• About Us
  • Advertise
  • Contact Us
  • Privacy Policy
  • Pickem Terms and Conditions
Tuesday, July 15, 2025
The Platte County Landmark Newspaper
  • Home
  • Local News
  • Opinion
  • Landmark Pickem!
    • Weekly Pickem Updates
    • Results by Week
    • The Leaderboard
    • Pickem Rules and Help
  • Landmark Live!
  • Looking Backward
  • es_MXSpanish
  • Home
  • Local News
  • Opinion
  • Landmark Pickem!
    • Weekly Pickem Updates
    • Results by Week
    • The Leaderboard
    • Pickem Rules and Help
  • Landmark Live!
  • Looking Backward
  • es_MXSpanish
No Result
View All Result
The Platte County Landmark Newspaper
No Result
View All Result

Running scared

Chris Kamler by Chris Kamler
July 19, 2019
in The Rambling Moron
4
SHARES
98
VIEWS
Share on FacebookShare on TwitterShare via Email

Couple of topics in this week’s column, then I’m off to go get a new knee. Decades of umpiring and Big Macs has rendered my existing left knee “the knee of an 80 year old” so I’m trading it in for new hardware. Hoping to get some Bluetooth installed and maybe be able to get it our own YouTube channel to make millions. Or maybe just make sure it doesn’t cost me an arm and the other leg.

Hitting our deductible won’t be a problem this year given my knee surgery and my son’s injury last week which I wrote about. He was hit in the face with a thrown baseball while scoring the winning run in a summer league. Brett has had injuries before. He’s broken his wrist and had a concussion. But there’s something particularly heartbreaking about telling a kid he can’t eat except through a straw for six weeks. The last six weeks of his 16th summer. On the plus side, he won’t be having those cheeseburger problems that his old man had at his age. At least not until school starts up again. The second he gets those bands off of his teeth, I anticipate the sales at the burger joints in North Kansas City will go through the roof and Smoothie King sales will take a strong hit.

RelatedNews

More perfect

Never enough

Nicknames

The thing about this injury though is that even though he had to have jaw surgery, his fearlessness is inspiring. He’s already begging me to get back out on the baseball diamond. He’ll help me coach the rest of the season with a heavy piece of plastic protecting his jaw. But he’s going to be pulling to take the mound or step into the box. It’s just the way he is. He’d have been out there the next day if not for the hydrocodone (which he took for a total of two days.)

We need more fearlessness. We need more bravery. This past week, someone at a Starbucks asked five police officers to leave (through a request to the store manager) because they made that patron feel unsafe.

There’s a whole lot to deconstruct here. But I think the way it should have and would have played out if we had anything to do with it would’ve involved a handshake and buying someone a cup of coffee. But that’s not how we do it anymore. We send a tweet. We start a video. We ask a third party to intervene. We feel unsafe. We hold a press conference.

The world has lost its bravery, it seems. Oh, we talk a good game. But when it comes down to it, action is limited and requires a livestream and a Facebook account.

The world needs to work more like teenage sports. Where you’ve got to back up your bluster. Where you’ve got to stand in and take one for the team. Where, occasionally, your jaw gets broken. Getting hurt is the only way you can learn to heal.

We all want to feel safe, but that’s not the world we live in. What we need to feel is secure. And that can only be learned through handshakes and getting back in the box.

(If you have an extra knee to help our man Chris Kamler with his replacement send it to him. Or just follow him on Twitter, where he is known as @TheFakeNed)

Tags: chris kamlerpolicePublic Safety
Chris Kamler

Chris Kamler

Chris Kamler is a cybersecurity architect by day, and pain in the ass by night.

He is a twice-published author, and has over 500 columns with The Landmark under his belt. Chris is a lifelong Northlander with a son and dog.

You can reach him on most of the social networks as Chris Kamler or TheFakeNed.

Related Posts

Landmark On the Road

Landmark On the Road–In Canada

by Ivan Foley
July 10, 2025
0

Joe Wellington, former police chief for Platte City, poses in Yellowknife, Canada with a copy of The Landmark. Wellington and his group spent two weeks in Yellowknife, which is 2,500 miles north and west from Platte City. The group spent...

30 Years Ago–July 13, 1995

by Ivan Foley
July 9, 2025
0

Eight girls are seeking the crown to be worn by the 1995 Platte County Fair Queen. Candidates include: Jennifer Cox, 17, sponsored by The Landmark Newspaper; Ginger Hass, 19, sponsored by Ida Cox; Ashley Jenks, 19, sponsored by Professional Eye...

Nathan Willett

Nathan Willett says he’ll run for state senate

by Landmark Digital
July 8, 2025
0

FOR SPOT CURRENTLY HELD BY LUETKEMEYER Nathan Willett, a proven conservative grassroots leader and First District Kansas City Councilman, has officially announced his candidacy for the Missouri State Senate, District 34. Willett aims to succeed Sen. Tony Luetkemeyer, who is...

Police

Driver, 18, killed in Hwy. 45 crash

by Landmark Digital
July 7, 2025
0

TWO VEHICLE COLLISION NEAR KISKER ROAD A two vehicle crash on Hwy. 45 in Platte County on July 3 killed a driver from Kansas City, Kan. The Platte County Sheriff’s Office responded to the crash at 3:50 p.m. on Thursday,...

Next Post

Rules for pre-trial release of defendants clarified

Popular News

  • Police

    Driver, 18, killed in Hwy. 45 crash

    113 shares
    Share 45 Tweet 28
  • Parkville chooses plan for easing congestion

    32 shares
    Share 13 Tweet 8
  • Platte City Lions Club has pulled the plug

    41 shares
    Share 16 Tweet 10
  • Nathan Willett says he’ll run for state senate

    12 shares
    Share 5 Tweet 3
  • Take survey about future of Downtown Platte City

    11 shares
    Share 4 Tweet 3
  • About Us
  • Advertise
  • Contact Us
  • Privacy Policy
  • Pickem Terms and Conditions
Call us at 816-858-0363

Copyright © 2019-2020 The Platte County Landmark Newspaper - All Rights Reserved

No Result
View All Result
  • Subscribe Online
  • Home
  • Local News
  • Opinion
  • Landmark Pickem
    • Results by Week
    • The Leaderboard
    • Pickem Rules and Help
  • Landmark Live!
  • Looking Backward
  • es_MXSpanish

Copyright © 2019-2020 The Platte County Landmark Newspaper - All Rights Reserved