​I have faith in the future. I have faith in the next generation. I have faith in millennials.
 
Not everyone agrees. Millennials get verbally abused for not sticking with a project, not showing up on time, not following through. Those are stereotypes, like many others, based on incidents that cause us to project one person’s qualities onto another.
 
Every generation has its weaknesses and its positive points. As a baby boomer, I often wonder what our generation has done to make this world a better place. Our group can easily be criticized.
 
Now that we’re closing in old codger status, the fashionable statement is to criticize the millennials. I don’t agree with that perspective. I believe in the next generation and what they bring to the table. They will (and do) approach issues, work and play differently than previous generations because the circumstances of their lives have been different.
 
They’ve grown up with newer technologies, the ability to download data at their fingertips. That gives them unique access to information we never had, and as they master the knowledge base available to them, the opportunity to step up and solve some of our seemingly intractable problems grows. I have faith they will come up with solutions to some of the complex worldwide problems we face.
 
I came to these personal beliefs several years ago. My wife and I were out to dinner with two of our kids as they attended college. They brought along several friends. We’d been around their friends and roommates multiple times, but for some reason the evening was different.
 
The conversation crossed the threshold from one of those “catch up on the day conversations” to a more cerebral one involving engineering and physics that they were addressing in their respective classes. We sat riveted. Within seconds my head spun. I could not follow the conversation.
 
As they related to each other, asking questions, pontificating, suggesting ideas, discussing equations and in general talking about things I knew nothing about, it hit me that the world will be in good hands with them. They’ve learned and assimilated a ton of complex subjects and have the ability to synthesize it and propose unique ways to apply it in the years ahead.
 
One could argue this is a small subset of millennials, and that would be correct. But the bigger point to me is that there are a lot of young adults in the world who have the drive and educational background to change the course of trends that need correcting.

It won’t be easy. They’ll face walls and naysayers like anyone does who works towards change.
 
Many people complain about change, not wanting to modify personal behavior or actions. Change though is going to be how we clean up the world’s plastic pollution and dramatically reduce our dependence on fossil fuels in the decades ahead.
 
One of our biggest problems today is changing how we see others, opening up to something that may clash with our personal world view. I suggest a step for us baby boomers to question how we see the millennial generation. Let’s listen and hear what they have to say, and couple their early-in-life knowledge with our own. The opportunity is there to grow together in ways we’ve never seen before.

​About 10 years ago, I went out with several male friends for dinner and drinks after our sons played basketball together. I am white. All the rest of the fathers were black.
 
We hung a lot together for a couple of years, watching our sons develop friendships, improve their respective games, and develop into a cohesive, fun team to watch. The fathers enjoyed hanging out together, too, and that included post-game conversations at local eating establishments in the Dallas-Fort Worth metro area.
 
When you’re a white guy, you don’t think too much about going out to eat. If you’re African-American, you think a bit differently. Stuff comes up. You deal with it the best you can. This column is about a couple of the restaurants we visited, and my learning experiences.
 
To the best of my recollection, the following incidents happened twice. It could have happened more frequently, but perhaps my radar wasn’t functioning yet. Both situations were similar.
 
We came in, got seated, then waited. Another table came in after us and they got served. A second table, and then a third came in, and they got service. We waited patiently. We were laughing, I’m sure, telling stories, enjoying each other. No one complained. But I noticed.

I noticed our group was African-American except myself. I noticed the tables getting waited on were all white people. After far too long, I stood up and went to the host/hostess, and asked that a wait person give us service. They apologized in both instances and someone came over fairly quickly and took our orders.
 
Here’s what interests me: I was the outraged person.  My friends were not. They were used to it. And that is plain wrong. How many times had they gone into a restaurant or bar or other type of business and been marginalized, not given service, or ignored? I don’t know.
 
What I do know is that in just two situations of me going out with them, we did not receive service until I stood up to make an issue of it. Compound that over years of similar experiences or a lifetime of dealing with these types of incidents and how would you feel? As I white guy, all I can do is make the attempt to understand, intervene and make a point to others that these types of incidents DO happen. And not just occasionally.
 
To understand the perspective of others (which is a quality in extremely short supply today), we need to ask questions, listen openly, care enough to recognize when something is not right, and do something about it. I didn’t do enough in either of those incidents. Yes, I got a service person to our table. But I didn’t take the next step and make a point to the manager of the store. And, quite frankly, I’m not fully sure how far you go to make a point in a situation like that. We were having a good time. I seemed to be the most angered by the incidents.

Ten years later I remember both of those cases. I am still in touch with these men, but long distance, as our family moved to Wisconsin four years ago.
 
My vague memory tells me that we discussed the incidents back then, but there was shoulder shrugging, and a view of “not the first time it’s happened to me, so you roll with it” type of perspective. Maybe that’s what you do to get along.
 
It’s a story to share with others. For you to think about. Maybe more of us will pay attention closely to interactions, and approach others in one-on-one situations with a smile and open attitude. I work hard to be that way. I hope and pray others adopt a similar view.

