Turtle Envy

 
          I think that I am suffering from turtle envy.  Perhaps there are (or were as the case may be) times in your life that you have had the same affliction.  Before I get into the particulars of this not so rare condition, I would like to say a few things about our hard-shelled four-footed friends.
          He may move slowly but as that rascally rabbit can attest, he always wins the race.  On top of everything else he brings along his own little fort that he can retreat into at will.  They may look like rocks with arms and legs but they can swim like a fish, well sort of.  And there isn’t just one version.  There are a bunch of different kinds, and some of them live a really long time.
          There was this one Indian Ocean Giant Tortoise that was captured as an adult.  They figured he (I guess it was a he) was about fifty years old.  I have no idea how they could figure that out.  Anyway he/she/it lived another one hundred and fifty two years in captivity.  Now that’s a senior citizen.
          They have been plodding along at their slow but steady pace for about 200 million years.  Did you ever wonder how they figure that stuff out?  Heck, I have trouble figuring out the expiration date on a can of soup.  I want to meet the guy that figured out when the first turtle showed up.  He could answer the age old question, “what came first, the turtle or the egg”.
          Where was I?  Oh yeah, turtle envy….
          Wouldn’t it be nice if when life attacks you from all sides you could just pull your arms and legs and head (if you have one left that hasn’t exploded) inside a nice hard shell and wait it out?  Yeah, that would be great.
          I really envy the turtle.  There must have been some point in time when the critters trying to eat those turtles were successful.  I know that because God made a couple of modifications to the design.  He came up with the Box Turtle.  I really envy that one.  He not only can hide in his shell he has a front door and a back door that he shuts behind himself.
          I guess if you think about it lots of people act like turtles.  They may not have a hard shell to crawl into but they find other ways to “hide out”.  Booze is one way lots of folks hide out.  If you drink enough you forget your troubles for a while.  Not a very long while, but for a little while.  The trouble with that “hide out” is that when you climb back out the situation has probably gotten worse on account of the booze.
          Physical pain is another reason we might want to hide out.  As far as I can tell the only physical pain that brings us joy is the pain of childbirth.  Not that I know much about that.  Even so lots of moms would like to find a less painful way to bring a brand new person into the world.
          Back when our first child was born, before they let the dads into the room while the new arrival was showing up, I sat in the father’s waiting room, well, I was waiting.  I could hear my wife and knew by the sound of it she wasn’t having much fun.  I wasn’t the one in pain but hearing the woman you love in pain makes you want to hide out until it is all over.
          Emotional pain can be even worse than physical pain.  With physical pain you may be able to pull back into your shell by “taking a pill” and away goes the pain.  I remember when I had surgery (twice) and they had me hooked up to some kind of deal where all I needed to do when I was in pain was to push a button and in went a shot of morphine and bingo the pain went away.
          Human beings are very adept at figuring out ways to avoid the things that hurt them.  That is if they plan that far ahead.  A good part of the time we can’t avoid troubles or pain.  That’s when we envy the turtle the most.  Only there is a problem because the turtle only seems to be able to hide out.  I know this from first hand experience.
