Binderama60for60
A Life So Far
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Get ready for some glorious over-sharing, from childhood adventures to career triumphs and tribulations, life’s hard knocks and the wisdom gained, awesome people and tales of joy. I invite you to join me as I turn a big fat calendar page on life.
March 13, 2025 – March 12, 2026
Category: PEOPLE
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I spent four years as an active brother in the Kappa Sigma Fraternity, Lambda Sigma Chapter at James Madison University. I made bonds that will last a lifetime, some on the deepest of levels. It’s proven to be one of the most consequential decisions of my life. It was everything the 80s were: loud, confusing,…
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This post will be better viewed in a browser: www.binderama60for60.com There was a time when people exchanged holiday cards. Every year, it’s what you did. The cards were mostly store-bought and hand-written with the freshest family news. My Mom spent hours writing personal notes to dozens of people on her list. If she didn’t receive…
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I had nailed life. At 12, I was BMOC at Louise Archer Elementary in Vienna, Virginia. Good grades (on the gifted track no less!), all my teachers adored me, most all the kids liked me, including some girls and even some of the kids who beat me up. I was in student government, on the…
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I’ve known Matt Palmer for 40 years. He hates when I share the story of how we met. I respect that. And since we’re such good friends, I will save that story for the third or fourth paragraph of this post. This ongoing 60|60 project features 60 essays about things that are relevant to me,…
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It wasn’t always this way. I didn’t start out being thankful. As a kid, and a fortunate one at that, I took a lot for granted: This is just the way life is. It took me decades to appreciate how much I’ve had to be thankful for, and too often it’s been in hindsight. Now,…
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Note to subscribers: Posts are often better viewed in a browser. Click here. So much goodness and the longest of the series! Today is Mickey Mouse’s 97th Birthday. To many of you, that’s trivia. To others, like me, it’s a big thing. Back in 1928, the cartoon short “Steamboat Willie” premiered in movie theaters. I honestly…
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Note to subscribers: Posts are often better viewed in a browser. Click here. Happy Birthday, Babe! Here’s a story about the Family I married into. A while back, Mary’s niece Emma was accepted into Colorado College. She was the latest in a long line of O’Neills to matriculate there. Her application was stellar: activism, volunteering,…
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We just finished a seven-day roadtrip from our Lake house in Michigan to our other home here in Scottsdale. It was a utilitarian trip, facilitating the need to get from one place to another efficiently and with a dog. This time though, we spent a little more time smelling the roses along the way. Spoiler:…
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Today is our 10th anniversary Yes yes, I know what you’re thinking: “Doug, are you really going to publish a blog about your marriage. And surprise your Wife with it? On your anniversary? That sounds like a really bad idea.” Heard. Here we go! Christmastime in Virginia, mid-aughts. It was one of our first visits…
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Posts are sometimes better viewed in a browser: https://binderama60for60.com/ I could write more than 60 blog posts about just one topic: Walt Disney. And just as many about Walt Disney World. As I am planning out this post just now (in July), I am feeling JAZZED! The memories overwhelm. Originally I intended to do this as…
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“Enthusiast” is a good descriptor of Kim Anschultz. She gets excited about almost anything; it is contagious. The girl can talk your ear off. Without peer. It’s all the good stuff in the world: family, friends, neat experiences, new opportunities. She doesn’t dwell on the bad stuff. And she can go for days on her…
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Today is Thomas Morrison’s birthday. I don’t know which one but I’m guessing in the high 50s. This post was originally all about him back when I mapped out this 60|60 thing; he deserves it for being my friend for a long time. As I started to script this post, I realized that over the…
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Posts are sometimes better viewed in a browser: https://binderama60for60.com/ According to her diary, Margery Rose “met an Irish pre-med student” at a square dance on October 29, 1948. She stayed up late. She saw him again a few nights later. Based on these two diary installments (which I cite with Mom’s tacit permission), I’ll start with…
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Posts are sometimes better viewed in a browser: https://binderama60for60.com/ Mike Goldenberg is one of my very best friends, has been for more than 40 years. When he visited me at the Lake a few weeks ago, we went to a bar for lunch. We had a few drinks and shared a bowl of soup with…
