There weren’t any hives, or furious scratching at my neck like Chris Elliott in “Something About Mary”. No delusions or soothsaying. But one thing I can tell you about trying to say something nice on social media about people for 30 consecutive days: It’s damn hard.

Seriously, it may seem like nothing. I sure thought that when I laid the plan out in a blog a little more than a month ago. Social media is pretty sucky at times, people are something less than pleasant, so I was going to do my part, only a little nick in the big canvas of ideas and thoughts that happens every day on Facebook. But wow. It was anything but easy.

After two days I had to set up a schedule for the rest of the month. Trying to figure out on the fly who I should feature already had become harder than being a one-armed waitress at IHOP on national pancake day.

So, a list was hatched. It included a wide spectrum of unsuspecting honorees. Some friends I communicate with weekly, either on Facebook, or by text, or email. Others, I hadn’t seen in years, or even decades in some cases. But they meant something to me and that’s what I wanted to showcase.

From there, it was a bit easier. I at least knew who I was going to write about ahead of time, but still had to determine what it was that I wanted to say. Rummaging around my closet made things easier as I got out my old scrap books and started featuring pictures from key points in my life. Fun times in college at Augustana, long ago times from high school and even middle school, and ancient times even with a few friends from grade school.

Every person I listed made an impression on me and had a hand, by being in my life even if for a brief moment, on who I have become today. They’ve helped make me a lucky guy with a great life.

I didn’t mention a few and easily could have done another month’s worth, so I’ll do a couple more now but only because they should have been in the first 30:

  • Craig Holte: He left us for a while but has come back now, and is becoming whole again. I’m amazed at times about his clarity on life. He really can see through the haze and dysfunction of a lot of situations, and while I don’t always agree with his viewpoint, I’m willing to listen because I know he puts purposeful thought into why he came up with that opinion. I can appreciate that.
  • Mike Holmes: I’m pretty cocky aboutmike-holmes-ncaa how good I was at my job in my former life in college athletics, but I have to say there is no one more perfectly suited for that job at Georgia State than he is. And it’s not why you might think. Yes, he’s talented and does a great job promoting his teams and players, but it’s his temperament — he’s a genuinely nice guy — that makes him able to handle every challenge. And that place has a boatload of challenges to overcome. Plus, I finally got an NCAA tourney appearance (and epic win you can watch again and again) with a basketball team and he was a good sport to let his boss play a small part.
  • Jason Teran and Rick Boyle: My brother-in-laws have come a long way. They were once just little schmucks who were dating two of my sisters. Now they’re schmucks who are married to two of my sisters. And they’ve overcome long odds as they’ve gotten their acts together and became adults. It’s actually kind of fun to see as they make a better life for their kids, and I’m proud to call them family now, even if they are schmucks.

Whew. That was hard. Being nice is not something I’m cut out to do every day, so I’m going to stop that. One of my former students at Nebraska used to call me a troll because of my demeanor. That’s a whole lot easier to live up to than nice.

But I’ll throw a bone to you, my millions of readers — or just Craig. Since everyone seemed to like my birthday photo from when I was 7, here’s one final nice thing this week. If this isn’t an epic grade school picture of all-time, I’m not sure what is. Wide collars, comb over, sideburns, and that saber tooth tiger necklace.

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No one rocked fourth grade as hard as me. And you wonder why I never had a hard time making friends at every new school I went to each fall? Now you are enlightened. You’re welcome.