Keepin' It Real with Cam Marston

Cam Marston Podcasts
  • 4.9 (17)
  • Personal Journals
  • Updated Weekly

Weekly observations on travel, work, parenting, and life as it goes on around me. Airing Fridays on Alabama Public Radio.

  1. 1d ago

    A Grief No Words Can Describe

    This week's Keepin' It Real comes from a place of real pain. Cam Marston reflects on the loss of two young men from his community, and a grief he says words can't quite reach. -----             "There are no words" is an expression often used to truly describe deep grief. It's a feeling in your gut, your stomach, that you notice only when the world around you is crumbling and those important to you are experiencing something truly awful. That's the way I feel now. A grief has set in and there are no words to describe this feeling.          Word came early today that two families we know lost their young sons last night in a fire. The news has spread through our community as it often does these days through text messages and quick phone calls. Parents want to know more. The children's friends want to know more. Everyone wants the story, wants to learn what happened, wants desperately to learn it's all untrue but every new text and call confirms it. Parents like me sit quietly, imagining the grief these families must be facing. I knew these boys. There were like our boys. We watched them on the football fields and basketball courts and saw their parents in the stands. My tears won't stop.          My first instinct was to call my son and hear his voice. He's in Tuscaloosa for the summer and I just needed to know he was Ok. I called repeatedly with no answer until finally, I heard my son's voice pick up and…I couldn't speak. Such gratefulness to hear him alive. And that these two deceased sons had parents who would do anything in their power to hear what I just heard from their own sons.          Our community is crashing right now. We've all been gutted with the news. All plans for the holiday weekend have been greatly dampened. There can be no celebration, Fourth of July or otherwise, with his awfulness in the forefront in our minds. Celebration is not a word that will come from our mouths or be a part of our actions for a long time to come.                   Losing a child is losing your future. It's losing stories and memories and cherished moments that were never given a chance. It's forever wondering what that child would have been like as an adult, a parent, an aunt or uncle. Never seeing their joy at their wedding, never seeing their humility and awe while holding their own newborn baby. Never witnessing their pride watching their own children succeed. Their death has robbed each of our lives and our community of two glorious young men and their future and we can only guess at what could have been.          In time we'll talk about the weather again. Or sports. Or our plans for an upcoming vacation. But no time soon. Our community will fall together and hope to find support from one another and, in turn, try to offer some sort of support to those around us that need it. What's happened is wrong. It's not fair. It's devastating. And it has brought all of us to our knees with a deep grief in the pit of our stomach that no words can describe.

    4 min

  2. Jun 26

    Father's Day Recap

    Cam Marston spent Father's Day at church alone, then had dinner with his own dad — and somewhere in between, figured something out. ----- Father's Day came and went last weekend. It coincided with my wife and my anniversary and the summer solstice – all on the same day. That must mean something. My wife chose to prioritize Father's Day because, well, twenty-nine years is a nice number but it's not all that special, and she wanted me to be celebrated by the kids. I went to church on Father's Day. My wife was going to join me but there was a puppy emergency, and she stayed home on the phone with poison control while I went off to church alone. On Mother's Day, the church is packed. It's a great service and a great celebration with everyone in their finest. It's one of my favorites of the year. But last Sunday, on Father's Day, the church was, well, much less than full. It's as if in anticipation of Mother's Day, the mothers let the family know they will all be going to church and to be ready. On Father's Day? Fathers just kinda go "ehhh. Let's go if it works out." I would have loved to have had my children with me, but I wanted them to want to go, not be made to go. "That's the exact wrong attitude," my wife told me. "You need to tell them what you want." Well, I want them to want to join me. Maybe that's asking too much. I keep a picture of my father near my coffee maker and glance at it most mornings while the coffee is brewing. He's somewhere in his mid-twenties in the picture, standing in someone's kitchen holding a fish he caught and showing it off to the camera. It's a good-sized speckled trout he probably caught somewhere around Dauphin Island over sixty years ago. My dad has been a menace to the speckled trout population his whole life. He can sniff them out, read the water, knows how deep to fish the bait, and come up with fish over and over again. I've been in the boat with him when we were catching fish doing what he told us, surrounded by boats who couldn't catch a thing. We were bringing them in, and they couldn't get a strike. It's my father's special magic. I showed him this picture Sunday night at my house. I invited him for a Father's Day dinner and he came and offered to bring, what else, fish. It was freshly caught snapper, and I've become a big fan of cooking everything in a cast iron skillet in the oven, and we had a heck of a meal. Dad looked at the picture and laughed. No telling how many pictures he's had taken of him holding up a fish. He didn't remember anything from the photo – it was a long time ago, after all. Maybe that's how it works with fathers. We don't demand to be remembered. We just show up, catch the fish, cook the meal, and hope something takes hold in the people we love. And sometimes it does. I'm Cam Marston and I'm just trying to Keep It Real. The puppy's fine, by the way.

