How Glen Rice and the number 41 strangely helped shape my marriage proposal (and so many other things)

February 14, 20201 Comment

It’s Valentine’s Day and I’m here to tell you a love story. But I’m not going to go with the typical love story here…you’ve heard those. This isn’t a story of how it took close to four decades to find the person I’m meant to spend my life with and all of the reasons I love her. While some of those things might come up here, I want to go in a different direction today. This is a love story that revolves around my favorite number, the basketball player that made me love that number and how that number plays into this story as a whole. As I tend to do sometimes, I might go a little over the top and stretch some things to fit the narrative I’m rolling with…but I’m a storyteller. And what storyteller doesn’t take things over the top sometimes?

It’s 1989 and I’m nine years old, just a couple of months away from turning 10. Now, my 10th birthday isn’t an issue here but my day of birth does come into play later on. So as most boys of that age do, I love sports. For the most part, I’d been a baseball kid, that Midwest kid dreaming of one day being the guy that finally helps the Chicago Cubs win a World Series. My hometown of Peoria, Illinois had the Single-A affiliate of the Cubs, the Peoria Chiefs, and I was going to start there and move my way up to the big leagues someday…you know, typical kid dreams. Spoiler alert…that did not happen.

But my attention was starting to shift to the game of basketball. Just a few years earlier, I’d turned on a game between the Los Angeles Lakers and the Boston Celtics, still the greatest rivalry that American sports has ever seen, and I fall in love with Magic Johnson and the way he controls the game. So I instantly become a Lakers fan and have been ever since, which wasn’t easy given the fact that I live in Illinois…you know, the state that houses the Chicago Bulls, who at that time had this youngster named Michael Jordan (maybe you’ve heard of him) that was rapidly becoming the top draw and player in the game. But I stuck with my Lakers, even when Jordan & Co. became the hottest thing in sports.

So, we’re still with my nine-year-old self in the spring of 1989 and I’m patiently waiting for the baseball season to start. The Cubs were looking good that year and actually did go to the playoffs for the first time in five years but I’m looking for some sports to watch and spring training baseball just isn’t getting it done for me. Now, I hadn’t watched a ton of college basketball at this point in my life. Growing up, I’d go to the Bradley University games down at the Peoria Civic Center to watch Jim Les and Hersey Hawkins, both of whom went on to play in the NBA, but that was really the only team I rooted for. That was about to change because of one guy.

The NCAA Basketball Tournament is one of my favorite sporting events but it wasn’t always that way. As I said, I hadn’t watched a ton of college basketball but I became hooked in 1989 and it wasn’t because of the team that I was “supposed” to be rooting for. I had heard some kids in school talk about the “Flyin’ Illini”, the team from the University of Illinois (which was only 90 minutes away from me) that had Kenny Battle, Nick Anderson, Kendall Gill, Marcus Liberty and others…just a dominating squad that at one point held the No. 1 ranking in the country that season. But it wasn’t them at all. It was their Big Ten rival, the Michigan Wolverines, that grabbed my attention and it all started with No. 41, Glen Rice.

Glen Rice was an absolute monster that tournament and I was glued to the television, glued to No. 41 and his ability to take over a basketball game. The No. 3 seed in the Southeast Regional, Michigan opened the tournament with a 92-87 win over Xavier behind 23 points from Rice, his lowest output of the tourney. He scored 36 points, grabbed eight rebounds and dished out five assists in a second-round win over 11th-seeded South Alabama…that was a crazy year in which all four No. 11 seeds advanced to the second round…and followed that up with a 34-point game in the Sweet 16 over second-seeded North Carolina, the Tarheels squad that was led by J.R. Reid.

Rice continued his stellar play in the Elite Eight as the Wolverines blistered fifth-seeded Virginia, who had upset top-ranked Oklahoma in the previous round, beating the Cavaliers 102-65 as No. 41 poured in 32 more points. Now, it wasn’t just Rice that was winning these games…the Wolverines were stocked with future NBA talent like Terry Mills, Loy Vaught, Sean Higgins and Rumeal Robinson…but it was Rice that was dominating the tournament and a Final Four matchup with Illinois was set.

The Fighting Illini were the No. 1 seed in the Midwest and they really were a fun team to watch. They won their first 17 games that season and brought a 27-4 record into the tournament, including an 89-73 win over Michigan to close out the regular season, their second win over the Wolverines in Big Ten play. But the Final Four matchup didn’t have the same result. In an amazing game that saw 33 lead changes, the Wolverines prevailed by two, an 83-81 victory that took them to the national title game. In a true team effort, Rumeal Robinson dished out 12 assists, Loy Vaught grabbed 16 rebounds and leading the way with 28 points…you guessed it, Glen Rice. The Wolverines finished things off two nights later in a thrilling 80-79 overtime win against Seton Hall, once again led by Rice, who scored 34 points and nabbed 11 boards, easily clinching the Most Outstanding Player trophy.

Now, I obviously didn’t know all of these stats when I was nine years old…that’s just the fun of researching as a sportswriter…but I knew I had seen something special. To this very day, nobody has scored more points (184), hit more field goals (75) or sank more threes (27) in a single NCAA Tournament than Glen Rice did in 1989. I was in and I was hooked. I was a Michigan guy, a Glen Rice guy, a No. 41 guy. I remain a Michigan sports fan to this day and that’s all because of No. 41.

Now, I hadn’t forgotten about Magic Johnson and his No. 32. I wore that number when I played ball in grade school but that would change as I continued to follow Glen Rice as he made his move to the NBA. And this is the point in the story where I start to have some fun with the number 41, which really is the point of this whole thing as the number continued(and continues) to play a huge part in my life. And this is where the stretching part comes in…but it’s my article and I want to have some fun with it so just let me be. With the 4th pick in Round 1 of the 1989 NBA Draft, the Miami Heat chose Glen Rice. See what I did there? Okay, that really is stretching it but at least the first one is out of the way.

With basketball replacing baseball as my main sport of choice as I rolled into my teen years, I obviously watched along with the rest of the world as Jordan, Pippen and the Bulls became the focus of the NBA. But I was still following No. 41. With no NBA League Pass available back in those days, I didn’t get a ton of opportunities to watch Glen Rice play, especially seeing as how he was on an expansion team that was trying to find its way. But I watched as much SportsCenter as I could with the hope that I’d catch some Rice highlights here and there. And I was a stats and numbers junkie and I had this book a sort of almanac with all of the numbers of the players in the league and I specifically remember turning to the Glen Rice page to put his averages together for a class project and it was here that I discovered something truly awesome. He was born on May 28, 1967. I was born on May 28, 1979. Yep, I share a birthday with Glen Rice. See, I told you that would come back around. And since we’re on that, let’s go ahead and do this now. So my birthday is 05/28/1979, right? 0+5+2+8+1+9+7+9=41. Yes, I actually took the time to do that last week while doing some prep for this piece and I love it.

As I got into high school, Glen Rice was becoming a solid player in the NBA. After a couple of years being in the background behind guys like Rony Seikaly (bet you haven’t thought about that guy in a while), he had become the focal point of the Heat offense, averaging more than 21 points per game in his last four seasons in Miami. He was 10th in the league in scoring in his final season with the Heat and also won the NBA All-Star Three Point Contest (a HUGE All-Star Game snub that year) before being shipped to the Charlotte Hornets ahead of the 1995-1996 campaign.

By this time, I was wearing No. 41 for my basketball team in high school (I had dropped a career high of 41 the season before) and Glen Rice had become a force in the league. He FINALLY made an All-Star team in his first season in Charlotte and would be an All-Star all three seasons as a Hornet, including being the All-Star Game MVP in 1997, a game in which he dropped 20 points in the third quarter alone, a record for most points in a single quarter that he held on his own for two decades until it was matched by Anthony Davis in 2017.

And then it happened. After three years in Charlotte, Glen Rice was traded to…the freaking Los Angeles Lakers. Yes, after all these years of hoping that I’d see him wearing No. 41 in the purple and gold, it was here. Brought to L.A. to be the third option behind Shaquille O’Neal and a young Kobe Bryant, Rice scored 17.5 points per game in the lockout-shortened 1998-1999 season and added 15.9 per night the following season as the Lakers won the first of their three consecutive titles to begin the new millennium. I was in heaven watching this. Kobe had become my new favorite Laker and watching he and Shaq dish to Glen Rice on the perimeter…are you freaking kidding me? This was amazing. Unfortunately, Rice was shipped to the Knicks the following season but he had gotten an NBA Championship to go along with his NCAA title from 1989…and it also prompted my best friend to get me this for my birthday, which seems even more fitting now.

Michigan 41 Glen Rice and Lakers 41 Glen Rice. Awesome, right?

For the next four years, Rice’s career would wind down as he jumped from New York to Houston and finally the Clippers and his numbers would wind down as well as injuries to his foot and knee would bring an unceremonious end to his stellar career. As of this moment, Glen Rice has scored the 73rd-most points in NBA history with 18,336 and hit the 29th-most three-pointers with 1,559. Not bad at all, I would say. Honestly, I was sad to see how his career ended. Even with a few All-Star nods and that MVP performance, he was often underrated as a player. Think about how many thousands of players have come and gone in the NBA and here he sits at 73rd in points…by the way, that’s more points scored in the NBA than Hall of Famers like Chris Mullin, Lenny Wilkens, Magic Johnson, Jason Kidd, Earl Monroe, Steve Nash, Kevin McHale, Grant Hill, Joe Dumars, James Worthy and so many others…and 29th in threes. That’s pretty impressive. But I was lucky. I got to watch his career from start to finish and I was one who appreciated what I was watching. So watching him have to hobble at the end of his career and then just walk away was sad for me. For 15 years, I followed this guy’s career and wanted to wear that No. 41 because of him. Little did I realize at the time that the number 41 would continue to be a factor in my life and would help shape so many things.

Okay, okay…so you may have gotten through all of that and started thinking that this was just one big ode to Glen Rice. Well, I wanted to go through all of that to get here. And honestly, since I’ve become a sportswriter, I’ve never had the chance to write about him for any of my sites and this was my opportunity. So I took it and I loved researching all of it. But how does a basketball player like Glen Rice and No. 41 play into my own personal story here?

In the years after Glen Rice retired, the number 41 would still come up for me from time to time. I had actually moved to Florida during his last season and would have to answer questions down there constantly about why I was a Michigan fan when I was from Illinois. It usually had to do with Michigan football but I would tell the story of that 1989 tournament where I saw No. 41 light up everyone. I think most people assumed that I started liking Michigan basketball when the Fab Five came around in the early ’90s but that wasn’t the case. Sure, I loved those teams, especially Jalen Rose (he was a guard and I’ve always leaned towards guards since that’s what I was) but my Michigan fandom always went back to Rice. In my mid-20s at this time, I obviously wasn’t playing basketball competitively anymore and didn’t have a jersey to wear but I always kept the number in my head. I probably shouldn’t say this but I would use it for passwords or pin numbers or something like that and the number just became part of who I am. That might sound a little silly but I think everyone has a favorite number for one reason or another and I just stuck with 41.

And then life happened. I got married, moved back to Illinois and had two amazing identical twin daughters, Ashlyn and Brooklyn. They were born on October 7, 2010, 11 weeks early and it was hard. They were kept in the NICU for quite a while and I was really hoping that they would be released on their 41st day as it neared. Their health was improving every day and as the day inched closer, the amazing staff at the hospital said they were almost ready. It didn’t happen on that day but it did on the 44th day, which was November 20, 2010. Yes, that’s 11+20+10=41. I told you, I can twist anything to fit this narrative. But I do honestly remember going through some of the big events that would happen in their life and how old I would be when they happened…when they graduated high school or college or maybe even when they got married or had their own kids. Or hitting those big milestone ages…like 10, which they’ll turn later this year, when I’ll be…41.

