I’m enlisting all of you to pray Monday morning as my wife undergoes “routine” surgery. Her name is Kip. She is the love of my life for almost three decades.
Your prayers are welcomed. I know this bunch prays well and often. Please pray for this good woman this morning.
That is all… Thank you.
Today I wasted some time being angry with someone. Details unimportant.
When I got home, I opened an email from Pastor Mike Smith and it contained the video below. I’ve known Mike for 7 years or so. My heart healed, my anger dissolved, I was filled with love for this man of God. He’s a polar opposite to the one who’d inspired my anger. Please take a few minutes and watch this video. It was made for the Twin Cities, but it applies to anywhere in His creation. I repented for my anger.
Repentance from Daven Holmgren on Vimeo.
Have a blessed week.
Me. Yeah, I model. I’ve been working modeling jobs for decades. I was a hand model back in the 1980’s for some obscure product when a friend desperately needed a set of workman’s hands for a photo shoot he’d scored. No pay, but helped him out and that was enough. Took a couple of decades off and then started doing it for money in the early part of 2004. Crazy, eh?
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On the set.
Behind the scenes.
On Tuesday I worked for 3 hours on camera with the good people at Gallop. My agent, Laura at N.U.T.S., had worked hard to find me this job and treated me very well. All of the staff at the agency played a part in accommodating my schedule during the holiday period. I’ve been blessed with good agents in both the theatrical and literary world. As a talent (that’s what they call us) you simply can’t make it without good representation.
I played two different characters (Santa and “The Biker”) in countless photos and videos that day. The product will be using the ads in the near future but for now I’m keeping mum as to who/what it is. Let’s just say that you won’t be able to miss it if you use the internet.
There is a true/funny background to all of this silliness. Years ago I wanted to do voice over work. Strangely, you need a good photo for the agents to show around so people can see the voice they might hire. I went for the photos and had the “friendly guy” look down pat. I had decided to start shaving my head due to a really ugly male pattern baldness. I looked pretty bad from above or behind (get your mind out of the gutter!) Between rolls of film, I ran across the street to the barber shop, had them shave my head, and then put on a black muscle shirt. I’d been working out quite a bit and wanted to take the pictures as a gag for my mom.
The proofs came back a week later and the photographer, Jennifer Bong, said that I’d be crazy not to try and get some on-camera work with that shaved head look. I sent the photos out a week later. Within a week I had my first job in a video.
The rest is history. Unsavory and threatening looks are hard to come by in nice guys. I follow direction fairly well, can turn the evil look on and off, and know how to work with the camera. Consequently I’ve been included in a variety of work over the years including posters for the local classical music station, a motorcycle parts catalog, a shopping center, and now the new product (with several others in the middle.)
Working on camera is hard work. There’s a reason most models are in good shape – they move nonstop for hours a day. I’m not pretty. I show up with my own wardrobe most of the time. But it is great fun to do a professional shoot like the one I just completed. Heather was there with clothes and boots (she got the sizes just right) and Pam did my makeup. Both were absolutely wonderful to work with and they sure pampered me.
Same goes for the photographic crew and lighting people. To take the pictures there were at least 10 people on the other side of the camera. The product I was holding was heavy, and between sets of shots one of the crew would race in and grab it from me. That is a blessing. Just like the kind words and smiles of encouragement when we’re shooting.
At the end of 3 hours I was beat. Arms sore, tired from multiple facial expressions, constant movement. The good part was that it was relatively cool in the studio. I’ve worked other jobs where it was pretty darned hot.
I guess the moral of the story is that the next time you see some model being talked about on television, or in a magazine, and the excessive amount they’re being paid is the topic, remember the hard work and short career that most have. I’ve been doing it for almost a decade and I’m blessed – my look never goes out of style. There will always be a call for evil thugs, fat bikers, and Santa. Those youngsters who are good looking have a career you can measure in months in most cases.
Well, I have to go now. My face needs moisturizing before I lay down. Got to keep the crinkly eyes crinkly.
I like to think that I hang out with a pretty good class of people in my life. Some are of high social station, some at the bottom rung. But all are good people. People I value. I also like to think I know good writing when I read something worth mentioning. The two groups cross quite a bit in my life as an aspiring author. I am proud that one of the best in that bunch is my friend Bob Stephenson.
