Oquirks

It's 2012...Let's Do What We are Afraid to Do.

noreply@blogger.com (lora) — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 04:33:00 +0000

"Always do what you are afraid to do." -Ralph Waldo Emerson

I've been lingering over a few things this year. Well, the last few years, actually. Okay, maybe decades. Ugh. Let's scratch that "decades" part. Thing is, I'm not a blogger, but I've been a writer for a long time. Some of that work has been "business" in orientation, but a lot of it has been fiction. Some business fiction, too, now that I think of it.

Thing is, I'm fortunate to have a couple of books out there, and accepted. (One fiction, one non-fiction). Also, a couple of pieces I forced myself to hit the SEND button on this year--which had good reception. Excellent reception, actually. A couple editors even said, "WHERE have you been?" Uhh. This is great. Scary great. The rest is all good, except for the details. Ah, yes, God is always there in the details.

Do I want an advance? A book tour(s)? Should I invest in my own work and self-publish, since I work in tech and know a lot of talented folks who might help? Should I write a vampire novel, since that seems to be the going thing? I quickly get lost in where is the publishing industry going, and who is my audience? How do I get my different types of work out to different people? and how do I keep from getting pigeon-holed? What if someone reads what I write and hates it? What if someone I love hates it? What if I misuse "their" instead of "there," and no one else catches it? etc., etc., etc....

This is all fear.

2012, I'm going to focus on doing things I love to do. Appreciate how fortunate I am to do business and technology work with people I respect, enjoy, and love. I'm going to forget that there are people who don't understand. Do the things I've been afraid to do.

I love writing. I've been an avid reader and an avid writer for as long as I can remember. I love talking to people. Hearing their stories. Doing research. Telling stories. Creating new worlds. Finding words for small things we walk past every day, little phrases that show a human being's tell, and the ah-ha that comes with connecting to someone else's story. And to my own.

2012, I'm hitting SEND. I'm shipping. I'm sharing.

You were warned.

Christmas

noreply@blogger.com (lora) — Sun, 25 Dec 2011 01:35:00 +0000

There isn't much of worth to say
that doesn't need to be said each day:
Add a sparkle on top.
Make ready something to share.
Forget
me,
forget you.
Let go perfect.
Lose the number of whos that judge.
Set aside the whats and whethers.
Cast away the could-haves and should-haves.
Build a song, a ship, a painting, a story--
give it this day
and each of the next year.
What's special is only so
if we choose it to be.

How to Pass the Hat?

noreply@blogger.com (lora) — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 15:36:00 +0000

I think of an author as somebody who goes into the marketplace and puts down his rug and says, "I will tell you a story," and then he passes the hat.

Robertson Davies

M: Minding, a Choice

noreply@blogger.com (lora) — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 14:47:00 +0000

"The Official Home of G. Gordon Liddy"

I was at a party once, and, uh, Liddy put his hand over a candle, and he kept it there.

He kept it right in the flame until his flesh was burned.

Somebody said, "What's the trick?" And Liddy said,

"The trick is not minding."

Deep Throat, All the President's Men

The Age of Intuition?

A Do-It-Yourself Knight

noreply@blogger.com (lora) — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 17:40:00 +0000

A DIY Knight

In a rush to get myself and kids and gear out the door in the morning, I often forget the "teach a man to fish..." adage. While I try to keep my own parental gushing to a minimum, this little guy reminded me of a lesson I just keep re-learning. I struggle to remember when friends or family are going through a rough patch and confiding in me, to shut the hell up. Listen. Support their ability to do whatever needs doing. Say, I believe in you, instead of trying to fix things. I can't apologize for a little gushing about my boys, despite my heretofore prior lack of knowledge about Bakugan, testicle twisting, the names of all Mario's little pals, the answer to 10,000 knock-knock jokes, or morning wood--because they teach me things.

My seven year old is afraid of the dark. He freely admits it. He sat down and drew a knight one evening. Named him, "Sir Not Afraid of the Dark." This was totally unprompted by his father or I. Except, of course, mom reads a lot of Science Fiction and Fantasy...and we're a household not without a good deal of video games and plastic armor. He had the basic knight requirements down, well.

Lance will tell anyone that will listen that he's still scared of the dark. Doesn't like to come down the stairs after "lights out." Also, that it's silly.

Lately, he's been up before I am. He comes downstairs to get dibs on the best computer, or sneak a bowl of cereal. Time was, we carried flashlights and blankies, etc., to and from the dim second floor, what seemed like a thousand times a day.

