“Look out for number one and try not to step in number two.”
I’m lying of course since that was the advice Rodney Dangerfield as Thornton Melon in the movie “Back to School” gave to the graduating class at Grand Lakes University.
Funny movie and surprisingly good advice.
However, it is not the advice old people like me should be giving to young people like those graduating from high schools and colleges this year. That advice is a little less succinct and a little drier.
My advice for young people?
Try it while you are young (not drugs or illegal things) so you won’t be older and find yourself asking “what if?”
Do that because the saddest words of tongue or pen are the words “it might have been.”
Find the one, the thing or the idea that you love and grab onto it and give it your best every day with every breath. Do that so you won’t be my age wondering if you had done everything you could and questioning how things may have turned out if you had.
I have had the wonderful opportunity in my life to interact with so many young people being allowed by God to put two daughters and a grandson through the rigors of growing up and graduating from high school. I am so proud of them all.
I have been further blessed by being allowed to interact with so many young athletes. I appreciate how athletes, and for that matter anyone who participates in extracurricular activities, had to do to be allowed to participate and the discipline they had to have to participate.
I thank each one I have interacted with for their time and indulgence. It has been my privilege.
But I have found a few pithy comments from others I hope they can use.
To wit:
Always be a first-rate version of yourself, instead of a second-rate version of somebody else. — Judy Garland
You may never know what results will come of your action, but if you do nothing there will be no result. — Mahatma Gandhi
The noblest question in the world is: What good may I do in it? — Benjamin Franklin
Success is stumbling from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm. —Winston Churchill
What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us. — Ralph Waldo Emerson
Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work. –Thomas Edison
The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy. — Martin Luther King, Jr.
In the long run, we shape our lives, and we shape ourselves. The process never ends until we die. And the choices we make are ultimately our own responsibility. — Eleanor Roosevelt
What? Over? Did you say ‘over’? Nothing is over until we decide it is! Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? Hell no!… It ain’t over now, ’cause when the goin’ gets tough, the tough get goin’. Who’s with me? Let’s go! Come on!… – Bluto Blutarsky
So, there are some pithy quotes that ought to change your life as you go from the protected world of childhood to the unprotected world of real life which brings me back to my original advice.
“Look out for number one and try not to step in number two.”
THE POLITICAL FALLOUT: Now that the primary election is over, and all the losing candidates have picked up their campaign signs, how did things go for me?
They went quite well actually even though Chris Miller did not win the nomination for governor. I have no problem with Patrick Morrisey, I just preferred Miller.
But, hey, Miller won Calhoun County. Not by much but he won Calhoun and 12 other counties setting himself up as a person to be dealt with if he ever decides to run again.
I did not “lose” many votes in the primary election although I lost Miller and Mike Stuart, who I voted for because he is a friend of mine.
In the upcoming general election, I will say I am voting for at least one democrat but I don’t consider it blasphemy because I think the democrat is more Republican than the Republican is. At least I won’t have to write-in Hamilton Burger this time.
On to November.
CLEANING UP: Recently a group of community leaders including Mark Sarver of Glenville State University, LKVDC Director Shelia Burch, Ridgeview News Publisher Shari Johnson, Commissioner Craig Arthur, Commissioner Roger Propst, Superintendent of Schools Michael Fitzwater, American Medicine Company representatives Robin and Crystal Mersh, businessman Eric Lupardus, Calhoun Banks CEO Martha Haymaker, real estate agents, Derek Villers and Rhonda Cain and Calhoun Gilmer Career Center Director Bryan Sterns met to talk about what Calhoun County needed to address while making a pitch for a manufacturing company to come to the county.
They are addressing those needs and hopefully can get everything to fall into place because it could get as many as 500 jobs to come into area with many paying upwards of $100,000.
That sure tops what the Rubber Fabricators Incorporated brought to Calhoun back around 1960 and that influx of jobs kept the county rolling for several years.
I hope we can pull it off and if we do it will be done against some opposition which is a bit surprising, but it shouldn’t be.
The reason for the opposition is probably the opposition folks will no longer have the power to control things. To hand out the jobs and control the patronage. It almost follows the “follow the money” mantra and that’s because power is almost as big an aphrodisiac as money and people don’t want to give it up.
GRADUATIONS: I have been through several graduation ceremonies including mine, my first wife, my daughter, my adopted daughter, my grandson and all his siblings the youngest two this year from Belpre High School.
The next two in line are eight and four. My great-granddaughters. I hope to make it to their graduations so I can give them some unwanted words of wisdom, which I hope is better than “Look out for number one and try not to step in number two.”
Until next time stay safe but don’t live life in a bubble.
