ATTITUDE...YOUR CHOICE

 

ATTITUDE….YOUR CHOCE…

I’m amazed at the attitudes of some of the people in my life. You meet people who are, say, in their 70’s or 80’s and they think and act like they were in their 40’s or 50’s. Then again, you meet people in their 40’s and 50’s who consider themselves old and worn out. I have a couple of friends; one is 85 and the other is 90 that can run circles around most of us. I believe it all has to do with attitude. The ones who are still going at life with lots of zest have a good, positive attitude in spite of all of their troubles over the years. On the other hand, the ones who are ready to throw in the towel, no matter what age are mainly negative thinkers. All of us have troubles, I don’t wish to downplay that point, but it does seem as if some folks are just able to handle life and our struggles better than others. They seem to accept the bad with the good. Sort of like, you need rain, you get mud but you also get flowers type of mentality.



I was at a function not long ago and an old friend of mine and his wife got to talking about attitudes. I told them the story about a lady I spoke with a couple of years ago. Her name is Florene Miller Watson. She was born in 1920. I had been looking through my Dad’s WWII service records and noticed that he had been working for a jewelry store named Millers Jewelry in Odessa, Texas in 1941. I looked up the store on the internet. Mr. Miller had two daughters; one became a pilot before WWII started. Further research showed me that Mrs. Florene Miller Watson was something of celebrity and a lot had been written about her and her flying skills (http://www.brightok.net/~gsimmons/floreledtm) This led me to think that perhaps she knew my Dad and might be able to tell me something new about him. I knew that he had enlisted in the Army Air Corp. before the war broke out and was curious to see if I could find out anything else about him. Maybe her father had influenced my Dad to sign up before the war started.



Further surfing the web, I found an article recently written by a north Texas newspaper about Mrs. Watson. I contacted the reporter and obtained Mrs. Watson’s phone number. I called her and left a message on her recorder and then dialed again an hour or so later. Florene answered the phone and advised that she and her husband had been running some errands. I told her about my Dad and she said that she didn’t remember him but that her sister might. She added that she didn’t go to her father’s store very often since she always wore pants and her father didn’t like her to do so. He felt that wearing pants was not very ‘lady-like’.



I asked her for her address and told her I would send her a photograph of my Dad to see if she might recognize him. She asked if I meant to send it by the SNAIL MAIL, meaning the post office. I told her yes, I did and she asked if I didn’t have a scanner. I told her of course I did and she said…. “Well, just scan it and e-mail it...and I’ll get it to my sister, and we’ll see if we remember him…” You could have knocked me over with a feather…..I don’t think I’ve ever e-mailed anyone nearly 90 years old. I asked her if she still flew airplanes and she told me that she did once someone else had gotten them up in the air and could land them for her. I did as she asked and received several e-mails from her as well as her sister.



This just goes to prove my point that you are only as old as you feel. Here is a woman who is bright as a penny and talked to me for nearly thirty minutes and is keeping up with today’s news and technology. On the other hand, I’ve got friends who gave up on progress years ago and keep living in the past rather than looking towards the future. They can’t turn on a computer much less know how to Zoom someone. The sad thing is they refuse to learn as well. This life of ours is short enough as it is, but in my opinion, we need to think of it as an adventure and a journey not a destination. There are no sure things in life, there are going to be things that break your heart, but we need to move on and keep looking for the better days in the future, not in the past.



I really like this quotation....which is said to have been coined by Mark Twain. If it was, then he had the right idea.



“Dance like no one is watching. Sing like no one is listening. Love like you’ve never been hurt and live like it’s heaven on Earth.”

See you next week…Peary Perry

YEE HAW..OLD CHAP

 

YEE HAW….OLD CHAP….

I am not much of a soccer fan but have gotten a big kick out of the thousands who have traveled across the pond to see the games over these next few weeks.

The mainstream media is not the source for the comments and thoughts on these visitors who are amazed at the reality of our culture. One gets the impression; they have been fed years of lies and misinformation about the true America we live in.

Now, I’m not talking about some of our ‘progressive-liberal’ cities which are mainly anti-American. I’m talking about the rural America where the majority of us live.

Go to Facebook or Twitter (X) or Tik-Toc and see the comments of soccer fans from all over the world as they experience bar-b-que and real (?) Tex-Mex food with jalapeno peppers with a Scofield index of 1,000,000 or more.

Watch as they go into Buc-ees or a HEB grocery store for the first time. You get comments like ‘the bathrooms were so clean, you could eat off the floor’ or ‘we never saw so much food.’

Most of the media seems to focus only the bad on our country, and it is not surprising that foreigners come over here with a pre-conceived idea that we are all drugged up killers living in slums with rotten teeth and lots of guns. The ‘lots of guns’ comments might be correct, but most of the country is a nice place with friendly people. Even if we do have guns.

