u/whyareyousadcom

Some birthday dinners end with perfectly grilled steaks. Others end with pizza and become the stories you laugh about forever…

My birthday has always fallen around Memorial Day weekend, and while most people probably think of cake first, my favorite birthday meal was always barbecue.

Not hamburgers. Not hot dogs.

Barbecue chicken quarters.

Mom would bake them in the oven with that sweet, smoky sauce that caramelized around the edges. Add watermelon, pasta salad, potato chips, baked beans, and suddenly it wasn’t just dinner—it was the unofficial start of summer.

Ironically, my favorite season has never been summer.

I’ve always loved fall. Cooler mornings. Sweatshirts. Trees exploding into shades of red, orange, and gold. But birthdays belonged to summer, and birthdays belonged to barbecue.

The funny part is that the barbecue itself was usually entrusted to my dad.

Dad loved being outside more than anyone I’ve ever known.

When he graduated from college, he wanted to become a National Park ranger. Life had different plans. He was drafted into the Army and served as a helicopter pilot during the Vietnam War. Afterward, that love of nature never disappeared.

If Dad wasn’t grilling, he was gardening.

Honestly… I think gardening won.

He had a routine that never changed.

The charcoal would be lit to perfection. The meat would be seasoned exactly right. The grill grate would get a light coat of oil so nothing would stick. He’d carefully arrange the steaks or chicken, put the lid on the Weber kettle, dust off his hands…

…and casually announce,

“I’m just going to check the garden.”

Those words should have made us nervous.

Checking the garden never meant checking the garden.

It meant entering another dimension.

Dad would inspect every tomato like a doctor making rounds. He’d admire the peppers. Count the beans. Encourage the cucumbers. Examine the lettuce. Pull a few weeds. Notice a few more weeds. Then he’d remember another section of the garden that also needed attention.

Meanwhile…

The grill had been promoted from “cooking appliance” to “active volcano.”

See, fat dripping onto hot charcoal is basically lighter fluid with good intentions.

Soon little wisps of smoke became thick clouds.

Then flames.

Lots of flames.

The kind of flames that shoot out every vent hole on a Weber kettle like it just achieved liftoff.

Mom looked out the patio door one evening and immediately knew something wasn’t right.

You couldn’t even see the neighbor’s house anymore.

She burst outside and yelled,

“DICK! THE STEAKS ARE ON FIRE!”

Dad looked up from somewhere deep inside tomato therapy, completely unaware that the culinary world was ending twenty feet behind him.

He hadn’t smelled the smoke.

He hadn’t noticed the flames.

He hadn’t realized Chicago appeared to be burning in our backyard.

He sprinted back to the grill, flung open the lid, and was greeted by what I can only describe as a meat-powered inferno.

Eventually the fire was out.

The grill survived.

The steaks…

Well…

Let’s just say they had moved well beyond “well done.”

As a kid, I knew exactly what that meant.

My dreams of a juicy medium-rare T-bone quietly drifted away with the smoke.

“Guess it’s pizza night…”

Again.

The older I’ve gotten, the more I realize that wasn’t really the story.

The story was watching my dad become so completely absorbed in helping things grow that the rest of the world temporarily disappeared. For those few minutes, tomatoes were more important than T-bones, weeds deserved immediate attention, and the garden had his entire heart.

And honestly…

That’s exactly who he was.

The steaks were replaceable.

Those evenings weren’t.

Whenever someone asks why barbecue still reminds me of birthdays, I don’t think about perfectly cooked chicken or the side dishes.

I think about my mom yelling across the backyard.

My dad sprinting toward a flaming grill.

A family laughing before the pizza delivery even arrived.

Because sometimes the meals don’t become the memory.

The people do.

Credit: Laura Hardy, co-creator of Reddit whyareyousadcom

Some conversations disappear forever, if you’re lucky, the memories don’t…

A few years before my dad passed away, I started noticing little things.

Nothing dramatic. Just enough to remind me that our parents don’t stay the same forever.

My friend Scott is a photographer and filmmaker. He had created a beautiful tribute to his own father, and after watching it, I realized something.

Everyone has stories.

The problem is we usually don’t ask for them until it’s too late.

I asked Mom and Dad if they’d be willing to sit down for an interview. I wanted to capture their memories while they could still tell them. They both loved the idea.

I spent several days putting together a list of questions.

What was it like growing up?

How did they meet?

What was it like raising three boys on a farm?

What were the happiest years?

The hardest?

The list wasn’t really a script. It was simply there to get them thinking.

When the cameras started rolling, I abandoned it almost immediately.

Knowing the questions let me follow wherever the conversation naturally wanted to go. That’s always been easier for me than sticking to a script.