    4 min

  3. Jun 12

    Puppy Patience

    Cam Marston's new puppy has expensive taste — and this week, while the rest of his family's out of town, Cam's discovered his actual job has become full-time appraiser of whatever's currently in her mouth.  ----- Our new puppy got the TV remote control this morning. I noticed it around lunch when I went to see if there were any World Cup games on. I tried the chewed-up remote anyway and found it turned the TV on but not off. And I'm ashamed to say it, but I lost my mind, because that remote was brand new — less than 24 hours old. It replaced the remote she ate last week, which I'd finally gotten around to replacing to the tune of a couple hundred dollars. The remote controls in my house need to live somewhere up high where she can't reach them while she's still in puppy stage, which is to say another couple of years, give or take. So do the shoes, pillows, and anything else of value. She'll eat anything and everything, and she does. There's a small piece of firewood she occasionally chews on, and that's fine — I'm happy with that arrangement. But she very clearly prefers the taste of things that cost money and take effort to replace. It's like she has radar for anything expensive. She knows to leave the cheap and unimportant stuff alone. Old, stinky tennis shoe? Leave it be. New pair? Find it and destroy it. This, of course, brings me to the old line about dogs being man's best friend. Maybe grown dogs are. Puppies sure aren't. My son and I are alone in the house for about twelve days while the other three kids are scattered everywhere and my wife is in Raleigh. When all six of us were here, someone was always nearby, half an eye on the dog. Now I try to work during the day but keep having to stop and check on her, only to find she's figured a way around every defense I've set up and destroyed something new in the time it took me to send one email. I've gone from "don't let her destroy anything" to "evaluate the worth and value of whatever is currently in her mouth." That's become my actual job this week. I hear her trot into a room and I don't even look up — I just calculate. If it's one of her countless chew toys, fine, gnaw away. If it's a wallet or a shaving razor, we have a problem. Yesterday I caught her mid-stride with something dark and rectangular in her mouth, and for half a second my brain ran through every expensive dark rectangle in the house — phone, wallet, glasses, the new remote. Turned out to be an old flip-flop — I've needed a new pair anyway. When my son's home he's chief distraction officer, mostly because an entertained puppy isn't going to chew his guitar or XBox. Twenty minutes of fetch buys me twenty minutes of work. My calendar this week is mostly puppy windows with meetings squeezed in between. Dogs may be man's best friend. Puppies are more like very small, very determined auditors, sent in to find everything you care about and nearly destroy it. To my family scattered everywhere – please come home. I need relief. I'm Cam Marston and I'm just trying to Keep it Real.