And then the other side of life happened…and I’ll keep this as brief as possible as I don’t want to turn this into a pity party. But I got divorced and while all of that mess was unfolding, my father got sick (again) and passed. Not long after that, I lost my job. Certain areas of my life were an absolute mess but I had people behind me, keeping me up when I got down on myself, which unfortunately happens quite easily. But I pressed on. I started this website in 2013 to start writing again as writing has always been therapeutic for me. In 2014, I quit my new job to try sportswriting on a full-time basis, something I’d always wanted to try but never really went after. It was going fine but I wasn’t making a ton of money and have always had to take some other jobs to keep myself afloat…all the while still hoping that this dream of mine might someday work out.

Fast forward to 2017 and things are still a little shaky at points. I still had my daughters to always lift me up but I was coming out of another long relationship that had ended and I was in a very confused state of mind. And then I met LeeAnn. Now, I’m not going to sit here and pretend that our relationship had the most romantic of starts but I was into her. I was working part-time at a local bar and I had met her sister, who is a hilarious stand-up comedienne whom I would make tell me jokes for shots, and she thought we might hit it off. And we did.

I told LeeAnn I wasn’t looking for anything serious at the time, and she really wasn’t either, but by the end of the year, we were all in with one another. We met each other’s children and talked about a future together and everything that goes along with that, including me getting married again, which is something that frightened me to no end and had been the biggest part of the previous relationship ending. I thought I had gotten to a point where I could again, even saying I could again, and when I couldn’t, things were over and that was all on me. But I had moved on and I knew that I was in love with LeeAnn and I knew I had to grow, had to get to a different way of thinking because I wanted a future with her.

Fast forward again towards the end of 2018 and I thought I had blown it. It was early November and I had royally screwed up…I mean, royally screwed up…the kind of thing you don’t come back from. Things were getting even more serious as talks amped up about what our future held and I was an extremely confused person and to put it simply, I became somebody I’m not. I got scared and ran away, gave her a reason to leave me. And yet she didn’t. I mean, she did, but not long after we split up, which involved a gut-wrenching conversation with my daughters about her not being around as much anymore, LeeAnn let me back in. It started small with a concert but then it was still Christmas with my family and I wondered if we really could get back to the place we had been before. I had to do some real soul searching and I came to the conclusion that she was what I wanted and who I wanted forever. And I was going to do everything it took to make that happen.

LeeAnn turned 40 on January 15, 2019 and the following night, I made her a private birthday dinner. We had done the things with the kids the night before…another good sign that we were close to getting back…but I didn’t know for sure where things were going. But at that 40th birthday dinner, she told me she was back in and I couldn’t have been happier. I told myself that night that if I could get back to this same dinner a year later, I was going to ask her to marry me…honestly not even thinking about what that meant at the time.

2019 was an absolute whirlwind. I turned 40 myself in May, which I didn’t make into a big deal as I’d told myself for a while that I wanted 41 to be the big one. I mean…that makes more sense for me, right? So it came and went and that was okay because we had bigger fish to fry that week as we were taking the kids down to Florida. In July, we bought a house together and moved in August after so much freaking painting. I was still writing on the side while working for this wine company, in addition to doing some other side jobs that I absolutely hated. But life was good in most aspects. I still wasn’t where I wanted to be professionally but I kept pushing forward and doing what I could. As 2020 neared, I knew something was going to be special. I’ve never been one to make New Year’s resolutions or anything like that, but I just had a feeling that the year I turned 41 was supposed to be something different.

The first couple of weeks of 2020 went really slow. I knew what I’d be doing soon and had the ring ready to roll and the day couldn’t come fast enough. I joked with her about not being 40 anymore but in her 40s soon…you know, talking to a woman about her age is always the smart thing to do…and a day or two before her 41st birthday, I actually talked with her about the number and Glen Rice and all of it. I had originally wanted her birthday dinner with just the two of us to be on the 16th, which was one year after she had let me back in. But it worked out best on her actual birthday and I was okay with it.

The day of her 41st birthday didn’t start smoothly. One of my daughters had to stay home sick from school and I still needed to get all the things to make dinner that night. I didn’t really want to drag her around to a couple of stores but she was amazing and I so badly wanted to tell her what I was doing that night but I couldn’t let it slip to anyone. Not even my mother knew. My daughters went back to their mom’s that night and I got to work. I made a nice steak dinner, opened up some beautiful wine and we ate. I had told her that in the days leading up, she would get 4 smaller presents and then 1 big present, which she thought was just the dinner. But after dinner was the real present.

Now, I like to think that I’m usually pretty decent with words but I had never been so nervous in my life and I’m still pretty sure I fumbled through everything. I had the ring in my pocket and I just started talking about how amazing the last year had been, how we had this new house and this new family together and how I was right where I wanted to be. I don’t know exactly how it came out but I told her that for the longest time, I thought I’d been waiting for my 41st birthday for something great to happen but that it wasn’t mine I’d been waiting for all this time. It was hers. The ring was in my hand at this time and I dropped to one knee, tears already flowing down my face (I really thought I was gonna get through it) and I asked her to marry me. At this point, she was crying as well and we embraced and she said “yes” ever so softly and it was absolutely perfect.

In the month since the engagement, if you can believe it, life has gotten even better. Just two weeks ago, the dream job finally came to be. I was offered and accepted a full-time position with a great site called Sportscasting, a job that comes with a nice yearly salary, benefits, retirement and I get to do all of this from the same spot where I’m writing this piece, right here in my own home, this wonderful new home that LeeAnn and I share with our family. I’ve got a couple of days of orientation this upcoming Monday and Tuesday and I really get going on Wednesday, February 19, 2020. 2+19+20=41.

I’m sure you’ve heard the expression “you just can’t write stuff like that.” Well, I can tell you that “stuff like that” can happen. Sure, I thought that things like this might happen for me sooner. And I’ve never really believed in things like destiny or a divine plan or anything like that but maybe I was supposed to go through all of the things I have to get right here…right here to this year I turn 41, right to that day when LeeAnn turned 41 and I finally let go of so many fears, right here to this life that I’ve always dreamed of having.

Sure, this has been a silly story that started with me talking about some player at Michigan that I saw on TV more than three decades ago that wore No. 41. But that number somehow became something for me, something I held onto. I never knew why, but as I said previously, it stayed with me. And now I’m just running with it. LeeAnn and I are getting married in late summer but will likely have to wait a couple of months for the honeymoon. We have kids in school and it’s hard to get away for a week at a time. My idea? Let’s wait until winter break and go somewhere over New Year’s, when the calendar hits 2021. 20+21=41. Yeah, I know, it’s goofy and weird but it’s fun.

The wedding date, you ask? September 12, 2020. 9+12+20=41. You think that’s an accident?

And there’s an open invitation for Glen Rice.

My Tribute to Luke Perry

March 5, 2019March 5, 2019Leave a comment

So here it is close to 2:00 in the morning and I can’t sleep, which isn’t uncommon. What is uncommon over the past few years is me actually writing an original post for this website. Sure, all the articles I write for FanSided make their way here but it’s been a long time since I’ve actually written something just to write. It’s something I told myself I would start doing when I celebrated the fifth anniversary of this site nearly a year ago, which happens to be the last original post that came from The Luke Norris Experience, but I didn’t follow through. Shocking, right? So why did I wait until the death of a 52-year-old actor whom I never met to do this? Well, allow me to explain.

Like so many of you reading this, when I see that some sort of celebrity has passed away, whether it be an actor or a sports figure or whatever, I tend to look back at what that person has accomplished or given the world, maybe chime in on a post or two but then I just go on with my day. After all, it doesn’t really affect my own life and a week or two later, the majority of the hoopla surrounding such a death is gone from the media cycle anyway, right? So why even take the time to write something on Luke Perry? Well, it’s because this one actually stung a little bit.

Perhaps some of you may want to laugh at me for that. Maybe some of you want to laugh or get upset with anyone that actually takes time out of their day to post something on social media about these celebrities because in the grand scheme of things, it doesn’t feel like it matters at all with everything else going on in the world. North Korea. The water crisis in Flint. Starving children in Africa. Democrats vs. Republicans. That goddamn wall.

And in case you’re wondering, yes, I do read up on all of those things and of course they matter and they’re obviously very important issues. And I could sit here and write about that as well if I felt like it. But here’s the thing. Those actors or musicians or authors or sports figures are people that we sometimes look to in order to escape that “real world” for an episode or a film or a song or a book or a game at a time. They’re people that draw us into their world, even if only for a little while, and make us feel something one way or another and that’s why people post about celebrities. They’re people that we sometimes look to for comfort in a world that doesn’t always give that to us. It’s to remember that this person, someone we may have never met for even one second in our life, brought some sort of joy to our lives at one point in time.

So with all the celebrities out there who have left us too soon, why choose to finally break out of this writing slumber I’ve been in by writing on Luke Perry? For starters, that’s just something I need to do anyway because I know I have more to offer than what I’ve been doing but that’s not the point right now. Sure, I could go into how underrated 8 Seconds is or that fantastic turn he made in doing Oz or showing off some comedic chops in Buffy the Vampire Slayer or how excited I was when I heard that he scored a role in the upcoming Quentin Tarantino flick that’s out this summer, which is now just going to be really freaking brutal to watch. Let’s not forget about that video he was in for The Killers as well. But those that know me know why we’re here. No, it’s not just the Luke thing (that’s not even his real name or any part of his real name for that matter), although I certainly have had my share of being called Luke Perry in my lifetime, which I certainly never minded as it was at least something different than hearing “Luke, I am your father” for the millionth time. That’s not even the right line, people. But I digress. We’re here for Beverly Hills, 90210. We’re here for Dylan McKay.

I have zero problem admitting that I was a sucker for teen dramas, probably longer than I should have been. Dawson’s Creek or One Tree Hill or whatever. But hey, there’s worse things in the world and it all started with that group from Beverly Hills. It didn’t take me long to latch onto the Dylan McKay character and I can truly say that nearly 30 years later, he’s still one of my favorite television characters of all time. Again, maybe that’s something that makes you laugh with all the great characters that have graced the small screen over the course of time but everyone has their favorites and Dylan McKay will always be one of mine. The reason is quite simple. He’s just someone with whom I identified and Luke Perry played him to perfection. Yes, it’s still a teen drama so there’s plenty of crazy storylines and cheesy moments but the Dylan stories were always just a little more interesting and complex.

Okay, there was the love triangle with Dylan, Brenda and Kelly in the early years and what guy hasn’t been torn between the blonde and the brunette at one point or another? I’m obviously joking on that but there’s plenty of truth here. What I’m getting at more is the relationship with his father. That feeling of abandonment at a young age that carries over. That feeling of putting trust back into someone only to be knocked back down again and again. Yes, there’s the father in prison thing that I can certainly relate to as well. There’s a great scene with Dylan just curling up by a candle and crying that really pulls at the heartstrings. This is a guy that plays things so cool on the outside and is simply dying on the inside. A guy that feels so alone even when there are still people around that care about him. Yeah, I think I can relate there and Luke Perry just played it beautifully.