For nearly four hours they talked.

They told stories about growing up.

About getting married young.

About making ends meet when money was tight.

About life on the farm.

About surgeries, adventures, and raising three boys who couldn’t have been more different from one another.

They answered every question in incredible detail.

I learned things I’d never heard before.

Some stories made me laugh.

Others made me wonder why I’d waited so long to ask.

Near the end of the interview, I asked one question I almost skipped.

“If you could change anything about your lives, what would it be?”

Neither of them hesitated.

They both wished they had spent more time with us boys.

…

I remember sitting there, not really knowing how to respond.

As the oldest, that wasn’t how I remembered my childhood at all.

I was with Mom and Dad constantly.

I rode in the combine with Dad for hours.

I tagged along with Mom in the grain truck.

Every spring we went mushroom hunting together.

They were at nearly every sporting event I ever played.

They somehow found ways to take us on vacations even when there wasn’t much money to spare.

Dad taught me how to fix things because on a farm, if something broke, you figured it out.

Cars.

Fences.

Decks.

Whatever needed repairing.

When Mom wasn’t home, Dad taught us how to survive on what he proudly called milk toast. Looking back, it wasn’t exactly gourmet cooking, but someday I was going to have to feed myself.

One story I’d never heard was about a calf stranded on a small island during a winter flood. Dad waded through freezing, neck-deep water to bring it safely back to shore.

Mom taught us different lessons.

She taught us to read.

To express ourselves.

To balance a checkbook.

(I wasn’t exactly her star pupil on that one for quite a while.)

Between them they taught us how to work, solve problems, laugh at ourselves, and keep going when life didn’t cooperate.

Listening to them that day, I realized something I hadn’t understood before.

Children remember love differently than parents do.

I remembered all the moments they were there.

They remembered all the moments they wished they could have been there even more.

Years later, while Dad was going through chemotherapy, he said something remarkably similar.

If he could do it all over again, he’d spend more time with his family.

Funny how the people who give us the most often remember only what they couldn’t give.

When the interview was over, Scott handed me the hard drive.

I copied everything to my computer and imported it into Final Cut Pro so I could begin editing.

I thought importing the footage meant it had been safely backed up.

I was wrong.

About two weeks later the hard drive failed.

Everything was gone.

Four hours of stories.

Four hours of laughter.

Four hours of memories that could never be recreated.

I took the drive to a professional data recovery company hoping they could perform some kind of miracle.

They couldn’t.

Scott searched for another copy but didn’t find one.

He still has boxes of old hard drives in storage and every once in a while he’ll tell me he hasn’t given up looking.

Neither have I.

Maybe someday one of those old drives will spin to life and those four hours will come back.

I hope so.

But if they never do, I’m still grateful we had that afternoon.

Most families never stop long enough to ask the questions.

I did.

For four uninterrupted hours, I got to hear my parents tell the story of their lives in their own words.

The recording is gone.

The conversation isn’t.

I can still hear Dad laughing.

I can still picture Mom telling stories I’d never heard before.

I can still see the look on their faces after I asked what they would change.

No hard drive can erase that.

If the people you love are still here, ask them the questions.

Not tomorrow.

Not someday.

Today.

Because one day their stories may become more valuable than anything they leave behind.

Credit: John Hardy, creator of Reddit whyareyousadcom

Three teenagers. One Dodge K-car. One instructor questioning every life decision that brought him there…

When I was a sophomore in high school, driver’s education was still a real class.

Not a Saturday seminar.

Not a website.

Not a thirty-minute video followed by a multiple-choice quiz.

An actual semester-long class.

We sat in desks. We studied the Nebraska Driver Manual. We drew intersections on the blackboard. We talked about right-of-way rules, blind spots, speed limits, and everything else required to keep teenagers from accidentally turning themselves into hood ornaments.

The class was taught by Coach Andrews.

Everybody liked Coach.

He had the rare ability to be both a teacher and a human being at the same time.

If you worked hard, paid attention, treated people decently, and stayed out of trouble, he liked you.

If you played sports, he liked you even more.

The classroom portion was straightforward enough.

The fun came later.

Driving.

Back then, after completing the classroom work, students were split into summer driving groups. Each group spent three days with the instructor, rotating through every driving situation imaginable.

Highway driving.

City driving.

Dirt roads.

Parking.

Parallel parking.

Emergency stops.

Everything.

There was one thing I noticed immediately.

There was a distinct difference between the farm kids and the city kids.

Not all city kids, of course.

Some were excellent drivers.

But farm kids generally had a head start.

By the time I took driver’s education, I had already spent years driving things that probably required more responsibility than a Dodge sedan.

