The art of writing - penmanship

For a lot of us, penmanship has been taken over by the computer keyboard. If I ever had it, it has gone the way of past forms of communication.

I have realized for sometime my inability to write distinctly. As a reported, six years ago, I had to be very careful in my taking notes. Oftentimes, I would get back to the news room and have to study real hard about what I had for notes. Sometimes, it was useless to try to figure it out. Fortunately, there were enough words I could make out to where I could kinda put the story together. That was six years ago. Now it is much worse.

Most things I do are on the computer. I write newsletters for the church and have no problem reading my write. Forms, even, have the capability to be filled out on the computer. No hand writing needed.

Recently, I was working with an organization where we in my club needed to fill out a signature change. Four people had to sign, print name, and put the date, plus social security number and date of birth. My, my! What a bunch of hen scratching. Nobody can write. No one has a knack of penmanship, I determined. Turned out the recipient had to email me to get me to fill in the blanks.

Additionally, I can't read right. ha. The lady who got the form asked me to send the first five digits of my SSN. I read it the last five digits, and that is what I sent. We (I) finally got it right. I had also to call a couple of other signatories to get clarification.

My point is that all of us would have written much better before the days of the computer keyboard. And, with that, I just learned how come I am so bad at penmanship. I don't do it. I need to practice, perhaps standing at a chalk board and writing a hundred times I will write better.

Now, there is not much need for penmanship anymore, but it is something we need to keep doing pretty well. No telling when somebody might send a form that has to be completed in long hand. How about that!

Sure glad this puter has a spell checker, which is another subject.

A paradigm shift

A paradigm shift has to be made when all is not the same any more, for whatever reason.

I was thinking the other day of the paradigm shift required as one grows older and objectives can't be the same as they were when he was younger. Well, that is the paradigm shift I write about in this chuckothoughts. I am now 69, which causes need for thinking differently - about a lot of things - than I did 10, 20, or 30 years ago.

For example, I used to think a lot about trading cars (and buying trucks) and houses and such. Just sign on the line and pay for it in time. That was some time ago for sure. The last new thing I bought was a new truck. It was (and still is) a nice truck - a 2004 Chevrolet Silverado, with about 70,000 miles.

I financed that truck for five years. I bought a policy that paid it off if I died, so Clema would not be burdened with a payment. I was confident this was a good move. Well, it is about paid for - another four payments left. Clema will not be burdened with a payment on that truck we both call "Fred."

Now, just five years down the road, it is a bit different. If I traded it off for a new one and financed for five years, I am less sure I would be able to pay it off in my life time. Certainly, I am not in health to be able to buy insurance to pay it off. While I might make it another five years, if I don't, Clema gets saddled with a truck payment, unless there are funds somewhere else. So, this causes a paradigm shift. Not a good idea at this point to finance a new truck. Better off to look to a financial position where I can just buy one if I want one.

The other shift in thinking for me is in trying to get the house paid for, so Clema will not have that to pay for by herself. That means funds need to be more dedicated in the direction of reducing the mortgage. That is a paradigm shift, too, that comes to me later in life, one that I did not think much about before. Before, there was a life time to pay for a house. Now, that life time has to be shorter than it used to be.

My point: there does come a point in life where one needs to think differently than they did in a younger age. I am there! This is the point at which one stars drawing in rather than extending out, if I may put it that way. I now know more that that is a part of life.

I am comfortable with this change in priorities. There are a lot of things good about growing older. Being more realistic might indeed be one of them.

So, I am at a point of a needed paradigm shift. That is not bad. It just is.

How about health care?

Our nation is always divided on something. Now it is health care. Sometimes I think I have never heard it so mean between opponents to issues. Then I think of Civil Rights, Dr. Martin Luther King, the election of 2001, Watergate, of Vietnam, of Woodstock, of Dot Coms , Clinton's haircut. You name it. Every issue has sides, and the sides are usually fiercely opposing each other. What has been still is.

My hospital stay

As Rodney King said, "Why can't we just be friends" (wasn't it he?).

Lines have been drawn in the sand before. No need to wish they were not. There are times when the right (and I mean right) must just press on. Seek consensus, but when the day is done, do what is right, and move on.

We need changes. Too many people cannot get insurance. What is available is going out of sight on cost. Too many people with pre existing conditions have to pay way too much if they can get coverage at all. The Public Option will have to be there.

Hopefully, for me, this is the year.

It is not that I need change. I am pretty well off, thank you. But I am concerned about those who need help, and I don't look on that as a bad position. We must be concerned as a nation about those who have needs. Still.

So I am in hope that after all is said and done a bill can be advanced and the President will sign it.