So then the father comes back into the picture and Dylan lets him back in, even when it seems like maybe he shouldn’t. Yep, been there as well. And then Dad dies right in front of him. Okay, my dad didn’t get blown up in a car but like Dylan, I watched my father die right in front of me and that image still haunts me sometimes. There’s this amazing episode, an episode that I kid you not is playing at this moment in the background as I write this, in which Dylan is talking to another version of himself (and later on his childhood self) trying to deal with things before, during and after the funeral and it’s heartbreaking. You know what song was playing at the end of that episode? “Can’t Cry Hard Enough” by The Williams Brothers. So I want to make this tribute video for my father after he died and you know what song I choose to open it? You guessed it. “Can’t Cry Hard Enough” by The Williams Brothers. This was in 2012. That episode, “The Child Is Father to the Man” aired in 1993. That’s how much a silly episode of a teen drama to some can mean to someone else. I’ve watched that episode so many times over the years and I love watching Luke Perry craft his way through that episode. And we’re just going to gloss over the fact that we find out so many years later that the death was staged as I like to pretend those episodes didn’t happen. But even there, there’s a few lines I could throw out that are amazing.

Trust me (and those that know my undying love for that show would back me up on this), I could go on and on with more episodes and get really particular if I were so inclined. I just always enjoyed the character because I could relate to that person in so many ways…the good and the bad. I like to think that I’ve helped people at points in my life but I’ve also knocked plenty of people down with certain comments or actions. I like to think I have a good heart when I’ve got my head on straight but believe me, it’s turned black plenty of times, especially when I let certain things get out of control. I’ve been burned myself on plenty of occasions and in turn, I’ve done my fair share of the burning. On that note, the “May the bridges I burn light the way” line is absolute gold. There were episodes where he turned to writing for comfort and episodes where it seemed he was headed for such bad things if he didn’t turn his life around. In the three decades since Luke Perry took that role, I can still go back and sometimes feel like he’s playing me. So my wife didn’t get killed and heroin never became an issue for me and I’m not quite at the McKay level financially but I think you get the point.

I will say that I’ve never seen an episode of Riverdale but I have heard good things about him on that show and did have plans to check it out at some point. What I have seen is Luke Perry talking about how much he enjoyed taking on the older role in a teen drama because of how much he loved being a father in real life. That’s something he and I definitely shared. And his son is a freaking professional wrestler. How was I not supposed to want to be friends with that guy?

So maybe this whole piece still seems pointless to you and that’s okay. I’m in no position to tell anybody what to do or what to think. Maybe this just gave me the chance…even if he’ll obviously never see it…to say thank you to someone who has entertained me for 30 years and will continue to do through the beauty of streaming and/or DVDs. Or maybe it actually did open the floodgates back up as far as my writing is concerned and that’s something I can thank him for later on.

I’m sure that there are plenty of you reading this that feel the same way about some celebrity you’ve never met. Some actor that’s made you laugh or some musician that has written a song that’s spoken to you. Anyone that you’ve connected to in some way that’s taken you away from the world for even a brief moment. Throw it out there and don’t worry about what someone is going to say about it. Luke Perry was one of those people to me and I’ll never be ashamed to admit that. Rest in Peace, sir. Thank you.

The Luke Norris Experience turns 5: Thank you

March 20, 2018Leave a comment

Wow. It’s hard to believe that it’s been five years since I launched The Luke Norris Experience. And what a crazy five years it’s been.

No, I’m not going to once again go into why I started this thing or anything like that but I’m so happy that I did this for a number of reasons. What started as a simple blog has turned into an online portfolio where people can go to read just about everything I’ve ever written. And as of this morning, people from 73 countries on six continents have done just that over these past five years. That’s pretty freaking cool to me.

This is also the official launch of the new design that I’ve been tinkering with the last few weeks. When I got rid of LukeNorris.net (remember that thing?) and made this the one-stop shop for all things me, I had this idea of how I would work the “article portfolio” thing and I just kind of had everything jumbled up. If I, or anyone else, was looking for something specific that I’d done in the past, I had to search through so many pages looking for it. And after I started writing more and more for all of these different websites, that became quite a chore. So I’ve gone ahead and added every topic I’ve written on to the main menu at the top to make this thing a lot easier to navigate.

So if you’re looking for a baseball article I’ve written that you’ve enjoyed in the past, just go in there and run through it. (Note to self: you haven’t written a baseball article in over a year and you need to fix that.) I’m debating a “Favorites” section for my bigger topics as well, which would make things even easier on myself when I’m pitching myself to websites, so let me know if that’s something you’d enjoy seeing. Or if you’re looking for one of my old podcasts that I did for Binge Media, they’re all in here now as well.

And, of course, the “Up Close & Personal” section, which is still the heart and soul of this website and the main reason I started it, is still here, even though I haven’t written anything specifically for this site since 2016, which is something that desperately needs to and is going to change. I’m not going to get into this right now but the last year and a half has been pretty tough on me. I don’t know if I’ll get back to doing “The State of The Luke Norris Address” or not (skipped 2017) but one thing I realized over the past few weeks during this redesign was that I don’t write enough for me anymore. And that’s a problem. I got so wrapped up in doing these things for money, which is obviously a necessity, that I stopped writing for myself and stopped writing for fun, which has produced some of the best work I’ve ever done.

The main point of this is really to just say thank you. Thank you to the guys at Binge Media for giving me that first shot to get my stuff out there. It’s something I won’t forget. Thank you to every site that’s given me a platform. Things may not have worked out at some for various reasons but I’ll always be thankful to anyone who gives me a chance. But most importantly, thank you to each and every person who has ever visited the site or supported me during this crazy venture. I get comments from people I’ve never met from around the world and that’s truly humbling and amazing and something I never thought would happen. So I thank all of you so much for that. Keep ’em coming.

But it’s the support that I get from those that truly care about me that mean the most. So many of you have stood by me when I’ve gotten down on myself about things and that’s something I’ll never forget. You tell me to keep going and that I can do this. I know that I’ve got to do some other things to help make ends meet and I’m fine with that. As long as I have these people believing in me and the ability to keep believing in myself and the things that I know I can do (which is hard for me sometimes), I’m going to keep pressing forward. I’ve done some nice things but I know I’ve got more in me and I thank each and every one of you for pushing me to be better.

Thank you for five years of The Luke Norris Experience. There’s a lot more coming.

What The 2016 Chicago Cubs Taught Us About Hope (A Guest Post by Michael Murphy)

November 8, 2016November 8, 2016Leave a comment

From time to time, I like to open up The Luke Norris Experience to those who have something they want to get out to the world but just don’t have a forum to do so. Just yesterday, I wrote a piece entitled “What The Cubs Winning The World Series Means To Me“, knowing full well that there were likely many others who had probably done the same or were thinking of doing the same. As it happens, one of those people is Michael Murphy, a great friend of mine that I’ve known since high school that shares my love for the Cubs. Murph is an extremely intelligent and talented lawyer who doesn’t get to do much creative writing but just as it was with me wanted to get his thoughts on the Cubs winning the World Series out to the world. So without further ado, here they are:

Don’t ever give up on your dreams, friends.

Through failure, adversity, frustration, mediocrity, humiliation, despair, and even desperation, don’t ever give up. Why? There are many reasons, but one of them is that the Chicago Cubs won the 2016 World Series.

I was born in 1979 and have been a Cubs fan as long as I can remember. I never considered rooting for another team; my father raised me to be a Cubs fan. It was the only thing I ever knew. I never questioned it. I never begrudged my father for instilling this in me. I have always been and will always be a Chicago Cubs fan.

But I was bred into a losing fandom and could only dream what it might be like if the Cubs won a championship. In 2016, the Cubs had not won the World Series in 108 years. They had not even appeared in the World Series since 1945. From 1979 to 2016, the Cubs had 25 seasons where they lost more games than they won. But I never gave up hope.

The Cubs occasionally made the postseason. They were leading the National League Championship Series (NLCS) in 1984 three games to one, lost three straight games, and lost the series to San Diego. They were tied one game to one in the 1989 NLCS, and lost three straight games to San Francisco to lose the series. I barely remember these, but I learned of them through my Cubs fandom. Despite this knowledge, I never gave up hope.

In 1998, after winning a one-game playoff, the Cubs achieved a wild card spot in the playoffs. The Cubs were swept in three games by the Atlanta Braves. But I never gave up hope.

In 2003, the Cubs won their first postseason series since 1908, beating the Atlanta Braves in five games in the National League Division Series (NLDS). Then, the Cubs were leading the NLCS three games to one and were five outs away from advancing to the World Series, leading three to nothing in Game 6 against Florida. They lost Game 6, lost Game 7, and lost the series. I was 24, and I vividly remember the lasting pain of the conclusion of the 2003 Cubs season. But I never gave up hope.

The Cubs had great teams in 2007 and 2008, winning the Central Division both years to advance to the postseason. They were swept in the NLDS by Arizona in 2007 and Los Angeles in 2008. That was nine straight postseason games lost. But I never gave up hope.

In 2015, the Cubs advanced to the NLCS, only to be swept in four games by New York. But I never gave up hope.

The 2016 Cubs season was different. THESE Cubs never gave up. They had the best record in Major League Baseball, coming from behind to win an amazing eight times when they were trailing entering the ninth inning. These Cubs were leading the NLDS two games to one, but were down by three runs after eight innings in San Francisco. They were facing a series tied at two games each and a pressure-packed elimination Game 5 back at Wrigley Field. But they did not give up hope in Game 4. They scored four runs in the ninth inning and won the series.

These Cubs were losing the NLCS two games to one in Los Angeles, having been shutout in the past two games. But they never gave up hope. They won three games in a row to advance to the World Series.

These Cubs were losing the World Series three games to one. But they never gave up hope. They won Game 5 at Wrigley Field to make the series three to two, yet then faced two road games in Cleveland, with Cleveland needing only one win to eliminate the Cubs. They won Game 6 nine to three, and proceeded to the ultimate baseball game, Game 7 of the World Series.

These Cubs had a six to three lead with two outs in the eighth inning of Game 7. They allowed Cleveland to tie the game six to six in the eighth. Although they surrendered the lead when they were four outs away from finally winning a title, they never gave up hope.

These Cubs rallied to score two runs in the tenth inning of Game 7. They allowed a run to Cleveland in the bottom of the tenth, and then with two outs, Cleveland had the tying run at first base, and the winning run at the plate. But these Cubs never quit; they only needed one more out. These Cubs got the final out and won their first World Series in 108 years.

I believed in all the Chicago Cubs teams prior to 2016, and they did not achieve the ultimate goal. But I never gave up hope and believed again in 2016. These 2016 Chicago Cubs never quit. These Chicago Cubs never gave up hope. These Chicago Cubs accomplished the seemingly impossible by winning the World Series. These gritty, hardworking, never say die 2016 Cubs made their dreams come true, along with the dreams of millions of dedicated and faithful Cubs fans.

The story of the Chicago Cubs and its fandom transcends baseball. Being a Cubs fan is admittedly attaching great emotion to a game one has no power to affect, and sports fandom in general is not for everyone. The story of the Chicago Cubs, however, is a source of hope for all.

The fact that the Chicago Cubs won the World Series means that anything can happen, including things that have not occurred in over a century, things very few people alive have ever seen, and things no one alive has ever seen. No matter how long and painful the failure to achieve a goal may be, never give up hope. No matter how sad, depressed, ashamed, or exasperated one feels, there is always hope. Believe in your family, your friends, your coworkers, your neighbors, your fellow Americans, humankind in general and, most importantly, yourself. There is always hope.

Sometimes, or maybe many times, or perhaps over a hundred times, the goal will not be achieved. But there is always hope that a goal thought to be only a dream can be achieved. When that goal is something you were emotionally invested in and hoped would happen for a lifetime, a Cubs fan can assure you that reaching it will be an amazing experience. So, don’t ever give up on your dreams, friends.

