Pawpaw Ponders How to Construct a Good Excuse : Some Good Ole Boy Wisdom

“We are all manufacturers. Making goods, making trouble, or making excuses.”(H. V. Adolt)

“Excuses, excuses, you'll hear them every day.” (Kingsmen song lyrics)

“Leaders sometimes lie and they lie for good reasons. I tried to make the case [in my book, Why Leaders Lie] that although instinctively all of us believe lying is a bad thing that's not always the case. ...” (John Mearsheimer, Political Science Professor and Author) I glad to learn its now approved, because we all can think of times when lying (an excuse) might have helped. I am married. I have children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. I am active in a social group. So, the number of people authorized to find fault with me has always been big enough to keep me creative with my excuses. I'm glad someone has finally seen the good side of excuses (lying).

So, if the occasion should present itself where a lie (excuse) is needed, then you need to know how to produce a good one. I'm going to use some good ole pawpaw wisdom to teach you how to produce good excuses and avoid the bad ones.

1. A guilty dog barks the loudest

This points out the number one characteristic of a good excuse: “Don't oversell it.” What happens when the husband arrives home very late and start speaking like this “Unexpected business call …...resulting in me having to …. so I did not get out before …...I got assigned....”. All the time ranting and raving about how unfair you are being treated. That gets you out of the frying pan into the fire faster than dark flees light. You have a reputation as truthful, or you don't, so “I had to work late.” works are nothing does.

2. You can catch more files with honey than with vinegar

Don't get mad. It maybe an accepted principle that if you are not upset by being accused then you are guilty. That is false. Someone who has done nothing wrong has no reason to feel defensive.

3. Every dog has fleas.

Admit you are not always perfect, but this time you're innocent. Admit that occasionally you just need time with the “guys”. When you admit to a less offensive act, the person feels the lie has been found out, so they are satisfied. This also helps establish an excuse for the next time.

4. If brains were leather, he wouldn’t have enough to saddle a junebug.

Act dumb. Insignificant actions of the day are not remembered in detail, so lies should not involve details. Consider the following conversation. “Why didn't you call and let me know?” asks the wife. The husband responds, “My cell phone battery was dead.” Wife asks, “Couldn't you have used the house phone, or your friend's phone?” Remember, the more facts you give the more facts that can be checked out.

5. Keep her as happy as a tick on a fat dog

Earn her good graces before you need them. Buy her flowers when she knows you have none nothing wrong. I know, these times are far between, so don't let a opportunity pass you by.

6. You can't make a silk purse out of a sows ear

Be yourself. Don't make excuses that don't ring true to who you are. Don't say you stopped to fix a tire for an old couple broken down on the road, if you have never lent a hand to another stranger.

7. Even a blind hog finds an acorn every now and then

You might get away once or twice, but remember we all have “tells”. Remember, if you wife knows you so that she can finish you sentences, she knows your “tells”. The more excuses you make, the more likely you are to get caught.

8. Excuses are like backsides. Everybody’s got one and they all stink.

Don't do thing that you are ashamed to get credited to your account. Be sure you lies will find you out.

Core Values: A Winsome Look At Our Silent Puppet Masters

Be careful of your thoughts, for they produce your words. Be careful of your words, for they will be backed up by actions. Be careful of your actions, least they become habits. Be careful of your habits, for they built your character. Be careful of your character, for it is you. This is good, but where do we get the thoughts that turn into words? I've pondered this for some time. I hope this pondering here helps you to understand the answer to this question.

I have a tendency to engage by mouth before my brain is fully functioning. Well, honestly, that is not true. What is true is that I believe that honestly is the best policy. I believe that one of the biggest signs of maturity is the ability to take the truth without having to have it flavored or mixed with sugar. These are two of my core values. Although, the result of having them is that I have fewer “friends?” and that I make people mad at me, I just can't see why I should change. It matters not how much they impact me socially. It mattes not how many times my wife reminds me to mind my manners. I keep on being me. I value maturity over social acceptance. I think they should grow up. The idea that I should accommodate their immaturity conflicts with how much I value maturity. So, I become a social outcast for the sake of my core values which I can't even explain how I came to process.

Our core values are what we live by. Our core values are what we cherish. They are the unseen puppet masters of our lives. Our core values are the principles that we truly value above all else, that is why we call them core values. Let me give you a couple of examples to help see how they affect our behavior.

While serving as a group leader, I was forced to confront one of my values, beliefs, I had been taught for years in my church. I had supported this belief and encouraged this belief. I had taught this belief and the reasons for it. I thought it was mine, but I learned it was not.

It happened on a Saturday morning one summer. I was the leader of a group of men and boys who had spent the previous day fishing only to catch as near to nothing as you can. So, the group decided to go swimming in a nearby river.

While I did not condone mixed bathing, it seemed OK since this was an all male group. Being relatively new to the area, I did not know the location we were going. I was bought up swimming in a local rivers and creeks. It never occurred to me that there might be females. I did not know that this place was a large public swimming and camping site.