I had operated tractors.

Pickups.

Farm equipment.

I was even getting experience around airplanes.

A car wasn’t particularly intimidating.

My driving group ended up being me, Chris, Joni, and Coach Andrews.

We rode around in what I remember as an ugly blue Dodge K-car.

It looked like somebody had designed a cardboard box and then decided to put wheels on it.

Chris was a city kid, but he was good.

Very good.

The only thing Coach ever got after either of us for was speeding.

Apparently, speed limits were not suggestions.

Who knew?

Coach would constantly remind us to slow down.

I tried to behave.

Chris, however, drove like he was auditioning for Days of Thunder. Coach was constantly reminding him that this was driver’s education, not qualifying at Daytona.

Fortunately, we never crossed paths with a county sheriff. I’m not sure Coach wanted to explain why a driver’s education car was leading traffic.

The interesting member of our group was Joni.

At the time, I simply assumed she was nervous.

A couple of years ago, nearly forty years after those driving lessons, something she posted online reminded me of the experience.

We got to talking.

That’s when she admitted something.

Driver’s education had been the first time she had ever driven a car.

Ever.

Suddenly every memory from those three days made perfect sense.

The first clue should have been our trip toward Herman.

We were cruising down the highway at normal speed.

Back then, the speed limit approaching town stepped down gradually.

Fifty-five.

Then forty-five.

Then thirty-five.

Then twenty-five.

Pretty simple.

Most drivers understand the concept.

As we approached town, we sailed past the 45 mph sign doing roughly 62.

We passed the 35 mph sign doing about 60.

Coach began calmly reminding Joni to slow down.

No response.

The car continued charging toward town.

Coach became less calm.

“Joni, get on the brake.”

Still nothing.

The speedometer barely moved.

Chris and I exchanged glances.

Coach repeated himself.

More urgently this time.

The 25 mph zone was approaching rapidly.

Joni appeared to be conducting an experiment to determine whether speed limits were merely decorative.

Finally, about a hundred yards before town, Coach intervened.

The car suddenly slowed.

Chris and I looked at each other in surprise.

Neither of us knew Coach had a brake pedal on his side.

Turns out he did.

And thank goodness for that.

Disaster avoided.

Lesson delivered.

Brake pedal identified.

Then came Blair.

More specifically, parallel parking.

To be fair, none of us were very good at it.

Most adults still aren’t.

But Coach patiently walked each student through the process.

Pull alongside the vehicle.

Back up.

Turn the wheel.

Straighten out.

Watch your mirrors.

Simple.

In theory.

When Joni’s turn arrived, I noticed Coach seemed a little more tense than usual.

Looking back, I’m surprised those three days didn’t turn his hair gray. If they did, we were probably watching it happen in real time.

Coach guided her into position.

Parallel with the parked car.

Perfect.

“Now back up and turn the wheel.”

Perfect.

“So far so good.”

Then came the next instruction.

“Watch the car behind you.”

A moment later we felt it.

BUMPER CHECK.

Not hard enough to damage anything.

Just enough to announce our arrival.

Chris and I immediately started laughing.

Coach remained remarkably professional.

He continued the lesson.

Now pull forward and center yourself in the parking space.

What I hadn’t mentioned was that Joni was pretty short.

Seeing over the steering wheel was already an adventure.

Judging the distance to the car in front of us was even harder.

She eased forward.

Everything seemed fine.

Then—

BUMPER CHECK.

Again.

Chris and I completely lost it.

Coach sat quietly for a moment.

A very long moment.

Then he calmly instructed Joni to put the car in park and turn off the ignition.

Class was apparently over.

Chris took the wheel.

We headed back to Tekamah.

At a speed Coach considered acceptable and Chris considered a personal attack.

The funny thing is that Joni turned out just fine.

She’s had a driver’s license for decades.

She’s raised a family.

She’s navigated thousands of miles of roads.

And we’re still friends.

What makes me laugh now isn’t the bumper checks or the missed speed limits.

It’s realizing how different our starting lines were.

To me, driving felt normal.

To Chris, it felt exciting.

To Joni, it felt terrifying.

We were all taking the same class, sitting in the same car, listening to the same instructor.

Yet we were having three completely different experiences.

That’s true for more than driving.

The thing that feels easy to you may be the thing someone else is desperately trying to figure out.

The thing you take for granted may be the thing keeping another person awake at night.

Sometimes a little patience matters more than skill.

And sometimes the person laughing in the back seat eventually discovers they had a lot more in common with the nervous driver than they realized.

Credit: John Hardy, creator of Reddit whyareyousadcom

I don’t remember who won the tournament, but I remember exactly why nobody wanted to retrieve the ball…

The GOATS rugby club got its name from an acronym.