-Michael P. Murphy

What The Cubs Winning The World Series Means To Me

November 7, 20164 Comments

Yes, I realize that it’s now been five days since the Chicago Cubs won the World Series (and yes, that is a very strange sentence to type) and that some of you may be sick of all of the posts and memes and stories about it, but I just can’t pass up this chance to share my thoughts on the matter with you, especially with those of you whom I know have been asking and waiting patiently for them. But honestly, I really wanted to let everything sink in and see the rest of the stories come out that go along with this monumental occasion. And I’ve also had to deal with my two daughters being sick and everything that goes along with that, I had a wedding to attend and of course had some actual work to do. But with the short time I do have available today (and wanting to get it in before so many of you get angry about the election tomorrow), here it goes.

It’s hard not to be romantic about baseball.

I want so badly to be able to take credit for that line but that actually comes from Moneyball (a movie that just gets better with each and every viewing and something I may or may not have watched multiple times in the past week) and it fits so perfectly with everything that took place during this World Series run by the Chicago Cubs. Now, I could go on for hours and hours on why exactly I love baseball so much. I could pull the James Earl Jones speech from Field of Dreams and just break that down line by line and likely get 10,000 words out of it but I’ll try to keep myself reeled in as best I can as I go along here.

But I do love baseball. As far as sports are concerned, it really was my first love. Like so many other kids that grew up in my generation, I was just drawn to it from the start. There was just something so simple about it when you were a kid, wasn’t there? This was obviously before I realized how much actually goes into a baseball game what with the strategy of a hit and run or a pitching change to get the lefty vs lefty matchup or a double switch or any of the numerous other little things that each and every Major League game contains. But when you’re a kid, you’ve got a ball, a bat and a glove and everything seems so simple. I hit the ball. You field it. I throw the ball. You catch it. I mean, we could make a game out of anything, couldn’t we? If we didn’t have enough people to play a real game, you just improvised. Remember 500? Or 700? Or 900? It was a game where you just threw the ball up in the air and yelled a random number of points that was awarded to the person who caught it. If it sounds that simple it’s because it was. Even if it was only myself and one other person, we could still find a way to somehow play some kind of full game, even if that meant that one of us had to play both pitcher and hitter by throwing the ball up and hitting it yourself while the other person attempted to catch the ball before it crossed a line in the street or a rock trail in a random field in the neighborhood . While it was essentially a home run derby, my friend Bob and I called it the “3-Out Game” and we would play a full nine-inning game multiple times a day until the street lights told us it was time to stop. That was our life and that’s what we did.

And I love the Chicago Cubs. While I’ve got a favorite team in every sport, there’s never been one that I’ve rooted for as much as I have for the Cubs. And again, that just goes back to when I was a boy. I mean, one of the ways I learned to read was from sitting with my grandfather reading the Cubs stories in the Chicago Tribune. I went as Andre Dawson, still my favorite Cub of all time, for Halloween. I wore a Chicago Cubs uniform for my school picture in second grade. With that being said, I also wore a Cardinals jersey the following year because my father, who was a huge Cardinals fan, essentially forced me to do so. But that was part of the fun of loving the Cubs so much. While most boys end up rooting for the team that their father does, I went the opposite way and we would just go back and forth at each other, obviously with Pop being able to use the 1908 joke whenever he felt like it to win the discussion. But that was also just part of the fun of where I grew up. Peoria, IL is basically halfway between Chicago and St. Louis and the fans around here are split right down the middle…with a few White Sox fans sprinkled in here and there.

And growing up as a Cubs fan in Peoria was pretty awesome as one of their minor-league affiliates, the Chiefs, were here in town and I was able to see so many future greats like Greg Maddux and Mark Grace before they were stars at this little rinky-dink ballpark in the center of town (there’s a much nicer stadium downtown these days) and I thought it was the greatest place in the world…until I went to Wrigley Field. I’d watched so many games on WGN and walking up that ramp and seeing scoreboard and the field and the ivy for the first time is a moment I’ll never forget. Walking into that place was like walking into a church for me and even now, as a guy in my late 30s, I still get that feeling every time I go there because it really does, even if only for a few hours, take me back to a simpler time. You sit in those stands for a few hours and you can forget everything else that’s going on around you. It doesn’t mean that everything else goes away, but for nine innings you can sit and worry about nothing else besides if you’re going to see that “W” flag fly. Unfortunately, the Cubs just didn’t win that much when I was a kid.

I was only five years old in 1984 so I can’t really pretend to remember feeling any heartbreak when the Cubs lost to the Padres in the NLCS after holding a 2-0 lead. But I do remember the feeling I had in 1989 when they lost to the Giants. Or how heartbroken I was when they let Greg Maddux get away. And I honestly was mad at them for a long time, so much so that I once wore an opposing player’s jersey into the Friendly Confines just to let them know. I sure showed them. And like so many others, I got away from baseball for a while after the strike in 1994. Sure, I still followed what was happening but basketball had then become the sport that I played the most and paid the most attention to during my teenage years. But also like so many others, the home run race between Sammy Sosa and Mark McGwire in 1998 coupled with the Cubs’ playoff chase brought me back. I remember parading the streets in college when they won the Wild Card that fall and once again being disappointed when they couldn’t advance. And of course there was the 2003 season.

2003 had to be the year, right? With that team and with that pitching staff, there was no way in the world that the Cubs could blow a 3-1 lead in the NLCS, right? Well, I think we all know how that turned out and in case you’re wondering, no, I was never one to blame Steve Bartman for anything. I’ve felt so sorry for that guy since that fateful night and I honestly hope that this year’s happenings has given that man a little bit of peace. But it was just so unbelievable to watch. And then I watched in horror over the next three years as the Boston Red Sox broke their 86-year “curse”, the crosstown Chicago White Sox bring a title to Chicago for the first time since 1917 and watched as the rival St. Louis Cardinals win their 10th World Series crown. Of all of the teams that could win titles after the Cubs blew their best chance in nearly sixty years, it had to be those three? Throw in the fact that the Red Sox won two more and the Cardinals won another before the Cubs even got back to the NLCS and you just couldn’t help but feel that a World Series win wasn’t in the cards for the North Side. Even their playoff runs in 2007 and 2008 never had that championship feel to them.

As the decade turned, I sat and watched five straight last-place finishes, including the 2012 season when they lost 101 games. But we were told to be patient. There was a plan in place that Theo Epstein and Jed Hoyer were sticking to and Cubs fans just had to wait. After more than 100 years without a title, what’s a few more? So we waited. We watched as these kids were drafted and developed. We watched as trades were made and free agents were signed, all with the hope that this tortured fan base would someday get to feel what so many others had felt. And finally, in 2015, the plan truly began to take shape as the Cubs won 97 games and took the second Wild Card spot. And we watched as Jake Arrieta threw a gem in Pittsburgh. And we watched as for the first time in history, the Chicago Cubs and the St. Louis Cardinals played each other in the playoffs. And the Cubs actually won. Could this really be happening? If the Cubs finally bested their bitter rivals, they could do anything, right? Well, the New York Mets had something to say about that and championship hopes were dashed once again as the Cubs were swept in the NLCS and the “wait until next year” slogan once again had to be thrown around and Cubs fans had to once again be ridiculed mercilessly. It’s just something that comes along with the territory and is just that much worse now that social media is around. Honestly, could you imagine some of the Facebook or Twitter posts that would have come along with any of those Cubs teams (’69, ’84, ’03) that blew big leads?

But then it happened. Next year was finally here and someday became a thing of the past last Wednesday night (or Thursday depending on where you live) when the Cubs won that epic Game 7 in Cleveland. I suppose I probably didn’t need to get into all of the history that I did but it all plays into what happened during this World Series, doesn’t it? Cubs fans have had to deal with more loss and more heartbreak than any other franchise in sports in the last century. I mean, even the Cleveland Browns won a championship in 1964. And that feeling was there on numerous occasions throughout the series. The Cubs got blanked in Game 1 so there was an immediate need to fight back, which they did in Game 2. But then they lost Game 3. And then Game 4 to go down 3-1, which usually means that you’re going to lose. But this is the beauty of baseball.

I’ve long said that more than other sport in the world, any given team in baseball can win on any given day. A last-place team in baseball can win more easily against a first-place team in baseball. For instance, and I’m sorry to Cleveland for once again going back to the Browns, there’s essentially a zero-percent chance that they could go into Foxboro and get a win against the Patriots. However, the Minnesota Twins, who had the worst record in baseball this season with only 59 wins, can go into Cleveland and take three out of four games (this actually happened in early August) from the Indians at any time. That’s just how baseball works. There’s a reason that MLB hasn’t had a repeat champion in nearly two decades. It’s really hard to win the World Series and while it was going to be very difficult for the Cubs to win three games against a very good baseball team, it was still possible. But that Cubs fan feeling was still there. But then they won Game 5 and hope began to build. And then they won Game 6 and let’s get real. For the Cubs to win the World Series, there had to be the drama of a do-or-die Game 7. It just wouldn’t have felt right any other way.

So the Cubs jump out to an early lead in Game 7 and we’re feeling pretty good. Then the Indians tie it up. Then the Cubs take a four-run lead after two runs in the fourth and two more in the fifth. Cleveland gets two in the bottom of the fifth but the Cubs get another run in the sixth and take that three-run lead into the eighth. But then that old-fashioned feeling comes roaring back when Aroldis Chapman gives up that home run to Rajai Davis to tie the game at 6-6. All the momentum is with the Indians at this point and you just couldn’t help but think that any chance the Cubs had to win was gone. And for those who are yelling at me through your screen that I’m supposed to stay positive and believe and such, just save it. You know that even if just for a split second that you were thinking the same thing. And just for a little added drama, the game goes to extra innings….and we have to wait out a rain delay for the finish. Are you kidding me?

Now, I’m in a bar for this entire thing. I work at a local tavern a couple of nights per week for some extra cash and I’m just a wreck. I told myself all day not to get too worked up about this game but as the start time drew closer, I just couldn’t stop pacing behind the bar and I was as active as could be during this entire thing. Everyone in the place was so focused on the game and it was a very cool environment to be in charge of. I’m usually a pretty reserved guy during sporting events. I usually don’t allow myself to get that worked up on something I have no control over but I was trying to keep everyone involved that night. I was the guy running down the line giving high fives after a big hit or a big strikeout and just doing that whole thing. So after the rain delay is over and the Cubs come out and get two runs, I’m going absolutely insane. But then that feeling crept back in for a moment when the Indians scored in the bottom of the tenth. As Michael Martinez stepped to the plate, I was terrified on what could happen. But I’ve been very impressed with Michael Montgomery in these playoffs but the little dribbler that came off of the bat of Martinez looked like a hit if I’m being honest here. It seemed like one of those balls that just wouldn’t be gotten to in time but then Kris Bryant came flying into the screen and hit Anthony Rizzo with a perfect throw and I’ve got no problem admitting that things got a little emotional.

I didn’t even see the big pile on the infield until later. As soon as Rizzo caught the ball and stuffed it into his pocket, I was out the back door and into the alley. There was no yelling. There was no jumping for joy. There was me, dressed in jeans, a backwards Cubs hat, a blue Cubs jersey with a “1908 World Champions” shirt that I had made into a “2016 World Champions” shirt by using a little bit of blue painters tape at about 4:00 that afternoon that nobody saw until I went back inside, doubled over with my hands over my face and crying….over a baseball game.

