Hero?

Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show. —Charles Dickens, David Copperfield (1850)

I will say right up front that I'm not the hero of my own life. I know what kind of person I really am and to be honest, I'm not all that impressed!!

I do however hope that in some small way I am a hero in the life of my children. I have been Blessed! The Lord Blessed me with two of the best kids ever.

My son Dakota has always been a great guy. He has never caused me any of the sleepless nights many of my friends with kids have faced. He has earned my trust! Dakota played football all four years in high school, and was President of his Senior Class, all this while he worked two jobs, dishwasher at a local restaurant and DJ at a local radio station. He was has always been very active in his church and has really grown up to be one handsome young man.

He now attends the University of Memphis where he is working on a degree in History and Political Science. He currently has a 4.0 for this semester, but this is finals week and I'm keeping my fingers crossed!!! He plans to attend law school upon graduation and actually hopes to have a career in politics. Mays for President in 2024!!!

My daughter Jessica is such a beautiful young lady. I have so much respect for her, she is a really great girl. Jessica was a cheerleader for many years, but last year decided to start playing soccer. She never backs down from anything!! She is a Junior in high school and plans to attend the University of Memphis upon graduation. Currently she plans to study to become a teacher and I'm sure she'll be the best teacher ever!

I'm sure I haven't always been the best father, there are so many things I would do differently if I had the chance to do them over again, but I have tried. I have always tried to be there for my kids. To give them direction, to be their friend, and just to let them know I love them. I hope they feel they can come to me and talk about anything, because they can!

Hero? Probably not, but I do hope they know I love them no matter what and I would give my life for them at any time. That kind of sounds like the job of a hero, at least a little......

Jackson Area Geocachers-A New Beginning

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair. —Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities (1859)

The best of times....

I can say without hesitation that I have had more fun geocaching in the last four weeks than in the previous two years. You see, geocaching is simply a game, a hobby not unlike golfing. But for me, there is one difference, the friendships. I have played golf with many friends, but have never considered my golfing buddies as family. My geocaching friends have become somewhat of a family for me. I care about them and enjoy talking with them every day.

Just over a month ago, I helped form a new geocaching group in the West Tennessee area called the Jackson Area Geocachers, also known as JAG. We have a new forum http://www.jag.eamped.com/ and in these four weeks have already had almost 5000 posts!! We already have 42 members and by members, I mean real cachers who actually post on the site and attend our events!! It's a great group of people, friends, people I can count on. People I really like to talk to.

We have done more in the last four weeks to promote geocaching in the Jackson area that was done in the previous three years!

Our group is open to everyone with one distinction, you must obtain a sponsor. Pretty easy to do, just attend one of our events or personally contact one of our Charter Members. When you obtain sponsorship, that means you have been accepted by the group and it was determined you were here with the same goals, to talk about geocaching and having fun! One thing we will not allow is membership to people who have proven themselves to be troublemakers on the site we left. We left the trouble and we don't want it here. We have a set of forum rules that I borrowed from Kentucky Tennessee Area Geocachers as well as DixieCachers and we intend to make sure these rules are followed. Something that the site we left failed to do.

The Worst of times....

The idea to form JAG came out of what I consider to be some of the worst times I have experienced as a geocacher.

You see, I was a founding member of the Geocachers of West Tennessee and I served as it's second president. After my term as president was over, the group became more concerned with arguing and fighting, voting and politics, than geocaching!! You see, two or three of it's members began a campaign to take over the group by force, a coup so to speak, with the distribution of misinformation, private messages to the membership, and attempts to irritate and aggravate those with whom they disagreed.

Essentially it seems the disagreement started with the fact they misunderstood that the person with the most votes in the general election wins. (A fact that was clearly posted in the forums prior to the general election.) Trying to even explain it here almost makes me laugh at how silly they actually were. I have been monitoring their attempts to change the bylaws and update the rules over the last few weeks only to end up right back where we started, the person with the most votes wins!! Give me a break!

Anyway, the active membership quickly polarized into the "Us vs. Them" mentality. I attempted to stay in the middle, voicing on several attempts to both sides that we need to find a middle ground and make this thing work, but to no avail.

People I considered really good friends began to post nasty, evil things, lies about me and many others I call friends. One thing to note, these people had control of the forums and when comments were stated they didn't agree with, they would lock the threads or simply make them disappear, over and over again.

Needless to say, we felt our hands were tied. Stay in a group where we felt we had no representation, no voice, or leave the bickering behind and form another group. I had been contacted by several of my friends for weeks about starting a new group. Over and over again, I stated that was not the right thing to do, but after careful thought and consideration, I began looking at the idea with new eyes.

Good times...

You see, it is a long way from Memphis to Scotts Hill, the town in which I live. It made it very difficult to attend events in the Memphis area, where it seems most events seemed to be held. The idea of a Jackson Area group started to make more sense. The people I frequently cache with, talk with, go out to eat with are for the most part located in the Jackson area. So with prompting from many of my geocaching friends, I created the Jackson Area Geocachers site. And I might add it was a good decision. WE have fun on our site, we talk about caching and we are truly interested in the lives of our caching friends. There are no officers, no bylaws, no dues, just friends that love to geocache and have fun. When there is a decision to be made, we discuss it on our forum and come to a conclusion. It is amazing when folks are like-minded how easy it is to come to an agreement!!

I will say we have made the choice to move on and leave the old troubles from the other site in the past, but for some reason, they cannot do the same. Posts on the old site to try and bait our members into a response are a regular occurrence on the old site as well as dissertation-long blogs by some of it's members. It is really amazing how much they must miss us!!!

Reading one of these blogs I see they are looking for the "olive branch" to be extended their way. I don't think that will be something they will see for some time. You see, that olive branch was already extended to them once and it was refused.

No, I am not concerned with those who feel the need pretend to be your friend when you are face to face, but become a completely different person when they get behind a keyboard.

Winter of despair? I don't think so Mr. Dickens, to us, the members of JAG, we are in the spring of hope. Hope for a continued success to one of the best geocaching groups in the state of Tennessee, the Jackson Area Geocachers.