Takin' a break

Summer time blues have taken over and I'm going to take a little blog break. Be back in a month or so.

Do good
Sam

One liners

Don't you just love one liners? Don't you wish you'd thought of them?


A guy knows he's in love when he loses interest in his car for a couple of days.

When I met Mr. Right I had no idea his first name was Always.

Women don't want to hear what you think. Women want to hear what they think, in a deeper voice.

I always wanted to be the last guy on earth, just to see if all those women were lying to me.

A man in love is incomplete until he has married. Then he's finished.

A bank is a place that will lend you money, if you can prove that you don't need it.

Money won't buy friends but you get a better class of enemy.

Imagine if there were no hypothetical situations?

I don't consider myself bald. I'm just taller than my hair.

You know the world is going crazy when the best rapper is a white guy, the best golfer is a black guy and the tallest guy in the NBA is Chinese.

Cats are smarter than dogs. You can't get eight cats to pull a sled through snow.

The trouble with the rat race is that even if you win you are still a rat.

Give a man a fish and he has food for a day. Teach him how to fish and you can get rid of him for the entire weekend.

It's not that I'm afraid to die, I just don't want to be there when it happens.

I have my standards. They may be low, but I have them.

I used to be Snow White, but I drifted.

Deep down, I'm pretty superficial.

A cynic is a man who, when he smells flowers, looks around for the coffin.

I drink to make other people more interesting.

Have you noticed that anyone driving slower than you is an idiot, and anyone driving faster than you is a maniac.

From the great Yogi Berra; "I really didn't say everything I said."

And finally: It's so simple to be wise. Just think of something stupid to say and then don't say it.

Faux Holidays

If Mother's Day is a holiday formulated by Hallmark (second highest sales day of the year), then I have to believe that Father's Day is probably the child of Sears or Home Depot. I've been reminded that Father's Day is Sunday and there's a gathering of extended family to celebrate all the Dads. I'm grateful for that. This kind of homogeneous gathering takes the pressure off of everyone. I have three offspring. One hasn't spoken to any family member in over twelve years. Another lives 1500 miles away and is filled with her own life as am I. This leaves the chore to Amanda. This way the pressure is off her and even more so, off me. This way I won't have to pretend to be gaga over a present. Not that she doesn't give good presents, she usually does. But there have been times in my past where I've been blessed with presents like The ultimate flower arrangement book. Or, Tai chi in four easy lessons. Or maybe even something cool like a good cigar, but whatever, this way I'll share the moment with other fellows and we are all off the hook. Amanda's little friends are now grown ups and we have a surge of new babies, so the new fathers will hopefully be the focus and take the pressure off us old guys.

My Dad died when I was very young so I never had the pressure of remembering Fathers Day. If on January the first you asked me what day in the year Father's Day fell on, I couldn't tell you. If you asked what month Father's Day fell on, I couldn't tell you. I can tell you that Valentines Day (another Faux Holiday) is in February - I think. And, Mother's Day is in May. I'm pretty sure - didn't we just have that? But that's pretty much the extent of what sticks in the cobwebs of my mind. New Years Day is January first. I still have the facility to figure that out. The Fourth of July usually falls on July fourth. Thanksgiving is tougher but I think it is always on the third Thursday of November. The two I'm really certain of is Christmas on December 25th and opening Quail Season day which does fluctuate but is always within the first two weeks of October. See, the important days stick with you.

Seriously though, to me Father's Day came when my first grandchild was born, and when Amanda got her Masters Degree and when my daughters married good men and when I see the little things in them that make me realize that they are of good character and filled with moral strength. When I notice a phrase or mannerism that I realize came only from me. When I knew that Amanda could not only bait her own hook, but also help her Daddy clean the fish. When I hear her laughter across the yard during a party and I know that she has that Jackson sense of humor.

That's my Father's Day.

No time to waste

I've been gone the last couple of days because my son in law Lance and I have been installing a new and improved back yard at my house. Lance owns and operates ACLS - Arizona Complete Landscape Services - so he is doing everything landscape wise at my house. It has been an interesting time bonding with my daughters husband. Lance - also known as Bus - is a very sharp guy and a hard worker, however "early to bed and early to rise" is not necessarily his mantra. Because of this we normally got started around 8am. Now ordinarily this is not a big deal but did I mention that it is June and 110 degrees outside. At 6am it's 80 degrees. At 8am it's 93 degrees. This doesn't seem to faze my outsized son in law. He wears a dark, long sleeved shirt with a T shirt under, jeans and work boots. I'm frying with a T shirt, shorts and tennis shoes. Those that know me know that I'm not really into anything project. Mechanical things bore me to tears. I can do them, I just don't like them. This puts Lance and my efforts in a very good place. Lance figures out what to do, tells me what to do then I do it. Pretty good partnership. But, besides getting a new back yard this gives me quality time with my son in law. Amanda is pregnant with a little girl they, so far, call Lily and now this makes it very important for my son in law to get a little SamLeeJackson time. Time to impart knowledge onto the boy. The way I see it, is that I'm 63 years old. This maybe gets me, if I'm lucky, another 20 years. Some where along the way he's going to be responsible for all the Jackson descended girls maybe even including Carol. Therefore he better be a damn sight smarter by then. Important things like not drawing to an inside straight and quit calling those bingo cards games you play with your buddies for money - poker. It's not poker. He's got a lot to learn and I'm just to guy to help.

Right?

Oh pain and agony. Oh woe is me!