When I remarked on this change and Hey, I'm up at 5am, too, when you slam the kitchen cupboard doors, he told me when he feels really scared, Sir Not Afraid of the Dark comes slowly, creeping down the stairs with him and finds a light to turn on.

...and some days, Mom, I'm like hiiiiiiiy-ya! My arms and legs are ready to go and I can't stay in bed and keeping thinking about all the things there are to do.

Then, I AM Sir Not Afraid of the Dark.

I must repeat to myself, and all my glorious, talented, terrifically-terribly human friends and relations:

Make your own knight for those problems that overwhelm you. For the things that keep you up at night. The dilemmas we all put off and shove down deep in the dark. Pretend someone braver, stronger, and armed-to-the-teeth is with you. Practice until the day you wake up to find you ARE the knight.

The Elements of Miracle

noreply@blogger.com (lora) — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 15:42:00 +0000

I didn't know what I was doing.

I experimented a lot to get the right environment.

The usual way cost more than I was willing to pay.

Instead of fretting, I did the best I could.

The bloom came after.

Prolific: Eric Weisstein

noreply@blogger.com (lora) — Wed, 02 Nov 2011 14:28:00 +0000

Eric Weisstein's World of World of Science, Including World of Astronomy

When I'm feeling a little why-did-I-choose-the-road-less-traveled, it helps to remember others, who are building on their passions, right now. Eric Weisstein gives new meaning to the word "prolific."

Proof there's Nothing New Under the Sun:

noreply@blogger.com (lora) — Fri, 28 Oct 2011 15:03:00 +0000

Samuel Smiles Self-Help, 1882

When a True Genius Appears in the World,

noreply@blogger.com (lora) — Fri, 28 Oct 2011 14:47:00 +0000

you may know him by this sign; that the dunces are all in confederacy against him. Johnathan Swift

If a Tree Falls in the Forest

noreply@blogger.com (lora) — Fri, 28 Oct 2011 04:15:00 +0000

1971
The Revolution will not be Televised Gill Scott-Heron

1991
Incidentally the revolution will be televised/
With one head for business and another for good looks/
Until they started arriving with their rubber aprons and their butcher's hooks. Elvis Costello

2011:
The Revolution...

Choosing Occupation

noreply@blogger.com (lora) — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 15:36:00 +0000

Halloween is less than a week away, and it seems, as winter and holidays and happenings draw near--my To Do List is getting out-of-control, already. I dislike this feeling, intensely. When I'm trying to cross things off lists, I forget to enjoy right now. I forget to be grateful. Sadly, I forget good intentions that whip by in the onslaught of things to accomplish. My head swirls with images of holiday perfection.

Norman Rockwell, and all his work implies.

I start thinking about stuff to buy, rather than reminding myself that every day is an opportunity.

I get focused on the news, headlines--the state of the world.

from Reuters Mike Segar

Feeling helpless. Overwhelmed. Instead of focusing on the state of my world.

Here are some things I choose to be occupied by, instead:

1. John Scalzi's "Being Poor."
2. Buying socks. Sending them to Nashville's Street Outreach. Putting a note in each pair: "You are special."
3. Visiting my elderly neighbors who are alone.
4. Writing recommendations for the warm, helpful, friendly local businesses I've visited this year.
5. Sending letters (not an email or tweet or post) to the teachers, professors, and mentors who have made a difference in my life.
6. Continuing to clear closets every weekend, donating on Mondays, and talking with my children about why most of what we own is unimportant.
7. Concentrating on mending, re-imagining, repairing, creating, and sharing.
8. Repeating: "I am rich beyond imagination in love, friends, and possibilities. I can share this wealth."

A moment of care at Nashville's Room In The Inn.

The Devildog Takes a Break

noreply@blogger.com (lora) — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 19:14:00 +0000

It is exactly the right time to lie down in a patch of sunlight.

Nothing more. Nothing less.

How to Read More: A Lover's Guide

noreply@blogger.com (lora) — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 15:17:00 +0000

Dreamers and Doers

noreply@blogger.com (lora) — Sun, 18 Sep 2011 15:47:00 +0000

Fall is on the way in Middle Tennessee. Which for me, means planning, budgeting, and playing with catalogs, magazines, and budgets. Cleaning closets out. Mourning over kid's shoes that won't fit, but have barely been worn. Deciding what to donate, and where an outgrown coat or sweater might be most needed. Choosing what to mend, or re-make, or re-purpose.

