Left Behind

Left Behind

             I have been thinking of this for a while now.  Perhaps it’s because I am fast approaching my 75^th birthday.  As you get older the people that you grew up with start to disappear.  My father use to say that he knew more dead people than live ones.  He’s been gone about ten years now and I still miss him every day.  My sister has gone as well along with my mother my mother in law and my father in law and the list goes on and unfortunately the longer you live the longer the list gets.  Then one day your name is on that list.

            Then again just maybe it is because when I look around at the world I wonder where we are headed.  What is happening here in the “Land of the free and home of the brave”?  Can I even use that saying anymore?  Be that as it may, just what are we leaving behind?

            A while ago I saw a sign posted by a driveway that read “Estate Sale”.  It made me think of all the things I have at my house that I have collected over the years.  It also made me think of the fellow I read about once that decided he could actually take his most prize possession with him on his trip to the great beyond.  He was buried in his Cadillac.  I wonder if you have to buy gas in heaven?

            It is a fact of life (and death) that when we leave this planet we leave behind a bunch of things.  Then the people we have also left behind have to figure out what to do with all of it.  When you think about it, just what is the most valuable thing you will leave behind?  Is it your Cadillac?  I think not, more on that later!

          Most of the things we leave behind are memories.  Think about that for a moment.  It’s not our memories that we leave behind, they usually go with us.  That is unless we make an effort to do exactly the opposite and keep them alive.  We can in some ways choose those memories we want to leave behind!

That thought makes me think of the stories my father told us about my grandfather.  I don’t remember much about him because we didn’t interact with him a lot.  But I remember the stories my father told us.  They were in effect memories passed down to me by my dad.  My grand father was, by all accounts, quite a character!

Here is a short one for you that I can leave behind for you to do what you want with it.

Grandpa the Sharpshooter

A fellow came to my grandpa’s farm looking to buy a rifle.  He didn’t want to spend too much money.  That’s probably why he came to my grandpa instead of a gun store.  Of course this was before all the gun laws that we have now showed up and you could actually buy a gun from anyone.

He was in luck because my grandpa had one for him.  It looked rather beat up but my grandpa said it worked well.  That statement was not quite accurate, and neither was the rifle.  The rifling was pretty much gone.  In fact bullet didn’t spin it tumbled and often went through the target sideways.  That fact my grandpa left out of the sales pitch.

The purchaser was reluctant to buy the rifle so my grandpa decided to show him how good the rifle was so he loaded a round in the chamber and told my uncle Calvin (a boy at the time) to get an apple out of the barn.  So off ran Calvin to get the apple.  As Calvin approached with said apple my grandpa told him to throw it up in the air.  Up in the air the apple went and grandpa took aim and took the shot. 

“Bring the apple here!” yelled grandpa.

Calvin dutifully brought the apple to my grandpa who handed it to the prospective buyer.  There in the center of the apple was a hole.  That was all she wrote and the deal was made.  The man was impressed with the rifle and my grandpa’s shooting ability.  He took the rifle and paid my grandpa and off he went.

I’m not sure if Calvin shared in the profit from the gun sale for doing his part by putting the spike through the apple before bringing it out of the barn but I am sure there was some sort of reward.

So this is how it works with some of those memories.  I am passing along one of my memories to you and my grandchildren as well.  If my grandchildren pass it along it may live forever and if you pass it along to a couple more people and so on and so on, well you can get the drift on those kind of memories.

There is one physical thing my grandfather left behind that will be there for a while.  In North Stonington Connecticut, not far from the casino, is Wrights Road.  I didn’t know it existed until that one day when I was looking for the driveway to where my grandfather’s farm had been I found it.  The driveway to Fred Wright’s farm was now a road bearing his and my last name, go figure that one out.

            Some of us get to leave behind some really great things.  I was listening to Johnny Cash the other day.  He left some terrific things behind.  I use to think he couldn’t sing.  That was before my ears were properly adjusted.  They might just need some further adjustment because I still don’t think Bruce Springsteen can sing worth a hoot.

