Wilmington, NC Real Estate Blog

I like others, feel the loss of one of Hollywood's great actors, philanthropists, and family man. 

I will also never forget the movie "Cool Hand Luke"   The quote "What we have here is a failure to communicate" is one of the all time greatest lines in movie history..... Good 'ole Cool Hand Luke played his part to a T.  I remember this movie so well (not because I viewed it numerous times since) it was a movie that somehow made it on to the U.S.S. Holland, where I and 1880 other sailors were so fortunate to be a part of. 

I say fortunate because at the time we were stationed in Charleston, South Carolina, readying ourselves for an overseas tour of duty in Rota, Spain, and the rest of the country was fighting the war in Viet Nam.  Of of my duties as an communications technician was to show movies to the crew ( I know, I know, like I said one of my duties)  Well watching movies on a large ship with a couple hundred other guys isn't all that much fun, ( this could be another whole boring story in itself) so we would have private showings in our "tape room"  A room where only a few of the "privileged few" would be allowed to enter.  These private showings to the "privileged few"  would be a great way to unwind, relax, and see a good flick before the masses. 

We were all a bunch of young guys, away from home, many for the first time, and this movie bonded us even more tightly. 

I think about that time in our country...a time of rebellion, upheaval, a horrible war going on, and unrest in the streets of America.  Our President had recently been assassinated, riots in Detroit, soldiers were giving their lives to a cause they believed in, and the grizzly details were being shown on TV every night, a score card of body counts....U.S. 1206...Cong 4123, like it was some sort of morbid game.  

And then this movie....our hero, Cool Hand Luke.  We all loved his bravado, his penchant for not giving up, his uncanny ability to be liked by others, and most of all his style. 

"We have Here is a failure to Communicate" became my buddies mantra, we watched that movie a lot!  Whenever something did not go our way...it was because of a failure to communicate.  The Navy had problems, it was a failure to communicate.  The weather, food, money, politics, ANYTHING was a failure to communicate.  It paralleled our countries current philosophy "We have a Failure to Communicate"

Rest in peace Paul Newman....You were one Cool Dude!  You helped us to grow up.

Dick Beals

Quotes serve a purpose in our world, don't you think?  Bible verses, famous people, marketing companies, sports figures, or the "guy on the mountain" all express their views with quotes.

Many years ago, my son Greg and I would sit down in the evening and discuss his day.  He had ADD,  was doing poorly in school, needed to focus, and we took this time to talk.  Back then, doctors knew about this condition, however, the treatment wasn't something we did not want to pursue. 

Our treatment , or diagnosis, was to focus more, and take life for Greg in smaller bits, so we decided to read a chapter a night from the book "One Minute Wisdom" and then discuss what Greg read.  Now these chapters were usually one page, a couple of sentences, or bible verses, the reading part was easy....the discussion that followed was the best part.

I never realized how important these "talks" were to Greg (I guess I didn't either....until now).  Fast forward 25 years ....Greg asked me yesterday a question regarding motivation and wondered if I still had that book we used to read together.

  "Sure, I do why?"  "I remember the story about the antelope needing to run fast and the lion starving, do you remember how it went?"  We almost in unison said this: 

"Every morning in Africa, an antelope wakes up. It knows it must outrun the fastest lion, or it will be killed. Every morning in Africa, a lion wakes up. It knows that it must run faster than the slowest antelope or it will starve. It doesn't matter whether you are a lion or an antelope-when the sun comes up, you'd better be running." 

You could say we were focused, and now he will be telling these same stories to my Grandson.

Dick Beals