Half Century Hangout
We are Half Century Hangout where different perspectives make for better discussions.! John, Luke and Chuck are three guys who grew up differently but became good friends with a lot to talk about. On this show three unique perspectives are brought to the table where we dive into everything from current events to life's big questions. We might not always see eye to eye... But that's exactly why we're here. So grab a seat and join us for honest conversation, unexpected insights, and a few friendly arguments.
Half Century Hangout
When Rituals Become Resilience: Traditions That Ground and Uplift Us
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Traditions serve as the invisible threads that weave together the fabric of our lives, connecting generations and shaping our identities in profound ways. In this reflective episode of Half Century Hangout, hosts Luke, Chuck, and John explore the multifaceted nature of traditions and their impact on relationships, community building, and personal resilience.
Ultimately, the conversation reveals that meaningful traditions aren't just about repeating activities – they're about fostering authentic connections between people. Whether within families, communities, or society at large, traditions create the relational infrastructure that helps us navigate life's challenges together rather than alone.
Continuing Our Traditions Conversation
Speaker 1Welcome back to Half Century Hangout here with Luke and Chuck. What do we got going on?
Speaker 3I know we were talking about traditions and we've been going through that and we still have some, but this was the first time, guys, that we actually had to break a conversation up into two parts, so I'm looking forward to, you know, getting the second part out there to our listeners.
Speaker 1So we'll continue our discussion about traditions here, and here's the rest of our discussion.
Speaker 2You know, like what's our tradition in the morning, Chuck, you and I are usually two of the first people in the building, right? You know, I walk by your door cause I have to walk by your door in the way, and sometimes you laugh cause I don't have products in my hair yet. Hey yo, hey, good morning. Good morning, Luke. You know how's it going. So we have our morning kind of tradition, if you want to say. But I think that it's more about the people that you're with, what those things are that you do as a group or even just. You know it might only be one other person, and the thing that was interesting that you said and I didn't really think about it until you said it but when you become empty nesters, okay, yeah, Now it's just me and my wife right, so we're there and Becky's there and we have a good time.
Speaker 2It's great. But there's moments where you sit back and you're like well, what are we going to do now? Where you sit back and you're like, well, what are we going to do now? You know what I mean, because the kids aren't there and you're always in your mind. You've always been based on the idea of something's with the kids or whatever. So now I have two dogs. You know. It's like okay, we got that, but now we are building traditions together. That's she and I, which I think is important, and I think it's good because again, again, the people are going to see that your kids are going to see that, like hey this is how it works, right?
Speaker 1yeah, luke, I see that. I see you building traditions with becky. Well, it is, and I think it's awesome, but it's, but it's cool that like we see that in all of our lives.
Speaker 2I mean, I see you know and Jen and with, with, with you and your wife. I mean, it's just one of those things where that's Lynn, you know, yeah, you, you, you go through it and you see it and you know it, and it's there.
Building Traditions as Empty Nesters
Speaker 3Yeah, it's um. So just a word to those who are listening to this show that's got kids, whether they're toddlers, elementary teenagers, whatever 25. What I was reminded of as you were talking and as you know, we're just sitting here discussing this is eventually the kids leave, and so please do not build your marriage around the kids.
Speaker 1Yep.
Speaker 3The husband and the wife have to be happy. They have to be investing each other, even as the kids grow up, because eventually the kids leave and you're stuck there looking at one another not stuck, but you get the benefit of, you know, being with each other. Post.
Speaker 1And I'm not going to lie, it is a great, is a great benefit.
Speaker 2and you know, I think what you're saying is we are trying to help each other and I'll say a cliche be the best version of ourselves I think, one of the things that I would say to that because I think that I struggled with it a little bit I'm not gonna lie and say I didn't because, because it was kind of when kids were out of the place and then I had one come back I think it's one of those things where, as, like Chuck you said, no matter where you're at in your life right now you're married, you've got kids at home, don't wait until the kids are gone to build those traditions with your spouse.
Speaker 2Because if you wait until the kids are gone to build those traditions with your spouse, yeah, because if you wait until they're gone, then there's kind of like this learning curve like you would have to jump through, and it's like don't wait that long, you can do things and build some things with your spouse before then. And I think and I didn't necessarily do that, I wish I would have more. You know what I mean, yeah, and I think that it's it's one of those deals where we can look back on it now and say, hey, you know, for for people that are there, this is an important thing and, like you said, don't just build it around the kids, right?