Bob is a retired Lieutenant Colonel that I met years ago working with Toys For Tots. My most vivid impression of him was with his feet on the desk, a cigar in his mouth, and a horde of admirers around him. He was one of those officers that drew a crowd. I was long out of the Navy, but I knew Bob was one of those guys I’d follow through the gates of Hell. Mainly because he could run lots faster than me and he’d be throwing shots at Satan with a smile on his face as he crashed through said gates. I also liked him because I gave him a load of abuse for flying “spastic palm trees” and he just smiled. (Helicopter pilots are a different breed. Marine helicopter pilots scare the rest of them for a lot of reasons…)
In any event, Bob’s friend Thomas Schepers passed away the other day. Bob’s Facebook post about Tom was moving. I am reposting it here, with Bob’s permission, because it speaks well of both men. I hope I can live my life half as well as Tom did in his way. Semper Fidelis, Thomas. Semper Fidelis, Bob. I am richer in my life by knowing men like you.
Bob on the Right (as usual) and Tom in the middle with the white shirt.
Bob Stephenson’s Post
I would like to tell the story of my friend Tom Schepers who passed away earlier this week. In his obituary one can read that he was a devoted Catholic, husband, father, and grandfather. This is the story of a fellow Marine who had spent the last 30 or so years of his life running all over hell’s half-acre. It’s a story about the best runner I have ever known, and I’ve know a lot of “good” runners in my life. Tom Schepers never won a race, and never ran fast. However, he never just ran, because when he ran he was serving his God, his country, the Marine Corps, and his fellow veterans.
Tom Schepers graduated from North St. Paul High School in 1964. He enlisted in the Marine Corps in 1966 and after recruit training and infantry training, he became an 0311 Infantryman. He was assigned to India Company, 3rd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division, and was deployed to Vietnam. Tom was a PFC when he was wounded in action on May 15th, 1967. This occurred during during Operation Union, for which the 5th Marine Regiment was awarded the Presidential Unit Citation. He had been shot with an AK-47, and the bullet passed through his left foot and then passed through his right calf. Doctors told him during initial rehab that he may never walk again. Lance Corporal Schepers returned home from the war, left active duty, and eventually went to nursing school and became an RN. He worked for many years in the ICU at St. Joseph’s hospital in St. Paul from where he eventually retired. He defied his doctors’ original pessimism by not only walking, but by beginning to run for veteran’s causes sometime during the 1980’s.
I first heard about Tom Schepers in 1999 when his name came up at one of the monthly meetings of the Marine Corps Coordinating Council of Minnesota. It was mentioned that this Schepers fellow was planning a run across the country to raise money and awareness for the WWII Veterans Memorial. I first met him in person later that year when I was driving across the Lake Road overpass over I-494 in Woodbury, and saw him running with his signature flagpole. I did a U-turn and stopped him and introduced myself.
In 2000, Tom made his historic run, leaving Camp Pendleton on D-Day (June 6th) and arriving in Washington, DC on Veterans Day (November 11th). He ran 25 miles per day, six days per week, taking Sundays off. He carried his famous 10’2” flagpole which bore an American flag and the POW flag. He had some accessories duct-taped to the pole like a stopwatch and a rosary. And as if that wasn’t enough, Tom wore a 10-pound weight-belt around his waist, to replicate and symbolize the weight of the M1 Garand rifle, which was the standard service rifle carried by American servicemen in WWII. Not long after departing, the support RV that followed him broke down near Palm Springs. During the two days that it took to repair it, Tom made daily local runs of 25 miles each.
Sometime during early 2002, I received an email that described the process for nominating someone to be a torch-bearer for the upcoming 2002 Winter Olympics, which were to be held in Salt Lake City, Utah. The public relations agency conducting the effort was Weber-Shandwick, with Coca Cola as a financial sponsor. I immediately thought of Tom, and submitted a nomination for him. The instructions indicated that a nominee should demonstrate qualities such as courage, commitment, selflessness, etc. I had no problem showing those with Tom’s basic bio. Tom told me later when they called him to notify him that he was selected as one of the 2400 torch-bearers, he asked them who had nominated him. When they said my name, he wasn’t sure who I was, as he had forgotten it since we had met that one time on the highway overpass. Additionally, NBC chose 60 of the torchbearers to profile on a TV special, and one of those was Tom Schepers.
Although the California to DC trek was certainly his marquee run, it was just one of many that Tom made for various veterans causes. For example, he had run the Twin Cities Marathon almost every year since it’s start in 1982. He told me a few years ago that he had run it 22 times. He told me had run 700 times, totaling 3500 miles, for just the Minnesota Korean War Memorial. He ran from St. Paul to Rochester, and from Duluth to St. Paul. He ran all over the state of Minnesota.
