Strem Talks

What makes a good person, good?  Is it how they treat their family?  Is it how well they treat people working in the service industry?  Is it their care for animals?  Children? Yes.  To all of these sentiments, all of these could be factors in making you a good person.  Good people treat their loved ones well.  They’re kind to strangers.  They may have a smile for everyone.  They’re the kind of people who see someone drop a $20 bill, and even though they are broke, they run up to return it.  It’s the people who go out of their way to be kind.   I know so many good people.  People I have known for years and years, who I love dearly.  They are good people.  I am surrounded by good people in my life, who have been there for me through thick and thin, as they say.  They have stood by me during the trials and tribulations in my life, but they have also celebrated with me during my personal victories.  We have sat together and shared stories about our lives and genuinely enjoyed each ot

This year has seen an unprecedented change in the national conversation that has been the hot topic since a certain businessman/reality television star took office.  I found myself in a conversation where two people were appalled at how overtly critical the media and the general populace has been of President Trump after the events in Charlottesville.  I asked them, honestly, did they not remember the angry vitriol that followed President Obama?  They’re response was that it wasn’t ever this bad for him.  Despite watching our president be hung in effigy.  Despite listening to his wife being called a “gorilla” by mainstream media.  Despite hearing multiple arguments about how he’s handled hostages, both paying an exorbitant amount of money, and refusing to spend any money.  How he’s handled healthcare, with only 8.8% of Americans uninsured during the Obamacare administration.  The increase in the national debt, which has nearly doubled in actual dollar amount, but when taking into cons

When I was 10 or 11 years old, they had a special day in my elementary school.  They came in with a bunch of instruments and gave us the opportunity to hold them, to try to play them, to find our musical calling if there was one there.  That day I picked up a trumpet, felt the cold brass on my lips for the first time, and blew.  Sound immediately came from the horn and the person introducing us to the instruments was left shocked (this was not a normal thing for a kid to pick up an instrument and just start playing it).  I remember being a little bit shocked at my own natural ability with this strange new instrument.  I also seem to recall my mother not being shocked at all.  “Brass is in our blood,” she said.  We had a history of bugle players in my family.   So I started lessons and joined the band.  Every week we would crowd on the front steps of my school and go to the other elementary school down the street and meet with the elementary school band director for the Middle and P