​Pet peeve: People who use the phrase “each and every one” of something.
 
Somehow that phrase dominates the airwaves and everyday language. Maybe I’m just dialed into it, but it seems I hear people using the words “each” and “every” together in sentences regularly.
 
My peeve is this: You don’t need to say “each” when you’ve said “every.” And vice versa. Say “each” or “every.” But not both.
 
For example, “Each of you should pay close attention to what I’m about to say next.” Or, “Every day we need to make sure we file our reports.”
 
Not: “Each and every one of you should pay close attention to what I’m about to say next.” Not: “Each and every day we need to make sure we file our reports.”
 
I don’t know where this redundancy started. But it’s certainly taken over. Some of the biggest over-users of the phrases are announcers. I think they must believe that using the phrase makes them sound more important. Or perhaps I’m just over-thinking this whole damn thing, and no one considers what they’re saying.
 
This irritation on my part has arisen the past six months or so. I think it derived from a person I worked with. On a morning call, she’d repeatedly state, “Each and every time we, blah blah blah blah.” And I’d think to myself, “Just say EVERY time. Not EACH and EVERY.”
 
When language use is your profession, little things like this become bigger things. You look at the people who over-state their case or try to over-impress you, and when that happens, you find your opinion of them lowered. By trying to act more important that necessary, you lose the impression you’re probably trying to create.
 
Then again, maybe I’m just a complainer and someone who overly judges the use of language and its effectiveness in our daily lives. Words matter.
 
Over the years, I’ve found phrases like “each and every” working their way into our lexicon and being adopted to the point where I can’t block them out of my mind. In Washington, D.C., as a journalist covering Congress and EPA 30 years ago, a word applied repeatedly that lost all its meaning was “expeditiously.” And, the word “prioritize” was right behind it.

“We need to move this legislation expeditiously, and prioritize this project.” That’s certainly an oxymoron phrase for Congress. No ones moving quickly, and if it’s one person’s priority, you can bet your retirement that someone else is going to oppose it, so it won’t be a priority.

The California valley girl word, “like,” is another classic. It took over for “you know,” a personal favorite of mine that I continue to use effectively when I don’t know what to say next. You know.
 
“It’s like, you know, that I went around, like, two miles on my bicycle, down this hill, like it was the fastest thing I ever did.” Each and every time.
 
I over-use phrases. We all do. It’s darn hard to change your behavior even if someone points out to you what you are doing and you “want” to change. It takes concentration, hard work and dedication.
 
If TV announcers read this, each and every time they get on the air, maybe they’ll think about it and cut out one word. It would make me happier.

​The death of the legendary Georgetown University former men’s basketball coach John Thompson brought back several memories. I did not know him personally. But I did have several personal interactions with him over the years. And they were telling.
 
My interactions with him were 25-30 years ago when I officiated basketball in Washington, D.C. The first incident took place at Sidwell Friends High School as I sat and watched a summer varsity game being played and waited for my JV contest to start. There are only a few rows of seats on the side. It’s tight.
 
As I focused on the game, I felt a HUGE presence sit next to me on my left. I remember thinking, “Man, that’s a big person, whoever it is.” I continued to focus on the officials and players, before slowly glimpsing to my left and looking the individual up and down and my eyes having to go way up to see all of the individual next to me due to his height.
 
I thought, “Whoa, that’s John Thompson.” Within minutes of me saying hi, he shook my hand, smiled and we began a lengthy conversation about high school basketball talent, officiating and who he was looking to recruit that day. It astounded me how open he was, congenial, warm. He listened, asked great questions, made me comfortable as a young man who could have been intimidated by his size and presence.
 
As I officiated longer in the D.C., I moved up to varsity games and slowly into some smaller college games. In the D.C. area, there is a lot of top collegiate talent. That offers you some opportunities to work scrimmages and learn the college rules as a way to improve and prepare if you want to move deeper into the collegiate ranks.
 
John Thompson would bring officials from our local board over the Georgetown to work his scrimmages. I knew this was a unique opportunity the first time this surfaced for me, and I immediately agreed to the request from a fellow official to join him for a preseason scrimmage. I was in for a treat and a lesson.
 
Not knowing what to expect, we walked into the gym dressed and ready to go. You forget there will be no one in the stands because you are in the team’s practice gym. If silence could be a sound, that’s what we heard. Current North Carolina men’s basketball coach Roy Williams was sitting at the top of the small set of bleachers, observing quietly.
 
Thompson held court. His players circled him, sitting on the floor, mesmerized by his presence. Thompson preached that day. Quietly, he shared lessons. No one spoke. Every word was absorbed. We said nothing on the sideline.
 
This went on for a good 10-15 minutes. He was a teacher, a preacher. A good one. One who wanted to uplift his players, help them learn about the world and how they can make it a better place by how they acted on the court, played the game and focused on their school.
 
I was blessed to see this firsthand. See how Coach Thompson strove to influence the next generation of young African American men to do the right thing. He did many great things in his life, but those young men will miss him the most, I’m sure, and his positive influence will continue in the coming years.