Unfortunately we, the majority of us, do not get to leave things like that behind.  No, we are delegated to a different type of left behind.  Here is the thing though, what we leave behind, no matter how short lived it may be, is just as important as the songs of Johnny Cash or the statues or the monuments because the impact can and will be what counts.  Just think about this for just a moment, something you do today could impact someone in a way that could change their life!  In this we often get to choose whether what we do is for good or for bad.

Back when I was in school, the fifth grade to be exact, I had a teacher named Mr. Vacarro.   My apologies if I don’t have the spelling correct.  Putting that aside he was one of the best teachers I ever had.  It wasn’t what he taught me or perfect lesson plans that got me.  No, it was that he was a genuine nice guy!  That kind of stuff rubs off on a kid.

I actually tracked him down about forty years later just to tell him what a great guy/teacher he had been!  I think that just might have made his day or perhaps even his week.

I had another great teacher, John Joseph Kelley who left scores of memories behind for me and for a lot of people.  He won the Boston Marathon in 1957 and there is a statue of him Mystic Connecticut.  In school he was famous for his puns and for his picture in Mad magazine.  I still remember the note on his chalk board, Mister “Kelley has gone Mad”!

Mister Kelley

At my age I should be retired spending my days relaxing and just having fun sitting on my rocking chair.  Well, I’m not.  I work as a custodian at a K through 8 school.  It’s a long story how I ended up in this position so I will leave that memory for later. 

The kids are there for two hours of my shift.  Those are the best two hours of the work day.  Why?  Because for two hours I get to leave behind memories like Mr. Vacarro did for me and I have an advantage over the teachers.  Yep, I don’t have to be an authority over them, I can be their pal.  At times I may be the most disruptive student in the school!

I have been doing this for five years.  That means for some of those youngsters I have watched grow from third grade to eighth! Last year one of the eighth graders asked me to give him his diploma at the graduation ceremony.  That was really special!  Hopefully I am leaving behind a bunch of good memories for the kids that go there.

It should be kind of apparent that the “things” we leave behind really don’t count for much.  Most of them get thrown away or sold.  That is unless, of course, they have some value as to who you were for someone that cared about you.

So let me see if I have this straight, it’s who you are, not what you are that really counts.  I will have to explain my meaning in this.  Let me handle the what you are first.  To me “what you are” is what kind of a job you have.  In my life time I have been many “what you are's” but in all of that I have been, as far as I know, only one “who I am”.  At least I think that is correct.  Perhaps it is time for me to have a conversation with myself to confirm that!

Now that I got that over with I’ll get back to the real issue.  In the end it goes like this, every day we leave behind something!  I don’t know about you but for me it is important what I leave behind every day.  It is not something that we should worry about two days before our name gets put on the list I spoke about a few paragraphs ago.  In most cases we have no idea just when that will be.  So what do we do about it?

I most certainly do not want my name on that list with the side note that I was a jerk or a fool or well, you get the drift.  I’m not exactly what “get the drift” actually means but I thought it sounded good.

Well to wrap it all up maybe it is time to have that little conversation in the mirror and decide who we actually are and make a course correction where it is needed and everyday think about this, what have I left behind?

One thing I may have missed in my comments is this:

The memories that our family has of our time here on this planet are the most important memories that we can leave behind.  They are our first priority! Never forget that!!!

What are we leaving behind? 

Thanks for reading my rambling!

PS when you get on that list look for the guy speeding around in his Cadillac I just might be sitting next to him!!

 

Fools Rush In

Every time you turn around there seems to be another epidemic breaking out.  Now it’s foolishness.  Just a few days ago I saw on the news that someone has been dropping flyers with the statement # white lives matter in Westport CT.  Whoever wrote article I was reading called the flyers “racially charged”.  I don’t know if I’m buying that sack of potatoes just yet.

In another article the writer (Anne M. Amato) called the flyer “an apparent racist response to the widely used social-media hash tag, “Black Lives Matter”.  It would be my guess she is assuming it is a racist response since she has no idea who is doing it or what whoever did it actually had in their heart.  In some corners of the world to “assume” is in itself foolish.  I attempted to contact her to clarify how she decided it was racist.  She is either hiding under her desk or her email isn’t working.  You can decide which.