Speaker 3Let me ask this question as we think about traditions. We've talked a lot about family traditions and how they kind of form us as we're shaped, you know, and shape us as we're growing. What about? You mentioned, john, how important your community was in Stanton, iowa what community traditions, or maybe societal traditions, do we have that form us and shape us, and how valid are they Like? Do they make sense? Cause there are people I've talked with where, like, even the tradition of marriage is something that's like, not like they. They buck against that. But that's, we know, that's got value, right? I?
Speaker 1got a little bit of an example on that. So I was at a church service and normally I am a half century hangout guy and normally I take my hat off in this instant. Um, I was joking with these guys. I have a comb and it doesn't really comb my hair because I don't have a whole lot of hair on top of my head, but anyway, I had my hat on and it was keeping my head warm and I went into and normally I'll take the hat off because that's just a cultural norm or a tradition.
Speaker 3Going into a place and you take your hat off.
Speaker 1Yeah, that I deal with. Well, I didn't at this time and someone came up to me and said hey, you know you're in a building and you ought to take your hat off. And I was like, oh okay, so I took my hat off.
Speaker 2Did you just forget or did you leave it on on purpose?
Speaker 1I kind of left it on on purpose because it was keeping my head warm. Yeah, he's using it to keep his head warm.
Speaker 2my head, yeah, but you know, yeah, I, I really did forget things at our age.
Speaker 1You know, I didn't care one way or the other, it really didn't matter to me. And I've kind of gotten to a point and and we work in a school, there are kids that wear hats and it used to bother the heck out of me when kids wore their hats, used to really bug me and I, I don't know, I guess I've kind of gotten to the point where well on that.
Speaker 1Yes on that one hat and inside it really doesn't bother me a whole lot, but some people and I think that goes back to you with traditions a little bit Some people have some very, very strict rules that they follow, and the guy that came and talked to me happened to be from the military and happened to be really a rule follower, and so I talk about maybe scruples and maybe they were having too many scruples.
Speaker 3What do you mean by scruples?
Speaker 1Scruples. So scruples are. This is the way I define them. They're rules that people have that kind of define who they are and what they do.
Speaker 2Oh, okay, I got you. A lot of people will call that your scruples.
Speaker 1And so some people can be over scrupulous and really take that to the nth degree and make themselves like I'm a bad person because I'm not doing this, or you're a bad person because, and so I think we need to get away from that that judgment?
Speaker 3Yeah, I will say you just, you just described to me what I would call like self-righteous.
Speaker 1Yeah, yeah, I mean exactly. That's exactly what scruples is really. It's self-righteous.
Community Traditions and Culture
Speaker 2I think that when I was mentioning before about, like, where we live now and I don't I've been here a while now, but still it's like looking for that connection. One of the biggest traditions right now that I absolutely love, we have a homecoming parade. Oh, I love the homecoming parade, which not a whole lot of schools do.
Speaker 2This, I mean there's small towns that do it. I have the dubious honor of the beginning of that day, traveling to the elementary schools of our district and the middle school of our district on our end of town. Right, and I'm just quoting, I'm air quoting here preaching the gospel, right, telling the kids about this is what we're doing and come watch us and everything's cool, right, and we start this thing and we go and so going through that parade, but to see those kids like on the side of the streets as we're going right with their little things out and yelling, hey, I know that guy, you know, but it's, it's, it's building the community, yeah, it's building the culture.
Speaker 2That, yeah, it's building the culture. That to me, like right now, is probably one of the better traditions that I've learned as an old guy that I absolutely love. Like at first I wasn't really sure how I was going to feel about it, like you know, I don't know, like I didn't have that in high school. But at first I'm like, oh, but it's really cool.
Speaker 3Like I really like it.
Speaker 2It is cool but at first I'm like, oh, but it's really cool, Like I really like it and I you know, like as long as I'm there, we're going to do it and keep getting it bigger.
Speaker 1You know when, when you talk about schools and you talk about a high school and you talked a little bit about this when you put your son on top of the concession stand. Those are the things that I remember from my years growing up. Small towns, that Friday night lights, those were the times when you spent a lot of time with your community. We had the thing I remember a tradition and food and all that is important a tradition and food and all that is important. But the thing I remember is having a baked potato Friday night lights and we played at the baseball field. Our football field flagged off in the end zone because it wasn't quite 120 yards, it was maybe 115.