As a child, my mother asked all of us, each spring and fall, what we'd like to wear. She and her four sisters were raised with sewing skills that meant they could see a dress or jacket in a window, go home and make a pattern, and a few days later be wearing the item--tailored to their tastes and figures. Growing up on a farm, we switched clothes often, you just didn't wear the same pieces for cleaning out horse stalls or raking hay, as you might wear "to town" or church. Also, we rarely bought things is stores which were not made of what my mother judged to be "quality fabric." So, it was rare that an item of clothing, whether my father's flannel shirts or one of my sister's Sunday dresses had a single life. They became quilts, throws, rags, pocket books, doll clothing, curtains--you name it. Waste was not only a sin, but a lack of imagination.

I think about my own family, now, and how lucky we are to have so much. Not only because the current economy has made almost everyone's lives a bit shaky, but because I want my children to use their imaginations, their hands, and their minds to create the things they need and want. Not simply to adopt a culture of acquisition and mindless paycheck earning to support it.
We're having conversations while feeling quality fabric, and talking about why, often, poor, inexpensive stuff is also made of chemicals and even petroleum products-and how that can affect our health, our environment, and the future. This is secondary to playing, though; dreaming and writing and drawing.

The boys have called to my attention, looking at suits I've had since a high school internship in Washington, D. C., to the fact I've always had an addiction to plaid. Metallic finishes. Red shoes, since the heavy, red Timberland hiking boots I wore until they utterly collapsed, from high school. Oh, or maybe earlier--an uncle gave me a pair of red cow boy boots before I could walk. They suggest spray- painting gardening boots a matching red and taking each others' pictures. They want coats that aren't too bulky, and sweaters that are soft. Shoes that don't let rain in to wet their socks, but also look "cool." It's hard for them to imagine it will be really cold, soon. We watch what squirrels are doing in the backyard. We spend a morning with glue sticks and newspaper and measuring tape. "This is a lot of work, Mom. Is everyone doing all this work before fall and winter come?" I try to give them a realistic answer. They hear headlines from MSNBC, or "Morning Joe," and The New York Times. They understand times are tough. We talk about how this has made many people afraid, and angry.

My youngest says, "maybe those squirrels are smarter than people."

Soul Park Shade, No. 1

noreply@blogger.com (lora) — Thu, 25 Aug 2011 18:02:00 +0000

Bicentennial Mall State Park, Nashville, TN

Way down, the sluggish soul park of things long forgot: the whisper of trees in a breeze, the shiny-cheapness of man-made things, the inter-connected thrum of living and dead.

Soul Park Shade, No. 2

noreply@blogger.com (lora) — Thu, 25 Aug 2011 17:59:00 +0000

Bicentennial Mall State Park Amphitheater

Way down

in a sluggish soul park

dance the things you forgot.

Trees bend and whisper,

a June bug shows off a might

grass bows and sways

a million earth worm boys would love to

turn you round.

Ignore the glint of man-made things,

S-T-O-P

there's rhythm.
Drumming, thumping, rub-tongue-cheek-foot-
roll onto
the inter-connected hum of all
living and dead.

L: Live III

noreply@blogger.com (lora) — Fri, 19 Aug 2011 16:00:00 +0000

L: Live II

noreply@blogger.com (lora) — Fri, 19 Aug 2011 15:58:00 +0000

In the middle of a cornfield in rural Wisconsin, there stands a juke joint named The Silver Moon. The building is practically a shack, with a gravel parking lot, picnic tables, and big wooden doors. There's an old, beautifully carved bar inside that someone salvaged from an old hotel. A tiny stage along one wall. The doors often stand open so patrons can take their beer outside, sit, and listen to the music waft out across the cornfields that surround the crossroad and the shack, on all sides. There are more than a few Harleys lined up not far from the doors, no shortage of fancy sports cars, old VW buses, and once, even a hearse.

It's a magical place. More than a few tears are shed at those picnic tables, laughter echoes, and it isn't unusual for dancing to happen at the edge of fields when the crowd is too large for everyone to get inside or the evening's too lovely to spend under a roof. Some of the best blues, gospel, and jazz acts come up from Chicago just to play there. Not because the place holds a large crowd, or because the money's good. The players will tell you, performing there is like coming to church; if money didn't matter, and the congregation was every shade of black, white, young, old, and any form of humanity betwixt and between.

