities, got a free ice cream cone around the corner. the dentist gave us a gift certificate for the ice cream at Ruf Confectionery. It’s still open. The dentist’s office was upstairs and had a nice view of the whole square.” (A Trip Advisor reviews states that if all towns were like Monroe, no one would live in the city.)

“Other excursions?”

“We made an annual trip to pick out materials for summer 4-H projects.

Janet’s 4-H projects were mostly cooking for the Jo Davies County Fair.

“I was baking bread and pies when I was 10. We did sewing and flower arranging. Muy sisters and I did mostly the food things. In addition to 4-H, we got into making money at an early age. We would bake cookies or rolls and would enter the fair.”

“Did you win?”

“Yeah, till we were 14.” she smiles. “We made a haul. When we turned 14, we had to compete with the adults. There weren’t many 12-year-olds baking bread, making all the stuff we did.”

She left the farm to study foods and nutrition at the University of Illinois.

“My food interests never changed. I worked for a food manufacturer for more than 20 years–high end groceries, gourmet foods. Do you know Spike O’Dell from WGN (the Chicago news radio station, were he was a broadcaster until 2008)?

Spike had Barry Levenson from the Mustard Museum (Mt. Horeb, Wisc.) on his radio show. Spike said, ‘I ought to have my own mustard.’ He wanted it to first be sweet and then sneak up on you and bite you in the butt,” Jan said. “I was working to private label mustard, and suggested to Barry we could make the mustard in Freeport.”

Jan got a chemist to develop a formula, which she presented to Barry, and Barry presented it to Spike.

“It was called Bite Your Butt Mustard. It became very popular. We thought it would probably sell about 5,000 jars. The neat thing, for every jar sold, $1 went to the Neediest Kid’s Fund. We were raising a lot of money–more than $1 million. Stores started selling it in Rockford and Spike made appearances that drew crowds. He would autograph the jars of mustard and people would stand inline for the length of the (store) aisle.”

“Do you miss the farm?”

“I like living in the city, because I work a lot. It was great to grow up there, but I think I’d kind of get bored now.”

“You’re competitive.”

“Very competitive. I think my brothers and sisters were always betting on something. We ‘d bet bottles of pop on baseball games. I’m a Packers fan in Freeport. It’s probably 60:40 there, Bears to Packers.”

“You like winners.”

She laughs: “Well, I followed them through their bad years too. I like the Dodgers.”

“You’re allowed to like a California team?” I needled.

“I wouldn’t wear a Dodgers T-Shirt to a Cubs game,” she smiled.

Biography, careers, Food, Food, people, Theatre

Career change, gumbo and Cordon Bleu

January 10, 2016 marjorie@lunchwithmarjorie.readmstradinger.com Leave a comment

Choices. Choosing Tim Scholten for my first Lunch with Marjorie (first published in 2002) was simple. He is the most naturally funny guy I know. My husband agreed. He’s funny.

But when talking with Tim about his decision to switch from a dream career in broadcasting to selling radio advertising, Tim turned serious.

We paused to tackle the Rockton Inn lunch menu, a clear dilemma for Tim.

“It’s a dead heat between navy bean and seafood gumbo in my world today,” Tim’s blue eyes sough help from me.

“Gumbo? Good? Bad?”

“The gumbo’s great, very New Orleans,” I assured.

“I’m on it. Sold!” he proclaimed.

“Sandwich?” I asked.

“Man oh man, a lot of good things to eat. The chicken Cordon bleu special, and yet the barbecue sandwich is also tempting.”

He opted for the Cordon Bleu; I had the Oriental chicken salad.

Growing up in Beloit, Wis,, Tim’s teens were filled with sports, cello and plays. He loved performing. “

I was at Startlight (Theatre) in the mid-‘7os. I did Music Man with Jodi Benson, who went on to be The Little Mermaid.”

Jodi Benson! I was impressed.

Tim wasn’t.

“She was in the chorus. She was nothing, and I was nothing. We were nothing together, and it was fun.”

The year Elvis died, 1977, Tim went off to Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa, to major in radio and television.

“I had a fantastic advisor there,” he remembered.

“A guy named Jim Duncan, and he sold it for me. All those years, he was the voice of the Drake Relays, America’s athletic classic.”

Des Moines broadcasting began for Tim with weekly co-hosting stints at KRNT, reporting campus news. Then he became head statistician for The Drake Sports Network.

“That was wonderful, he said. “I would copy down all the statistics during all home Drake men’s basketball and football games. And both sports were Division 1. And he would look at my stats, and he would check with me, and I wouldn’t really say anything at all, but we became a linked unit, and a guy named Larry Morgan, who is now the voice of the Iowa Hawkeyes on television.”

Tim had the sports bug, the news bug.

Post college, his career began at Beloit’s radio station, 1380 WBEL, on air as The Jock. He left to co-anchor the now defunct Beloit Cable News.

“Then my friend, Jerry Huffman, made it possible for me to work for WREX-TV,” Tim explained. Tim became the first Rock County reporter in 1983.

“I was kind of an experimental guinea pig there,” he said.

“They sent me out with my inferior equipment, but I did have my own station vehicle. And, I would take it back to my apartment every night, wake up early in the morning and they’d say: ‘OK, you need to go out, cover it, take pictures.’

We worked till 6:30pm most nights, editing what I had shot, writing what I had shot, and producing the stories. That’s the hardest I’ve ever worked in the media.”

A few bumps and station changes moved Tim to news reporter for WIFR-TV.

Spring 1987, Tim married Lisa Johnson, and made a dramatic career change. I realized his gumbo-navy bean struggle was somewhat thornier than the decision to leave broadcasting.

“Was it an emotional decision?” I asked.

“Yes, but Marjorie, I can tell you that reason in five words: Fourteen thousand dollars a year.”

He couldn’t support his family on that salary. Lisa was a dental assistant. She was the breadwinner in the soon-to-be-family.

“She was out-earning me,” he said.

“A little bruising to the ego? Hard to give up celebrity status?”

“A little bit. But that doesn’t put food on the table. I doubled my income with the stroke of a pen.”

“Regrets?”

Cordon Bleu. He liked it.

“Gumbo?” “It’s a spicy, hard-hitting gumbo. I’ll make it through,” he said.

“It’s all part of the culinary experience.”

“Career choice? Are you satisfied with your accomplishments?”

“So many people answer that question the wrong way: It’s my Beamer, my Lexus, my yacht, my getaway place,” Tim explained.

“Wro-o-ng! It’s your kids!” He added, “I’ve seen it backfiring for others. The guys on the second, third, fourth marriages, scrambling to find out what it is when all the while, it’s right in front of them.”

Tim’s choices clearly had brought him joy. He gets animated talking about coaching youth baseball in his hometown, and spending time with his sons, who both also have the sports bug.

Tim still does some creative commercials, voice-overs. But he is primarily a father, a people-person.

“I don’t live to work,” he shared. “I work to live. You reap what you sow. That’s the total philosophy. Life’s a trade-out.”