Simple Rules

I have learned that life is best lived by following a few simple rules.

God transformed twelve tribes of slaves into the nation of Israel by giving them ten simple rules and an asking them time and again, "What part of 'Thou shalt not' do you not understand?"

Today, Benjamin Franklin, arguably one of the most erudite men of his day, is remembered more than anything else, for the simple rules he published in Poor Richard's Almanac.

"A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush."
"A penny saved is a penny earned."
"Waste not time, for it is the substance of life."

My Mom and Dad raised four children using a few simple rules.  Rules like "Don't hit your sister", and "You take care of you, and let (whoever) take care of (whoever)."  And Moms' personal favorite, from the Disney movie Bambi, "If you can't say anything nice, don't say nothing at all."  Dad's favorite seemed to be "Remember, whether you're digging ditches or directing a corporation, it's all food on the table."  For the most part, Mom and Dad lived the rules they taught us each and every day of their lives and today each of us children can justifiably claim to be reasonably responsible and productive adult members of society.

And, like my parents before me, my wife and I raised our family to observe a few simple rules, the most important of which were always stated as

"Rule 1: No fighting.
Rule 2: If a fight breaks out, remember rule 1."


And there were others, like "Always try a 'no thank you' helping," and "Take all that you want, but eat all that you take."  And also "If you sign up for a team sport or activity, then you owe it to the team to continue that sport or activity until the end of the season."

Today, I am proud to report that each of my children can also justifiably claim a place as reasonably responsible and productive adults.

In future posts, I may present a few more of the simple rules that have benefited me in their application.  But, in the mean time, I'd like to know, what simple rules have you lived out to make you into the person you are today?

And what other simple rules might make your life better? 

Spring Time Thoughts

Spring Morning:

Haiku in Three Verses

Birdsong greets my day;

many differing voices

reflecting their joy.

Robins sound the note.

Mockingbirds add harmony.

Crows are always bass.

Doves coo the alto,

A woodpecker adds rhythm,

All sounding gladness!

Springtime arrived unannounced this week.  Temperatures, lately mired in the chill of February, have suddenly become more typical of late May.  Trees, bare and naked a week ago, are now clothed in pink, yellow, and white blossoms.  Birdsong has returned to early morning, and yellow dandelions to my lawn.

You would think that after more than sixty-six years I would have learned to expect the annual change and that springtime would somehow become routine and familiar.  I am pleased to report it has not.  To me, each spring and each spring day is entirely new and full of promise.  More than any other time of the year, in the early spring I find myself greeting each morning with heightened expectation. 

What new thing will I discover today? What sights? What sounds? What smells? What touches? What tastes?

What new wonder will I discover? What old wonder will I become reacquainted with? 

All are welcome.

Spring is about newness of life and newness of spirit.  I am renewed with each spring morning.

How will you make your life new this spring?

How will you renew your spirit? 

On Birthday Presents

I remember the day I turned four years old.  After I got up and went downstairs, I was presented with a green and yellow box.  When I opened it, I found a small cast iron John Deere tractor, just like Dad's.  Over the years that followed, the little tractor and I plowed a lot of fields and hauled a lot of wagon loads of hay.  We even spread lots of sawdust on our fields with a tiny manure spreader.  When you're four years old, and you're doing what you admire seeing your Daddy do, you're in heaven.  

I still have the little John Deere somewhere.  The paint is faded and rubbed off allowing the gray iron to show through. The hard rubber back wheels no longer stand straight, having worn on their axle.  And the exhaust stack may be bent, but the farmer in his straw hat still sits proudly in the seat, ready to plow another round on the south forty.  The little tractor remains among my most precious possessions, proving the truth of the slogan "Nothing works like a Deere!.

The following year, when I was five, I got a gold-colored cap pistol with ruby red grips. That year, I began riding the range with Gene Autry and Roy Rogers, the Lone Ranger, and Sergeant Preston of the Yukon, radio cowboys of the early 1950s.  

Of the birthday presents I have received since then, most have been forgotten, with one notable exception. 

On the thirty-fifth anniversary of my natal day, my wife presented me with our fourth child, a nine pound two-and-one-half ounce daughter. I got to carry her from the delivery room to the newborn nursery, a short walk during which we shared the secrets of the world. Since that day, she has made me very proud to be her dad.  Sharing my birthday with her is one of the proudest things I get to do.

So, Happy Birthday Alicia, and many, many more. Have fun learning to be your new age.  You are and will always be the best birthday present your mom gave me. Ice cream will be consumed in your honor.

Which special birthday presents do you remember?

What made them special?

Another Milestone

On Thursday morning, I showed up for a meeting/video conference that I had been requested to attend.  I was therefore surprised to be called out and presented a certificate of recognition for 30 years of continued employment at my company.  Apart from the certificate there was no other reason for me to be there.  


You could have knocked me over with a feather. The certificate reads "In recognition of thirty years of dedicated service."  Who would think that seeing those words on paper beneath my name could mean so much?


It doesn't seem like 30 years.  It doesn't feel like 30 years.  For many, thirty years is more than half a life-time.  When I started, the thought of staying on for thirty years was not even a small part of my calculations.  And yet, here I am, thirty years later, unsure whether to treat this particular milestone as a valedictory and look back or as a salutatory and focus forward. 


I will definitely avail myself of the opportunity to look back.  I learned some very important personal and professional life lessons from some very important people over the last thirty years. Some are no longer with us.  Others, I continue to work with every day.  I am grateful for all of them.  


