I'll never forget something that happened to me when I played football for Galena High School. I was at practice one day and the coach had us doing leg lifts and of course we'd put our legs in the air and it would take forever before he'd let us put them down...we were in agonizing pain. I was cheating one afternoon and when he wasn't looking I put my legs on the ground then if I saw him look over I'd quickly put my legs back up in the air. Well, during the exercise he slid over to me and bent down and said: "You're not cheating me, you're cheating yourself." I wish the coach new that it ended up being one of my greatest life lessons.
I heard a true story one time about an Air Force pilot who was shot down in the Vietnam War and he had a good message for everyone. He said he was in a restaurant one time long after he retired when a man walked up to him and said hello and that he used to work for him in the military. The pilot asked him what he did and the guy said he was responsible for packing his parachute...in a kidding fashion the man said it must have worked. The pilot was caught off guard by this because he never thought about how important these guys were before. He said he was just a cocky fighter pilot who never really paid attention to anyone but himself. His message was "who packs your parachute?" Who do you owe respect for what they do and mean to your life? A great message that I hope we all remember!
President Obama is making a trip to Cuba, the first president in about 90 years to visit the communist country. I'm kind of torn about this one because our embargo hasn't changed anything there but I heard Bob Menendez (Democratic Senator from New Jersey), speak about the topic yesterday and he shed some good light.
He doesn't agree with what Obama's doing because Cuba has already had great trade relations with countries like Canada and nothing has changed...the government still owns the businesses and the people are living in poverty with the exception of the ruling class. Most of the Cuban citizens won't be able to afford to buy things from the U.S. at least not much, so it will be just another country who we have a trade deficit with. His thought is the U.S. will only make Castro and his cronies richer but not do anything to help their poor. But this doesn't matter to Obama as the only thing he's doing during his lame duck session is legacy hunt. I can't wait for him to go. I just hope he and his team doesn't trash and steal things from the White House like the Clintons did when they left. Back in mid-evil times many soldiers wore the armor their family bought for them. The reason they wanted nice armor was two-fold, one so they had better protection during battles but possibly more importantly, they wanted the enemy to know they were rich so they'd spare their lives and hold them for ransom. Smart.
Most if not all of us are familiar with this great story from the Bible about a man’s son who asked for his inheritance early and left home for adventure while his brother stayed on the farm to help his father run it.
The son who left home squandered his money (this is what prodigal means), on wine, women, and song and found himself broke. He was too humiliated to go home and allow his family and friends to see how much of a failure he was so he got a job cleaning pig stalls and was treated terribly. He was raised in a nice lifestyle so he wasn’t used to that kind of work or people who treated him like a second class citizen. One day he came to the realization that going home would be better than where he was. He knew he’d go back as a servant having given up his status in the family but figured that at least his family was good to the people who worked for them. When he got close to his father’s farm, his dad and some servants ran out to greet him. When his father reached him the son bowed down in shame. He was crying and begging his father for forgiveness, telling him how he had let both God and his father down…he was humiliated. The son was shocked as his father lifted him up from the ground and held him in his arms. Both were crying. His father was so excited to see him and didn’t spend time yelling at him for the mistakes he made; instead he told his servants to prepare a large feast in order to celebrate his son’s return. His brother was out working in the fields and as he approached the house he saw a big party taking place. As he got closer, his father ran up to him and told him his brother’s back and that he should join the celebration. He was very upset because over the last few years he stayed with his father and helped him keep the place running. Here his brother comes back as a total screw up and his dad throws a party for him; his dad never threw a party for him. He tells his father this and his dad hugged him and said you need to understand, you’ve never been lost, you’ve always been here with me and I love you for it. I lost your brother. I didn’t know if he’d ever come back so when I saw him I was overcome with joy. It doesn’t mean I love you less than him, we celebrate because he’s home where he’s supposed to be. A couple of things to think about:
Let me start by saying it doesn’t matter to me too much which republican candidate gets the nomination as long as he’s able to beat Hillary. As it is now I have no concrete favorite but I have to admit I’m not a fan of Donald Trump for a few reasons. Keep in mind though that I will go to the polls for him in order to save our country from the amount of corruption that would be at play if Hillary Clinton and her cronies took charge of our country. Basically my mantra is anyone but Hillary. Let me get down to it and that are a few of my concerns in reference to Donald Trump. First of all, although he tries to act like he’s not a politician he is in every way a politician in saying he’ll get things done that he’d have no control over should he be elected President such as immediately deporting illegal aliens, making Mexico pay for the wall, getting all the jobs back from China, etc. He knows most people don’t understand the Balance of Powers per our Constitution so he exploits it. He’s not the only one who does this of course but he is the one saying he’s different; he’s not; he’s a politician who is a lot like the rest of them. Regardless of our political affiliation our candidates are always trying to dupe us. Another issue for me is some of the outrageous comments Trump has made which can’t help but make me question his character. What he said about John McCain not being a hero absolutely disgusted me. He actually said any person who was in the military who got captured wasn’t a hero. How much more outrageous can he be? Why don’t more people find this troubling? He said he would’ve stopped 9/11 from happening if he were President and that G.W. Bush lied to us so that he could go after Sadam Hussein; ridiculous. He also made a negative comment about Carly Fiorina’s looks which is out of bounds in my opinion. He said that Dr. Ben Carson wasn’t a great surgeon. These are just a few of many examples of outlandish non-presidential comments he’s made. The bottom line is that my view of Trump based on what I’ve heard and seen is that he’s a spoiled child and I’m truly afraid he’ll end up embarrassing us around the world over something he says or does. I’m definitely hoping I’m wrong and am willing to vote for him if I have to which is kind of a sad state of affairs. I mention things that concern me but there are also several things I like about Trump none more so than his straight talk without worrying about being politically correct. Would Trump make a good President, I don’t have a clue; I can hope. Would he make a better President than Hillary Clinton? I have no doubt he would but this doesn’t mean any of us have to support everything about him. No one is perfect. We need to support the good about Trump and challenge the bad so that it’s exposed because there’s no doubt that if he wins the nomination the Clinton campaign will expose everything real and not real in order to win the election. The bottom line in this article is to share that although I’m not a ‘huge” fan of Donald Trump there’s no way I wouldn’t support him if that’s how the chips fall. My goal is quite simply to have a republican President and a majority in the House and Senate to hopefully move a conservative agenda forward. If the party still can’t get anything done after controlling the Executive and Legislative branches then I’m moving on to some kind of third party or moving on to another country. I was asked to post this again; it became widely circulated the first time around.
