Coach Bill / Dad, Entrepreneur Special Educator, American Political Scientist, Writer, Musician.

We dug the hole and laid the tree gently in. With our bare hands Dad and I firmed the soil around it. I remember my Dad next to me. We placed it in the midst of a land that had experienced tremendous pain, the land of my late-aunt, Elenita. Her first born died within weeks of being born, then her second-born, Maria Elena, a graduate of Boston College and Babson was diagnosed with cancer and subsequently passed away. Maria Elena had been building playgrounds in eastern Europe with the non-profit organization championed by President James Carter, Habitat for Humanity. This was in the years after the Chernobyl nuclear fallout. Her work with the organization was not far from it. The whole family went through the saga of her long and drawn-out fight and death. It utterly brought us all to the ground in a gut-wrenching, yet beautiful way. There where constant communal prayers that involved Elenita’s and Maria Elena’s friends, special family dinners, and constant visits. ...

Life is so short. When we are young, time seems to move incredibly slow. At school, the clock hand would seem to never make it to snack time for me. Now I look back and see how fast life moves. If we don't stop and enjoy where we are with what we have we miss out on enjoying the moments and people that are in it. Life is precious then. Should we wait for our bank accounts to be just right for ourselves (or for others) before we say that 'we have arrived?' John Lennon said that life is what happens when we are making plans. Sounds easy to understand but in our individual quest to pay our bills and reach the end of the work week our lives unfold and are lived. This is a matter of great importance which I look not to take for granted. Everything matters. Every interaction is important, from the least to the greatest. Our thoughts and actions influence what is to come or not to come. Likewise, a fickle mind (ever-changing) will experience a great degree of stop ...

My first child was murdered without my consent by Planned Parenthood over a decade and a half ago in Stamford, Connecticut. My child was afforded no trial before being vacuum-sucked and trashed in the garbage. I was not called to ask for my consent to kill the child. There were no rights protecting my fatherhood in Connecticut then or now.  I married the woman and had three more children by her. I love them all dearly, though now those three remaining children have been taken away from me also. At the time the mother informed me that she was pregnant with our first I immediately made arrangements to jump on the Chinatown to Chinatown bus from Boston to New York. I was even able to get the bus driver to stop in Greenwich, Connecticut were my now ex-wife and girlfriend at that time lived, rather than having to go all the way to the city and then jump on a train back to Connecticut. I was racing to be by her side and let her know that as hard as it might be… that ...

Every surfer in the water who has been surfing for many years understands that there is a point in time and place when a wave is approaching and the option to paddle over it, attempt to catch it, or altogether get out of the way has to be made. Rapid fire executive function skills come into play, such as gauging, foresight, prioritization, impulse control, goal-directed persistence and even emotional control. What will the surfer do? Are they lined up to catch the wave successfully? Are they too far to paddle over the wave and then have to take evasive maneuvers, like 'duck-diving' under the white, foamy break water? But what about when the wave is too big? What about when the surfer is in the break zone, their is a new set of waves coming, and they are too deep in the wave-break zone to do much about it? What then? All these question must be addressed by the individual in split seconds. Multiple executive function skills come into play, or cascade with each other in...