Old Oak Doors

"Keep looking up! I learn from the past, dream about the future and look up. There's nothing like a beautiful sunset to end a healthy day." - Rachel Boston

In a book I wrote a few years back was a chapter named "Choice at the Crossroads" which talked about my early years growing up. These early years of our lives tend to form the first you and who you will become. These early years will cement much of who you are.

Each of us have to learn where we came from in order to better understand who we are today. With that knowledge, we can better make choices that will allow us to change. And it was during those formative years I developed a ‘good son’ mentality.

Do what was told of you.

Do it to your best and then do it even better. Being raised on a farm in eastern Nebraska allowed one to work hard as well. It was not always easy, but there are no complaints from me though.

My father had a depression era view of many things. Save as much money as you can, reuse as much as you can and old stuff can be considered new if you are seeing it for the first time. Take old oak doors for instance, old heavy ones you rarely find these days.

There can be many uses for these doors if you put your mind to good use. On our small farm we raised hogs; the kind which end up in the grocery store and on your dinner table. If you read storybooks of pigs, they are cute and seemingly very sweet.

To raise them is a different story and is a lot of work.

There are days which require you to separate the hogs, some for fattening and others for market. The process can be quite challenging and it was the oak doors we used for that purpose. An oak door with door knobs intact makes a great way to separate hogs. You hang onto the door handle in order to maneuver the door into place where you need it.

These doors are also quite heavy for a young boy who did not have the physique of a football player.

We would find these doors at the old trash dump near our farm. This dump was a ravine, back again during times before much stricter regulations. Most times we returned with more then we took. This is the ‘new stuff’ I referred to earlier.

My father had a great eye for things that could potentially be used on our farm. He could spot an old oak door from many yards away. One such day he found an old oak door laying halfway down the ravine. All we had to do was climb down, attach a rope and pull it back up.

I was the available son and was instructed to ensure I tied the rope to it securely.

So down I went....

What are those things stuck in your mind which form who you are today?

At the time, many years ago, climbing down into that ravine to fetch an old oak door, I am sure I wasn't thinking of tomorrow. My best guess is that I wondered if I was going to make it back up the pile. And if I lost the door on the way, would I make it once I did get back to the top of the ravine.

We each take these pieces of our memories, our experiences and stitch them into who we are. We learn from those experiences and grow from them. Open the old oak doors of your past to reveal who you are.

Only then will you be able to understand.

Stay inspired my friends.

Atomic Bomb Fears

“You don't drown by falling in the water; you drown by staying there.”
― Edwin Louis Cole

In 1946, the United States conducted the first two tests nuclear bomb tests conducted after the WW-II bombs denoted over Japan. These tests were called Operation Crossroads and occurred at the Bikini Atoll string of islands.

The first, named Able, occurred on July 1 and was detonated from an altitude of 520 ft. The second, shown here called Baker, was detonated at a depth of 90 ft underwater on July 25. Many, many more tests would occur but the awesome power of destruction man can unleash upon ourselves was now a part of our lives.

Fear of no tomorrow had begun.

As the years followed, many thought the world was near an end. Parents worried, children practiced ducking under their school desks and politicians pounded many a podium. There was a race to complete destruction of all human life as many worried.

Yet we have continued to survive and continue on with life.

Parents were able to raise their children. Children came out from under their desks, growing up to carry on full and productive lives. And the politicians continued to pound many a podium. The race to our destruction was just life passing through another period of man.

Many more events occurred previous to this and since. As humans we have found a way to get through the worry and fear of each event. We have survived and will survive today's event and many future events.

Tomorrow had come and will come again.

Yet we must not be paralyzed by fear of what is or what may come. William White wrote, "I am not afraid of tomorrow, for I have seen yesterday and I love today." We can not allow fear to stifle this beautiful thing we call life.

We must live.

And we must stay inspired my friends!

Stronger Than All Obstacles

“The dance between darkness and light will always remain, the stars and the moon will always need the darkness to be seen, the darkness will just not be worth having without the moon and the stars.” ― C. JoyBell C.

When just short of two years old, this child fell ill and it took from her both sight and hearing. There were many people who wrongly attached the stigma of being dumb when faced with this blind and deaf child. It was said that being unable to see or hear the speech of others, a child could not learn.

Despite these challenges, this child grew up to become

... a college graduate.
... a public speaker.
... the author of several books.

The accomplishments of this child, this woman, were not entirely accomplished by self alone. There were other people that believed in her as well. But if she had not worked with all her ability to respond to the efforts of her teacher and those other people, this woman would not have reached all of those great accomplishments.

The woman that I speak of is of course Helen Keller.

She is quoted as saying, "the most important day I remember in all my life is the one on which my teacher, Anne Mansfield Sullivan, came to me. I am filled with wonder when I consider the immeasurable contrast between the two lives which it connects. It was the third of March; 1887, three months before I was seven years old."