Officially, it stood for Greater Omaha Area Touring Side Rugby Club.

Unofficially, it stood for exactly what you’d expect.

A bunch of grown men built like farm equipment running full speed into each other every weekend somehow decided a goat was the perfect mascot.

Years ago, a guy named Corey invited me to play in the GOATS’ annual golf tournament.

I’d known Corey from an advertising job in Omaha. Back then he was fresh out of college, about six-foot-two and maybe 180 pounds soaking wet.

A few years later I ran into him again at a bar.

The Corey I remembered had apparently been replaced by a refrigerator with arms.

Somewhere between graduation and our reunion, rugby had happened.

He was pushing 275 pounds, solid as concrete, and playing for the GOATS.

When he invited me to golf with his foursome, I figured it would be a fun afternoon.

I was right.

I just didn’t realize how different rugby players were from the rest of us.

Our foursome included Corey, a guy named Mike who had gone to high school with my wife Laura, another teammate whose name I’ve unfortunately lost to time, and me.

I usually drink a couple beers and some Gatorade while golfing.

These guys approached hydration like they were preparing for the end of civilization.

Beer after beer disappeared.

Whiskey shots appeared at every tee box.

And they weren’t the only foursome doing it.

By the time we reached the tenth green, the tournament was beginning to show signs of wear.

The first clue was that there was no flag in the cup.

Nobody knew why.

Corey’s approach shot had landed closest to the hole, so we used his ball. Mike was our best putter, so naturally we let him go first.

He lined it up.

Stroke.

Birdie.

Everybody cheered.

We’d survived another hole.

Then Mike bent over to retrieve his ball.

And immediately froze.

The reason there wasn’t a flag in the cup was because the foursome ahead of us had left a little surprise.

Someone had taken a dump in the hole.

To this day, I feel like golf needs a name for that.

There are terms for everything else.

Birdie.

Eagle.

Albatross.

Surely there should be an official term for discovering a human turd in the cup.

Whatever it’s called, we unanimously agreed that Mike’s ball should remain exactly where it was.

We were on a golf course.

There wasn’t a wash station nearby.

And nobody wanted to spend the rest of the round shaking hands with a guy who had poop fingers.

So we accepted the birdie, left the evidence undisturbed, and moved on.

The alcohol continued to move on too.

A few holes later we reached the port-a-potty on the back nine.

Mike announced he needed a bathroom break.

Unlike the mystery golfer ahead of us, he was apparently a man of principle.

He disappeared inside.

Thirty seconds later Corey looked at me and said, “Hang on.”

Those words should have concerned me more than they did.

Instead, I just grabbed the side of the golf cart.

Corey slammed the accelerator.

The cart shot forward.

The port-a-potty was chained to a large maple tree.

At full speed Corey rammed it.

The impact sent the entire thing spinning around the tree like a carnival ride.

The door flew open.

Mike came flying out.

A split second later he was followed by a wave of bright blue port-a-potty water.

Fortunately, he landed safely.

Unfortunately, the rest of us couldn’t breathe.

We were laughing so hard that tears were running down our faces.

The kind of laughter where your stomach hurts.

The kind where you try to stop but only make it worse.

The kind that comes around less and less as you get older.

Eventually we regained enough composure to finish the round.

There was a steak dinner afterward, which was probably the only reason any of us remained upright long enough to collect our pin prizes.

We didn’t win the tournament.

In fact, I don’t remember our score.

I don’t remember who won.

I don’t remember much about the golf at all.

What I remember is a missing flag.

A birdie nobody wanted to retrieve.

A rugby player getting launched out of a spinning port-a-potty.

And a group of friends laughing so hard that for a few hours nothing else in the world mattered.

The older I get, the more I realize that most friendships aren’t built during the important moments.

They’re built during the ridiculous ones.

Nobody sits around twenty years later talking about a seven iron they hit on the fourteenth hole.

But they’ll remember the day somebody pooped in the cup and another guy got ejected from a portable toilet.

Some memories stay with you because they were meaningful.

Others stay with you because they were unbelievably stupid.

The best friendships usually give you both.

Credit: John Hardy, creator of Reddit whyareyousadcom

We learned about blood types that week but that’s not what stuck with me…

I remember junior high at Tekamah-Herman.
Life science with Mr. TeSelle.

It was the kind of class every farm kid secretly loved.
Not because we were good students… but because it felt like controlled chaos.

One day we got to prick our own fingers with lancets.
Draw actual blood. Our blood.

Which, if you’re a kid who’s already had your fair share of cuts and scrapes, feels less like science and more like… “finally, something I’m qualified for.”