    4 min

  4. Jun 5

    To Goal or Not to Goal

    Most of us have been told that goals are the key to success — write them down, stay focused, never quit. But Cam isn't so sure that's the whole story. ----- I've just completed a goal setting webinar. It was thought provoking and well run. Two things stood out. First – we are halfway through 2026. The webinar host adjusted the what was supposed to be a goal setting workshop with a one-year timeline to half a year to account for the date and though I have a calendar in front of me every day, it still shocked me that this year is half gone. Though factually I know it's early June, hearing him say that the year is half over startled me. Next, I'm not sure I'm a goal setting type of guy. The speaker said that unless a goal is written down it doesn't exist. I'm not so sure that's applicable for me. There are plenty of goals that I replay in my head each day, none of which are written down. They range from trivial – I want my young and tender potted lemon tree to eventually fruit so I'm giving it lots of time and attention – to larger things – I want to celebrate my thirtieth wedding anniversary in an exotic destination somewhere very far from here. I'm not sure writing that down does anything more to cement it - it's already in my head and replaying frequently. But how about this: what happens if my goal is to be more flexible? What happens if my goal is to not get so anchored in my goals that I miss opportunities that are outside my goals? Which brings me to graduation speakers. There seems to be two types – the ones who encourage the graduates to set goals for their lives and dedicate their waking moments to achieving those goals. These speakers are often corporate types who climbed ladders and knocked down walls and stayed up late and studied hard to get where they are. The second type seem to be the ones who encourage the graduates to search for opportunity and be ready to shift and pivot as life presents new paths forward. These are usually the entrepreneurs. They've shifted and pivoted and shucked and jived all the way. They seem less wed to firm, concrete goals. What if Orville and Wilbur had only wanted to create a massive bike company and never pivoted to see if their contraption would fly. What if Christopher Columbus had intended to find India and when his ship made landfall said, "No. This is the wrong place. Let's keep looking." What if Michelangelo had seen the block of marble that became the David and said "I can't use this. It has a hole in it. Find something else." Our world would be dramatically different. So, setting goals is good and powerful stuff. But so is having the will and courage to abandon goals when it appears to be the right thing to do. And to abandon them without remorse. I find when I dig into goals too far, I can't identify when it's time to abandon them and I hold on to them to my detriment. It's happened too many times before. So, at the end of the webinar, I was left with this: to goal or not to goal. That's the question. I'm Cam Marston, just trying to Keep it Real.

    4 min

  5. May 15

    They Remembered

    Cam Marston made a promise to his kids years ago, certain time would let him off the hook. He was wrong — and this week, he's paying for it, in the best possible way. ----- Many years ago, my wife and I made a commitment to our kids that I thought would probably go in one ear and out the other. It was a commitment that was easy to make because it was so far off that I was sure no one would remember it and they certainly wouldn't enforce it. "When the twins graduate from high school," my wife and I announced one night at dinner, "we'll take a big family trip." The twins were in grade school when we said it. It was a long time ago. They'd certainly forget. Well, I was wrong. The twins graduate Saturday and on Monday, we leave for a big family trip to Greece. For ten years I collected points and miles from hotels, credit cards, and airlines and quickly learned they were more akin to Monopoly money than anything of value. Hotels and airlines will take points, but they love taking cash. We've been squirreling away for this trip for years — which, it turns out, is exactly how long it takes to save for six people in Greece. While the trip begins next week, in many ways it's already started. Last night at dinner my wife went over the itinerary. She's worked hard to put this together, and as she read about the different sights we'd see, some of the kids were online looking at the hotels, the historical sites, even checking the weather for each city. We talked about what clothes we'd need, sleeping arrangements for the six of us, how to handle the jet lag, how much Greek we'd need to know. My contribution to the planning was asking how early I could get my first cup of coffee each day. Like I've learned many times, big trips begin with heightened and excited anticipation which is as much a part of the trip as the journey itself. There's a lot of energy around the house right now. A promise made long ago is about to be kept — assuming the credit card goes through. In August, my wife and I will become empty nesters when the twins leave for college. My oldest two, already away at school, may live at home this summer — which means we could go from a full house of six to just the two of us in a matter of weeks. From a constant thrum of activity and wondering who just came through the front door, to knowing that any sound from the other room is just each other. I've said many times that I'll enjoy the empty nest, but as it looms, I'm less certain. Like so many other big boasts I've made, I may have to walk that one back too. Until then, a summer of memories are on tap: two final high school graduations, a big trip promised long ago, a full house all summer, and a puppy who demands every bit of attention we can spare. I made that promise years ago, certain they'd forget. They didn't forget. Apparently kids are better at remembering the promises that cost you money than the ones that don't. I'm Cam Marston, and I'm Keepin' It Real — from Greece, starting Monday.

