Walk In The Park

"Reality is hard. It is no walk in the park, this thing called Life." ~ Patty Duke

Most of my days are spent working and not taking much time off from that work. It is a habit instilled in me from my days growing up on a farm in eastern Nebraska. At sun up before school, the chores had to be completed summer or winter. After school, after basketball practice or homework, the chores were to be done. All of this seven days a week, every day of the year.

When I went off to college, I had thought I no longer needed that discipline and into my second year of college that lack of discipline failed me. Poor grades and easing off on my own expectations gave me no choice but to leave school. It was then the reality of LIFE hit me hard. Much harder than if I had applied my father's work ethic from those years on the farm.

I was newly married and now a child on the way, no degree and in need of a paying job. It was at this point where I went back to those old learned habits of hard work and perseverance. I would say that opportunity and others taking a risk in me also played a part. So many years, now counting at 38 years which includes a most influential six years at the Nebraska Typewriter Company.

Typewriter repairman?

I say yes these days because to do so is much easier then the real explanation of what opportunity was afforded me by the Beaurivage family. It was these early days in which I applied myself the way my parents had taught me. But I did miss a few things along the way which is why the map is shown above. For many of those years I forgot that one must also take time to relax and enjoy LIFE.

This is not to say there have been no vacations or times of relaxing. What I am saying is that I failed to learn HOW to relax and enjoy. There are reasons for that and you would know of those reasons. Reasons you probably experience and reasons that simply cannot be unexplained in a logical sense. But I am learning and I am trying to figure out how to enjoy the LIFE given to me.

The map shows a part of that learning. It shows a boat ride from a marina to a state park where we spent three days. In earlier times I would have said that is a waste of time, too far and too crazy to take a boat nearly 25 miles. But we did it and what I experienced was the awe of how large this man-made lake is. A lake that hydrates nearly every person in the Atlanta metropolitan area.

Our learning never ends.

It is an experience I could not have had driving the freeway or simply flying over on my way to another meeting. To feel the bump of the waves, the mist of water as it sprayed the air nor the excitement of finding your way. This was my few days of learning how to walk in the park. It was another step at finding ways to enjoy LIFE and all it can offer.

When I reflect upon the path we took on our boat journey, it reminded me of how I had gotten to where I am today. The twists, turns, ending up in the wrong inlet. Having to find my way back and to re-chart a way knowing all I had to do was keep looking, keep moving, and keep enjoying the ride.

And just maybe I am starting to learn how to enjoy a walk in the park.

Stay inspired my friends!

Where Has The Time Gone

"Why do we waste our time worrying about it when we should be using time to enjoy life?"

I have been asked on several occasions, where have you been? You have not written your blog for several months, why not? Have you given up on writing?

My answer is that I have been here all along.

It is correct to say that I have not been writing my blog for quite some time. Neither have I been working on my next book much during this time I've been away being here.

Time passes quickly that is for certain.

I sit here observing nature after a passing rain fall. The leaves are glistening with steam rising from the neighbors roof top with the sweet conversation of my wife filling the air.

These are the places in time to capture in memory.

In the everyday of life, we divide ourselves taking sides that keep many of us, a great nation, a great world, a great gathering of humanity apart.

And time keeps passing us by without a care of its own.

I am sure to keep voicing opinion and trying to leave a legacy that is good and decent for generations to come. It will only be time that knows if what we do in life has been impactful. And when my portion of the clock has passed, the memories I have created for others will have to suffice.

Stay inspired my friends!

My Father - Dad

"It is not flesh and blood but the heart which makes us fathers and sons." - Johann Friedrich von Schiller

Today is celebrated as Father's Day in the United States and in many different countries around the world at various times of the year. A day when we as men can acknowledge that we can be pretty amazing people in the raising, providing for and protecting our families.

As with any population set there will be those who just didn't get the letter or learn how to properly be a man in this world. And there are varying degrees of our effectiveness. On the whole I think we do pretty well with what biology, evolution and what I believe God provided us with.

There is a man that I will miss for the first time this year. My father William "Bill" Primm passed away on February 17 of this year. An 86-year old man who was a son many years ago, a husband for many more and of course a father to seven children.

My article will not say anything new that a child might say of their father. I had my disagreements and my disappointments in him. I know that he had his own disagreements and disappointments in me. But what we had more of are the proud accomplishments, laughter, respect and love of each other.

He grew up in a broken home and raised by an aunt and her husband on a farm in the southeast farm fields of South Dakota. He worked the horses, the fields and also had his share of mischievousness. He worked hard, made it through high school even playing the trumpet in the school band.

He then met Rose Marie Gale, our mother.

There is much to be said about how he accomplished the role of fatherhood and in raising a family. My parents are together in whatever heaven is to them, but while they were with us here in the natural it worked well. I learned so much from my father I can not begin to explain it.

All that I can do was either taught, encouraged or drilled into me with the hope that it would make me a more successful person in life. It did not always sit well with me. Some of it irritated me quite frankly. Yet I can sit here to day and know that much of who I am, what I do, how I accomplish things are due to my father.

My father William "Bill" Primm, or in my own words Dad.

Thank you for the many years. I am very proud to call you my father and love you with all my heart. Just do me a favor and give Mom a hug for me along with John and Patty. Quite possibly gone from my sight but none of you are gone from my heart.

Happy Father's Day to you Dad and to all of you Dad's out there.

Stay inspired my friends!

Memorial Day 2017

"It doesn't take a hero to order men into battle. It takes a hero to be one of those men who goes into battle." - H. Norman Schwarzkopf

It is the young who are sent to fight the battles of old men. To those young men and women we remember their ultimate sacrifice and say thank you.

Stay inspired my friends!