We squeezed out a drop and put it on a slide.
Then came the real “science” part.

We mixed it with these little drops of mystery liquids… Anti-A, Anti-B, something else that sounded important…
And then we stared into microscopes looking for clumps.

Because apparently, if your blood starts clumping together… that’s good.
That means something.
That means you’re a type A, or B, or AB, or O… and either positive or negative depending on whether it decides to behave or not.

At that age, it mostly felt like:
“If it looks weird, that’s your answer.”

I remember figuring out I was A+.
I told Mr. TeSelle that was probably going to be my grade in the class.

He didn’t laugh.
But I did end up with an A, so I stand by it.

For all the fun we had, though…
He had one rule he did not mess around with.

No gum.
Ever.

Sounds simple enough.
Except there’s always one person who thinks they’re smarter than the rule.

The day I learned what happened if you got caught…
it was a girl named Laura.

He called her up to his desk.
Which wasn’t really a desk.
It was a full lab station… with a chair next to it like it was waiting for something bad to happen.

Then he reached underneath and pulled out a jar.

Not a normal jar.
A wide-mouthed, almost cookie-sized glass jar.

Filled with gum.

ABC gum.
Already Been Chewed.

You could tell.
Different colors. Different shapes.
Some of it didn’t even look like gum anymore.

The room went quiet.

He told her to take her gum out… and put it in the jar.

Then he told her to pick a piece…
and chew it for the rest of class.

I felt my stomach drop.

I remember going pale… like I was the one being punished.
I honestly thought she might pass out.

But she didn’t.

She reached in.
Grabbed a piece.
And walked back to her desk.

Sat down.
And started chewing.

Or at least… that’s what it looked like.

To this day, I still don’t know if she actually chewed it…
or pulled off the greatest fake-out of all time.

Because there’s no way…
there’s just no way.

Credit: John Hardy, creator of Reddit whyareyousadcom

One drive-thru misunderstanding gave Taco Bell a brand-new name in our family…

There was a stretch when the twins were still little enough to be buckled into those oversized car seats in the back of the soccer-mom van, feet kicking the seatbacks and voices bouncing off every window.

Lunch out was a reward in those days.

Sometimes it was because they’d done well in school.
Sometimes because they’d finished their chores without being asked twice.
Sometimes because, honestly, Laura and I just wanted an excuse to get out of the house and let somebody else make the food.

They already had their favorites.

McDonald’s.
Runza.
Subway.

And apparently one more that I didn’t realize had been quietly added to the rotation.

One afternoon it was close to lunchtime, and I was driving with Panda Express on my mind. I was already halfway to orange chicken in my head when the girls suddenly erupted from the back seat.

“The Ding Dong store!”
“The Ding Dong store!”
“We wanna go to the Ding Dong store!”

I kept my eyes on the road, trying not to rear-end the car in front of me while also wondering what in the world they were talking about.

The Ding Dong store?

I glanced left.
Then right.
Nothing made sense.

Then in the rearview mirror I caught the sign behind us.

Purple.
Red.
Gold.

Taco Bell

And just like that, the mystery cracked wide open.

Of course.

To two little girls strapped into the back of a van, a bell didn’t say Taco anything.

A bell said ding dong.

Dad had finally decoded the secret language.

I laughed so hard I nearly missed the turn.

From that day on, it was never Taco Bell again.

It was the Ding Dong store.

And honestly, I’m still not sure they were wrong.

Credit: John Hardy, creator of Reddit whyareyousadcom.

The hitchhiking ghost nearly picked the wrong five-year-old…

I think it was the summer of 1970 when we took a trip to California to explore Disneyland.

To a five-year-old kid from Nebraska, it felt less like a vacation and more like entering another universe.

I remember the parades first.

The music.
The giant characters.
The smell of popcorn, sugar, sunscreen, and whatever magic Disney pumped into the air to convince children their parents suddenly became rich enough to buy everything.

There were the teacups spinning people into nausea before nausea was considered a medical condition.

The Jungle Cruise with skippers who thought they were comedians.

The Matterhorn that felt like actual death at approximately fourteen miles per hour.

And everywhere you looked there were carts loaded with things kids absolutely did not need but would have willingly traded a sibling to own.

Of course I got the black Mickey Mouse ears cap.

Every kid did.

But the real treasure was the watch.

A Mickey Mouse watch with a red leather band.

Mickey’s arms moved to tell the time, which in 1970 might as well have been alien technology. I wore that thing constantly until the strap cracked, the face scratched, and the whole watch finally surrendered from overuse years later.

But the thing I remember most from that trip wasn’t the rides or the souvenirs.

It was the Haunted Mansion.