The Silver Moon had hand-drawn paper posters you might find in an out of the way diner. An email newsletter for a while in the early 90's, but these weren't reliable sources for predicting who was going to play or even how to locate the place. If you were lucky, you ran into someone who'd been lately and heard "this great pickup guitarist is coming" or "that Chicago front man may be there on Sunday." Getting to The Moon, from anywhere, meant driving back roads in the middle of the night, not entirely knowing how to get there or what waited ahead. Looking for the intersection of County Road H or Q. Just hoping to see a sign that says "H" or "Q," because the roads had no other name. Praying you didn't run out of gas. Hoping not to hit a deer or raccoon.

But people find it.

It isn't uncommon to hear a business man up from Chicago, who heard a rumor, there, that some special soul singer had made her way up from Mississippi, just for a night or two's performance. So, he'd left the interstates and taken county roads for hours, in the dark, looking for this crossroad or a gas station that might lead to this place he'd only heard a rumor of. Just about the time he'd given up, and called himself a fool, there were the floodlights and the silvery neon sign. He'd seen the motorcycles, wadded up his tie and thrown it in the backseat. After the first beer someone had asked where he came from, and then "Cubs or Sox?" Hours later, he was safe, and good friends with the guy who is driving cross-country to California to open a record shop "yeah, vinyl man, it's back," and this guy who's the janitor in an elementary the next county over but his people are from 'Bama...and next this Chicago guy will tell you "hello," when you come in all calf-eyed and moon-faced.

Right now, Forty is sneaking up on me. I remember this place, having gone there often to hear some Southerners, home voices, singing old standards like, "Mama, He Treats Your Daughter Mean" or a few gospel offerings, maybe "Wade in the Water." The evening I recall most vividly, was a birthday for me, one of the 20-something ones. I don't recall which, now. Only that it was a friend's idea, I'd had no special plans, but when we got there, the fields all around were full of a few more cars than usual and people were waiting by the door; something was up. It looked like a thunder storm was rolling in, and heat lightning was putting on a show in the East. Yuppies, guys in Bears Jerseys, and women in leather jackets were whispering and a thrum was in the air.

We staked out a table. Someone got drinks. "No, there's no band on the stage, no one's said who is playing." But there I was, with a pack of friends, outside. The breeze was sweet with the scent of a good corn crop. We had enough cash to buy pitchers and food. We had found the place, again.

Then, from somewhere inside, a high-pitched male voice said, "Weeeelllllcooooome, Buddy Guy," and there was a base thump, a guitar sang out of the shack, across the crowd, into the warm, humid night as if lightning had come up from some underground kingdom. Behind this, a sweet, tired voice and the refrain,

Down here the river meets the sea...and in this sticky heat I feel ya, open up to me...love comes out of nowhere baby, just like a hurricane, and it feels like rain...and it feels like rain...lying here, underneath the stars, right next to you...clouds roll in across the moon...and it feels like rain.

But it never rained. The music and talk and laughter went on for hours, 'til we drove home quiet and tired as if we'd done a hard day's labor. Finding home was no trouble, but waiting for the storm and the music had wrung out all other cares. Left behind an echo. Live.

L: Live I

noreply@blogger.com (lora) — Fri, 19 Aug 2011 14:14:00 +0000

since feeling is first
who pays any attention
to the syntax of things
will never wholly kiss you;

wholly to be a fool
while Spring is in the world

my blood approves,
and kisses are a far better fate
than wisdom
lady i swear by all flowers. Don't cry
--the best gesture of my brain is less than
your eyelids' flutter which says

we are for each other: then
laugh, leaning back in my arms
for life's not a paragraph

And death i think is no parenthesis

— E.E. Cummings

It's Still a Message

noreply@blogger.com (lora) — Mon, 15 Aug 2011 20:41:00 +0000

I wrote a poem on my iPhone.
It's the strangest thing to me;
a pretty mark,
where words I might have
said aloud,
but terse or long, denied,
sit in another's palm.
Yet, whether screen, paper, scroll, rock
all delivery, all portions
of some children's game
older people play:
"I thought you only
had replied."

Shutup. Go make something.

noreply@blogger.com (lora) — Sat, 06 Aug 2011 03:30:00 +0000

"You may not be a Picasso or Mozart but you don’t have to be. Just create to create. Create to remind yourself you’re still alive. Make stuff to inspire others to make something too. Create to learn a bit more about yourself."