Perhaps the writer of the flyers just wants everyone to know that all lives matter.  Black White or whatever color you might be.  I’ve been working in the sun so I’m kind of red at the moment.  Then, perhaps I’m foolish.  Just in case I won’t rush in and judge whoever did it just yet.

I guess how you see a thing has more to do with the tint you have on your glasses than what is actually there.  You spend your life tinting the glasses that you are looking through.  What you think you see isn’t always what you actually get.

When I was a teenager I thought race was what you did when you were at a track meet.  It never occurred to me that the family two houses away were different from us because of their skin color.  I knew one thing for sure, the mom was a really good cook and she would share that talent with the kids in the neighborhood.  They also had something no one else in the neighborhood had.   They had a cow.

Jim Marpe was quoted as saying “This kind of racial ugliness has no place anywhere”.  He’s a first Selectman.  I guess he is practicing the assumption game as well.  I’m thinking that a first selectman is some kind of politician.  It would be my assumption that most politicians can’t be trusted.  That is if I were into assuming things.  I also attempted to contact Mister Marpe via email (twice) to get his take on his choice of words.  He did not reply.  Gee, I wonder why?

Using the standard in the articles I have read I would guess saying black lives matter would also be racist.  Funny but I didn’t see it that way.  I’m not quite sure I understand the logic in all of this.  I mean if you say that Cop’s Lives Matter is that racist?  How about my favorite, Unborn Babies Lives Matter?  That surely can’t be racist.  Just imagine this, what if the author of the flyers is black; does that change the equation Mister First Selectman?  Isn’t this whole thing starting to sound foolish?  Like the song says, fools rush in where angels fear to tread.  All that you have to do is figure out who the fools are that are rushing in.  That should be easy or maybe not. 

The Real Threats:

 There has to be a bunch of fools in government.  I’m thinking that because it seems to be a trend in government to spend money foolishly and they say the most foolish things.  Then when I think about it something that I might see as foolish someone else might not and vise versa (whatever that means).

I would hope that the government spends our money (and it is OUR money) with the goal of protecting the country from threats.  That’s their job, right?  At least that is what I was thinking.  Just what are the real threats?

Consider this, it has been reported that the Department of Homeland Security is now looking into climate change (formally global warming before the warming thing wasn’t happening).  Whose idea was that?  The government is reported to be spending 22.2 billion on climate change (check it out ).  They are spending just 12 billion on customs and boarder enforcement.  Does that sound as foolish to you as it does to me?  Shouldn’t those numbers be reversed?  Someone once said you put your money where your heart is or was it your mouth?  Either way that should tell us something which ought to scare us just a bit.

So let’s get this straight, the people in charge think that Global Warming, sorry I mean Climate Change is twice as important as keeping people from slipping across the border illegally (oops I meant undocumented) or shipping who knows what into the country through customs?  This sure makes the plot of my next novel “A Borrowed Life” much more believable.

To add to the foolishness our President while making the commencement address at the Coast Guard Academy called climate change “an immediate risk to our national security”.  I guess that answers my question about whose idea it was to put all that money on that particular horse.

Well, I feel much better knowing that the weather is the real threat and not the guys cutting off heads and blowing things up.  I mean now I don’t have to spend money on a bullet proof vest or a metal collar for my neck!  Don’t you feel better knowing that?  After all, you would be a fool to worry about . . . Hey, I think they are playing us for the fool on this one!! 

The Bumper Sticker Crowd, “Fools on Parade” (well sometimes) 

I get a real kick out of bumper stickers and the people who put them there.  I was once considering writing a short novel titled “The Bumper Sticker Murders”.  It involved a sudden rash of murders across the country that had no apparent common denominator.  The Police would be baffled by what was happening and have no clue why they were happening.  The motive was of course in the title of the book.  The common denominator was the bumper stickers.  That one is on the back burner for now.

I toured a Walmart parking lot just to see what kind of bumper stickers I would find there.  I was surprised to discover there were very few stuck to the bumpers of the cars in that parking lot.  So I went next door to the Big Y lot.