Helen gave an example of what she experienced by saying, "Have you ever been at sea in a dense fog, when it seemed as if a tangible white darkness shut you in, and the great ship, tense and anxious, groped her way toward the shore with plummet and sounding-line, and you waited with beating heart for something to happen? I was like that ship before my education began, only I was without compass or sounding-line, and had no way of knowing how near the harbour was. "Light! give me light!" was the wordless cry of my soul, and the light of love shone on me in that very hour."

Achieving with small steps of progress, slowly finding your way down a path of experience is a wonderful thing.

In her accomplishments, Helen Keller goes on to say, "No deaf child who has earnestly tried to speak the words which he has never heard--to come out of the prison of silence, where no tone of love, on song of bird, no strain of music ever pierces the stillness--can forget the thrill of surprise, the joy of discovery which came over him when he uttered his first word. It is an unspeakable boon to me to be able to speak in winged words that need no interpretation. As I talked, happy thoughts fluttered up out of my words that might perhaps have struggled in vain to escape my fingers. "My little sister will understand me now," was a thought stronger than all obstacles."

Achievement is possible in many forms with persistence towards that end.

For Helen Keller, it could be said it was if Isaiah's prophecy had been fulfilled in her. And each of us will experience this same feeling in which "the mountains and the hills shall break forth before you into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands!"

Experience the wonder of achievement by never allowing darkness to win.

Your life is worth every tone of love, song of a bird and stronger than any obstacle.

Stay inspired my friends.

Live As Though Alive

"Thoughts are like an open ocean, they can either move you forward within its waves, or sink you under deep into its abyss." ― Anthony Liccione

I found and read this story written by Francie Baltazar-Schwartz titled "ATTITUDE IS EVERYTHING" some time ago. The story provides a perspective regarding the idea of taking only a positive view of life. There is a possibility you will learn a lesson from it and change your view on life as well.

Jerry was the kind of guy you love to hate. He was always in a good mood and always had something positive to say. When someone would ask him how he was doing, he would reply, "If I were any better, I would be twins!"

He was a unique manager because he had several waiters who had followed him around from restaurant to restaurant. The reason the waiters followed Jerry was because of his attitude. He was a natural motivator. If an employee was having a bad day, Jerry was there telling the employee how to look on the positive side of the situation.

Seeing this style really made me curious, so one day I went up to Jerry and asked him, "I don't get it! You can't be a positive person all of the time. How do you do it?"

Jerry replied, "Each morning I wake up and say to myself, Jerry, you have two choices today. You can choose to be in a good mood or you can choose to be in a bad mood.' I choose to be in a good mood. Each time something bad happens, I can choose to be a victim or I can choose to learn from it. I choose to learn from it. Every time someone comes to me complaining, I can choose to accept their complaining or I can point out the positive side of life. I choose the positive side of life."

"Yeah, right, it's not that easy," I protested.

"Yes it is," Jerry said. "Life is all about choices. When you cut away all the junk, every situation is a choice. You choose how you react to situations. You choose how people will affect your mood. You choose to be in a good or bad mood. The bottom line: It's your choice how you live life."

I reflected on what Jerry said. Soon thereafter, I left the restaurant industry to start my own business. We lost touch, but I often thought about him when I made a choice about life instead of reacting to it.

Several years later, I heard that Jerry did something you are never supposed to do in a restaurant business: he left the back door open one morning and was held up at gunpoint by three armed robbers.

While trying to open the safe, his hand, shaking from nervousness, slipped off the combination. The robbers panicked and shot him. Luckily, Jerry was found relatively quickly and rushed to the local trauma center.

After 18 hours of surgery and weeks of intensive care, Jerry was released from the hospital with fragments of the bullets still in his body.

I saw Jerry about six months after the accident. When I asked him how he was, he replied, "If I were any better, I'd be twins. Wanna see my scars?"

I declined to see his wounds, but did ask him what had gone through his mind as the robbery took place.

"The first thing that went through my mind was that I should have locked the back door," Jerry replied. "Then, as I lay on the floor, I remembered that I had two choices: I could choose to live, or I could choose to die. I chose to live."

"Weren't you scared? Did you lose consciousness?" I asked.

Jerry continued, "The paramedics were great. They kept telling me I was going to be fine. But when they wheeled me into the emergency room and I saw the expressions on the faces of the doctors and nurses, I got really scared. In their eyes, I read, 'He's a dead man.' I knew I needed to take action."

"What did you do?" I asked.

"Well, there was a big, burly nurse shouting questions at me," said Jerry. "She asked if I was allergic to anything. 'Yes,' I replied. The doctors and nurses stopped working as they waited for my reply. I took a deep breath and yelled, 'Bullets!' Over their laughter, I told them, "I am choosing to live. Operate on me as if I am alive, not dead."

Jerry lived thanks to the skill of his doctors, but also because of his amazing attitude. I learned from him that every day we have the choice to live fully.

Attitude, after all, is everything.

Begin thinking of your life as if you are alive, not dead.

Choose the laughter and live your life to its greatest potential. After all, attitude is everything.

Stay inspired my friends.