-from Frederick Terral of Right Brain Terrain

K: Killing

noreply@blogger.com (lora) — Mon, 01 Aug 2011 16:28:00 +0000

Sometimes silly little things roll around in my head; song lyrics, a cartoon headline, or a glimpse of something shiny. Then, there are the bits that won't go away because I just can't sort them into a neat space in my head.

In 2006, one of my cousins and her spouse, in their twenties and expecting a baby, were tortured and murdered for the entertainment of a serial killer let out of prison through a bureaucratic mistake of the Michigan Penitentiary System.

I'm from two huge families, with so many aunts, uncles, cousins, second cousins twice-removed, that I really couldn't call all of them by name until well into my college years. One of my sons, upon first reading "Ping the Duck," whose adventures start with counting practice ("Ping waddled off the boat, with cousin one, two, three"), asked--can you name all your cousins, mom? I got to over two-hundred and had to quit. Having lived here and there, away from the family farm community, there were too many new babies, marriages; a few deaths and divorces, to easily arrive at an exact number.

It was at my parent's kitchen table that dozens of first, second, third cousins plopped down to try a bit of mom's cake from the latest Southern Living issue, or to ask Daddy how to fence an uneven field's ridge. My mother's philosophy of child-rearing, particularly with boys, was Get out of the house and don't come back--unless your hurt, hungry, or it's dark. With thousands of acres to troll for fish, skipping stones, woods and streams to find imaginary monsters--our house was the place to "be." As a result, most holidays from the Fourth of July to Christmas, brought any combination of tens to hundreds of souls to the dining room table or the front lawn.

Yet, with all those people, conversations often turned to who wasn't there. Not so much gossip about what they were doing instead, although that was part of it--it was a farm, after all, but primarily to say, "Wouldn't so-and-so have enjoyed this cake? Now wouldn't their little one adore these fireworks? What would so-and-so say about the storm that fell that enormous tree last night?" A large family, with long memories, meant those deceased or in a more tangible elsewhere, were always called upon for opinions. No matter how many characters showed up to sit at the dinner table, there were ghosts and travelers about us in spirit, with remembered delights, short-comings, and opinions.

This is, maybe, the only file I can put a random killing into. I miss Melissa. She's forever caught in my mind as a small, nervous flower girl in new, white patent shoes, and lovely in her misery at our cousin Karen's wedding. I miss Scott. When my baby was sobbing, over-stimulated by the close crowd gathered for a cold Thanksgiving Dinner, he gently offered to carry him away. He walked for hours, away from the crowd, back-and-forth, quieting and shushing.

I wonder what the two of them would have taught my children. How blue their baby's eyes would have been. Would there have been a golden July evening, somewhere near the 4th, when our children would have played together on my parent's front lawn as night fell on acres of lush new corn and lightning bugs winking in the shadows?

There will be many moments of random. This is life: the good and the bad. The expected, and not so. There is precious little time to gather those we love. To say to one another,
Who is missing?
Who is here?
To revel in each others' lives. To know, we fill seats that no one can take away.

J: Joy

noreply@blogger.com (lora) — Wed, 22 Jun 2011 20:27:00 +0000

Today, it was damp and overcast outside. The sort of summer day when you jump in the pool two minutes before the lifeguard says, "EVERYBODY OUT." For a while, I tried assigning chores, so mommy could work. But the dog threw up, one little boy needed a popsicle, and the other knocked a freshly potted plant into the open washing machine full of clean clothes. I could feel the storm coming.

Insert
J--O--Y,
in the form of a $3.00 CAP BOMB (with refills, of course).

Despite the risk

and covered ears

Before I knew it, the boys were reading "pyrotechnic composition consist of Potassium Chlorate, Red Phosphorous, Manganese Dioxide, Magnesium Oxide, Sand, and Glue," while laughing. I'm still not sure why that's funny, but just one of these

got this shot.

J: Journal Jar

noreply@blogger.com (lora) — Mon, 20 Jun 2011 14:19:00 +0000

A lovely friend, a female business executive with a newly created family and businessES! to launch, brought each of the ladies in a small group I'm a member of, an unusual gift for Christmas last year.

"High Functioning Women" only meets once a month. One of the best things that happens when our group comes together is that we remind each other to take care of ourselves. We don't have a real group name, the one above is just the most often bandied about. It's half reality and half inside joke. We cheer each other, but we also let our hair down and laugh about pantyhose, Lady Gaga, and Botox considerations.