There was one there that said “I brake for The Black Keys”.  I had no idea what that referred to.  Then using First Selectman Jim Marpe’s possible logic I assumed it was some kind of ugly racist thing.  Then I looked up “The Black Keys” on the internet and discovered they are a rock duo.  I like that much better than the ugly racist thing.  Sorry Jim, maybe next time.

I headed over to the Stop and Shop to see what was cooking over there, get it, cooking, grocery store, oh never mind.  I found one that I thought was very nice.  It said “Autism, be aware, be understanding”.  A kind and thoughtful person must own that automobile.  Another car had two.  One said “Cattitude” and the other “well behaved women rarely make history”.  I have no idea what the Cattitude thing is but the other one made me first think of Lizzie Borden.  I’m guessing that wasn’t what it meant.  Later I thought of Mother Teresa, Clara Barton and Amelia Earhart.

I would give odds that those three might just be called well behaved with the possible exception of Amelia who was touted to be “tomboyish” in her younger years.  Wait a minute, does being a Tomboy constitute bad behavior?

I’m guessing that some of the authors of that particular statement displayed on the bumper sticker may have been trying to justify some bad behavior.  It might be even money that the driver of the car with that bumper sticker had the same thing in mind.  Just sayin and I would like to clarify it is a guess not an assumption.

There were three cars with the “Coexist” bumper sticker.  You know, the one that uses all those religious symbols to spell the word coexist.  If you don’t know why that one is foolish you are living in fairy tale land where reality just doesn’t exist.  You also have no understanding of the religions represented on that bumper sticker.

Most of the bumper stickers I saw had a positive message.  That was a good thing to see.  Some, like the one “My jack rustle terrier is smarter than your honor student” were just insulting and displayed the apparent ignorance of the owner of the car.  The frightening thing about that is they probably thought it was funny.

My last three recorded bumper stickers were on a Jeep.  One read “Play in the Dirt”.  Okay, it’s a Jeep, I get that one.  Another read “Red Neck Girl”.  The last one read “Support Fornicating” (only the word used was not fornicating but it did begin with an “F” and it means the same thing).  I watched as a young girl of not much more than twenty got in the Jeep and drove away.  She is in the running for the “Fool of the Year” award or perhaps she trying to make history.  Or maybe she is too uninformed (that sounds better than stupid) about men to realize what she is telling them.  If she were my daughter I would be ashamed of her.  I would also buy a can of black spray paint and, well, you get the point. 

How not to be a fool. 

I’m not sure that we can find a way to never be a fool.  We can however not rush into things thus avoiding the fools rush in deal.  Perhaps when we are not sure about it we should remain silent.  The saying “Tis better to be silent and be thought a fool, than to speak and erase all doubt” has merit here.  Abraham Lincoln was reputed to be the author of that one and he was no one’s fool.

One more thing, if you have a bumper sticker on your car that is rude or insulting you might want to remove it because it is one thing to be in the foolish category it is something else to wade into the jerk category.

In closing I would like to add this, it is never foolish to help someone in need.  A simple act of kindness can make all the difference in the world to someone who is struggling.

If you like to read you might be interested in having a look at my books in trade paperback.  I thank you for your time.

I thought I was done with this article.  I thought I had said all I wanted to say.  It’s four AM and I just woke up thinking about what got me started on this article in the first place…

Imagine this for just a moment.  Imagine that the author of the #White Lives Matter is not an ugly racist individual.  Imagine that she is a black woman married to a white man.  Imagine the unimaginable, imagine that she believes in God!  Imagine that she sees life through a pair of glasses that you Mister First Selectman or I for that matter can never put on.

Imagine that she is trying to tell everyone that ALL lives mater even her husband’s.  They matter, not because of the color of their skin, but because it is the way in which the God she believes in intended it to be.  Imagine that although we can’t see through her glasses we insist on spraying everyone else’s glasses with the imperfections we have colored our own glasses with.  Imagine that we are the fools who rush in where the angels fear to tread to make our prejudgments without a clue of what is in the heart of the author.  Imagine that we and not she are the ugly racists.  That thought scares me more than a little.  How about you?

Okay, now I am done.