But it just wasn’t one baseball game to Cubs fans, was it? Just like it wasn’t just one baseball game for Red Sox fans in 2004. Or White Sox fans in 2005. It was realizing that the first team I ever loved just did something that they hadn’t done in 108 years. Is it any more special than any three of the titles that the Giants have won recently? Or any of the 27 titles that the Yankees have won? Or any of the 11 that the Cardinals have won? No…not to them. But it is for us. And whether people want to admit or not, there is something to be said for all of the stories about grandparents and parents that never got a chance to witness this that makes it that much more appealing to us. You don’t think I wasn’t thinking about those times reading the Trib with my grandfather? Or that I wasn’t thinking about how much I wish my father, who always rooted for the Cubs when the Cardinals weren’t in it, were still alive so that I could share this with him? That’s where the tears came from.

Look, sports are a huge part of my life. They’re part of what I do for a living. I get to write about a sports and collect a check for it. But with that being said, I don’t let them run my life. Do I want my teams to win? Of course I do. But I refuse to get mad when they don’t. I don’t let the outcome of a game ruin the rest of my day if it doesn’t go my way. Nor do I throw the result in someone else’s face if it does. I know plenty of people like that and it’s just absolutely ridiculous. I don’t get into sports arguments. I get into sports discussions, where people actually listen, and those are much more rewarding. Just looking at social media since Wednesday is somewhat hilarious. The “1 year of success doesn’t erase 108 years of failure” posts and people that just refuse to let Cubs fans enjoy this is actually somewhat comical. Is your life that empty where you just have to try and make everyone as miserable as you? And just to even things out a bit, there are plenty of Cubs fans that have posted things that I don’t like and I’m never one to say that Cubs fans are the best fans in the world. Every fan base things that theirs is the best and that’s the way it should be. It’s just that Cubs fans have had to be more patient. As far as being a sports fan, I’ve now been lucky enough to watch every single team that I root for win at least one championship. But like every other title win I’ve watched before, this World Series win from the Cubs doesn’t really change anything that “matters”, does it?

Watching the Cubs win the World Series didn’t make my bills magically disappear. It didn’t change the fact that I still have to wake up and work every day. It didn’t change the fact that I deal with a consistent number of problems on a daily, weekly, monthly, yearly basis. But what this run has done has allowed me to do is watch a Cubs World Series game with my children, something my father never got to do. What this has done is bring a community of people together, which is something that happens in sports every day that so often gets overlooked. What this has done is allowed me to take myself back to a simpler time, a time when I was that kid with a ball, a bat and a glove dressed in number 8 Andre Dawson Cubs jersey that wanted nothing more out of life than to watch the Cubs win the World Series. It allowed millions of Cubs fans around the world to take a quick break from their lives and be a part of something special, something that so many other fan bases have gotten to do while we waited patiently for our turn. For a split second, all of the failed attempts over the past 108 years didn’t matter because they got the last one right. And that’s a feeling that the players can hang on to until the spring when they and 29 other teams and all 30 fan bases have to start all over again. No, the Cubs winning the World Series doesn’t really change anything in the grand scheme of things. But for one night, we were able to take a break and witness something we’ve never seen before. And while it may be just a game, it’s so much more than that to so many people. It’s our childhood. It’s something we shared with those that are no longer with us. It’s something that taught us about winning and losing. It’s a game that’s so simple on the surface while so unbelievably complex at its core. And it’s a game that for one night brought a brief moment of pure joy to millions of people around the world.

What’s not romantic about that?

So Where’s The Cure?

October 4, 2016Leave a comment

Good day, everyone. I’ve been extremely busy over the past few weeks as I’m still getting adjusted to a few new things but I wanted to take a few minutes today to share something with everyone that I’ve been working on for quite a while and am extremely excited to announce that it’s finally ready to go.

A few months back, I was approached by my aunt, Cinda Thompson, to help out with a book that she’d been wanting to put out for quite some time. If you’re unaware of who she is, she’s a very talented writer whose poetry, short stories and memoirs have been featured in numerous publications over the years, including in a national best-selling anthology, When I Am An Old Woman I Shall Wear Purple. I’ve done some work for her in the past, finally getting some of her work out there on a digital platform. She’d been wanting to get her work online but just didn’t know how to go about it which is where I came in. About a year ago at this time, we launched Living The Revolution, which houses the majority of the work she’s ever done, including the poetry from her poetry book, At The Core, which was released many years ago.

I also created a focused blog for her, Diabetes: A Life Sentence?, where she writes posts from time to time about her more than 50-year battle with Type 1 Diabetes, which is also the focus of her latest and biggest project to date, So Where’s The Cure?, a new book with nine incredible stories about her battle with this terrible disease. Using the subtitle “Memories Of A Life With Type 1 Diabetes”, So Where’s The Cure looks at Cinda’s original diagnosis at just 11 years old and is filled with amazing tales of life, love, loss and heartache while also discussing the diets, medicines and costs associated with T1D, bringing a fantastic mix of everything you need to know about what she’s had to deal on a day-to-day basis for more than five decades. ol

And as far as my involvement goes, I was extremely honored to be a part of this project as the publisher. After being given all of the source material, it was my job to design and format the entire book to get it ready to go to print, which is actually a little more work than you might think. We had to take into account the audience that we were looking at, which we decided would need a bigger font size which changes a lot of different things as it pertains to margins and such when you’re putting a book together. There’s how much space you want after a paragraph, what kind of spacing you need within each paragraph, how the pictures that we wanted to use would fit and where they needed to be. We ran through a few different fonts for appearance and there’s spacing issues when transitioning from each format that have to be dealt with, which results in having to look at each and every page over and over and over to make sure that we’ve got everything done just right before going to the printer and after having seen the finished product, I’m happy to say that I think we got it just right.

Now, I’ve been doing the online thing for a while now and while it’s great to have hundreds upon hundreds of articles with my name attached to it, there’s just a little something extra to seeing your name in print, especially on that back cover that I designed, which is something I haven’t seen since those poetry books I was in more than 10 years ago.

While it was great to work on the project and receive a little bit of recognition for it, the credit here really does belong to Cinda. While the formatting and design and all of that is important, it’s the content here that really matters and it truly is exceptional. If you’re someone that suffers from diabetes or know anyone that suffers from diabetes, I highly recommend that you give this book a read. To order a copy, at the bargain price of $12.00 in print, you can contact Cinda on her websites or you can order one through me right here. I bet I can even get her to sign it for you as I made her do it for me. In addition, I also formatted So Where’s The Cure? as an e-book and you can order a digital copy of it for Amazon Kindle using this link for just $9.99.

I want to thank Cinda for the opportunity to work on this project with her. It truly was a great experience for me and I certainly learned a lot in the process about publishing, both in the print and digital world and even more importantly, I learned a little bit more about how this disease can have such an impact on a life.

Do yourself a favor. Check out So Where’s The Cure? and help support a great cause as the majority of the proceeds from the sale of this book will go towards the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation. The JDRF Walk here in Peoria, IL just took place over the weekend and was actually the location in which this book debuted. The JDRF is determined to turn Type One into Type None and this is a great way to help. And don’t forget that November is National Diabetes Awareness Month and this would make a great gift for someone you might know that could relate to the types of things that Cinda has had to deal with. Congratulations to Cinda on a job well done.

The 2016 State Of THE Luke Norris Address

September 12, 2016September 12, 20161 Comment

At long last, the 2016 “State Of THE Luke Norris Address” has arrived.

As those of you who follow the site, I usually get this out a lot sooner than this (usually around the anniversary of the site), but this year has been such an absolute whirlwind that every time I’d even try to get this going, something would come up where I’d have to put it on the back burner. But to be honest with you, I really just need to get this out there for myself right now. For the past 18 months, I’ve been writing and writing and writing but so much of it has been for other people, which I suppose is something that I have to do given I’m a freelance writer and all, but today I just want to get some things out there and update everyone on exactly what’s happening in my world right now.

When I started this new adventure 18 months ago, I’ve got no problem admitting that I was absolutely terrified. I was making good money doing what I was doing, which is certainly important, but I was absolutely miserable. While I enjoyed some of the people I was working with, the actual guy I was working for was an absolute nightmare. Now, I know that’s what a lot of people say about their boss, but I hadn’t had that in a while. When I was doing the coffee thing, I loved the people I was working for. They were helpful and had a vision on where the company should go and while some of the follow-up didn’t necessarily work, it was okay. But this last guy just didn’t get it. He tried to teach through fear and that’s just no way to go about things. I didn’t mind the everyday challenges that I had to face, but again, this guy just didn’t get it. He would LITERALLY corner me in the bathroom to discuss how things should be going and just try to intimidate me into changing into somebody I didn’t want to be. I’m a pretty laid-back individual and he was trying to turn me into this aggressive, pushy, know-it-all monster….basically, he was trying to turn me into him. I would wake up everyday just hating that I had to walk into that place and that’s no way to go through life. So I left.

Obviously, he’s not the only reason that I left but it certainly made it a bit easier. As I explained in last year’s address, I wanted to follow a dream that I’ve had for a long time and it was time to really take a shot at it. And I hated the fact that I felt as if I was never seeing my children. For those who don’t know, I’m divorced and while I am lucky enough in that situation to have my children 50 percent of the time, it didn’t feel like that at all. I’d leave work at 5 or 5:15, drive the 20 minutes to go get them from my ex-wife, drive the 15 minutes back home and essentially would just have dinnertime, bathtime and bedtime. That was it. Sure, we’d get to play and do things on the weekends that I would have them but I felt that I was missing so much. Even on the mornings that they were at my house, my mother would have to come over and drive them to preschool so I didn’t even get to do any of that. My two daughters are still at the age where they actually like me and I wanted to be involved in as much of that as I could. And I wanted to be able to look them in the eye and tell them that if you want something bad enough that they should go after it. I never want to be a hypocrite to my little girls so 18 months ago, I made the decision that I did and started over.

I wish I could say that the past 18 months have been all sunshine and rainbows and I’m doing things exactly the way I planned to do them but that would just be a bold-faced lie. But as I’m trying these days to focus on the positives before the negatives, let me start there. The plan to have more time with my daughters is working perhaps even better than I had hoped for and I’m more thankful for that than anything. In essence, I can do all of the things that a “stay-at-home mom” is supposed to do and the only reason I used that term is because if social media is to be believed, dads aren’t actually able to do anything for their kids, right? Yes, I do get a little offended when people say that mothers do absolutely everything and dads only get to do the “fun” stuff…but I digress. But to me, I do get to do all of the fun stuff that I wanted to do. I get to wake up with my daughters and get them breakfast and get them ready for school and make their lunches and actually take them to and pick them up from school on the days that I have them and at least for the time being, that’s something I’m not willing to trade in for anything. You can put a lot of titles on me these days but I’m a father first and foremost and I’m loving every minute of that.