    3 min

  6. May 8

    Witness To Your Life

    Most of us have heard the phrase "they really knew me" — but rarely stop to consider what that truly costs us when it's gone. ----- What Does It Mean to Have a Witness to Your Life? Strange question, I know. But it surfaced at my mother-in-law's funeral this past Monday in Raleigh, and I haven't been able to shake it. A childhood friend of my wife's pulled her aside. "I'm sorry," she said. "Your mother was a witness to your life. Losing her is hard." I had never heard that expression before. And the weight of it hit me somewhere I wasn't prepared for. If we're lucky, we have two witnesses to our life — our parents. They see everything. More than our spouse. More than our closest friends. More, even, than our siblings. A witness to your life doesn't just observe — they hold it all. Every dream you floated and forgot. Every version of you that didn't survive into adulthood. Every embarrassing, earnest, unguarded moment. They're a repository of who you were before you decided who you wanted to be. And then, one day, they're gone — and they take all of that with them. Maybe that's where much of the grief comes from. Not just the loss of a person, but the loss of a record. A living memory that held you before you knew yourself. Most of us spend considerable energy managing how we're perceived. We curate ourselves — what we say, what we wear, what we let slip about our lives. We've been doing it since middle school and most of us never really stop. But the witnesses to our lives are immune to all of it. They knew us before the performance began. They can see behind the façade, recognize the architecture underneath, and — if they're good ones — they cherish what they find there. They're the ones who say I knew you when. There are so few of them. And being with them feels like taking off armor you forgot you were wearing. I am the witness to my children's lives. I knew them before they knew themselves. And I believe a good witness guides without directing. Observes without interfering. Because here's the hard truth about helicopter parents, snowplow parents, drone parents — the ones who manage every moment of their children's lives: they're not witnesses. They're directors. And I've been that, more than once. I've crossed the line from watching to controlling. The difference matters. When controlling parents die, their children don't always grieve. They exhale. A burden has lifted. That's a devastating legacy to leave. A witness to your life can't be hired or requested or manufactured. It accumulates. Quietly, over decades, mostly in the background — someone taking note, savoring what they see, asking nothing in return. You rarely think about what they mean to you while they're there. You only understand it fully when they're gone. I'm Cam Marston, and that's Keepin' It Real.