I remember running the first 6 or 7 miles of the Twin Cities Marathon with Tom in 2003. If you ever saw Tom run, you know that he did not have a smooth stride, and that he ran very slow. His gait was a bit awkward, and you could tell that it was laborious for him. I asked him “how much does that flagpole weigh?” He replied “it get’s lighter every mile, it’s filled with helium.” I took the flagpole from him for a few minutes, and it was heavy and cumbersome. The cheering that emanated from the crowd as we ran by was both exhilarating and inspirational. I felt guilty running next to him.
One of his more interesting and memorable runs took Tom to Illinois. On May 15th, 1967, the same day that Tom was wounded, his unit was operating in Quang Tin in Vietnam. Alongside Tom during a firefight that day there was a Navy Corpsman named David Krig who was killed by enemy fire while tending to another wounded Marine named Bill Wesche. It was Krig’s first day with Tom’s unit. Twenty eight years later, in 1995, Tom ran with his flags from St. Paul to the Naval Base at Great Lakes, IL. When he arrived, Bill Wesche took the American flag down from Tom’s pole, and handed it to Chuck Lindbergh. Lindbergh was one of the original flag-raisers on Iwo Jima in WWII, and was a friend of Schepers’ living in Minnesota. Lindbergh in turn handed the flag to Krig’s mother, who had traveled from Kansas for the event.
A few years ago I asked Tom to be the guest of honor and speaker at a Marine Corps Birthday celebration. As a result I needed some information in order to introduce him. During the course of this interview I asked him why he did what he did, and he told me a very moving story. It was November of 1966, and although he didn’t remember the exact date, he recalled it was shortly before Thanksgiving. On a rainy night in Vietnam, he was carrying the bodies of Marines that had been killed in action down a muddy hill. He remembered thinking that their families back home would be receiving notice of their loved one’s death just prior to Thanksgiving, and that their celebrations would be somber as a result. He said that he made a vow right then and there to his fallen comrades that they would not be forgotten.
There is a drill-instructor running cadence that is well-known among Marines that reminds me of Tom. It talks about a Marine that dies and shows up at the pearly gates and one line goes like this: “Another Marine reporting sir… I’ve served my time in hell.” The Marine Corps’ motto is Semper Fidelis” which is Latin for “Always Faithful.” Some Marines live out that motto more than others. Tom Schepers was one of those Marines pulling the rest of us along.
LtCol Bob Stephenson, USMC (Ret)
It was -24 Fahrenheit this morning. That’s stupid cold. But it made for a neat metaphor.
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My house is 100 years old this year. Over that time a lot of changes have been made to the original structure. Electrical wire was run through the gas pipes when gas lighting went out of vogue. The dreadful old tub (with a light fixture next to the shower head) is long gone and a modern bathroom in its place. The yard has been turned over, a new garage, and lots of changes.
The house was built on a strong foundation. It was made as only homes of that era were in this neighborhood – custom woodwork, strong beams, solid floors. Over the last 20 years we’ve invested well and wisely in things like new windows, doors, a new roof, a deck, and numerous modifications to the electrical and plumbing systems.
The last time it got this cold was 1996. We’d lived in the house 3 years at that point and it did a small amount of creaking and howling when the temp dropped out of sight because it was largely unchanged from when we bought it. Because of all the changes in the last 20 years last night was pretty loud. Stormy didn’t sleep too much with the nails groaning, windows snapping into place, and joists creaking.
I was, however, unconcerned that we would make it through the night. For this house, like the life Christ asks us to live, was built solidly. Not on shifting sands, not with cheap construction, but with care, love, and proper maintenance. I knew that we’d come out the other side in good shape. I know I’ll come out the other side of death in good shape as well.
If you predicate your life on the foundations of God’s love you will find that a few boards pop now and again, some new paint is needed, and your windows fog a bit, but you weather the storms and troubles that life throws your way. This old house, and I, both creak more than ever before. We both have some parts that are almost worn out and will need to be replaced down the road. But come morning, regardless of the temperature, we’ll both be here.
It’s a comforting feeling. I’m warm inside while others are not. I pray for them today that they might find shelter from the weather. I pray for them the rest of the time that they find the refuge in Christ that I’ve ensconced myself in these past few years. It’s a cold and lonely place out there when it’s -24 and the sun is long since over the horizon. It’s even worse when God is not part of your life.
Say a prayer for those outside the house of God this morning. Check your foundation and make sure that it’s not in need of some work. I know mine needs constant tending and I’m glad to put in the work.
Be blessed and warm today. I’ll pray for you.
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