I did not discover this until we arrived and the boys had jumped out and were running towards the water and all those scantily clad females. What was I to do? I knew what “hell would be paid” if I forced the men and boys back into vehicles. But, if I really believed mixed bathing was such a soul destroying thing, I had no chose but to do exactly that. Of course, I did not. What a surprise. I learned what one of my core value was not and learned that I had one I was not aware that I had.

My wife and her sister where raised in the same household, with the same parents. I say that in case you are young and not use to the time when this was the normal home lifestyle. Despite the uniform upbringing, my wife got into more trouble than her sister because she could not keep quite. And, because she thought that some things were worth getting into trouble over. She did disobey, but she did it fully understanding the risk-reward possibilities. Her sister on the other hand, willingly conform her conduct to that expected or managed someway to get her sister to receive the blame. These two people obviously valued the principle “Do what keeps you out of trouble.” differently. One obviously valued the principle “At all cost, don't get caught.” a lot more than she valued the principle “Don't lie.” Maybe more than she valued her sister.

Even though they had the same upbringing. The same rules where enforced for each. Yet, they had different core values. “Curious things, habits. People themselves never knew they had them.”¹ The same can often be said of our core values. They seem to be populated automatically for us like spell check in auto-correct mode. They are learned, often without us even realizing it.

Just as the child learns to talk by interacting with others, it also learns many of its core values by its interactions with others. This is confirmed by observing that a child knows when it is loved. It does not have to be told, in fact, saying it a million times will not convince the child of something contrary to what it knows from observation and interaction. The child has learned what love it and that it is either to be treasured or devalued by interacting with its surrounding. So, we acquire our core values. Our puppet masters.

Dogs Against Romney Website

If being entitled to fifteen minutes of fame is everyone's right. My life up until now has consisted of a few thirty-second spots gained by writing letters to the editor of our regional paper. As do many, I yearn for more exposure. However, none seek more fame or fortune than the website developer of Dogs Against Romney.com.

A political columnist in a regional paper reported about the creation of this site by Scott Crider. According to the article, Mr. Crider, a marketing consultant who specializes in social media, while cruising the internet found an article describing an event that was observed and reported in an article in the Boston Globe. Sound like hearsay of hearsay of what someone else might have seen. It gets worse when you hear when the event occurred.

Reportedly in 1982, Mr. Romney, his wife and five boys were traveling by car on vacation to Canada. Their rather large dog was cared on top of the car in a cage to which Romney had built a windshield. At some point during the trip, the boys noticed some brownish stuff sliding down the rear window and alerted Romney.

Finding a gas station where water was provided, Romney preceded to wash the dog and the car using a water hose. Crider saw these actions as a very “cold-blooded thing to do”. What did he do in response? Mr. Crider created a website extolling human treatment of our critters. No, he created one on which he “exploits” the event for profit by selling T-shirts and other items. The article reported that T-shirt sales on the website were skyrocketing. If, as quoted, Mr. Crider is so repulsed by the treatment received by some “critter”, then I assume the money from the sale of the items on his website must go to animal rights organizations. However, I could find nothing on the website that indicates that any of the money goes to help anyone, but his employees and himself. And, maybe the Democratic Party.

Notwithstanding, his entrepreneurial ability reminds me of what Mitch Romney did when he saved the Olympic Games by using the same skills that helped make him successful to turn a financial failure into a successful event. It is these types of individuals and actions that have made America the envy of the world. I believe both of these men deserve credit for their profit-making skills.

Seriously, what was Romney to do? I'm sure the dog and the family enjoyed the vacation more by taking the dog along than they would had the dog been left behind in a boarding kennel. Truthfully, none of us can probably think of a way to handle the situation faced by Romney any better. (Seriousness is over. I promise.)

The article farther reported that Mr. Crider was “hearing from some high-ranking officials in the Obama campaign” who obviously want to make political hay out of the event. When you take a story that should be published in the Reader's Digest humor section so it can be enjoyed by all and try to make political hay from it, they must think voters are about two sandwiches shy of a picnic.

I'm sure we all can enjoy the humor in this report and also see some reasons to vote for Romney. Here is a man who loves his family, who loves his pets, who can think on his feet, and who knows how to get rid of stinky stuff. I hope we voters know as much.

Scott Crider's vision to see an opportunity for financial gain and his ability to take advantage of it to make money speaks volumes for the opportunities afforded to all by our capitalist economy where bright people can turn ideas into money. I suspect the reporter from the Globe who broke the story wishes he'd seen the opportunity to profit off the event.

Further examining the incident with some wisdom and knowledge about dogs may reveal a true area of concern. Maybe, those not fortunate enough to have been born and raised in the South have never seen a dog in the back of a pickup truck before. All southerners know how much most dogs love the wind in their face, so the only thing that could be wrong in the incident as described would be the construction of the windshield. Did it provide access to fresh air or not? That would be the real concern for the dog.