As we travel along the road of life, steering around the pot holes and trying to avoid the bumps, we sometimes find ourselves somewhere that we weren’t intending to go. Sometimes we wander into what looks every bit like a dead end. 

Meet John Coffee who once upon a time headed off on the road to the American Dream only to find himself in the middle of a nightmare. He is a man at the end of his rope until he wanders into Baret Park and meets Charlie. 

Charlie, the old man that for forty years, has made that park his home and knows a thing or two about nightmares, failure, wishing wells and dead ends. Old dogs may not be able to learn new tricks, but an old man like Charlie, well that is a different story. 

Meet June, John’s wife, and her best friend, the world wise Helen, they are as different as night and day and best friends forever. Sometimes the obvious is not so obvious when your glasses are fogged over with the color of your own life. 

Spend a couple of hours laughing, crying and just feeling good. Spend a couple of hours discovering the secret of “Spit Shine”. 

Click HERE to find "Spit Shine" on Amazon

Who is Your Hero?

How do you define a hero?  The dictionary defines a hero as a man of distinguished courage or ability, admired for his brave deeds and noble qualities.  Sometimes the dictionary just doesn’t quite get it done. 

Last year, during a performance of Legends in Concert at Foxwoods the gentleman doing the Elvis impersonation had the lights turned up in the audience so that he could see us.  He asked all the military veterans to stand, and then the policemen and firemen to do so as well.  He then told the rest of the audience to look at those standing because they were the real heroes.

Gosh, that felt really good to stand there knowing that someone really appreciated the four years I spent in the Navy and the seven years in the Army National Guard.  The funny part about this is that most of us that serve our country don’t think of ourselves as heroes not even those who do heroic things.  If you had asked Audie Murphy if he was a hero what do you think he would have said?  Do you even know who he was?  (Audie Murphy Biography)

Audie Murphy

Alvin York

I was in the Gales Ferry McDonalds a week or so ago and I asked the young man behind the counter if he knew who Audie Murphy was, he didn’t.  I then asked him if he knew who Alvin York was, he didn’t know that either.  When I asked him who Sponge Bob was he pointed to the picture of our yellow friend on the wall behind me.  At least I know who is famous at McDonalds. 

If you don’t know who the other two guys were, they were Medal of Honor recipients and two of the most highly decorated combat soldiers in our nation’s history.  I don’t know how much we spend on public education but I am sure it is more than enough so that we might learn who are national heroes were and what they did.

(Alvin York Biography)

You know that fifteen minutes of fame thing people talk about?  It was originally coined by Andy Warhol in 1968 (Your 15 minutes).  Well I think that it goes for being a hero too.  We all get to be a hero if we so choose.  Just like we all get to be famous for fifteen minutes.

I’ve already had my fifteen minutes.  There is a plaque in my living room that was given to me by the Post Office for saving a mailman from a couple of Pit Bulls that were trying to eat him.  It says “for your heroic actions” in chasing the dogs away.  At the time I didn’t think it was heroic, I just thought it was a good idea seeing that the dogs were doing their best to kill the poor guy.  Since I am not afraid of dogs and I had a framing hammer in my hand I didn’t think twice.  I just went after the dogs.  If they decided to eat me as well I would have simply killed them both.  In the end I knew that they would both end up dead anyway. 

My point is that most “heroes” don’t start out figuring that they are going to be a hero.  The things that they do are usually what they think are the right thing to do at the time.  A common thread in all of this is an individual’s lack of hesitation to sacrifice, weather it be their treasure or even their life for the sake of someone else.  They don’t expect fame or fortune.  They just want to do the right thing.

There is a song by Harry Chapin that says a little about this subject.  It’s called "The Rock" and it’s the story of a hero.  It is just a song but in song we often find the truth that we don’t see even if it is right in front of us.  The hero of this song sacrifices his own life to save the town full of people that think he is daft.  Click on the link for the song because like most of Harry’s songs, it is worth listening to.

The song highlights another quality of a hero, they don’t concern themselves what others might think.  They do what they know is the right thing to do and don’t take opinion polls before doing it.  When a mother sacrifices her own wants and even needs to take care of her children some think that is foolish.  Yet there is no hero greater than a mother in the eyes of her children.  My wife has graduated to an elevated hero status, she is a hero to our grandchildren and she deserves the title.