Woe is me! Things are just too tough and I don't know if I can stand it. The economy is recovering but that doesn't stop my small business from having the slowest down turn in it's history. Times are tough. My house and my kid's house isn't worth what we paid for them. Our income is down and so is every other small business owner I know. My diverticulitis is acting up and my back hurts and my friend John has a bulge in his spine and can't work and airline fares have doubled, thus making it very difficult for me to visit my beloved cabin on Pana Lake, and though there is only two of us I can't go to the store without spending as much as my first car. Well, it was an old heap, but still.

Then, I heard just today that a local radio personality died of stomach cancer at age 55.

And, less than two months ago entire families that had thriving shrimp businesses in the gulf were put out of generational family businesses in the instant of an explosion.

And, a thousand wonderful young soldiers have given their lives for us in Afghanistan.

And, thousands more are trying to rebuild their shattered lives while missing arms and legs.

And, the homeless and parentless children in Haiti have already been forgotten because of the oil spill.

And, a mother lost her focus for just a moment and crossed over into the oncoming lane and now she's dead and three teens are in critical care.

And, hundreds of thousands have been laid off.

And, hundreds of thousands have suffered foreclosure on their family home.

And, a million kids graduated from college this last month, carrying the baggage of huge school loans and there are no jobs.

And, the children's hospital is full.

And, the prisons are full.

And, life for many is a bitch.

And, And, And

Gosh I feel better.

Summertime

Darling Amanda turned 27 over the Memorial Day weekend. She had friends and family over to our house for an old fashioned hot-dog, hamburger cookout. It was a modest little gathering by Jackson standards but a whole lot of fun never the less. I made note that we had our first Amanda birthday party in this back yard twenty one years ago, celebrating her 6th birthday. That backyard has seen a lot of memories. I've been blessed to be surrounded by many people with musical talent, so most all the parties had live music of some sort. This was no different. The evening ended with the un-holy trio of Lance (Amanda's husband), Lance's brother Blake and their good friend Eric digging through a box of song charts I had, looking for something to perform. Now, understand the charts are nothing more than the lyrics with the chords written above them. So, if you don't know the song, you are out of luck.

Unless you are the un-holy trio. Eric and Lance provided the guitar licks and Blake sang the songs, making up the melodies as they went along. If only those songwriters could have been there to see what they could have written instead of what they did. Help me make it through the night has a whole new deal. Sorry Kris!

As said, there have been many good memories spawned at Amanda's parties. Our friends Curt and Karen, just a little tipsy, swinging hard on our wooden swing until the S hook straightened out and they went crashing to the ground. No one harmed.

And my old best friends brother Jerry waving his arms around as he got more involved in the story he was telling until I warned him to watch out for the ceiling fan. "What fan?" he said sticking his hand straight up and destroying a $400 ceiling fan. Yeah, I know, you can buy'm for fifty bucks, but not if your wife wants just that one particular fan.

The one thing that we all agreed on was that it was a good thing to be older because the party ended at a reasonable hour instead of going to the wee hours.

Well, happy birthday baby and next year you'll have that little one to help celebrate. Probably means the party will end even sooner.

That's OK.

Honor

I was talking to a fella recently about a business deal and at the end I asked if we needed to write anything down. He stuck out his hand and said "This is all I need." We shook on it and as far as I'm concerned that was as strong as any contract.

I'm a born and bred Mid-Westerner. Missouri to Illinois. In twenty years of running an insurance sales office I noticed a distinct pattern. Not absolute but enough to notice. Mid-Westerners showed up to meetings on time. Southwester's and Californio's didn't. I was told once to -just relax. It's no big deal. We're just not as uptight.

They miss the point. It's not about being uptight. It's about honor. You agreed to the meeting then you agreed to show up on time. It's a matter of your word. If you can't make it on time, say so. One of my very pet peeves is being promised something will happen, then it doesn't. It is really easy. Say what you're going to do, then do it. Don't say it unless you mean it, if you mean it then do it. If you can't do it, say you can't do it. If you intend to do it, but something gets in the way, call as soon as you can and explain why you can't do it.

Why do I bring this up? I see many young people brought up to be okay with just being kinda close to honoring their word. "Don't worry about him, he's always late." Bad on him. If I can't trust him to keep his word about being on time, I can't trust him to keep his word on much else.

"Son, I want you to take out the garbage."
"Sure, Dad."
"Son, why didn't you take out the garbage?"
"What's the big deal, they'll be around again in a couple of days."
"The big deal has nothing to do with garbage. The big deal has to do with you giving me your word you would take it out."
"I didn't give you my word."
"You agreed to take it out."
"But I never said I give you my word."
"Who's words were they?"

This can be a lesson for my daughter and all her friends but it's a lesson for some older folks too. We were at a gathering of family and friends and one of the invited called to say they would be a few minutes late. This was met with amusement. They must be really uptight to call just because of a few minutes. My thought was - right on!

How do you teach someone? Tell'm, tell'm what you told'm then tell'm again.

Here's the lesson. Don't say you'll do something unless you are going to do it. Don't agree to someone else's timetable unless you are positive you can meet it. If you can't say so. You can still do the thing, but it must be known that the timing will be yours. If you can't do something, or you can't do it in the timeframe requested, then say you can't do it. Don't just try to make people happy by agreeing to something you know will not come to pass. They will be much unhappier when the promised thing doesn't get done.

And, if you do these things you can go to sleep knowing that whatever else, you are an honorable person.

I guess some of you would think I'm just a grouchy old stickler.

What's that got to do with what I'm talking about.