The Law Offices of Daniel J. Miller - October 2021

The Law Offices of Daniel J. Miller - October 2021

INYOUR DEFENSE

OCTOBER 2021

757.852.3000 | LegalDefense.com

LESSONS FROM TRICK-OR-TREATING Be Careful What You Wish For

October has finally arrived, and I couldn’t be more excited. The festive atmosphere that comes with this time of year is difficult to match. Combine that with the Oktoberfest selection of beers, and you’ve got a recipe for a great holiday. While it’s fun to get dressed up in costumes and go to neighborhood parties, let’s not forget that Halloween is the favorite holiday of many children. It allows them to dress up as whatever they want, stay up past their bedtime, and most importantly, receive mountains of candy. Halloween also provides the perfect opportunity to teach your children some valuable lessons. I still have plenty of fond memories of my childhood adventures during Halloween. Back in the late ’70s, I decided I wanted to dress up as a hobo as I traveled the neighborhood searching for candy. My parents were eager to help with my costume and provided me with all the necessary accessories. I needed to look like I had been traveling along the railroads, thus they made my face look dirty, and I wore a beat- up old hat and jacket. I grabbed a stick and wrapped a handkerchief around it to make my bindle. I was ready to begin, but my dad had one other accessory to complete the costume. To give a sense of my costume’s realism, my dad provided me with a cigar. Being a child of 11 or 12, I thought this was the coolest thing in the world and even asked my dad to light it. Surprisingly, he obliged and lit the cigar before sending me on my way. As a kid with no knowledge of how to correctly smoke a cigar, I quickly inhaled more than I should have. After approximately 15 minutes, I came running home — green in the face. I got so sick that I couldn’t enjoy any of the candy I had collected. You may have heard how some parents back then made their kid smoke an entire pack of cigarettes if they caught them smoking. It’s definitely seen as a form of child abuse now, but it used to be a strong-handed way for your child to learn a lesson. I believe my dad was trying to teach me a lesson by lighting the cigar. It seemed like he was trying to show me that smoking was bad, and his method worked. It was many years before I tried a cigar again, and I stayed away from cigarettes altogether.

I feel as though I learned many lessons from this experience, but one of the most important was to be careful what you wish for because things are not always as fun as they outwardly appear. Walking around with that lit cigar may have looked cool at the time, but I certainly didn’t feel that way afterward. This story also exemplifies another lesson that is not too common these days. Too often, parents simply say no to their children, which prompts them to later explore curiosities outside a safe environment. Back in the day, parents were more likely to let their kids make mistakes and experience the consequences on their own. While I can’t say my dad’s lesson kept me away from smoking outright, it did help me become cautious of the dangers. I have since learned how to smoke a cigar and find them enjoyable from time to time. Without my Halloween adventure, there’s no telling if I would have started to smoke cigarettes or not. It’s important to talk to your kids about various scenarios, but sometimes, they have to learn the lesson on their own for it to really sink in. – Daniel J. Miller

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T hanks , B ud !

BASEBALL’S FORMER COMMISSIONER AND STREAMING TV

You don’t become America’s national pastime without learning how to adapt — and Major League Baseball (MLB) made the ultimate pivot. This October, MLB’s biggest stars and teams with the most wins all-time will take the field for the 2021 playoffs. The winners will be crowned champions of the world, but the league these champs call home already owns an equally prestigious title: the founders of streaming services. Their legendary reign started back in the early 2000s, when former MLB commissioner Bud Selig asked every team in the league to contribute $4 million for the creation of Baseball Advanced Media (BAM). At that time, the dot-com bubble had yet to burst, and Selig wanted America’s once favorite sport to “keep up with the times,” so to speak. BAM created a website for each team, but it soon took on other qualities that gave it an edge. The Hustle reports that BAM offered online video, multidevice watching services, and a large >Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 Page 4

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