Truth is, aside from being female, we're quite different. We don't belong to the same political parties, we work in diverse industries. Some of us have young children, some no children, one is a grandmother and another is sending her first to college this fall. We are tiny, plush, light, dark, loud, and quiet. We don't talk much about the partners, spouses, parents, grandparents, co-workers, or staff we are connected to. We laugh about the hundred things we marked off the day's To Do List, while not realizing until five o'clock we'd forgotten to comb the back of our hair.

We can see the trenches in each others eyes.

So, this jelly-size jar full of colored slips of paper isn't just a "Journal Jar," but a reminder from ladies I know are cheering me on from afar each day, same as I'm rooting for them. The instructions read "WRITE, THINK, PONDER" the message revealed when a colored slip of paper is unfolded. Things like...

I wish there were no more...
What's the dumbest thing you ever did?
How do you express love to other people?
As quickly as you can, write 100 words to describe yourself.
What have you forgotten until right now?
Describe your first kiss.
What's the riskiest thing you ever did?
What is your earliest memory?
I wish I could see...because...
What answers are you seeking in life?

Some of these are the stuff of Oprah nightmares. The things you've never want an interviewer to ask because you know you'd end up blubbering like an idiot for all the world to see. Sometimes I stuff the day's selection down deep in the jar and choose another.

It's been a fun, cheesy, and sometimes useful gift. The best part of it is that I have a whole group of women I can call up and say, "Okay, seriously, have you written something down about your first kiss?" Then admit, I skipped to writing about the first good one. "Okay, you, first."

Daddy Says

noreply@blogger.com (lora) — Fri, 17 Jun 2011 15:34:00 +0000

My father and I don't always see eye to eye on politics, religion, or salty versus sweet. Still, I'm grateful to have been raised by a farmer. At 79yrs, Dad oversees thousands of acres, is up before dawn each day, and spends just a few nights a year working around the clock to rake hay or fill a silo. He calls this retirement. He's raised 5 children, and has 11 grand children and 2 great-grandchildren. Had hundreds of employees over the years, and won an engineering award for the storage & application of cow manure on crops. When my mother isn't looking, he eats a plate of Bob White syrup, lapped up with white bread, for breakfast. The VA docs tell him he's as healthy as an 18yr old. This gives him cause to keep the stash of Little Debbie's and Red Man in the truck my mother won't ride in. I thought I'd pass along a few of his reminders before this Father's Day weekend:

Get out of the house.

Not quite what Dad meant, still trying to pass this one on to my children.

There is not one thing in nature that's just like anything else.You're part of nature.
Pull your friend's cars out of ditches. Run the cows out of their corn at 3am. Help fix their roof after a storm.
Beware people who polish their stuff too much.
Watch what men do.
If you can't be happy alone, you'll never be good company.
Look for the guy who can have anything, but drives an old truck.

Spend your time on people you believe in.
That's their news. It isn't mine.
Buy land, but don't ever think you own it.

Fall in Centennial Park, Nashville

Look more at the trees, the sky, and water than at the things in store windows.
Laugh.
When you get too big for your britches, and you will--pray your friends and family love you enough to kick you in the seat of the pants.
Don't want more than you can handle.
Most people will tie a racehorse to a plow.
Sometimes, the smartest guy in the room is the one who has made the most mistakes.
Spend your love on people who believe in you.
Watch out for people who are quick to agree. Their opinions aren't worth spit.
Don't let anyone tell you God lives in a building.

Daniel Boone National Forest, October, 2010

Whenever possible, turn on your lights, pull over, and bow your head when you meet a funeral procession on the road.
Learn how to fix things.
A man who knows how to fix things, also knows when things aren't worth fixing.
There will always be someone who has more than you. There will always be someone who has less. You're no more or less valuable than either.
Sing if you feel like singing.
Never trust a man who'll whip a dog into submission.
A person who makes something is beautiful on the inside.
Rotate your crops.
When you work for someone else, you give them part of you. Make sure you don't let them keep it.
Respect people with dirt under their nails.
One baby calf knows another. Watch how they play.

from The Seventy-Four Ranch

Banks will give you money when you don't need it. Consider yourself a success if you don't need them.
Stay away from the word charity. It hurts the giver and the receiver. It takes pride from those that don't have and gives too much to those who already have enough.
If I can't wear my coveralls, they don't really want ME there.
Some think mustard grows on land that's useless, but I see all the yellow flowers and wonder, how is that useless?