On the professional side, things started out a little slower than what I would have hoped for but I certainly have myself to blame for some of that. In the beginning months, I probably could have worked a little harder and done some more things to get the ball rolling but I was just enjoying my time with the kids so much that I didn’t want to focus on anything else. And yes, it was difficult to hold myself accountable for my day-to-day activities working from home. It was an entirely new concept for me and I told myself that I wouldn’t get distracted and would stay focused but it’s certainly something that I still have to work at every single day. I had so much freedom in the things that I was doing and I openly admit that I would just shove things to the side, especially in the beginning. But as the months went by, I focused in a little more and all of a sudden I found myself working for a number of different websites. I had found a Chicago-based site that was going to pay me to write about the Cubs and the other major teams in town. But seriously, someone is going to give me money to write about the freaking Chicago Cubs? Yeah, I think I’ll do that. Then I found another one that was going to pay me to write about wrestling. Yeah, I think I’ll do that as well. And for those of you who want to judge me about being 37 years old and still watching wrestling, just go ahead and save it. It’s an amazing form of entertainment and storytelling that I’ve been watching for 30+ years and will never be ashamed of doing so. I’m not judging you while you watch The Bachelor or Big Brother or any of the other 8,000 “reality” shows that exist right now. Okay, maybe I just did right there a little bit but seriously, you like what you like and I like what I like. If it entertains you, go nuts and don’t worry about what anybody else thinks. And then another one came along where I could write about just about anything. I could still do my sports and my entertainment but I could also hit on world news and politics and religion and things of that nature. And I was still having some fun doing some podcasts and contests and such for my original home at Binge Media. And to make everything even better, I was with (and still am) a woman that was supporting everything that I was doing 100 percent. I had a family that was being as supportive as they could be as well and I was doing all of this while still doing all of the things I wanted to with my kids. The money wasn’t exactly rolling in but I was doing okay and gaining a following and making a little name for myself in this business. The things that I’ve written in these past 18 months have literally been read by millions upon millions of people (without any of them including a cute kitten video) and things were okay…until they weren’t.

There are certainly advantages to doing what I do. I do have a bit more freedom in my daily life than many others. On days that I feel like it, I can literally sit on my couch in my pajamas and work and I’m not going to lie and pretend that that doesn’t happen. But working for a lot of websites is very time-consuming and while I was enjoying a lot of what I did, I had very little time for anything outside of that and my children. The time I wanted to spend with my girlfriend was limited, due also in part to the fact that she has an amazing work ethic and is trying to get her own career off the ground in musical education. Actually, while I’m on that topic, let me just talk about her for a minute. As I said before, she’s been nothing but supportive since I made this decision and I really couldn’t ask for anything more on that end. If you’ve not been here before and don’t know anything about her, allow me to fill you in. When I was going through the most difficult time in my life, she was there initially as a friend to help pick me up and it blossomed into what we are today, which is two people that are trying to balance going after our dreams while trying to raise two children in a 50/50 environment. I’m sure many of you reading this can relate and I’m sure you know how hard that is. Balance is always tricky, isn’t it? But this particular “millennial” is bucking the stereotype that her generation is lazy and busts her ass 65 hours a week at two schools, a music center and a church so I can do what it is I do each and every day. Does that sometimes cost her some time with my daughters? Yes, it does. But you know what? She absolutely loves my daughters and I know for a fact that they love her right back. To be honest, I know that she could put in more hours than she already does but she’s chosen not to do that in order to spend as much time as she can with the girls. I know that she takes a lot of heat from certain people and it’s heat that is absolutely unwarranted. She’s 26 years old and while she hadn’t initially planned to be a mom or a stepmom or whatever label you want to put on it, she’s doing her best to make everything work and she’s doing a damn fine job at it. I apologize for the small rant but these things just had to be said and as this is the one thing per year that I don’t edit, I just wanted to get that out there. Actually, I’m really not sorry.

Where was I? Oh right. So doing what I was doing didn’t allow much time for anything else. As I started to say, I was staying up late trying to write as much as I could and things did get a little tense between Ashlie and I for a bit. She wakes up very early for work so she has to go to bed quite early and I just couldn’t do that. At least I felt I couldn’t at the time. I’d stay up working until 2 or 3 in the morning and then get up with the kids early the next day and start again. Or on days that I wouldn’t have the kids, I’d stay up late and then wake up the next day and just try to cram in as much as I could while they were with their mom. And I really just became a shut-in. I avoided phone calls. I avoided text messages and really never wanted to do anything except work and hang out with my kids. And I really just stopped talking. I know that sounds strange for someone who occasionally does podcasts but I just didn’t really care about what most people had to say and I really just didn’t want to talk to most people. Still don’t if I’m being completely honest here. For the most part I’ve always been a pretty laid-back guy anyway but I would just get annoyed with anyone who opened their mouth. Somebody could be telling me the best story in the world but I likely wasn’t listening even if my eyes were looking directly at the person. Of course that didn’t apply to people I truly cared about but I really just wanted to be left alone. I was exhausted all the time and it was getting to the point that even when I was with my kids, I was just tired. And a lot of that was due to what I was doing to myself physically. I’ve never had the best diet in the world but there were days that I would literally just forget to eat and when I did it was just garbage. Any exercise that I had gotten in my former life from lifting boxes of coffee or just actual exercise were gone. And then there’s the smoking, which has now reached 20 years. Not exactly a celebratory milestone, is it? Add the maybe three or four hours of sleep I was getting each night and it’s no wonder I was exhausted on a constant basis. So I decided to cut back on work a bit.

I looked at everything I was doing and decided that the Chicago-based site had to go. While there are some very nice people running that site that do have a vision, I wasn’t liking a few of the things that were happening so I decided to leave. At the time, I still had two other sites that actually paid a bit more anyway so I felt I could walk away and still be okay. And I was for a while…until problems arose at the site for which I was doing the wrestling articles. I had come across a site that I had no affiliation with whatsoever that had posted something very similar to an article I had written. I actually came across it after Hulk Hogan had put it up on his Facebook page and I was insanely excited. If you don’t already know, I’m a huge Hulk Hogan guy and this was a big deal for me knowing that he (or at least somebody that’s running his Facebook page) is reading my work. So I click on it and it’s the same exact words and same exact pictures but it’s not actually my article and I got no credit of any kind anywhere on the page. After leaving a comment on Hogan’s page, I immediately contacted my site and told them what happened. I was assured that the legal department would get involved, that they had my back and everything would be taken care of. Okay, cool. But then it happened again. And then again. And then again. Every time this happened, I was losing money. If somebody like Hulk Hogan posts a wrestling article, it’s going to get a ton of views. But while they were my articles, they weren’t my actual articles and these millions of page views were going to somebody else that wasn’t me. Every time I contacted my site, I was told the same thing. We’ll take care of it. Well, they didn’t take care of it and it just wasn’t worth my time anymore to work for a company that actually didn’t have my back and would let this happen time and time again. Perhaps I took it a little too personally, but I went ahead and left there as well, still hanging onto the one site that I had where I was making the most money and decided to devote all of my writing time and energy to them. I’d be making more money and could build a better schedule that allowed me to get more sleep and just feel better overall, I thought. And it actually did work that way for a little while….until it didn’t.

Now, in the meantime I actually was making an attempt to get out of the house a bit more, even if that only meant I was still working. A local tavern that I’ve been going to for years needed a bartender on Thursday nights so I just threw my name in the hat and was given the job after about a minute of talking about it. There’s some great people that go there and it gave me a bit of a chance to be a bit more sociable than I had been, which really only entailed me sitting at a bar watching a ballgame by myself and not really talking to anybody outside of Ashlie and a friend or two that would join me on occasion. So after a much-needed vacation to the beach, I started working there one night a week, which has now turned into two due to the Wednesday guy wanting to get out. And I absolutely love it. It’s a little dive bar and it’s not that I’m making a ton of money working there but it gets me out of the house on nights that my daughters are with their mother during the week and I basically now just get paid to watch ballgames and have a few drinks. And I get to hang out with my ex-in-laws, who are regulars there, which might be strange for some people but they’re great people that I wasn’t seeing on a regular basis anymore. They’re people that I care about a great deal and we just sit there and talk about the kids while I’m cracking beers for them and it’s great. And it also opened the door to another opportunity that I’ll get to in a few minutes.

So at this point I’ve got the one website, the bar and a few side projects going and things are going pretty smoothly…until I get an e-mail telling me that my services are no longer needed at the one website I’ve got left, the one I’d been banking on to keep me going for a while. Honestly, I had been wondering where they were coming up with the money to pay all of the writers they had on staff and things must have been drying up a bit as the explanation I was given was that they were cutting back a bit and I guess I just didn’t have enough seniority. Although I understand, I can’t say that I wasn’t upset and certainly disappointed at what happened. At the risk of sounding a little crybaby-ish, it just felt that perhaps things were going a little too smoothly for me and that wasn’t allowed. Poor me, right? I had gotten to a point where I was finally finding some balance and all of a sudden it was taken away. But then I got to thinking that perhaps I did some of that to myself. Maybe I shouldn’t have left the other two sites but was I really happy with them anyway? The whole point of doing what I did was to be happy and I really wasn’t. A big reason in doing what I did was to write for a living and I had been doing that for over a year but I also wasn’t doing some of the projects that I really wanted to do. Writing articles for other people was taking up the majority of my time, obviously a necessity given the mortgage and bills and all of that, but was I really writing the things that I wanted to write? Sure, writing on the Cubs and wrestling and the other things for a check is a great thing and I’m going to continue to do that, but I’ve had ideas in my head for years that I’ve never pulled the trigger on and I suppose telling myself that I just didn’t have the time as opposed to being scared as hell to do them was something for another day. Except that day just kept becoming the next day and the next week and the next month and the next year and while I know I’m off the original topic yet again, I’m just sick of doing that to myself.

So what happens next? Where am I today? I know these addresses run a little long, which is why I only subject you them once a year, but I thank you if you’ve made it through all of that just to find out what the latest news is. I’m not going to pretend that I didn’t wallow in self-pity for a few days but I couldn’t afford (literally) to just sit back and take it. Life’s about getting back up after you get knocked down and I’ve certainly had to do that on a number of occasions in the past. So I got back to it. I started throwing out some feelers to a few different websites and just a few weeks ago I latched onto a pretty big site that I’m starting to do a few things for called FanSided, a sports and entertainment website that’s owned by Time, Inc. and is actually a partner site to Sports Illustrated. So we’ll see how that goes moving forward.

As far as that other opportunity I mentioned a little bit ago, I just kind of fell into that. I was bartending one night and the mayor of my little slice of paradise comes in with his son, both of whom I’ve known for many years, and we just get to talking as you do in a bar. I actually hadn’t seen either in quite a while so they asked what else I was doing these days and I told them that I was doing the freelancing thing, writing articles and such and the son informed me that a small newspaper in his building called The Labor Paper, which is actually more than 100 years old and focuses on stories that pertain to unions and politics and things of that nature, was looking for someone to perhaps write a few articles here and there and was also looking for someone with some advertising sales experience. It was really kind of funny how it happened. Ashlie was sitting there with me while all this conversation was happening and her eyes just got so big and started pointing at me as if to say “That’s you! That’s you!” And as it turned out, it was. I got the number of the editor and met up with her a few days later for lunch and after talking to her for about 15 minutes, she hired me right there on the spot. So I’ll get to put some of that sales experience that I have to good use without an overbearing prick looking over my shoulder the whole time, which will be quite nice. In addition to putting out the paper, we also have a talk radio show on Saturdays on a popular station here in town and in addition to selling some spots for that, we’ve also discussed me filling in as the host from time to time when the regular guy needs a break and I still get to write, whether it be an article for the paper (will be nice to see my name in actual print) or writing radio spots for some clients. And the most beautiful part of this whole thing is that I work on my schedule. The job is technically a part-time position and I choose when I work, which means that everything I need to do for the kids isn’t affected in the slightest and who knows what other doors this could open as time goes on.