The media misses the stories of strangers talking to people from other countries or trying to help them with any of their questions of concerns. Some guy named ‘Freddy’ from Germany has nearly a million followers reading his blogs and posts as he travels to New Orleans (why does everyone throw beads?) and then to a Waffle House at 1AM.

A Waffle House at 1AM is something I recommend to everyone to experience before they die. Put this on your bucket list. Be sure and get there before 2AM before the drunks arrive since the atmosphere starts to change once they arrive, sometimes not for the better.

Reading the comments and posts from these folks makes me appreciate just how much freedom we as Americans have as compared to other countries around the world.

If you are amazed at the display of our food in grocery stores or the fact that we wave flags everywhere or that you can speak freely and buy a gun in most parts of the country, then I wonder if those rights aren’t open to you at home?

We are the first to tell you we aren’t perfect and have a long way to go to cure our societal ills but give us credit where it is due. Could an entrepreneur such as Elon Musk achieve his successes in any other country except America?

In countries where class distinction still exists, are individuals with new ideas accepted and encouraged regardless of the family history of the individual? We need to promote individualized thinking for the creations it produces. Our 250 years of history has inventions and discoveries from all races and sexes over the years.

These inventions, ideas and innovations are years ahead of the rest of the world and should be explained to all our children to encourage them to strive to keep what we have that impresses our World Cup visitors…before we lose it.

 

See you next week…Peary

 

 

 

 

 

TAXATION WITHOUT REPRESENTATION

 

TAXATION WITHOUT REPRESENTATION ….

On July 4, 1776, 56 men pledged their lives and fortunes by signing what we now call The Declaration of Independence that started our country on the path to independence from Great Britain.

Had any of these men been caught by the British, they would have been tried as traitors and then executed. This was a serious commitment.

So, we have managed to survive as a nation for 250 years. But I ask you, are we really making any progress to that concept of ‘the pursuit of happiness?’

If I ran any of the companies I had been involved with over my 68-year business career like the federal government does, I would most certainly be broke. Since our federal debt exceeds our gross domestic product by double, in essence we are broke.

For example, you would think those in charge would be astute enough to apply common sense to the departments they manage to eliminate fraud and waste. I suggest to you that a large amount of our government debt is directly attributable to waste and fraud. Wouldn’t you think the head of the Social Security Department would want to know how many people over the age of 105 were still receiving benefits? This cannot nor should be a very long list to review for accuracy.

How many people are listed on our voter rolls more than once? How many people on our voter rolls vote more than once? Isn’t our right to vote one of the basic fundamentals of our nation and our rights as an American? Shouldn’t this be one of the best secured and accurate lists needed to maintain our republic? If it isn’t then how can we consider ourselves anything other than a ‘banana’ republic?

I do not look down on anyone who needs food stamps or any type of assistance. I think we need to be able to support those who cannot help themselves. What I do object to is welfare recipients having multiple accounts and gaming the system for many thousands of dollars a month while laughing at hard working people doing honest labor. Every dollar stolen by fraud and deception is a dollar that could be used to help someone else. Who watches over these accounts and attempts to verify their accuracy?

It appears to me that NGO’s and a lot of charities obtain a government check to perform certain duties and responsibilities without any follow up to see their success or progress towards achieving their intended goals.  ‘Give em’ the money and forget about them seems to be the rule of the day. Who audits these grants and programs on any sort of regular basis?

Here’s my last one and most ridiculous. A CIA officer who had not been vetted for his educational history was allowed to check out over 30 MILLION dollars which he claimed was needed for pay outs concerning his work. Nice job if you can get it, right? I blame this guy’s boss, who should have said… ‘hey, wait a minute, lets look at this withdrawal and see what it is used for and how effective it is’. No, nothing like that happened and the guy was discovered with over 32 million in cash and gold in his house. Guess his defense will be he was just looking for the right party to give it to.

Now to put an end to this rant I want to state that I write letters very often asking these kinds of questions to my elected representatives.

You know what I get? Zip, zero, nada, nothing.

Oh, I often get a sugary form letter saying so and so who really appreciates hearing from one of their constituents. Or I might get a call from some intern/junior clerk telling me how much my letter meant to them.

What I don’t get are any answers to my questions as to why we don’t see major fraud and abuse cases resulting in jail or arrests. When I ask what is the expected outcome of some governmental hearing which can be seen every day on the news like a soap opera or reality show, you get no information from anyone.   

I see sweetheart deals, with reduced or dismissed charges based upon race, sex, gender and or economic considerations, not based upon the right and wrong part of the law.

What I don’t see is a sense of fairness for those of us out here in the heartland of this country who have no friends in high places.

But we still get taxed all the same don’t we?

See you next week…Peary Perry