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One morning in June, the legendary performer Dickie Smothers sneered at me, “shame on you.” I was late to pick him and his brother up at National Airport because I’d overslept after my buddy Chris Castle and I had roadtripped to Virginia Beach and back in the previous 20 hours, as one does at that…
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My whole life I’ve hated death. I hated it because I didn’t understand it. I hated it because it scared me. I accepted that it was inevitable, but it was all the stuff that comes along with it that I couldn’t comprehend, I couldn’t cope with: the sadness and totality of the loss, the disposition…
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I woke up this morning to wind and rain pounding on the windows. The gray skies hovered low over the big waves roaring from the north. It’s cold. None of this was expected. Every morning at the Lake is a blessing and a revelation. Each sunrise reveals a new landscape, a new world. The horizon…
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Time to celebrate my Dad on this Father’s Day! All things Pop. Dad. Blood. Sir. We’ll save Jim, Jimbo, Jazzbo and L. James (and “Skull James”) for another time. Admittedly, this is one of the hardest posts in this 60|60 series to write so far. I’ll start with this: he was a wonderful Dad. He…
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There was a period back in the early 80s when Michael Jackson was the most recognizable person on the planet. Maybe in history. Whatever album he had just released was backed by an overwhelming media blitz, a series of videos and a single-gloved taste-making revolution. It was a white-hot mystique like I’ve never seen before…
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This is my impression alone; hundreds of others who were there that day have their own stories to tell. Please do! 9:10 AM. Just as Steven Spielberg prepped the clown-sized scissors to cut the ribbon and officially open Universal Studios Florida, my radio squawked: I was needed somewhere else in the park to talk with…
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Happy Mothers Day! Today’s post is all about Mom. Mom, Maw, Moomaw, Mauzy Broadway. You’ll read plenty about Margery, Marge and Margie elsewhere in 60|60. Today: Maw. I’ll dispatch with the basics: Maw was loving, she cared for me when I was sick, stayed up with me when I was scared, comforted me always. Every…
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I have a celebrity problem. I’ve always been drawn to famous people. Fame. People who have fame. People who are famous. People who attract the eyes and admiration of other people, millions and even billions of people. I can’t say I’m proud of it, but I’ve not made it much of a secret either: Those…
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We loaded the U-Haul in late August to hit the road, each of us going our separate ways: back home, back to school or no where in particular. Wait, does this sound like the beginning of every coming-of-age story you’ve ever seen? Cool. It was hot and muggy in the parking lot surrounded by lots…
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I used to joke with friends that whatever we were doing at the time would make it impossible to become a Senator or confirmed to the Supreme Court. These days, we would likely sail to confirmation, though we might be considered too squeaky clean. These are the kind of moments I will work into a…
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The story of a life can be told in linear fashion, a sort of timeline. That’s boring. Such a tale would miss all the best stuff, the diversions and tangents, the screw-ups and resets, and most importantly, the people that shuffle through our lives. For this post, I’m going to imagine life as a line…
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My name appears on a window in the New York back lot of Universal Orlando. Anyone familiar with the Disney tradition of featuring super-special contributors on the windows along Main Street knows what an honor it is to be remembered this way. In my case at Universal, the “honor” was bestowed on me because, 35…
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This doesn’t count as one of the 60|60. It’s a freebie. Another lagniappe. sui generis. A few weeks back, Mary threw a three-day rager in Las Vegas for my birthday. She cast a wide net with the invites, special friends dating back to college, through Disney and Universal, New York, Vegas, LA, NorCal and of…
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It’d be easy to map a life along a timeline, a series of linear events: this happened, then that, then that and so on. In planning this 60|60 series, I’ve come to appreciate how much it’s the people I’ve known that make the narrative more engaging and robust. Friends who have breathed life into my…
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My teenage years were pure John Hughes. Or at least that’s how I’ve come to recall them. The Summer of 1981 had almost every ingredient of an ’80s teen classic, beginning with an outcast with a heart of gold, his new drivers license, and a summer fast approaching. A little backstory: I was a dweeb…
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On this day in 1965, my Mom wrote this in her diary. “Cramps began when I got up. Hurriedly washed the dishes and packed up the boys’ stuff…I called the hospital and they said to come in and be checked…They decided it was labor so [I] stayed…Our new son was born at 4:45. Weighed 8…
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