Paying Attention Pays Off

When the AT&T Slam Dunk contest was about to begin this year, all the tv experts said it was going to be boring and not worth a look. There were no-namers who were participating, and there was nothing to be learned from watching them. But when Mac McClung took his first dunk and leaped over two friends before circling the net, everyone there and at home stopped their conversations. With each dunk they took pictures and paid attention as closely as they could because it was wonderful to see what was happening before their eyes. They were seeing the contest in a different light and would be able to discuss it in the future.

When I began teaching at Wilson, I installed the Womack Outline System from day one. Every student got the basics of how to outline a page, a chapter, anything that had parts, and they soon began to be able to crank them out in no time at all. That is, except for sweet Randy Smith who labored long and hard to come up with his outlines. He suffered the dreaded re-do on several occasions, and I often thought he  would never get the hang of it. It was a long process.

After graduation he went to a community college, and I lost track of how he was doing until one day I saw him outside my classroom door waiting for the bell to ring. I thought he was going to greet one of his friends still in school, but he came bounding across the floor straight to me with a smile as big as a Texas sky. "In my class the first day the teacher assigned an outline of the chapter, and I was the only one who knew how! The other people said that I was the best they'd ever seen and they wanted me to give them tips so they could learn to outline, too. The teacher says I do a great job every time I write one!" He was paying attention.

My friend Barbara has started to take her grandson to school every morning. It is on the same route I do my morning walk, and I leave the house at the same time and walk the same blocks. She honked and waved, and she told her grandson on the first day that I was her friend and walked the route every morning. As a middle schooler, he shrugged and kept on with his phone. Their routine was the same for some weeks when one day he gave a frantic warning.

"Grandmother, hurry. Speed up. We're late!"

"What makes you think we're late, honey?"

"Your friend has already turned her second corner!"

Couldn't have seen that coming.

And then there's John Brown, a short, Irish immigrant, who came to Texas by 1835 with a smile, no money, and the will to make a better life. No one realized or gave thought that this teamster had plans. They didn't see that with each year he was making a leap from a working man to a true businessman.  He would  start a stagecoach company that would set a record between Austin and Houston in 1848, have a stage stop in Cibolo, hotels in Houston and Victoria, be complimented by one writer who said that Brown's company "had made almost superhuman exertions in order to fulfill contracts."

Each day we have the chance to notice people, events, and things around us. There will be amazing additions to our experiences if we do.