John Henry Holiday (Doc) was a gambler and a gunman most famous for his fight at the OK Corral where he helped his buddy Wyatt Earp beat some bad guys that were in a gang called “The Cowboys” (not real original). Countless books have been written about him and of course he is featured in many movies so I thought I’d do some research and give you a short breakdown of his life. Doc Holiday was in fact a doctor as he got his degree at the age of 20, in dentistry from the Pennsylvania College of Dental Surgery. Before going to dental school he also went to college to study ancient Greek, French, Latin, and mathematics. They didn’t measure genius back then but let’s say he was always the smartest man in the room. He opened a dental practice in Atlanta, Georgia but left at the age of 23 after being diagnosed with consumption/tuberculosis (his mom died from it when he was 15). He was told the air was better for peoples’ lungs out west so he took off and moved from town to town as he made his way towards the west coast. He still helped people from time to time with dentistry even set up a couple of dental practices along his travels but he made a better living off gambling. Part of the problem was that Doc coughed a lot and that wasn’t something patients wanted from their dentist. The reason he became so famous with his gun is due to the short life span of men in the gambling business. He studied it, practiced it, and could even do some tricks with his guns that mesmerized people. His deadly gun fighting skills paved the way for gambling to be his way of making a good living. He loved moving to boom towns where single men would take their earnings and spend most of it on drinking, gambling, and women. He figured he might as well tap in to one of these three vices. Once people became too afraid of his gambling and gun fighting skills he moved to the next boom town. Unfortunately though his reputation preceded him and there were always up and coming gun fighters hoping to enhance their reputation. It never worked because Doc Holliday never lost. He wasn’t usually the one starting the fight but he sure knew how to end them. He was also not trigger happy as he was so fast with his gun that he was pointing his as the other man was still pulling his weapon out. He’d let these men live but the point was certainly made on the man and everyone around them. Doc Holliday and Wyatt Earp were friends because they were a lot alike in many ways except that Wyatt was more laid back. Wyatt also was a sheriff on many occasions while Doc Holliday was usually on the other side of the law. There was a time when both men were in a saloon and Sheriff Wyatt Earp was trying to get some rowdy cowboys out of there when they pulled their guns on him. Wyatt would’ve gotten killed had it not been for Doc Holliday who quickly gunned the men down. Needless to say Sheriff Earp didn’t arrest him. There is speculation that Doc Holliday shot and killed the famous outlaw and gun slinger Johnny Ringo in a scheduled gunfight just between the two of them. The rumor is that Ringo was going to kill Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday wanted to get him first. Doc didn’t think Wyatt could beat Ringo so he was trying to protect his best friend. It was said that Doc was very sick from T.B. when he took Ringo on. As Doc Holliday became more ill he became more reckless; some people thought he was trying to get himself killed to put himself out of misery. Doc was arrested 17 times including for assault and murder but he was always acquitted. One time he got into a fistfight in a bar and almost killed a man. He wasn’t arrested but the guy he beat up snuck up on him later and fired a shot that almost killed him. The papers reported that he was dead but they were wrong. Doc Holliday never married but he had a long time companion. He died at the age of 36 in a hospital and there have been a variety of stories that came out of it. The nurse said that the last thing he said and did was look down at his feet and said: “Damn, that’s funny.” She thought it was peculiar until someone told her that his friends always kidded him that he’d never die with his boots off meaning he’d die in a gunfight not lying in bed. I’ll wrap up with Wyatt Earp’s description of his friend. He said that Doc was a witty philosopher who became the best gambler and fastest gun slinger he’d ever seen. He said he was the bravest, most deadly man with a six-shooter the west had ever known. He was also the best friend he’d ever known. A lot of people are familiar with the amazing running back Jim Brown who attended Syracuse University before being drafted by the Cleveland Browns where he shattered NFL rushing records but a lot of people aren't as familiar with the young athlete who filled his shoes at Syracuse by the name of Ernie Davis. Not only did Ernie lead Syracuse to their first national championship over the University of Texas he was also the first African America to win a Heisman.
The Redskins had the first shot at Ernie in the draft but they passed because their GM didn't want a black athlete so Cleveland snagged him up. Could you imagine Jim Brown and Ernie Davis in the same backfield?! Unfortunately, Ernie never got to play as he became extremely ill in training camp and doctors figured out he had leukemia. He died at the age of 23. From what I've read he was such an outstanding young man. I wrote this so his story would live on; he deserves it. |
Author: John Mann |