The line alone felt endless.

To a little kid, it seemed like we had been standing there from breakfast until retirement age.

Everyone wanted to see Disney’s newest attraction, and the anticipation just kept building the closer we got.

When we finally entered, the ride didn’t begin with screams or skeletons.

It began with uncertainty.

An elevator.

Crowded.
Dimly lit.
Adults pretending not to be uncomfortable.

I remember framed portraits on the walls that somehow felt alive, like the people inside them were watching us instead of the other way around.

Then there were statues lining the hallways as we slowly shuffled forward toward whatever doom Disney had prepared for us.

The whole thing was eerie in a strangely elegant way.

Not gross scary.

Sophisticated scary.

Then we boarded the cars.

Black.
Rounded.
Heavy-looking.

When the safety bar came down across my lap, I remember thinking the ride vehicles looked suspiciously like tiny moving coffins.

At five years old, I still wasn’t entirely sure whether this was going to become a roller coaster or an abduction.

Turns out it was mostly psychological warfare.

The ride itself started gently enough.

The cars rotated toward each scene like obedient little witnesses.

A haunted ballroom full of ghostly guests dressed like they’d wandered in from the 1700s.

Long banquet tables.

Floating candles.

A glowing crystal ball with a disembodied head speaking from somewhere beyond the grave.

And honestly…

by then I was impressed.

I had settled in.

I figured this whole thing was spooky but manageable.

Then we reached the final bend.

There were goofy ghosts suddenly trying to leave the mansion.

One sign even warned us they might try to hitchhike home with us.

Cute joke, Disney.

Then our car rotated toward the mirrors.

And there he was.

A ghost.

Sitting almost directly on my lap.

My eyes got so wide I’m surprised they didn’t leave permanent damage.

I think my heart stopped for at least three seconds, which is probably medically concerning for a five-year-old.

I looked at the mirror.

Then immediately looked beside me to get him off.

Nothing.

Nobody there.

Then back at the mirror again.

Still there.

That was the moment my tiny childhood brain realized Disney had figured out how to put ghosts into mirrors.

And honestly…

that seemed like a dangerous amount of power for a theme park to possess.

I was incredibly relieved when the ride ended.

Mostly because I’m not entirely sure that ghost would’ve fit inside our suitcase for the flight back home.

Credit: John Hardy, creator of Reddit whyareyousadcom.

Sometimes the worst parenting moments are only terrible because other people are watching…

There are moments as a parent when your brain completely abandons you.

Not because anything dangerous is happening.

Not because your child is hurt.

But because your kid says something in public that lands with the force of a live grenade while strangers are standing nearby.

This happened years ago in the Baker’s parking lot in northwest Omaha.

It was one of those cold Nebraska fall afternoons where winter was starting to send warnings. The wind had that dry chill to it, and you could smell leaves and asphalt and somebody nearby grilling something they probably shouldn’t have been grilling in a parking lot.

The twins were little then.

Still in that stage where getting them out of their car seats felt like unloading tiny drunk people from a clown car.

I had just gotten both girls unbuckled and onto the pavement when we heard it overhead.

HONNNNK…

HONK-HONK-HONK…

A massive flock of geese was flying south for the winter in a perfect V across the gray sky. Hundreds of them. Loud enough that people all over the parking lot were looking up.

The girls stopped walking immediately.

Both heads tilted skyward in synchronized fascination.

And then Madie reacted.

Without even hesitating, she pointed up at the sky with one hand while pulling the other arm back like she was about to throw a fastball directly into the atmosphere.

Then she snapped her arm forward dramatically and screamed at the top of her lungs:

“SHUT UP, YOU HONKIES!”

The parking lot froze.

I froze.

My soul froze.

Because in my adult brain, the word landed very differently than it had in hers.

But to Madie?

They were geese.

They were honking.

Therefore…

Honkies.

Perfectly logical toddler linguistics.

Unfortunately, logic wasn’t helping me while twelve strangers turned toward us simultaneously.

Before I could even recover, her sister started jumping up and down beside her like an overexcited protest organizer.

“YEAH! SHUT UP!”

Now both of them are yelling at migratory birds like tiny, furious air-traffic controllers while I’m trying to speed-walk them toward the grocery store pretending this is somehow normal family behavior.

And of course that only made it worse.

Because now I looked guilty.

So I did what every panicked parent does in situations like this.

I overexplained.

“They mean the geese,” I announced to absolutely nobody who asked.

“The geese are honking…”

More laughter.

One older woman nearly bent over crying.

Meanwhile the girls were still staring skyward, deeply committed to silencing all airborne wildlife crossing Douglas County.

What’s funny now is how innocent it really was.