Speaker 3Can I pull this back? I would like to keep asking the question from our perspective of some guys that's in their 50s, what are some valuable societal traditions that connect us with future generations and past generations?
Societal Values Worth Preserving
Speaker 2You mean like, like, just like little life lessons. You mean Not necessarily.
Speaker 3I'm saying there's something that our grandparents that. There's something that our grandparents did that we want our grandkids to do. There's something that past generations have participated in and have found value in, that we want the next two generations or three generations to also connect with and value as well.
Speaker 2I mean just off the top of my head. And the reason that I'm saying this one is only because sometimes, when it happens with my kids, it drives me nuts. So that's what I'm kind of thinking of.
Speaker 2And I realize this is a very small thing. It might be kind of silly, but I think it's important. I think it's a bigger picture, but I think it's important to to clean up after yourself. Okay, like literally, like the inside of your car should not be a garbage, can? All right? Okay, yeah, I shouldn't. If I go, and John's going to give me a ride in his car, we're going to go somewhere and John's car is great. We got in. I sit in. You know other people you go, sit in there. Oh, let me get this shit out of the way, you know, and there's stuff and I've got my feet on.
Speaker 3You know high v cups and it's like you know order central.
Speaker 2Yeah, like I think it's important yeah, because okay, kind of like did your mom ever tell you something about clean socks?
Speaker 2because you never know if you go to the hospital clean underwear you go to the hospital you don't want to look, you know, whatever. I think it's. I think it's just like this over thing that, seeing kids now a lot that we do in school a lot of them don't have that thought about themselves and their surroundings. We see them at their tables at lunch. I think it's a big thing and I learned that from my grandpa and my mom and dad and going down and I think that it's something that's kind of being lost a little bit in the shuffle.
Speaker 1I think to go along with that. When you leave a place, I have always been taught you leave it better than what you found it. So if you borrow someone's truck to take something you know, maybe you got something to haul and you borrow someone's truck, you don't bring it back with an empty tank of gas. You bring it back with a full tank of gas. You might even clean it out a little bit because you want to leave things better.
Speaker 3So here's what. Here's what I'm hearing you guys say. I think is, while you use the example of cleaning a car out, or cleanliness, or you know you mentioned john um, just making sure that you're cleaning up after yourself, or this- is where chuck tells us that he was thinking a lot deeper I was man, I, I, but I think I can connect what you guys were talking about to a deeper, better value, because you're thinking of like self-pride, right one bit, yeah, I mean how else almost like I I don't even know if I would just say self-pride.
Speaker 2I think it's just kind of like I don't know I.
Speaker 1I think it is. I think it's taking care of others To me, to me, I think the thing that we want to pass on, that we want kids to know, is community and family are important. How you treat people and we talked about that we talked about people. How you treat people, and we talked about that. We talked about people. How you treat people is important, and if you are not treating people in the best way that you can to help them be better, I think that's what we want to pass on.
Speaker 3And what I would say.
Speaker 1Communication. So please and thank you are important. Cleaning up after yourself, or returning things better than what you got them in the state that you got them in, is important, and being a part of the community is important.
Speaker 3And so, as you guys are talking about this, those are the types of things that make you think outside of yourself because you're considering others.
Speaker 1It's not so much relationships.
Speaker 2I learned it in school, Like growing up in the church. It was joy, right.
Speaker 1Yeah.
Speaker 2Jesus, others and yourself. Yeah, that's the order.
Speaker 1Joy. It's kind of the same thing I like joy.
Speaker 2It's like you can't think of yourself first, I guess. I mean, I know I used the example of cleanliness, but I think that's part of it, because I think that's kind of the I don't want to say selfish, but I can't think of another word at the moment. It is because it's very self-centered, it's just about me.
Speaker 3I'm going to live in a pit. I don't care if this is dirty.
Speaker 2I don't care if people think I look like whatever.
Speaker 1Instead of picking up a bottle of water, I'm going to kick it down the hallway, and maybe I should pick it up and make my place cleaner, if I was going to look at, like you said, a deeper mindset.