That said, I plan to keep my focus forward.  Since hearing of the award, many have wished me at least thirty years more.  Thank you.  I appreciate your friendship and the vote of confidence, but thirty years more is probably not going to happen.  What I can tell you is that outside, the sun is shining brightly.  Inside I am feeling exceptionally free and contented; I am excited to have achieved this milestone and eager to take on whatever comes next. With friends such as I have, whatever comes next will be an adventure.


It is written somewhere that if you “Sow a thought, you reap an act; Sow an act, and you reap a habit; Sow a habit, and you reap a character; Sow a character, and you reap a destiny.”


Looking back over the past thirty years, I realize the truth of those words.  


What thoughts are you sowing today?


What destiny will you reap in thirty years?


Thirty years.  Who would have thunk it?

The Princess and the Helicopter Pilot

"Living Every Girl's Dream,

She Married a Helicopter Pilot!"

As a helicopter pilot, I chuckled when I first saw the caption above. In keeping with the Cinderella quality of the Royal Wedding, it should have read "She Married a Prince". Except, I know from personal experience that being a helicopter pilot makes one more princely than any prince.

In the photo, the girl has married a prince who also happens to be a helicopter pilot. In a strange twist of fate, I happen to be a helicopter pilot who married a princess.      

I was not always a helicopter pilot.  I was first a farm boy, then a machinist, then a student, and finally an artilleryman and flight student before pinning on the wings that entitle me to call myself a helicopter pilot.  It took a very nasty war in a semi-exotic place to teach me what being a helicopter pilot really meant.

My wife, on the other hand, has always been a princess. She was a princess when we met, a princess during the time we dated and a princess when we married, long before I ever considered being a helicopter pilot. She remains a princess to this day, as do our two daughters.  It is in part because my wife is a princess that I was able to become a helicopter pilot and all of the other things I have become through the years. 

I have a thing for princesses. Princesses are special.   Princesses are warm and caring.  Princesses are strong and determined. Princesses are fiercely loyal.  Princesses speak with special authority.  And, because of who they are, princesses are worthy of special respect and deference.  

Being married to a princess, demonstrating the special loyalty, care and respect to which a princess is entitled is a high calling.  Lived out, such a calling has been shown able to transform many a lowly commoner, even a helicopter pilot into a prince.  

Everyone knows that princes and princesses are to live happily ever after. And to live happily ever after as a prince is almost as good or maybe even better than to be a helicopter pilot.

What are you doing to live happily ever after?

    

Have a "Nice" Day!

Some years ago, a TV commercial for a national motel chain featured a blonde receptionist in a hot pink sweater and flirty eyelashes brightly telling a customer "I'm sorry. We have no record of your reservation and no vacancies. Have a nice day!"

"Have a nice day!"

"Have a wonderful day!?

At Walt Disney's Magic Kingdom, the wish is "Have a magical day!"

How many times have you been wished "a nice day" or "a wonderful day" or "a magical day"?

Sometimes, the wish is so far from the current reality as to be meaningless.  Sometimes, like the unfortunate traveler before the blonde desk clerk, our days are less than magical, less than nice, and less than wonderful.  In such cases, the wish to have a nice or wonderful or magical day is at best an ironic and at worst an insensitive dismissal.

Suppose, rather than merely wishing that someone have a nice day, we did something to make that person's day nice?

Suppose, rather than merely wishing someone have a wonderful day, we did something to make that person's day wonderful?

Suppose, rather than merely wishing someone have a magical day, we did something to make that person's day magical?

Supposed we backed up our good wishes with actions to make them true?

Suppose, when we received these wishes we took it as a command to go out and make the day we having magical, wonderful, and nice?

Are you up to the challenge?

Whose day will you help make more wonderful, magical, and nice?

What actions will you take to have a wonderful day?

Your Valentine

This coming week people throughout our nation will celebrate Valentine's day by sending cards, giving gifts of candy and flowers, and indulging in romantic dinners and other events. In our modern celebration we forget that February 14 is the feast day of a saint, St. Valentine.

St. Valentine? Who was he anyway? How did his name get attached to our celebration?

Little definite is known about St. Valentine. Historians are hard pressed to agree who he was or even in which century he lived.  According to one Church legend, Valentine, or Valentinus, was Roman priest during the reign of the emperor Claudius Gothicus. He was arrested and imprisoned for marrying Christian couples at a time when aiding Christians was considered a crime. Claudius took a liking to this prisoner – until he tried to convert the Emperor – whereupon he was swiftly condemned to death. After beatings with clubs and stoning failed to kill him, Valentine was beheaded outside the Flaminian Gate and buried beside the Flaminian Way.  According to one legend, before his head was cut off, he healed the sight and hearing of his jailer's daughter. According to another, before being executed, he wrote notes of love and encouragement urging his congregation and friends to stand firm in the face of persecution and signing them "from your Valentine".

From those notes comes our custom of sending Valentines Cards on February 14, the traditional feast day of the saint.  Such is the stuff of legend.

Today, more than a celebration of sacrificial love and affection exhibited by the saint, Valentine's Day has become a celebration of romance and a product of intense advertising by the greeting card, chocolate, and florist industries. The price of roses is escalating.  Bottles of champagne are flying off the shelves.  Ads for "romantic getaways" at some resort or another fill the mailbox. Sentimental cards decorated in shades of red and pink are being mailed, and large red heart-shaped boxes of chocolates have assumed a prominent place in the local markets. 


Today, cards ask the recipient to "Be my Valentine" rather than offering to be theirs, the flowers, candy and romantic getaways seeking to secure rather than to express one's affection for and encouragement of another.  


This year, I plan to return Valentine's day to the spirit of St. Valentine.  This year, I plan to offer messages and acts of love and encouragement to those who are close to me.  This year, I plan be rather than to send a Valentine.


Will you join me? 


Will you be an encouraging spirit for someone?


Who will that someone be?