Random Connect Points:
Reba's Stories

(I wrote this as an email on May 23 to close to 100 people who have influenced me during  my working years. I was so excited it got picked up by several professional publications.) May 23 marked the 30th anniversary of my first day in the work world. That day in 1983, I started my job as a receptionist on Capitol Hill after a local congressman hired me, sight unseen, over the phone three weeks earlier. I had a head full of big permed hair, big expectations, and little idea of what I was supposed to do as an employed and responsible adult. Looking back, I didn't have specific career goals in mind at that point, but I did know what I was good at and the type of work I wanted to pursue. Here, 30 years later, I've been fortunate to have a rewarding career that gave me 10 great years on Capitol Hill and took me back to my home state of South Carolina for jobs that combined my love of writing, communications, and politics with my curiosity about people and plac...

I recently sent out a blast email at work that had several bad links in it (operator error on my part). The email had gone to 146 people, and our tracking program told me 69 people had clicked on the link. All 69 would have found that the link went nowhere. Only one of those 69 people let me know about the bad link. Fortunately, because of this one person, I could quickly fix my snafu, resend the email and all was well. Later in the day I shot a quick email of thanks to the woman who had alerted me to the problem. The next day I got a very nice note back from her saying she needed that “atta boy” at the end of a rough day. It’s that circular world of the simple act of thank you. We all need it whether we know it or not. It never gets old.

I've found most people either lean toward routine or lean toward adventure. I'm pretty sure I fall into the routine category. I generally take comfort in many of the consistencies in my life. Saturday mornings are the perfect example of this. On the weekends when I am in town, nothing keeps me away from my Saturday morning routine of making a trip to the Soda City Market, picking up iced tea with a splash of simple syrup from Drip on Main Street, eating cheese grits with hot sauce from Rosso's market booth, visiting friends Sally and Stuart at their craft booths, and just enjoying the music, food and cool urban bustle that downtown Columbia has created. After that, I head to my workout with weights class at Jamie Scott Fitness. I claim my same spot in the room knowing one of several instructors I like will be teaching the class. I chat with several people I see only at this class and line up my weights in the same order each week. However, as I get older, I find that ...

Finding unexpected life lesson reminders through random daily situations is always a pleasure for me. I was nudged with several of these reminders during a recent week-long jury duty stint. When I received a jury summons back in the spring, my first reaction was probably the same as the average person - do everything possible to get out of it. I had a work trip the week I was initially summoned in May, so I got a postponement. But reality set in on a rainy Monday morning in mid-July when I found myself in a courtroom with 298 people who had received the same piece of mail commanding their presence. Ultimately I was seated as an alternate and ended up serving because another juror got sick. The decision we were charged with making would change the lives of everyone connected with this case. It was a wrongful death case involving the driver of an 18-wheeler and an admitted drug user who was the mother of two small children. Bottom line was the truck driver ran over and killed the woman...

When I was a child, my definition of old was my parents and their friends. Anyone who had kids, went to work, drove a station wagon or kept a weekly beauty parlor appointment was old. I always assumed that when you "got old," you always wore stockings, never slept late and got your hair done once a week. I grew up with a frame of reference about age that revolved primarily around grade levels and ages of siblings. I went to the same relatively small school from seventh until twelfth grade. The caste system was strict among age groups and grade levels. For the most part, there wasn't a lot of socializing between grades other than a few dating relationships where the boy was almost always the older one of the pair. Rare was the lasting friendship that crossed the grade level boundaries. I'm guessing this was due in part to the fact so many students had siblings at the school. It definitely wasn't cool as an older sister to have friends in your younger sister's...

The world is divided into two types of people. One isn’t better than the other; they are just different. There are “dog people,” and there are people who aren’t “dog people.” I’m not saying these “not dog people” hate dogs; they may be cat people or parrot people or gerbil people, or they may just be indifferent to dogs…they just aren’t “dog people.” “Dog people” get each other. We have a common appreciation of the comfort that comes from hearing a dog’s “tap tap tap” as he walks through the house on the hardwood floors. We “dog people” understand that feeling of pure joy when the dog welcomes us back the same way regardless of whether we left to put out the trash or went to Europe for a week. We “dog people” often know the neighbor’s dog’s name without knowing their “person’s” name. We “dog people” don’t mind the family of fuzz bunnies living under the bed from the dog’s shedding each spring. So when one of my “dog people” friends loses a beloved canine, I get it. One of my cl...

Today I travelled through the state of borrowed trouble. It's really easy to get there and almost always hard to find my way home.  As usual when I go to the state of borrowed trouble, I didn't set out to end up there today. I always take baggage I should have shed years ago. Today's journey through the state of borrowed trouble led me down many roads I should have just avoided...questioning lane, anxiety avenue, the drill is always the same. But I couldn't shake the feeling that if I just took a quick trip I'd allow myself to think the worst about the situation in question then move on.  Unfortunately when I got there I just kept following one road after another. Before I knew it, I'd let this quick trip turned into a wasted afternoon.

My mother recently gave me (or more accurately threatened me she would trash if I didnt take) several boxes of old letters and photos that were in her attic. In the box, I found a number of letters from friends I had made during my one year at Camp Pinnacle following the seventh grade. Over the years, I often wondered what happened to the five or six pen pal friends I kind of lost track of once we hit high school. I found a couple of letters in this box from one of these friends, Frances from Beaufort, and thought about googling her name to see where she landed in life...but then went on to other things and forgot about it. Fast forward a month or so, I was scrolling through Facebook and saw the daughter of a high school friend in Bluffton got married...and there was a post from my old friend Frances congratulating this mother of the bride. I sent Frances a quick Facebook message reminding her about Pinnacle not knowing if she would even remember me. Her quick response back said sh...

A blog, I thought. Hmmm. Would anybody really be interested in my sporadic writing projects, my perpetual lists or my thoughts about the random connections I keep discovering just about every day? I've always got words shooting out of the ends of my fingers, and this blog is my attempt to put some order to the random connect points that result when my fingers hit the keyboard. Maybe a blog will give me the discipline I don't have to practice the mandolin daily or get up earlier in the morning. Maybe a blog will help me be a better writer and editor. Or maybe a blog will just let me do what I love ... writing rambling, sometimes connected, ideas. I've also posted some writings that inspired me to go on and start a place to put this stuff. Look to the left to see the links. Some are work related; others are just fun things I've written. Like many things in life, the blog may be a little messy in places, so just ignore that like you would a pile of clothes on the floor. ...