When I think of a hero, I also think of my father who armed with a few hand tools and a pencil built a house for us to live in.  I think of my mother who took care of us kids when we were sick and when I was a teenager looking for work she helped me get my first part time job.  I think of my wife who would charge into any situation regardless of the danger to protect her family.  Heroes don’t all carry guns or fight in wars, although there are plenty of those types of hero to go around.

There isn’t a special school for heroes or some kind of government program to make you into a one.  It is strictly on the job training.  You can improve your chances of becoming a hero though.  The best way to do that is to make some changes that make the possibility of being a hero greater.  You know, try to develop some of the traits you see common in hero types.  It’s easier than trying to pass the test to become a fireman or a police officer.

Wait a minute!  I see a problem here already.  The whole deal would revolve around who you see as a hero!  This is more complicated than I originally thought it would be.  What if your hero is really a villain?  I’m going to have to take a leap of faith here and assume that your idea of a hero is not a villain.

Courage is one characteristic of a hero.  But what is courage?  It is the ability to face one’s fears with calm resolution.  That is a mouthful and it isn't the half of it.  I’ll bet you have all kinds of courage hiding out inside of you just waiting to show it self.  What did the Wizard give the lion who thought he was a coward?  I can tell you what he said to the lion.

“As for you my fine friend, you are a victim of disorganized thinking.  You are under the unfortunate delusion that simply because you run away from danger you have no courage.  You are confusing courage with wisdom.”

You should be aware of this simple fact; courage is not the absence of fear.  Fear is a good thing.  It is your personal danger detector.  Fear is why a deer runs from a mountain lion.  With out it he would be dinner.  Panic on the other hand is not good.  That is when your fear overpowers your courage.  Panic can get you killed. 

If you want to be a hero start at home and work up from there.  Not many of us will be in a situation where we can demonstrate to the world our heroic qualities.  You know what, that doesn’t amount to a hill of beans.  (I’ve always wondered what that saying meant!)  I can prove it.  I’ve been asking people who their heroes are.  They weren't who you would expect.  In many cases it was a parent!   That should tell you something!!

In the end most of us don’t look to the heroes that society picks to be our special heroes.  In the end we want our heroes to be much closer to home.  We want heroes that touch us in a way that an Audie Murphy or Alvin York can’t.  If you want to be a hero you can start by learning how to serve those around you.  Who better to start with than your own family?  You want instant hero status?  Try your children first.  Take a minute to look at this and see how a couple of dads have become heroes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jds1QZrJq1Y

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tzetq32VO_g&feature=relmfu

Some of us might not have children to be heroes to.  You are not off of the hook!  Just look around you.  My Daughter the school bus driver is a hero to most of the kids on her bus especially to her niece (my granddaughter) who rides that bus.  So forge ahead and become a hero.

In closing I would like to just add that even the greatest of heroes fall.  And when they do it is up to us, the less known heroes to help pick them up.  The job of Soldier On is to pick up those who have fallen the hardest and we can help them in that task.  Please visit my blog spot to see how you can help.  If you have a kindle you can borrow my book “Operation Armageddon” for free and I will donate a percentage of any royalties paid to me to that wonderful organization.  Thanks again and God Bless you all.

Are You a Fault Finder?

Are you the kind of person that can spot a fault in something or someone from a mile away in a blizzard?  There are plenty of people that think this ability is an attribute.  We can’t be fooled by a smile or a kind word.  No sir, we know what is behind that pretend niceness!  We know what you are really thinking.

While I was thinking about this I was reminded of a story I once heard about a young man that had found the perfect woman to take to wife.  I don’t remember the story exactly as it was told or who told it so I will retell it in my fashion with apologies to the originator for any deviation from the original.

"The Birthmark" Painted by Samantha Swift

A young man had the occasion to meet a beautiful young woman who he fell in love with at first glance.  She was beautiful beyond his wildest dreams.  Her hair, her eyes even the shape of her face brought a quickened beat to his heart.

Shortly thereafter he asked for her hand in marriage.  When she accepted his heart was filled with joy.  One week to the day later they were married in the little chapel down the lane.

