Category: Commentary

Next month marks the completion of a decade writing Fast:Forward, which debuted January 24, 2004, as The Franchisee Focus. It was an MS Word document sent to 10 people at a time from our email account… and 32 people read it – most of them family and friends. You can find it on our website, although be forewarned, my writing style is in its infancy.

Eighteen months later the first fancy edition premiered with a new name, graphics, a more news-like column layout and automated distribution to our ever-growing master list that eventually peaked at more than 2,000. January ’08 brought an updated picture of yours truly… and at the beginning of this year – after I grew weary of people saying, “You look so young” – we switched to the current version.

It’s been a fun ride. Special thanks go to my wife Kathy and brother Mike, who have graciously proofed every single issue. The folks at eMail Networks – first Katherine Brown, then Rachel Dawson and for several years now Martyn Castens – have been great partners… always willing to provide technical support and fast response. With all these people gifting their time behind the scenes, only one typo made it through and ended up in your In Box. (Other than, of course, a few summers ago when I inadvertently sent the entire list a first proof while writing on a Saturday. Oops!)

While thinking about the 720 hours I have spent to date producing these is a little overwhelming, knowing some one or some many might find insight or inspiration each month makes it worthwhile.

Last week, I facilitated a leadership retreat for my church. One of the participants, a priest, shared that whenever he’s giving counseling or in the confessional and doesn’t know how to respond, he simply pauses and says, “I’m waiting for the Holy Spirit to give me the words.” Whether it’s the Holy Spirit, the writing gods or simply my imagination run wild, each month the words somehow appear as I type.

For some time I’ve sensed 10 years is a nice round number… and a good jumping off point. I came thisclose to ending Fast:Forward when the clock strikes midnight on New Year’s Eve; however, the muse continues to speak to me, so I’ll be around a while longer.

Thank you for reading. I hope there were some occasional words of wisdom the past 120 months that made a small difference in your work and life.

My son – the college freshman – and I text each other several times every day: about school, about what’s happening with the family, about the demise of the Texas Longhorns football program. On the other hand, in the five weeks he’s been away, we’ve spoken on the telephone exactly once. (He has reached out to his mother several times with questions about laundry, to add money into his bank account and to discuss classes. Dad? Nada.)

That’s a change from when I was a freshman in Austin in 1978. Every Sunday without fail, I picked up the black rotary phone in our dorm room and dialed my parents. It was a tradition like no other, and I have fond memories of those calls. I’ve forgotten all the conversations except one. It will forever remain sketched in mind.

On Sunday, October 1, 1978, my mother had news. “You’re an uncle,” she told me. My oldest brother’s wife had given birth two days earlier to a baby boy. “There’s something else,” she said. “We buried your Aunt JoFay yesterday.” My mother’s oldest sister had suffered a stroke and died at age 57. She was the first close relative I’d lost.

I’ll always remember that strange feeling of life coming and going within seconds. Happiness. Sadness. It didn’t seem right. Yet it seemed natural. That might have been my first step toward growing up.

For the first decade of his life I always asked Justin, “Who’s your favorite uncle?” – competing with my other two brothers for his affection. That little boy is now a 6’3″ man. It hasn’t been a straight line. He had to deal with the death of his father at too young of an age and lost a job during the downturn. Yet, he persevered and is a terrific person… someone my son, 16 years his junior, considers a role model.

Happy 35th birthday, Justin. Here’s wishing you get to experience five more decades of everything life provides.

And so it’s here – 6,922 days after Kathy called my hotel room at 4:30 a.m. and said, “You’re a father again” – we take our son to college. (Yes, I was out of town working and missed his birth, which came a week early. Appropriately, he’s never been late for anything.)

This one is impacting me more than when we dropped our daughter off on the same UT-Austin campus 1,828 days ago. That moment felt like a logical transition. Our first-born had entered adulthood and we were thrilled for her to experience all the joys our alma mater offers. Also, Kelsey was so involved in theater and band during her senior year that we really didn’t see her much those last few months, so there wasn’t a lot of separation anxiety.

Kyle’s departure from our household is more like your best friend moving away. We spent so much time together – driving to basketball games, attending sports events, talking about his future, playing golf – that there will be a huge void.

So today, for perhaps the first time, I feel a connection to my great grandfather. He boarded a ship in Europe in 1892, and uprooted his wife and children – my then two-year-old grandfather among them – from their Austria-Hungary homeland to seek a new life in America.

I feel close to his grandson, who joined the Navy after Pearl Harbor, like so many boys, skipping the rest of his senior year. One day in 1945, as WWII neared its end, he and three fellow enlisted men ate lunch a few blocks from their base. The 17-year-old waitress, daughter of the woman who owned the café, caught his eye. On January 20, 1946, he married my mother and never returned to the cold climate of Wisconsin, remaining in Fort Worth to raise four sons and a daughter together.

“That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh.” ~ Genesis 2:24

So today is not the end of a wonderful relationship with my beloved son. It’s the beginning of his life’s journey. One I’m certain will lead him to happiness. He is, after all, the fifth generation legacy of a man who, too, left behind parents to discover his fate.