    4 min

  7. May 1

    Busy Hands

    There's sad news at Cam's house. Friends are reaching out to help his family through their grief. Losing a loved one is never easy and friends just want to help by doing something.  ----- Busy hands surround my wife and me these days. Recent bad news has brought the need for friends to reach out and want to help us get through it. "I'm so sorry," they say. "What can I do?" Our reply, just like most people's is "Nothing. Thank you. We're all set." And they reply with, "Well, let me at least bring dinner." The need to do something to feel helpful. The need for busy hands. Which means we're evaluating casseroles right now. And different grilled meats. We joke that we'll rate the best online. You see my mother-in-law died last week. Lee Nowell Radford. She was born and raised in Georgia and moved to North Carolina as a young married woman with her husband of what would have been 65 years in June. He worked for IBM and Lee kept busy at many important things throughout those years, not the least was raising three wonderful children. Her middle child caught my attention many years ago and I remember returning an umbrella that my now wife left in my car on one of our first dates. I was hoping to see her when I returned the umbrella, but Lee answered the front door, told me her daughter was not there, and she and I talked on the front porch for a long long while. I remember being impressed by her, her worldly knowledge, her thoughts on the various things we chatted about, and her ability to simply talk. She was quite good at it. Her husband often said that he was hard of hearing because his ears had simply worn out. Lee had been struggling with cancer for a while and it recently it became clear the end was near. My wife travelled to and from Raleigh many times over the past six months and when the doctors said they'd done all they could, my wife headed up to Raleigh for longer visits. Even though the end was foretold, standing bedside over a mother who has just died is difficult. I remember this well from my own mother's death a few years ago. You can anticipate the end many times over but the finality of it in that moment is, well, devastating. It was for me and it was for my wife. You ache when you see loved ones deep in grief, wishing you could do something to take that grief from them and bear it yourself. You can't, of course, so you do what seems to come next – busy hands. You clean, cook, arrange for support, walk their dog. Anything to feel helpful. My family of six will head to Raleigh Sunday for the Monday funeral. We'll be coming from two different cities with five different flight itineraries. There, everyone will gather and grieve together: a widower, siblings, aunts, uncles, in-laws, first and second cousins, plus my mother in law's friends and neighbors whose hands I've shaken many times over the years. There will be lots of tears, a few smiles, maybe a laugh, and lots of sad and busy hands. I'm Cam Marston and I'm just trying to keep it real.

    4 min

  8. Apr 24

    Purpose

    Cam's been studying retirement trends for his work lately. One thing's for sure, he's not ready! ----- More often than not, when I ask someone who has retired in the past two years, their answer is nearly exactly the same. They say, "Well, retirement's not all it's cracked up to be." Why? They worked so hard for it, now they have it. So, what's missing? My work has steered me into retirement studies. Most people think about money when they think about retirement planning, but I'm learning money is not the only thing you need to plan for. There's more. And it's something seldom discussed The greatest problems in retirement, I'm learning, the sudden loss of purpose. Work provided purpose. And even if you didn't like the purpose or if the purpose weren't compelling to you, it was something. Retirement means that that purpose suddenly disappears. It vanishes overnight. And people struggle when they have no purpose. Most retirees say they can't wait to have more time to pursue their hobbies but, again, research shows that after about six months, the things people did as recreation while they were working loses its appeal when done too frequently. Playing golf, gardening, visiting kids and grandkids, playing cards, and taking cruises and whatever don't constitute a purpose. Purpose is the fuel for a happy retirement. And the best retirements include new purposes that involve giving back in some way – like teaching or mentoring – and include learning something where advancing skill and advancing creativity is visible – like playing guitar, writing, learning to garden, even learning to play golf. It's learning something that will take you from novice towards mastery. Not achieving mastery, just progressing towards it so that achievement is visible. The greatest predictor of a long life plus a happy retirement are a meaningful purpose plus the social connections in retirement. Most people's social connections while working are with the people they work with. Work friends. These relationships are generated by proximity – you're near them and speak to them regularly – and shared mission- you're working towards shared goals. Those two are both important. And as much as you may think your work friends and you may never not be friends, about 80% of work relationships quickly fade in retirement. Without the proximity or the shared mission of work, there's little to keep you connected.   And there's a lot more, like you sit for an average of two to three hours more each day in retirement. I'm not ready to retire. I've got a good number of years yet. And I'm especially not ready after learning what I need to do to prepare for a happy retirement. I'm vulnerable to an unhappy one right now, and I need to get my act together. Retirement can easily be 20 years or more. It's so long they call it a second adulthood, and I struggled, and continue to struggle, through my first adulthood. I need some time, some hobbies, some friends, and a plan for a new purpose if I want to get this next one right. I got a lot of work to do to get ready for work to be over. I'm Cam Marston and I'm just trying to Keep it Real.

    4 min
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Weekly observations on travel, work, parenting, and life as it goes on around me. Airing Fridays on Alabama Public Radio.

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