Resilience Through Generations
Speaker 2It's like what is my focus as a person? A deeper mindset, it's like what is my focus as a person? Okay, is my focus just on me? It's kind of like I don't remember if we talked about this in a thing. But I have a big personal issue with the word deserve, because I, yeah. When people say that I'm like, what do you mean you deserve? I don't don't. To me it seems like one of those words that's just thinking about me that, like it's just me that may be part of entitled but that's what I mean.
Speaker 2It's just like some people and I and I and I hear what people are saying when they say it like I don't know that people automatically think that but I can't use that word like that, like you deserve better than that, uh, no, okay, I mean, I guess, but I don't, I just don't think of it that way. So I think, like what John was saying, and I know I well, I don't know for sure where you're going, but I think that on the deeper level it's about, I don't think that people should put themselves first, maybe a close second, maybe third. But if you're constantly always in, let me back up one second. There might be people in their life that right now they just need to worry about themselves and get themselves right.
Speaker 3I get that, I get that Right, I get that In general. That focus where it's just about me, I think is a very difficult thing to w down to us, maybe not necessarily in our family, but from previous generations, or even beyond that, into the Civil and Revolutionary War. Some of those things, some of those values that made us who we are in 2025. Like, what are some things that some traditions that have formed us that we want to see move on into 2020?
Speaker 2Well, if you're talking, you know about that. I mean, you think of, like you said, said okay, the people that have been through the world wars, which we. It's very difficult for us, even at our age, to really completely understand what so many of those people went through. Okay, so picture the idea of and I'm again just putting it in out there, you're a, you're a married couple or whatever, and your husband is shipped off the war. There's no cell phones, there's no anything, there's no instant communication. The news is three days old by the time.
Speaker 2You see it on a radio, you hear it on a radio. You hear it on a radio, right, I mean, and you are at home and you're doing things to help ration metal, and the automakers aren't making cars anymore because they're putting all this production into the war, and people are lined up for soup and bread and all these things that you're rationing. I mean, these are things that we can't identify with because we've never really had to live through that. We've heard stories and we can read things to understand it. But I think that resiliency of people to be able to go through things that we look at today like, okay, at our age we might be able to handle a little bit, but we've all seen people now of a younger generation that would look at something like that and they would completely melt to the floor. There's too much weight there. It's too much weight for them.
Speaker 3What about the resiliency that some built over COVID? So you talk about resiliency. They may not have experienced resiliency in the ways that our grandparents have, but I think maybe between you think of 9-11, you think of COVID, and I'm sure if we put more thought into it, there's resiliency that was built that they would say, hey, yeah, we were resilient. We may not have been like them, but we were resilient.
Speaker 2We may not have been like them, but we were resilient. So what I will say is that I think when we talk about resiliency and we talk about kind of a broad definition of it is being able to handle things Sure. However, that presents itself If it's an emergency situation or it's something that just happens to me in the middle of the day.
Speaker 3Bouncing back right.
Speaker 2Yeah, it could be anything right, yeah, yeah, I would say that there's plenty of those traditions that we talked about, that that's where they came from was in a moment of being resilient, like let's just use the example that I gave before of eating lasagna on Christmas Eve. A lot of people eat prime rib or they eat these things whatever it is. There was my family, I'm sure, at some point, and there's other families that did this, but lasagna is not like a gigantically expensive thing to make, right, right. So at some point, somebody probably made a meal that was going to be good, that was going to feed the entire family for less money, and they were being resilient, but they were still celebrating.
Speaker 3Yeah, they were celebrating the fact that they were together. They made it through the year Exactly.
Speaker 2There's something to celebrate at the end of the year, so I would venture to say that there's a ton of traditions that come from that, somehow, that somebody had a situation and they said, hey, let's do this, or let's whatever it is in spite of or in answer to this. And they said, hey, let's do this or let's whatever it is.
Speaker 3Yeah, in spite of or in answer to this. Yeah, because of, even, as you think, of St Patrick. I think that was probably a resiliency thing, right? Yeah, and they're celebrating something that they overcame, yeah.
Speaker 2And I think that even for us it's kind of like, okay, like you talked about and we've talked about these traditions that we've built as we've gotten older, like with our kids or like your kids are yearning for things, right, some of these things you, you know, it's like it's not like I got a bunch of money laying around right, sometimes you're going to make something or an event or something that doesn't necessarily cost a ton of money, but it's going to involve people. It's going to include people, it's going to make people happy, it's going to have people enjoying themselves somehow, and it doesn't have to be something that necessarily breaks the bank. And maybe it is a tradition that people then start to go. It's like kind of like the I mean it's a silly tradition. It's not silly, but anytime that I can go to Lincoln which is an hour from here, right, the closest large collegiate thing that we have for football, and it's big 10 university, nebraska I will go and set up a tailgate.