Kids don’t carry the meanings adults do.

They just build language from the world they understand.

To them, the equation was simple:

Dogs bark.

Cats meow.

Geese honk.

Therefore…

Honkies.

Honestly, from a branding standpoint, the logic was airtight.

But at the time?

I wanted the pavement to open up and swallow me directly into the underworld beside my shopping cart.

The geese, of course, remained completely unbothered.

Still flying south.

Still honking.

Still apparently immune to verbal warnings from angry toddlers in matching coats.

And somewhere over Omaha that afternoon, I’m pretty sure an entire flock unknowingly won an argument against me in front of a grocery store audience.

Credit: John Hardy, creator of Reddit whyareyousadcom

Five friends, one four-hour movie, and the moment everything became way funnier than it had any right to be…

There are certain decisions in college that feel questionable in the moment…

and then become legendary later.

This was one of those.

Our Gone with the Wind assignment came from an art history professor who also happened to run the entire Fine Arts Department.

Which meant two things…

he took it very seriously…

and none of us did.

The deal was simple.

Watch the movie.
Write a review.
Then take two tests.

One on the film itself…
and one on 500 flashcards of artwork where only 100 would show up…

which somehow made it feel like academic roulette.

The flashcards?
Honestly… kind of fun.

The movie?

Four hours long.

Emotionally aggressive.

We assumed it would be a slow, painful march toward a grade.

Luckily… there were five of us.

And we had already spent three years finding ways to make almost anything entertaining…

We basically lived in the communication arts wing.

Right in the middle of everything.

If you walked between the library, Thomas Hall, Otto Olsen, or Student Affairs…

you walked past us.

Which meant we knew everyone.

Or at least… it felt like we did.

From my angle, it was even funnier.

I had started as an aviation computer science major…

ended up in marketing and graphic design…

and played basketball.

So my circles overlapped in a way that made zero sense on paper…

but perfect sense in that hallway.

We weren’t just watching a movie.

We were preparing.

Snacks.

Drinks.

And yes…

we were absolutely high.

Not chaos.

Not reckless.

Just enough to turn the volume up on everything.

And that’s when the movie stopped being a movie.

And turned into an experience.

Scarlett wasn’t a character…

she was a full-blown commitment to bad decisions.

Every scene felt like she was improvising consequences in real time.

“I’ll think about it tomorrow” hit different when you realize…

tomorrow has been a problem for four straight hours.

And Rhett…

he wasn’t even in the same movie.

Everyone else was trapped in a dramatic historical epic…

Rhett was casually hosting a sarcastic commentary track.

At one point someone said…

“This guy knows how this ends and just doesn’t care.”

We lost it.

And then there was the length.

At some point we stopped tracking the plot…

and started tracking time itself.

“Wait… there’s an intermission?”

“I need an intermission from the intermission.”

It felt like we had lived multiple lives…

and Scarlett was still making the same decision.

That was the real realization.

Nothing was actually happening…

and everything was happening.

It was just people…

refusing to say what they meant…

for four hours straight.

Which, in hindsight…

felt like a very old version of modern dating…

By the time that final line landed…

we weren’t even laughing the same way anymore.

It wasn’t just funny.

It was weirdly accurate.

And that’s the part I didn’t expect.

We went in thinking we were going to survive something boring…

and instead…

we accidentally understood it.

Not the history.

Not the symbolism.

Just the simple truth underneath all of it…

People don’t change as much as they think they do.

They just get better costumes.

We all passed the test.

I don’t remember what I wrote.

I definitely don’t remember most of the flashcards.

But I remember that night.

Clear as day.

Because sometimes the thing you expect the least from…

ends up being the one you actually see.

Credit: John Hardy, creator of Reddit whyareyousadcom

Sometimes the smallest encouragement arrives exactly when someone is wondering whether to keep going.

Every week, the newsletter went out.

By the time I hit send, I’d usually read it three times, rewritten the headline twice, and convinced myself there was a decent chance nobody would read any of it anyway.

Then I would wait.

Not because I was expecting applause.

Just because every person who creates something eventually asks the same question:

Does any of this matter?

Writers ask it.

Artists ask it.

Teachers ask it.

Coaches ask it.

Parents ask it.

Business owners ask it.

Anyone who spends their time trying to build something for other people eventually wonders whether they’re speaking into an empty room.

The strange thing is that we almost never see the people we’re reaching.

We see numbers.

Views.

Clicks.

Likes.

Followers.

Analytics.

But numbers don’t tell stories.

A pageview doesn’t tell you that someone read your words at midnight because they couldn’t sleep.

A share doesn’t tell you that someone sent it to a friend who needed it.