Six weeks ago, I was really down on myself as I thought that this little experiment of mine was a complete failure and I really thought I was ready to give up on myself. But I’ve got too many people believing in me to let that happen. And I’ve got two little girls that I want to look in the eye and continue to say that anything is possible if you just believe in yourself. And I’m still betting on me. I know that it’s going to take a little time to get adjusted to everything new that’s going on and nothing is going to happen overnight, but I’m preparing myself for what lies ahead. I’ve got a lot of goals that I’m setting for myself and now more than ever, I’m determined to reach them. I’ve been looking at what might work best to help me quit smoking and had some conversations with people about what’s worked best for them. I’ve been researching some different ways that I can ease back into exercising without overdoing it at the start. I’ve cut back on soda and have also been researching some diets that work for me that don’t involve McDonald’s three or four times per week (if you’re thinking that’s what I feed my kids, that’s certainly not the case…they eat a decent meal while I watch and after they go to bed I cram 1500 calories down my throat). As of right now, I’ve got the site, the bar and the paper and I’m looking into some other opportunities that perhaps I overlooked when I first started doing this. And I’ve started some preliminary work on what will end up being the biggest thing I’ve ever done (sorry, can’t give that one away just yet) and am looking to also start a children’s book in the near future. But I’m going to do all of this on a schedule that works best for me mentally and physically. I’m tired of being tired and it really all just comes back to balance. I know what I’m capable of and I know that I can do this. Hell, I’ve already proven that I can do this and although I’m basically starting over, I want even more this time. And I know it’s not going to be easy moving forward, but nothing that’s worth anything in life comes easy, does it?

Look, with all of the negative things that have happened in the past 18 months (I won’t even go into the feelings I had when my house was broken into as I’m likely to just type a bunch of expletives in red that won’t form a coherent thought), the positives easily won out. I’ve got so many good things going in my life that make me smile. My sister has a beautiful family and gave me a third nephew just last week. My brother continues to do well in law school in Portland and I’m so very proud of the man he’s become. My mother and stepfather continue to be the greatest grandparents in the history of forever and I’m so thankful to have them in my life. I still miss my dad every single day and despite everything I had to go through with him, I can now better remember the good times we had as opposed to constantly focusing on the times when things weren’t so good. I have a support system of aunts and uncles that I know are behind me each and every day and would do anything to help me. And of course, I’ve got my three girls here at home. Ashlyn, Brooklyn, Ashlie….it’s because of the three of you that I know that I can do this and want to do this and will try each and every day to be the best Daddy and partner that I can be.

And I also want to thank each and every one of you that’s ever taken time out of your day to read something that I’ve written or listened to something that I’ve recorded. My goal is simply to entertain you in some way and that certainly remains the same as I move forward. My name is Luke Norris and I’m a writer, editor, publisher, podcast host, marketing specialist, bartender, friend, brother, son, boyfriend and father. And the best is yet to come.

What Happened To My Little Girls?

August 22, 2016Leave a comment

There are moments in life that you think you’re ready for…..until they actually happen. One of those moments came for me this morning.

As I awoke just past 6:30, after what felt like a sleepless night as visions of the past six years swirled around my brain for hours, feelings of both happiness and sadness overwhelmed me as I prepared myself for this monumental day. As it was their weekend at their mother’s, my almost six-year-old twin daughters did not stay with me last night, which always makes for a tough morning anyway, but I knew that I’d see them soon enough. As I tell myself every morning they’re not with me, I pleaded with myself to keep it together. It’s difficult to wake up and not hear them playing, laughing or getting right in my face as I try to squeeze in that last minute of sleep saying “Daddy, I’m hungry”, and today really was no different. Except that it was. You see, today was Ashlyn and Brooklyn’s first day of kindergarten.

As I went through my “the girls aren’t with me” morning routine, which is obviously a little different than when they are there, I kept telling myself that I wasn’t going to cry today. In the four years (actually almost to the day) that I’ve been apart from their mother, I’ve cried too much. I tell my girls not to use the word “hate”, but I truly hate the feeling of not having my daughters with me, even when it’s only one of the little two-day stretches that they’re away. With 50/50 custody, sometimes it’s only the two days that they’re gone and sometimes it’s five. Either way, it really hurts. However, one of the luxuries and the biggest reason why I chose to do what it is I do is that I’m able to play a big part in my daughters’ daily activities, which includes taking them to and picking them up from school on my assigned days. I did it for the last year and a half they were in preschool and that was the itinerary this morning. Get up. Get ready. Get the girls and get some Kleenex because I absolutely lost it.

As I made the twenty-minute drive to pick them up from a sitter that watches them occasionally when the ex-wife can’t be with them in the morning (she’s a school teacher in the same district so it was her first day as well), a lifetime, albeit the lifetime of two five-year-olds, of memories came crashing into me like ocean waves into a rock. And I’m the rock in this analogy simply because the waves of memories got my face wet as the tears began to trickle down my cheeks in the car as “It Won’t Be Like This For Long” played on the radio. If you know the song, then you know exactly how gut-wrenching it can be. I mean, wasn’t it just yesterday that my daughters fought and fought to grow after being born 11 weeks early?

I guess not. And wasn’t it just yesterday that after 44 days in the NICU, they decided that they couldn’t be apart even for a day and decided to come home together? Wasn’t it just their first Christmas? Didn’t they just celebrate their first birthday?

It’s still not then either, huh? Okay. Well, then didn’t they just start walking and talking? Didn’t I just cry when I heard “Daddy” for the first time? Or watch as they innocently saw their entire world turn upside down as our family fell apart right around the time they turned two? That all just happened, right?

Still no? Then surely they must have just started developing their own personalities and counting and doing the alphabet as they bravely adapted to a back-and-forth lifestyle after Mommy and Daddy got divorced, correct? Didn’t they just turn three?

Okay, I’ve got it now. These tears can’t be due to their first day of kindergarten. They’re just starting preschool, aren’t they?

Or just turn four?

Alright, now I’m really getting frustrated. If all of that has already happened, there is absolutely, positively no way that in the last year that Ashlyn and Brooklyn started a second year of preschool, turned five, finished preschool altogether, started picking out books with me to read on their own, zipped through an entire summer and are ready to start kindergarten. Because I really don’t know if I’m ready for that.

And I wasn’t ready. But they sure were. As I pulled up to the house, they were standing at the front door waiting for me excited as could be. The familiar sound of “Daddy”, which will never get old, rang out as I hit the walkway and they eagerly put on their shoes, grabbed their backpacks and we were out the door. In the ten minutes in between the house and the school, I just asked them questions.

“Are you excited?”

“Are you nervous?”

“What happened to my little girls?”

The last one confused them for about a millisecond but they’re so smart that they knew exactly what I was saying. They were excited. They were nervous. But “we’re big girls now because we’re in kindergarten.”

And they were right. My girls are growing up and no matter how hard I try, I can’t stop it. As much as I’d like to just bottle them up today and keep them this age forever, an age where I’m their favorite person in the world (I’m sure they say that to Mommy too when they’re with her) and their innocence is still intact, I know I can’t. Sure, today may just be the start of kindergarten, but with the way things have already gone, tomorrow will be the start of grade school and the day after that they’ll be graduating from high school. They may not realize it just yet, but the real world essentially starts for them today. Schedules will be different. Focus will be different. For at least the next 13 years (at the end of which I’ll be 50), the ups and downs that come with going through school will take center stage in this little production we call life. And once the smoke clears and the dust has settled, I know that everything will be just fine. They’re good kids and with everything they’ve already gone through in their young lives, they’ve proven that they have the strength to get through anything….even going to a public school in Pekin, Illinois. And the greatest thing is that no matter what, they have each other to rely on when things get tough.

As for me, I think I’ll be okay as well. I knew today would be emotional and as I drove away from the school, I’m not going to pretend that a few more tears didn’t flow. After seeing their entire life play out in my head this morning, I kinda figured that might happen. Or maybe it’s knowing that every day they get older, I get older. Or maybe it’s just because now I don’t have anybody to play with during the day. What I also know is that as each day passes, I only love them more. And I know that whether it’s the day they were born, their first day of kindergarten, the day they graduate, the day they get married or the day they become parents themselves, they’ll always be my little girls.

My Night At ‘The Max’

June 29, 2016August 17, 2016Leave a comment

I want to do a little something different this week. Yes, I’m obviously still writing and getting some articles out this week but it’s actually been quite a while since I’ve written anything for the sheer joy of just writing and that’s something I need to change. And I spent some of today writing about ISIS so I kinda need something a little more fun. For the past year, I’ve been so wrapped up in getting articles out for the websites I work for (obviously a necessity…..you know, I like the roof over my head and being able to feed my kids and all), but I haven’t been writing just to write. Whenever I would start something that I wasn’t getting paid for, I’d find myself feeling guilty for it, which I know sounds a little ridiculous but I just couldn’t help myself from feeling that way. Don’t get the wrong idea, though. I love being able to do what I do. I get to spend more time with my daughters and I have the freedom to write on just about anything I want and get a check for it. However, the drawback is that I’m constantly looking for the next story or researching the current one and that doesn’t leave a lot of time for other projects that I want to do. I’ll explain more in the upcoming “The State Of The Luke Norris Experience Address”, which is way past due anyway, but I’m planning on writing a lot more outside of actual “work”. I just don’t want my passion for writing to get lost. Yes, I can use whatever talent I do have to make a little money, but I just don’t want it to always seem like work. Writing is supposed to be fun and that’s something I’ve forgotten a little bit, so I want to have a little fun today.

Now, one of the great things about my job is when a story I write reaches somebody that’s actually involved in it. It’s happened a few times in the past and it happened again recently. As I mentioned earlier, one of the perks of my job is the freedom to find an entertaining topic and run with it. So when I heard that a Saved By The Bell pop-up bar and diner was coming to Chicago, I jumped on it. Look, any kid that grew up in the 80s and 90s like I did knows the show. From original airings on Saturday mornings on NBC to reruns on TBS years later, I’m not ashamed to admit that I’ve seen every episode way too many times and can quote probably way too many lines. I mean, seriously, you can’t ever listen to the song “I’m So Excited” without thinking of Jesse’s “drug” problem, can you? Actually, I probably need to stop myself before I just start throwing quotes and storylines up here, so let’s get into it.

When I heard that “Saved By The Max”, which was going to be a replica of “The Max”, was seriously going to be an actual thing, I couldn’t help but get excited about it (see, you just thought I was making another “I’m So Excited” joke), so I found as much information as I could from the Facebook page and got it out there. The first one (which you can read HERE) did fairly well and I followed up with a second article when they announced the actual location. Outside of wanting to plan an actual trip to Chicago (only about a three-hour drive for those who don’t know me) to go, I really didn’t think too much more about it until @SavedByTheMax started following me on Twitter and I was soon after contacted by a man named Michael Corrigan, who’s running all the PR for the place. He thanked me for helping to spread the word, which only validated that my articles were reaching the people that they were intended to reach. Again, I didn’t think much of it, but we started chatting back and forth about me attending the grand opening on June 1, but a scheduling conflict with a doctor’s appointment for my daughters didn’t allow that to happen, but he told me that anytime that I wanted to come up to just contact him, even with them selling out the entire month of June on the very first day of ticket sales. The following weekend ended up working for me, so I e-mailed Michael and within just a few minutes, I had 9:00 reservations on a Friday night for the hottest place in Chicago. I called up an old friend of mine who I knew would appreciate this place as much as I would and we were all set.

I rolled out of Peoria at around 3:00 on Friday afternoon and arrived at my buddy’s place around six, which I’ll certainly take on a Friday in the Chicago area at rush hour. We left his place at around 7:15 just to make sure we had enough time to deal with Friday night traffic into the city and hopefully find a decent parking spot, which we actually did only two blocks away from our destination. We both had looked at pictures of “Saved By The Max” online and such, but on the way into the city, we each talked about what we might expect when we walked up, but we had absolutely no clue what we were in for….that is, until we saw it from across the street.

