Good morning, friends.

Good morning, friends.

10 September 2025

Fifty-five years ago, give or take, I stood at the base of Mount Fujiyama in winter—with no pants. What happened was this...

I was a Marine, fresh to cold weather training. We were out maneuvering, and that night we camped at elevation, pitching our pup tents in the snow. Each Marine carried a shelter half and a three-piece tent pole; two halves made one tent, a kind of forced partnership in nylon. We had cold-weather sleeping bags, too—issued, not chosen.

Before lights out, we received instructions on how to sleep. One rule stood out: don’t sleep with your pants on—put them in the bag with you. I misunderstood slightly. Instead of tucking them inside the bag, I slid them between the sleeping bag and its canvas liner, thinking that was close enough.

That night, the temperature dropped hard. Snow fell. By morning, everything was frozen solid. We were ordered to move out immediately. Our tents had to be beaten down with entrenching tools. My personal dilemma? My pants had frozen stiff. I couldn’t get them on. So there I was, marching through the hills in long johns, no pants, and a growing sense of regret.

Not my proudest moment. I was eighteen, maybe nineteen—a late bloomer with a loose grip on the concept of “attention to detail.” Back then, I wasn’t exactly the brightest bulb in the bunch. But life has a way of teaching. Maturity works, and it tends to arrive eventually. These days, attention to detail isn’t just a habit—it’s a pet peeve. Earned the hard way, one frozen trouser leg at a time.

“Failure is instructive. The person who really thinks learns quite as much from his failures as from his successes.” — John Dewey

“The difference between something good and something great is attention to detail.” — Charles R. Swindoll

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