Those trying to benefit politically from the incident must assume that dogs would prefer to be cooped up in a car with them instead of out in the fresh air. Undoubtedly, dogs prefer fresh air to some of the smelly stuff politicians keep putting out. But, before I get too repulsed by Romney's cold-blooded act of preventing his dog from enjoying the wind in his face, I suppose, I need to investigate the blue prints for the windshield. Maybe, I should also call Mr. Crider to make certain that he is not donating the profits from the website. Or, I could just create a website called PAW, People Against Windshields or Proper Animal Windshields, to try my hand at making money. You ready to buy PAW T-shirts? (You ready to buy anything these particular politicians are putting out? You ready to read more posts by me?)

Blogging Ain't Easy When You Have Old-Timers

The other day I was driving down the road trying not to be bored to death by the routine of driving the same highways over and over and over some more. I've driven  it so much that I could drive them in my sleep. You doubt me. Perchance I have taken poetic license? Well, somewhat. But, one night on my way back from a night class, I awoke on the four lane coming into town and noticed that the night had a beautiful blue glow to it. Of course, the scene was disturbed by the loud yelping sound of the police siren. Luckily he was a student also, and he had a kind heart, so I only got a warning ticket. But, I digress. Which only proved I have titled this blog site correctly.

As I was driving the other day, this humorous, satirical and enlightening series of thoughts occurred to me, not witless, crazy unrelated to good sense thoughts, but those for which I one day hope to be famous. I arranged them into my next article for Yahoo Voices as I was driving home. 

Y'all no the old saying, "Even a blind hog finds an acorn every now and then." Well, I was sure I'd found one.I was somewhat proud of it. Finally, I got home, got the computer up, and got the word processor open only to stare at a plain, blank white virtual sheet of paper. I had forgotten everything, but how great the ideas were. Maybe, its old-timers or maybe God just had mercy and saved the world from one too many witless wanderings, but, for the umpteenth time, I had lost those thoughts that were going to help make me rich.

Having nothing else to do, I set there remembering the way too many times when I lost my thoughts before I could put them down. (How it is that we can remember our failures so much more often than we can remember our successes?) Any, if all the fantastic articles I have written in my head, yes, often when I was suppose to be doing something else, where on paper the internet would be full of my winsome, witless ponderings.

But, what is ever worse than forgetting is remembering, then discovering that once they are on paper they are neither winsome nor witty. That means I have to actually invest some time to produce something that might be entertaining and enlightening to others when my head seems to be empty.

The blue light pathway

Returning to my almost getting a ticket for speeding. It was around midnight. And, the streets where empty. Our city is not quite a sleepy little hamlet. They don't roll the sidewalks up after dark at least on the week-ends.

Pondering on this caused me to wonder why I was stopped when it appeared to me that I was endangering no one, but myself, if I was really doing that. Maybe this had an impact on the officer giving me a warning ticket instead of a money maker.

I was stopped for not obeying a sign. I am neither crazy nor an anarchist. But, a sign? An inanimate object that's dumber that a road lizard is telling me how to drive. A traffic sign are incapable of recognizing that traffic patterns change throughout the day and adjusting to meet the situation. It begs the question, just how many things in our life which have no mental ability at all control us? (Get me some examples of the dumb things that control our lives. They have to be dumber than us now.)

Introduction

I took up writing in my retirement because I have a hankering to inflict my views of the world upon others for fun and profit. You will find in here a random collection of my thoughts on various subjects. If you have a Pawpaw, you know the benefit that come from listening to his ponderings. I hope you enjoy this Pawpaw's ponderings.
I will attempt to generally be winsome and satirical in my writing and thinking.  I will write on political and religious related topics often seriously and more often in a winsome and satirical style. I mean can you really take politics serious and not get sick. Its like bad medicine, it needs to be flavored to make it palatable. So, I will try provide to add some flavor by approaching politics using and winsome and satirical style, when I can. However, Christianity I take very serious while religion is often quite funny.
To be upfront, let me describe myself with a few cliches.
I am a retired teacher who taught mathematics at the local community college. I also taught in a city school system and served as IT Director in a county school system.
I am a born-again, pentecostal Presbyterian christian who is active in church.
I am twice married and once divorced.
I am a pawpaw. I have five children, nine grandchildren and a great-granddaughter.
I am a jack-of-all trades and master-of-none kind of guy. It will show in my writings.
I value logic and common sense in writing, thinking and living.
I also post articles on Yahoo Voices. To get an idea of what will becoming here you can check out what available at Yahoo Voices. The subjects main be the same, but I hope the look at them here will be shorter, and will seek to generate a discussion.  Cut and paste this in the address bar of you browser. http://voices.yahoo.com/you-cant-fool-santa-claus-11260590.html?cat=9