I openly admit that I got a little giddy when I saw it, but we still had about half an hour to spare and I knew we wouldn’t get in right away, so we went to a nearby bar for a warm-up beer before heading back. A line for walk-ins had formed outside (seriously, do your best to get a reservation if you plan on going as the walk-in spots are limited and the lines get long). As we walked in, we were immediately hit with awesomeness on the wall.

Trust me, I really wanted to change that to “Kelly loves Luke” but I was able to contain myself. Come on, you can’t tell me that Kelly Kapowski wasn’t one of your childhood crushes, am I right? It was either Kelly Kapowski, Kelly Taylor or Winnie Cooper for me (I just like ’em all, I guess), but I composed myself and moved to the amazing wall to the right of the lockers.

There were throwbacks to the Johnny Dakota episode…

…the oil spill…

…Screech’s robot Kevin from some early episodes…

…and of course. Look, it’s even got little caffeine pills.

As we made our way in, it was seriously like walking into a time warp. As we turned a slight corner to check out the main area, it was clear that the pictures hadn’t done the place justice. It was absolutely mesmerizing as we were seated at the counter/bar. There was a huge “Bayside Tigers” sign on the wall just above the DJ area (the place does turn into more of a bar after 11 and it’s a little easier to get in) that had the familiar KKTY Tiger Radio logo on it. Surely you remember how bad Slater’s sports commentary was, don’t you? I mean, he did save “The Max” later on in the episode though. Yep, I know way too much about the show.

I was astonished at the detail the owners had put into the place. From the familiar entrance (sorry folks, the door is just for show) to the arcade games in the corner to the jukebox that even had a reference to the sacred “A12”, it was all here. There was even one corner table made to look a bit like Mr. Belding’s office.

And much to my delight, there were plenty of people in costume. The group behind us went all out. The guy had a Slater wig on, one of the girls had a Bayside cheerleader outfit on and another had enough denim on for everyone in the joint…and probably enough hairspray as well going for the old school Kelly look and I’ll openly admit to crushing on her for a second or two. Another great thing is that while you’re sitting there, they’ve got plenty of music from the show going in the background. That DJ booth isn’t just for show and right there in the middle of the joint, they got up and gave us a great example of “The Sprain”. Awesome.

Now, as far as the food and drink are concerned, I couldn’t have cared less after just being in the place for two minutes. Just the nostalgia factor alone made the trip worth it, but the food is incredible. Every item on the menu has some hilarious tie to the show.

Personally, I went with the AC Sliders for my appetizer, the Bayside Burger with fries for my entree and had to go with the Hot Sundae for dessert. My buddy got the burger as well, but went with the Mac & Screech for an appetizer and Miss Bliss’ Candied Bacon for dessert. And no, I’ve got no problem admitting that he and I shared our food. I thought we might end up sharing a milkshake with two straws but that might have been a little too much.

But we did offer one another tastes of the delicious cocktails that our mixologist Gabby made up for us. I forgot to take a picture of the drink menu, but everything is right there at savedbythemax.com to take a look at. If memory serves correctly, we tried the “I’m So Excited”, the “Mark Paul 75”, the “Miss Simpson”, “The Eric”, “Jessie’s Joan of Arc”, the “Ginger Baldwin” and “The Last Dance” between the two of us. And every single one of them was fantastic. I do remember the “Miss Simpson” being my favorite, but I’d drink any one of them again in a heartbeat. And all the while, we’re talking to the staff, all of whom were wonderful people, and just soaking in the atmosphere. Pardon the awful pun that I’m about to make, but it really was a nice timeout from the grind of everyday life. Obviously, we didn’t spend the entire two and half to three hours that we were there talking all things Saved By The Bell, but we damn sure hit on it quite a bit. From our favorite episodes to characters to whatever, we seriously felt like we were actually sitting at “The Max”. And it certainly didn’t hurt when Gabby came up and told me that my bill had been taken care of. I can’t thank Michael Corrigan enough for hooking this up for me and I’ll probably be hitting him up again soon for another trip. “Saved By The Max” was originally only supposed to be open for the month of June, but the response was so overwhelming that they decided to extend it through August. And when those reservations got all filled up, they recently announced that they’re extending it until the end of the year.

As much as I want to, I can’t take credit for the best line of the night, which has to go to my buddy when he said that “we crossed off a bucket item list that we never knew we had”. And there’s really nothing that I can write that’s going to say it any better than that. Seriously, if you’re in the Chicago area, or even within a few hours of the city….GO. You will not regret it.

Now if I could only find a place like this resembling The Peach Pit. Maybe I’ll make that my next fun project.

As always, thanks for reading. For those of you who are new to the site, please feel free to take a look around and give me a follow if it suits you. You can also follow me on Twitter @THElukenorris and can also get updates on every new article I write on The Luke Norris Experience Facebook page. Enjoy the experience.

Happy Birthday, Ashlie

January 11, 20161 Comment

If you’re friends with me on Facebook or are a constant visitor here at The Luke Norris Experience, then you probably know that from time to time, I’ll post some pictures of myself with my intelligent and beautiful twin daughters, Ashlyn and Brooklyn. What you usually don’t see is the other intelligent and beautiful female that lives with me, and more often than not, she’s the one behind the camera getting those shots. She’s the birthday girl and the reason for this piece. She’s my girlfriend, Ashlie.

In the past when I’ve done some of these “Up Close and Personal” pieces, it’s been about my daughters, a friend, a trip, my “State of The Luke Norris” addresses, or the passing of my father a few years back. Sure, I’ve made mention of her here and there, but the truth is that we just don’t share a lot of our relationship publicly. We don’t have each other as our “relationship status” on the Facebook (we both love The Social Network) and you really don’t see that many pictures of us together. Seriously, the one you see above and the one that accompanies this piece are two of maybe ten good ones that exist that have both of us in it. Parading our relationship for the world to see just hasn’t been something we felt was necessary, but I started doing these types of pieces in order to give you a little insight into my real life, and the life that I have now doesn’t exist without Ashlie.

Before I say anything else, let me tell you that this Millennial Generation that gets bashed for not working hard and expecting everything to be handed to them does not apply to this woman. She turns 26 today and has one, if not the best work ethic I’ve ever seen of anybody at any age. She’s held multiple jobs since the day I met her and continues to do so. She not only drives an hour to work every day to teach music at two different schools, but also teaches private lessons here at our home and also at a music store in town. She works with an autistic child at his home and also sings in a choir at a local church. She waited tables to help with costs in college, which is actually where I met her, has done work with a local theatre company, and there’s probably another eight to things I’m missing. All I’m saying is that the girl works her ass off.

You’re probably wondering with all of that work she does when she gets to spend time with me and the girls. Well, she does that too. Is she here every single second that we are? Well, no. But do you know any family that’s together all the time? Probably not. But does she spend quality time with my daughters? Well, of course she does. They have their time together and even have their own bedtime song. Multiple songs actually. I still like to give her a hard time about her being a classically trained singer and having to open for me when we put the girls to bed. In case you’re wondering, I am not a classically trained singer. I can rock a mean version of “The Humpty Dance” for a cover band at some dive bar, but I’m not this.

Now imagine that voice singing “Baby Bumble Bee” or “On Top of Spaghetti” to two five-year-olds before I close the night with “You Are My Sunshine”. It’s pretty special. Just because you may not see it on social media doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen. You’re not going to see every game of Candy Land. You’re not going to see every time she takes them downstairs so they can dance while she plays the Charlie Brown song on the piano. You’re not going to know about every time on the weekends that she brings them chocolate chip bagels and the countless other moments they’ve had. Look, my daughters love Ashlie and she loves them and that’s really all that anybody needs to know.

When it comes to her and I, there’s a lot that you won’t see on the surface either, probably because we don’t feel the need to take selfies every time we’re doing something. Do we spend a lot of time at home? Yes, we do. I’ll be the first to admit that I need to take her out a little more, but even that gets tough sometimes with the schedules we have right now and this crazy newfound fear I have of leaving my house, but that’s for another day. We’re very different people in that aspect, as she gets very anxious when she sits for too long. She’s not really a “let’s just hang out and relax” kind of person, and she’ll be the first to admit that, but somehow we still manage to make things work. There are things that we have in common and things about us that are so different, but I think that’s why it does work. We don’t have to be together every second of every day or doing the exact same thing that the other is doing at all times. But that certainly doesn’t mean that we don’t spend time together. Even if it’s something as simple as snuggling up on the couch watching Straight Outta Compton like we did over the weekend, it’s just nice when we’re together. That’s right…I just used “snuggling” and Straight Outta Compton in the same sentence…deal with it.

But it’s not just that. It’s our walks with the girls to the store. It’s sitting out on the back patio or celebrating New Year’s playing Wii with the neighbors. It’s setting up two chairs in the garage so we can just have a drink while we watch and listen to the rain. It’s a night in Chicago at Phantom of the Opera or box seats for Daniel Tosh or Straight No Chaser (yep, we’re all over the place with our entertainment). Or it’s that family game of Candy Land or staying in on a Saturday night to drink champagne and play Scene It or Yahtzee before we break into duets while listening to Pandora or watching YouTube videos. And there’s “Hold My Hand” to close out those nights while we dance alone in the living room. There’s no pictures of those either.

But it’s not just all of those things that makes her so special to me…not even close. There’s no pictures from that first Christmas where I had to be away from my daughters and Ashlie held me while I cried for hours, or how every Wednesday when the girls go back to their mom’s, she makes sure I’m okay. There’s no pictures from the nights that she’s helped me get through what happened with my dad. There’s no picture that says when I decided to do what I’m doing now with this writing thing, that she was the single most supportive person in the world of that decision and continues to be right up to this very second. And things like that are pictures that I don’t need. Things like that are things I see every day that I want the world to know. Things like that are what make her part of this crazy little family I have. Things like that are why I am so crazy in love with this woman, even if I don’t say that too her as often as I should.

I’m not the easiest person in the world to be with and I’ve got no problem admitting that. I can be moody and sad and happy, sometimes all at the same time (I’m pretty talented), but no matter what, Ashlie is always there for me. I have well-earned trust issues, and I know some of that has hindered some of my ability to be the man I know I can be for her, and that’s a man that she can someday call her husband. Relax, I’m not proposing to her in this public forum, but recently I came to the realization that that is a real possibility now. It’s not going to be tomorrow, and she knows that, but for the longest time, she knew that there was a strong chance that I would never want to get married a second time. It’s just the way it was when we got together, but she took a chance on us anyway. And this is not a “she wore me down” kind of thing. If you’ve read even one word leading up to this sentence, or maybe you just already know her, then you realize what a kind, caring, loving person she can be. Who wouldn’t want to marry a person like that? Don’t get me wrong here, we’re not perfect and we certainly don’t pretend to be. We fight. We argue. But it’s how we deal with it that’s been different than what I’ve known before. We do our best to get past it and move forward. We try to compromise the best we can with the situations we’re given and we’re just trying our best….not to be perfect, but to be perfect for each other and the girls.

Listen, I could go on and on about all the ways I love Ashlie, but that’s just the easiest way to say it. She’s a big part of who I am and now you know a little more about her. I mentioned how kind and caring and loving she can be, but there are so many more words to describe her that may not even have been invented yet. She’s a unique soul and I’m so lucky to have met her…and myself, Ashlyn, and Brooklyn are so lucky to have her in our lives. She’s pushed me to do things that I didn’t know were possible and helped through times I didn’t think I could get through. She’s supported me when others may not have and for all of these things, I will be eternally grateful.

Happy Birthday, Ashlie.