          Yesterday I was driving along and I saw a turtle all tucked away in his shell.  He was in the road about four feet from the side.  The passing cars had frightened him so he was doing what came natural to him, he was hiding in his shell.
          I had seen this before a long time ago.  A turtle’s shell might be pretty strong but it’s not strong enough to support the weight of a car.  He, at least at the time I thought it was a he, wasn’t aware of how much in danger he was in sitting there in the road.
          I turned around and parked my car in the traffic lane and got out.  I picked up the little guy and put him on the side of the road that he was pointed towards.  I was really happy that it worked out because the last time I tried this the results were a disaster.  I’ll explain that a little later.
          I told my dad about it while I was completing the rescue.  I had called him on my cell phone.  So the news of my heroic effort was reported to my 90 year old dad 1400 miles away in Florida.  That’s when I learned that the turtle was probably a girl.  He told me that this was the time of year that they crawled out and dug holes to lay their eggs.
          How many times in your life have you been half way to your destination when something has forced you back into your shell making you immobile?  How many times have you been sidetracked or stopped completely by circumstances or events (or people for that matter) that you didn’t anticipate?
          It was at that moment that I had a revelation.  I realized something that I should have figured out a very long time ago, but I hadn’t.  I realized that my envy for that hard shelled reptile was sadly misplaced.
          Hear me out, don’t envy the turtle.  His best defense is to hide within his shell.  If the rabbit only knew that little fact he would have always won the race.  All he needed to do was scare the turtle and the race would have been won.
          On top of all that no shell, for the turtle or for us, is strong enough to provide complete protection.  The things or people in this world that want to crush us, or our dreams, won’t be fooled by our hiding out in our self made shell.  To make things worse, we make an easy target when we sit there all curled up inside of ourselves.
          I’m not going to envy the turtle any longer.  No, not me, I’m going to envy my neighbor’s cat instead.  Why?  I’ll tell you why.  We have really big black Labrador named Betty (she weigh in at about 100 pounds) and she likes to chase cats.  Well, most cats.
          I watched her one day when she attempted to chase my neighbors cat.  She started barking and charged at the cat ready for a fun chase.  What happened next surprised both myself and Betty.  That cat turned hissed and ran at Betty.  The sight of a one hundred pound black lab being chased by a cat the size of the dog’s head was just too much.
          Yeah, I’m getting a case of neighbor’s cat envy.  The next time troubles come looking for me I’m going to turn the tables on what ever it is.  You need to do the same.  When life attacks you attack it back.
          Remember that old saying about when life gives you lemons you are supposed to make lemonade?  The heck with that!!  When life gives me lemons I’m going to pick them up and toss them back where they came from and go find me some oranges!!!
          I almost forgot, about that first turtle that I tried to save.  I pulled over to the side of the road figuring I’d get out and help him across the road.  Well, the car behind me pulled around my car and ran smack over that turtle.  That’s when I should have realized that turtle envy is not where it’s at.
Until next time, keep smiling.  And if you giggle just a little once and a while you will confuse everyone around you and that can be a good thing.