A view doesn’t tell you that someone sat quietly for a moment and thought, “I needed that.”

Most of the impact we have on one another happens completely out of sight.

I was reminded of that recently when I read a note from someone thanking a friend for something simple.

Not for donating money.

Not for solving a crisis.

Not for doing anything extraordinary.

Just for consistently responding.

A quick reply.

A comment.

A reaction.

Ten seconds of effort.

The kind of thing most people barely think about.

Yet the writer said those small acknowledgments meant more than the friend probably realized.

Because creating things can be lonely.

You spend hours writing, building, teaching, helping, planning, encouraging, and showing up.

Then you send your work out into the world and hope it lands somewhere.

Most of the time, you never know where.

Imagine standing in a tall building at night looking out over a city.

Thousands of windows.

Thousands of lives.

Most of them dark from where you’re standing.

You can’t see who is awake.

You can’t see who is struggling.

You can’t see who is smiling.

You can’t see who might need exactly what you have to offer.

All you can do is keep your own light on.

The beautiful thing is that encouragement works the same way.

A simple message.

A thoughtful reply.

A quick acknowledgment.

A reminder that someone noticed.

You may never know how much it mattered.

You may never know whether it arrived on a good day or a difficult one.

You may never know whether it was the thing that convinced someone to keep going.

But sometimes it is.

The older I get, the more I realize that people don’t need constant praise.

They don’t need standing ovations.

They don’t need everyone to agree with them.

What they need is evidence that they aren’t invisible.

That their effort matters.

That someone noticed.

That somewhere out there, another light is on.

The funny thing is that the friend who sent those replies probably thought he wasn’t doing much at all.

Just a comment.

Just a response.

Just ten seconds.

But small things have a way of becoming big things when they arrive at exactly the right moment.

Maybe that’s why the people who encourage others stand out so much.

Not because they’re louder.

Because they’re intentional.

Because in a world where it’s easy to scroll past, ignore, or quietly disappear, they choose to let people know they’re seen.

And sometimes that’s all another person needed to hear.

Credit: John Hardy, creator of Reddit whyareyousadcom

Most people stop trying to reinvent the world sometime around middle age…

Somewhere between mortgages and medications… between schedules and responsibilities… the impossible starts feeling embarrassing.

But I never fully let go of airports.

Some kids grow up around baseball fields.
I grew up around runways.

The smell of avgas.
Sunlight pouring through dusty hangars.
The strange beauty of things that shouldn’t be able to fly… somehow lifting anyway.

Even after I stopped flying regularly, I still thought about airflow.

About pressure.

About lift.

About all the invisible things holding massive objects in the sky.

And one night, sitting alone with diagrams scattered across a workbench, I started wondering if airplanes had been fighting the wind all wrong this entire time.

The first sketches looked ridiculous.

Not wings.

Not rotors.

Not jets.

Just layers of curved metallic tiles arranged in shifting grids like Venetian blinds designed by a madman.

But the idea refused to leave me alone.

Each piece could move independently.
Each surface could catch airflow from a different direction.
Instead of resisting turbulence, the machine would absorb it… redirect it… amplify it.

The stronger the chaos around it became, the more stable the craft would grow.

At least that was the theory.

People smiled politely when I tried explaining it.

The same way adults smile at children holding cardboard rockets.

But I kept building.

Quietly.

Patiently.

Obsessively.

Most of the testing happened at sunrise when the wind was calm and the world still felt half-asleep.

The first prototype only carried one person.

An abandoned runway.
Cold morning air.
A machine humming softly beneath me.

Five running steps.

Then six inches off the ground.

Then two feet.

Then suddenly the machine wasn’t falling anymore.

It was listening.

That’s what I called it later when people asked how it worked.

“It listens to the wind.”

At first I thought nobody had seen the early flights.

I was wrong.

The videos spread slowly at first.

A strange silver craft floating silently above dry lakebeds and empty farmland with no visible fuel source. No propeller wash. No exhaust plume. Just motion… smooth and impossible.

Engineers became obsessed.

Oil companies became nervous.

The internet became unbearable.

But somewhere inside classrooms and garages and aging workshops all over the world, something unexpected started happening.

People started sketching again.

Older men dug half-finished inventions out of storage boxes.

College students changed majors.

Kids started drawing impossible machines in notebook margins instead of giving up before they even began.

Because the machine didn’t just prove flight could change.

It proved imagination didn’t have an expiration date.

And maybe that’s why people connected to it so deeply.

Not because they believed they’d ever fly one themselves…

…but because somewhere along the way, they missed the version of themselves that still believed impossible things were worth chasing.

Credit: John Hardy, creator of Reddit whyareyousadcom