When she raised her vale standing at the altar for their first kiss as man and wife the young man saw something that he hadn’t noticed before.  There on her right cheek was a small birthmark in the shape of a heart.  It was so tiny that it had gone without notice before just that moment.

As time passed with each morning sunrise the young man would gaze at his wife lying there sleeping beside him.  He would look at her face and think what an angel he had married.  She was perfect except for that one little mark. 

The days turned into weeks and weeks into months and then it happened.  One morning as he gazed upon his wife’s face he noticed that the mark had doubled in size.  Then with each successive morning it continued to grow.  Then on one morning he awoke to find that it covered her entire right cheek.

This was more than he could stand so quietly he packed his meager belongings and left leaving only a short note.  It read; I can no longer stand to look upon your face.

When his young wife awoke she found the note and after reading it she sat in front of her mirror crying.  She looked at her reflection in the mirror and wondered what had happened to make her husband feel that way.  She wondered what had changed.

She wiped away her tears and tried to get ready to face the day.  She put a small dab of makeup on the tiny birthmark on her right cheek and she again wondered what had changed.

How many times in your life has a fault that you see in someone or something become the focus of all of your attention?  How often has a tiny fault grown to enormous proportion while you watched?  It is a real easy trap to fall into.  People everywhere do it all the time.  How about you?

There is another factor at work here that you may not be aware of.  I once was told that police officers involved in a high speed chases begin to have tunnel vision.  They become so focused on the car that they are chasing that they lose track of everything else around them.  The results can be tragic.  You may see the connection here.  When we become so focused on someone’s faults we not only lose track of what good that person has but we just might miss the good in others as well.

When it comes to fault finding most of us are nearsighted or maybe farsighted I can never quite figure out which is which!  Well, I looked it up (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperopia) and farsighted is what I mean.  We can be pretty good in finding faults in others but we somehow don’t catch sight of the ones that we have, the biggest of which might just be the fault finding itself.

There are several people in our lives that finding fault can become a real problem.  One would be your employer.  If you find fault enough times with that guy or gal you might be looking for a new job.  Getting hit in the pocket book usually gets our attention.  There are still others that I will get to later that can have a much greater effect on our lives should we go fault finding with them.

Don’t get me wrong, there are times when finding fault can be a good thing!  Pilots check their planes for faults before they take off.  That kind of fault finding saves lives.  Introspective fault finding can be effective in helping you improve as a human being and I am guessing that would be a good thing too.  Of course in this case we need to be sure what we are looking at within ourselves is really a fault! 

I know some people that think being kind is a fault.  The same goes for generosity or believing in God.  There are a whole host of things that some people might think are faults that actually are virtues.    I guess that is where it gets confusing.

I’m sure that you have had the term “constructive criticism” thrown at you at one time or another.  The same guy that thought that one up told everyone that the Hindenburg was the future of aviation.  I ask you, do you know anyone who really likes a critic?  I know for sure that I don’t.

I have a friend who told me that he always says no when his wife asked him to do things around the house.  I was surprised because I always try to do what my wife asks me to do.  I thought that was just what a husband did.  He informed me that when he does do things around the house his wife will criticize how he did what ever it was he did forever but if he just says “No” the complaint time was way shorter.  That sort of makes sense, I think.

I don’t think that his plan worked very well.  They are no longer married to each other.  Perhaps on the next go around they will both learn how to treat their new spouse. 

On the helping out around the house deal, I had another friend that told me he got out of doing the dishes by doing a really lousy job at it.  His wife got to the point that she wouldn’t let him near the sink if there were dishes in it.  I guess that he didn’t mind the criticism as long as he got out of doing the dishes.  Hey, I guess that could be called constructive criticism!!

You have probably guessed by now that I believe the one place that fault finding really doesn’t belong is in a marriage.  On top of that I wish that I could say that I have the answer to exactly how you accomplish that little deal and since I haven’t figured out exactly how to eliminate it completely myself I can’t say that I am an expert.  But then, being an expert doesn’t make you right.