          Please remember that I am donating 50% of the royalties from the sale of my novel "Operation Armageddon" to Soldier On. 

Thank you for your time.

Measure Twice, Cut Once

          Have you ever heard that expression?  It applies to a whole lot more than cutting a piece of wood.  It is a behavior that can be applied to most of the things you do in your life.  I’ll give you a personal example.  In my last blog “Common Sense” I quoted the cost of minting a penny.  I only measured once and then I cut the board.  Big mistake.
          One of my friends, who read my blog, sent me an email telling me that he used his common sense and checked out my figures on the web site I provided the link for.  Guess what he discovered, I had made an error.  A penny will cost 2.41 cents to make this year not $2.41.  Boy was I way off.  Speed-reading just doesn’t do it some of the time.
          I’m contemplating sending him a response telling him that it was a test to see just who would bother to check my facts. Or I could tell him that I am planning on using it on my application to apply for a job at MSNBC.  I heard that they don’t check their facts very well either.  Either way it was an error.  I apologize for the error.  It plays havoc with my theory of how to save money.  My plan would only save about 20 million using the correct figures.  Chicken feed.  Maybe I could get a job in the government.
          Back to measure twice.  It’s really a simple thing to do.  You make your measurement and check it once more before you cut the wood.  In theory you can catch your error before you ruin the piece of wood.  The only real problem is that most people will make the same mistake more than once.
And then there are other things you need to look out for.  There is the one-inch error.  That is when you get the fraction on the wrong side of the inch mark.  That results in your piece being exactly one inch short.  The simple fact is that sometimes we see something that isn’t what we are seeing.  Confused?  Don't worry, It gets better.
          I spent about thirty years running a home improvement business part time.  It was my second job.  I discovered I liked doing that kind of work back when I built my house.  Up until then the only thing that I had ever nailed together was a little cabinet that was used to hold my Atari game system.  Anybody remember those things?
          I read a book somewhere that said that if people knew how easy it was to build a house all the contractors would be out of business.  Yeah, right.  It wasn’t easy but it was fun.  It was on the job training.
          I had an old fellow helping me with the framing.  Actually, he was showing me how to do it.  His name was Rubin Mason.  He was in his seventies and had a wealth of knowledge to draw from.  I can still see him walking backwards on top of the 2X4 wall like some kind of circus performer.  We were putting up the roofing trusses.  On my best day I couldn’t do that.  If anyone knew the rule about measuring twice it was Rubin Mason.  In fact he didn’t even like using two different tape measures on the job.  He insisted that they produced different results.  He might have been right about that.
One of his boys was working with him.  He was about 15 at the time.  His name was (and still is) Will Mason.  As young as he was back then he knew all about measuring twice and cutting once.
          As I said in the beginning of this piece, measuring twice and cutting once is something that applies to many aspects of our lives.  Measuring the things we are about to do twice before we do them could save us some heartache.
          Talking about measuring, here is another one for you that you might have heard.  It is to “Take the measure of a man.”  It means a lot more than the size of his suit.  It’s something all you gals should try to do before you say yes to that first date, and frankly if he doesn’t measure up both times (measure twice girls) do the cutting thing.
          There are an awful lot of people that will tell you not to judge others.  You know, judge not lest you be judged.  I’m here to tell you that if you want a life relatively free of avoidable problems you had better learn to “take the measure” of those you associate with. That, in a word, is “judgment.”
There is a difference in judging others in the biblical sense and judging others in order to avoid some real pitfalls in life.  My mother used to tell me that if I hung around with the wrong crowd I’d get in trouble.  That’s where measuring twice came in.

           There are many things in life that just happen without warning and are simply unavoidable.  However, there are a larger number of things that happen to us because of decisions we have made.   Those are the places we need to measure twice.  We need to do our research and make the right choices.  There are pitfalls in making judgments about the people around us.  We need to look out for those.  On that particular note there is an interesting video about judging others you might be interested in watching.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dbFiB7oiQs4&list=PL4E784EC0770935C0&index=2&feature=plpp_video
          I know a young woman that spent some time taking the measure of someone she thought she was going to marry.  She had been going with this young man for many years before she actually thought about how he measured up to what she wanted in a husband.  It was a very hard thing to do but when she saw that there were important things missing in the relationship she walked away.
          When she finally settled on the man that “measured up” it set the course of her life on a different path.  After several years of marriage and a few kids later she says with complete honesty that there is nothing about her husband that she doesn’t like.  She chose wisely.
          How many of us can say the same?  If you are still breathing it isn’t too late to learn how to measure twice before you cut the path for the rest of your life.
          So here is what we do.  We choose wisely.  How do we do that?  That part is more difficult.  If I were an expert it would be easy for me to answer that question.  But you see at nearly 64 I am still learning myself.  I do know this, however, we need to surround ourselves with the things that lift us up, not those things (or people for that matter) that bring us down.
          Be choosy in who you pick for your friends.  Take their measure at least twice before you decide on whom they will be.  Develop a set of basic core values and stand by them.
          If you are looking for a spouse look in the right places.  When I was in the Navy I spent a lot of time in bars all around the world.  I know from experience that quality marriage material does not regularly populate those places.
          Here is the hardest thing of all: You must always try to do the right thing.  Just knowing what is right is not enough.  You have to choose the right and do it.  Measure twice my friend and cut just once.
          That's it for now.  Keep that tape measure in your hand and don't be afraid to use it!  Hug your wife and kiss your kids before you go to bed and don't forget to pet the dog.