OK, It's Me Again

The Old Man had a mixed bag of a day on the golf course today. The game itself was unremarkable....about my usual mishmash of good shots and bad. I had a putt today that ran by the hole faster than Rep. Charles Rangal runs by an IRS office. I also had an Amelia Earhart....didn't make it over the water. And I can't neglect to mention the Nancy Pelosi......thought it was going one way, hit a tree, and went 180 degrees in the opposite direction. Perhaps my "shot of the day" though, was the David Blaine....I knocked the tee out from under the ball and the ball didn't move..just dropped straight down. Still, though, it was a jewel of a day; low humidity, temperature in the upper 70's, and hardly a cloud in the sky. There was no financial crisis out there today, and no votes were taken. There were only 3 good friends, cajoling, cat-calling, and whooping it up like the children we all are inside. I wouldn't have traded it for a $12,000 DOW.

Driving home, I thought of how thankful I am to have had a day like this. My thoughts turned to other items to be placed on my list. Of course, at the top of my list are all those current day things; my family and the love we share, seeing how my daughters have matured into such wonderful women, and how Miss Martha has somehow managed to put up with me for all those years. And yes, Jules, I well remember when MY baby turned two.

In keeping with the original mission of this blog exercise, there are things from my childhood that made the list as well:

• A mother who taught me to read before I started school. I knew all about Dick, Jane, and Spot well ahead of the curve. Thanks for her having cultivated and nurtured a voraciousness that exists to this day.
• A father who was a kind, gentle, and funny man with a heart as big as the moon. He gave me so much that I was unaware of receiving. Such things as, "Pride goes before a fall", "A fool and his money are soon parted", and "A Southern gentleman never takes his coat off when eating". To this day, if you can get me in a suit, it could be 200 degrees and I'll be at that table, coat and all.
• A town that imparted a wholesome atmosphere. In that day and time, there would be rumors of a girl who would, now, sadly, there are often rumors of a girl who wont. No doors had to be locked, and most of the time car keys were in the ignition or laying on the front seat. The only reason to close the car windows while you were in the movie was if rain was imminent.
• For having the opportunity to see Saturday westerns and Superman serials. To watch Walt Disney himself show in person on television the progress being made on Disney Land in California. To ride stick horses while firing cap pistols, to build huts and attempt to dig tunnels, to lie on my back under a tree and read on a hot summer afternoon, to pick early cherries from a neighbor's tree that overhung the sidewalk, and to help turn the crank on our old ice cream freezer until I had to give way to bigger muscles, all this and so much more "made the cut" on my list.

Who knows what the economic future is....or any future for that matter? But whatever is to come, it can never take away the past. So my unsolicited advice to you is, celebrate your past, dwell on all the good you have seen and been a part of, for it has been but prologue to what you have become thus far, and where you go tomorrow.