Speaker 2And I started doing it, you know, 10 years ago and would go and do it and kind of do it all myself. But now it's like the people that come they'll bring it's like a potluck, right, so now I go all the way back to Lutheran days where everybody brought a dish right, somebody brings something and you all just get together. We might not even have tickets to the game, but we have this parking lot that we always go to and I know people in that parking lot now, so there's kind of tradition there and next year michigan's coming to lincoln, so we're gonna go and obviously you guys we've talked, you guys are both invited. It'll be fun, it'll be a good time, whether your team's playing or not, it's a great thing to get together.
Speaker 2But I think, resiliency wise, I still think there's so many of those traditions that we have that that's probably especially historically. That's where they came from. Yeah, you know what I mean. And even like you mentioned COVID you talk about that there's plenty of things that have probably happened traditionally just since then, which was what did we say Five years?
Speaker 3six years ago.
Speaker 2Yeah, 1920 was when it was right 2020. No, I mean that's. I didn't mean 1920. I meant 2019 or 2020. 2020.
Speaker 3Yeah 2020.
Speaker 2So even from there, there's been traditions that have been built right. Sure, yeah, I mean there's things I don't necessarily agree with them all, but there's still them that people did something to deal with something, right yeah, it's interesting, as I think of the traditions that have come out of that time.
Relationships and Final Thoughts
Speaker 3I don't know if that's necessarily a thing or not, I don't know, but one thing I think maybe that came out of that is just gathering, because there were, that was a time when, like we, you know, Didn't gather, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1So traditions can ground us in our present and they can create wings for us to fly into our future.
Speaker 2Oh, my gosh Waxing eloquence. I think the Barbra Streisand over here wings for us to fly into our future. Oh, my gosh Waxing eloquence. I think the Barbra Streisand over here.
Speaker 1I think it's important that we have those traditions. Oh it's important, and you're talking about those things. You talked about what traditions are important, building relationships. We've talked about friendships. We've talked about community. We've talked about community. We've talked about family traditions that build those communities and families, because we are built as human beings to be in relationship.
Speaker 2And I would go take that further, john is to say that those relationships and those connections help build our resiliency as well. In what way? Because I'm not on an island, so if something happens to me, guess what. I've got a system of people community whatever you want to call it around me to help me, and I'm going to help them too.
Speaker 1Luke, I remember you saying that you know to be a friend. I want to help a person.
Speaker 2Yeah.
Speaker 1I want to help them a hundred percent and and whatever they need. They can call me and and I'll be there.
Speaker 2So are we are we wrapping up?
Speaker 1I think we are. Do you have a quote for us? Are we wrapping up? I think we are.
Speaker 2Do you have a quote?
Speaker 1for us.
Speaker 2It's not really a quote, but it's kind of something to just tie it in with the season and where we're at. I know we talked a lot about St Patrick's Day and I know you've heard that I love it, but some of you may have heard this I'm sure you two have on some level but the old Irish blessing, so it's not really a quote. I like that, but the old Irish blessing, so it's not really a quote. I like the Irish. But you know, may the road rise to meet you, right, okay, may the sun be always at your back. The sun shine warm upon your face, the rain fall soft upon your field. Yes, no, snakes, snakes are gone Out of here, thank God. But I think that that's the season, and again it's spring and it's Easter and it's Lent and there's a lot of things happening, you know, and you look at new life and you look at things Right. Everything right now is still brown, right, even though it's 78 degrees today or whatever it is, which is great.
Speaker 1Resurrection. Green is peeking through it's resurrection.
Speaker 2You're right. So everybody you know, be safe this weekend. If you're, you know well, by the time you hear this it'll be the week past. So I hope you had a great St Patrick's Day. I know I'm going to. I'm going to have some corned beef, some cabbage, I've got it all ready to go. Good deal. Got it all ready to go, but anyway.
Speaker 1All right guys. Thanks for hanging out with us here at Half Century Hangout. For hanging out with us here at Half Century Hangout. We appreciate the listeners that we have and everybody have a great St Patrick's Day.
Speaker 2We'll see you guys. Peace out, sláinte.
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