There was a young wife that heard from some expert that she should have an honest talk with her husband.  She should let him know all of the things about him that she didn’t like and he could do the same.  Then, according to the expert, they could make changes so they could improve their relationship.  I think the expert called it “good communication”.

So that was what she did.  She made a list of all the little things that he did that annoyed her.  It was just a bunch of little things that bugged her.  She sat down with her husband and went through the list.  He sat there and listened.  When she was all through she asked him what about her would he like to see changed.

He replied, “nothing, you are just perfect the way you are”.  It took a long time for her to stop feeling bad about what she had done to her husband.  She suddenly realized that all of those little things that bugged her weren’t very important after all and the expert’s advise in this case was not so expert.

The real trouble with finding fault is that we can be wrong as many times as we are right.  Take a few minutes to have a look at fault finding gone wrong.  (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dbFiB7oiQs4&list=PL4E784EC0770935C0&index=2&feature=plpp_video)

So exactly what do we do if we are a fault finder?  I guess it is sort of like when we are over weight.  We stop eating so much (stop finding fault) and do some exercise.  Anyone who is over weight knows how easy that advise is to follow.  It is the same with fault finding with the exception that you can’t look in the mirror and tell if you are a fault finder.

Here is a news flash, even if you aren’t a fault finder you may find more happiness in your marriage if you just practice some anti fault finding techniques just in case.  Here are just a few, you may think of even more.

1.     Don’t criticize your spouse for those little unimportant things that just bug you.  And if the big things won't kill you ignore them too!!

2.     Look for something good each day that your spouse does and tell them about it.

3.     Never part company without telling your spouse that you love them and a kiss would be great. 

4.     Don’t hang up the phone with out telling them you love them.

5.     Do one thing every day for your spouse.  Even if it’s just taking out the trash.

Five is enough for now, but I’m sure that you have gotten the idea.  Just on a side note, one time I was in the store in line to check out.  My wife called to ask me something or other and when we were done talking I said “Love you” and hung up the phone.  The woman behind me said “Gee, that was so sweet.  I wish my husband did that”.  Maybe he is reading this blog.

I know two guys that from my perspective have learned how to not be a fault finder.  One’s name is Eric and the other one is Joe.  I would like to tell you a little about the two of them.

Eric is a soft spoken fellow about my age.  When I asked him what he thought was a way of not find fault he told me a story.  It was about a couple who were on vacation. 

They arrived at a hotel that overlooked the water.  When they entered the room that they were going to stay in the husband looked at the wall of windows and the ocean beyond.  The breeze was blowing the curtains and the view was spectacular.  To the husband it looked like something out of a movie.  As he put the bags down he was carrying he heard his wife say “We aren’t staying here”.

The first thing that came to his mind was that his wife was going to ruin their vacation.  But instead of saying the first thing that he thought of he did something he had trained himself to do instead.  He asked his wife one simple question in a loving manner.  “What’s wrong?”

She told him what it was that she saw when she came into the room.  There was a big stain on the carpet, the place was filthy and the previous guests had left some things behind.

Eric then told me that everyone comes at life from a different perspective and that one way not to find fault is not to jump to a conclusion about what they do.  You need to try to understand what they see that you don’t.

Now it’s Joe’s turn.  I’ve known Joe for a very long time.  I have seen him in action with his wife and his kids.  I have never seen him get angry.  I have never heard him raise his voice.  His wife tells me that he doesn’t get angry.  All in all if he has ever found fault in anyone he has kept it to himself.

If I didn’t know better I would think he was on some sort of medication that most of us could use.  If he could bottle it he would make a fortune.  So what can we take away from Joe?  I think it starts with self control and ends with a happier life.  I also know that if Joe’s children grow up to be like their dad the world will be that much a better place.

So to all of us fault finders out there, when we find a fault in someone we need to look for an attribute to cancel it out and remember to keep our mouths shut until we find something nice to say!  Bite your tongue if need be.  I might need stitches before my training period is done!

And remember this, you and your fault finding will never change the person in who you are finding fault.  The end result will be how they see you and you may not like the faults they see in you.

So, until the next time, keep smiling (it confuses the fault finders) and if you want to find fault, learn how to fly an airplane.