We need more peace

We are living in a very unpeaceful world, I'd say. Too much anger out there, and sometimes it is mine. Thing is, peace is so much better than un-peace. That is what we need to know.

I brought a sermon recently on The Joy of Forgiveness. That topic came to me via a church bulletin I get from a friend. The meat of the topic was the great danger one does to their mental and physical bodies by not practicing more forgiveness. And, of course, being a church bulletin, it talks about the necessity of forgiveness as a follower of God, the great forgiver.

This is not to say that some things do not need correcting by offenders. They do. But our growing in hate and frustration does not solve anything. It only makes us feel bad. It might be that we cannot do anything about the offender, but we CAN do something about how we think about it, and that is where it gets into The Joy of Forgiveness.

We could name so many things that happen personally where this lesson is needed. The reader can likely reflect on his or her life and list a bunch, too.

The message is we can feel a lot better, we can enjoy life a lot more, we can live at peace a lot better by being more forgiving. We can actually enjoy life more if we would stop hating offenders so much. Who knows, if we acted better, and were more forgiving, the offenders might learn something. They might want to live like us. Who would want to live like us if we constantly are in turmoil? Makes sense to me.

So....we do need more peace in our lives. Husband to wife, wife to husband, brother to sister, and vice a versa, friend to friend, and fellow man to fellow man. All kinds of relationships exist where this can be applied. And we don't want to forget employee to employer, to think of one more.

Want peace? Work at being more forgiving! Yes, that works.

On Summer travels Jul 31 - Aug 10

Summer time is usually a time for travels. When one has kids at home and they are out of school, it is time to hit the road. When one's kids are gone and summer comes, it is time to hit the road. Not a lot changes. Most people choose to travel in the summer time, and so did we.

Tennessee was on our plan this year for summer time. Why was that? Well, it was the time of my wife Clema's family reunion. One always wants to make family reunions, and when they happen, that is the time to travel.

We were happy to include our granddaughter Audrey out of San Antonio. Audrey had made a trip last year to Tennessee and found a lot of fun with cousins. She knew we were going, and she asked if she could go. Audrey, now 11, was ready to travel, and it was a joy to have her along.

Audrey's dad gave me a $100 to dole out to Audrey. At one point she asked me to just give her the $100 bill. No, I said. I will give it to you in $20 increments. She was happy with that, and she lasted the $100 for all of the trip, which was really about 10 days. She spent wisely, the first of which was in a Cracker Barrel for gifts for her brothers at home. I thought that was really good use of the money she could have spent anyway she wanted - under my watchful eye, of course.

We traveled over 3,000 miles and burned over 150 gallons of gasoline at about $2.50 per gallon. We stayed five nights in hotels at good rates, based on Clema's employment and employee rates. We stayed 3 nights with Clema's niece in McMinnville - her bed and breakfast, we call it. You can't beat a mountain top bed and breakfast of that kind.

This kind of travel is not to see things. It is to see people and renew acquaintances. That is what we did, mostly. In Dickson, we met with my aunt and uncle and had Tennessee catfish with them. We met with my deceased brother's wife and children and grandchild. Always, that is good. We also met with a 2nd cousin, the son and his family of my cousin who lives in Illinois. The second cousin preaches in Lebanon but we met up in Dickson for the Walnut Street Church of Christ homecoming and dinner on the ground (well, it was not really on the ground). Then we visited the family cemetery in north Dickson County.

From there we went to Smyrna, Tennessee to the CoC there and their evening singing. There is no singing like congregational singing with people who like to sing. So, that was a real plus. After that we joined our friends there and went out for a meal at O'Charlie's. Getting back to Nashville was where my GPS (from the previous post) came in handy.

On my birthday, August 5, we traveling to McMinnville and Harrison Ferry Mountain and Curtis Town. After a couple of big meals on Wednesday and Thursday, we attended the reunion, held at the Mt. Leo CofC. A good time by all, for sure. We did take in some sightseeing at High Rock (picture included). It was also good to have our daughter Valerie and her husband Brad, from Corpus Christi, join us in McMinnville for a couple of days.

Saturday through Monday we returned to Laredo. We stopped off in Houston to visit our daughter and family, then on to San Antonio to drop Audrey, and on home to Laredo.

A good trip, and it was good to get home.

HOW GREAT IS GPS!

I am on a trip in Tennessee - home country. Used to, I knew all the roads and how to get around. I still think that, but it is not like it used to be. Perhaps my thinking is not as sharp as it used to be. It is harder to find my way around.

I have always prided myself in being a good navigator. I know how to read maps. I am a good compass navigator - Boy Scouts honor, you know. But.... I do have a GPS on my Sprint cell phone, and I have found it pretty good in several places for finding direction. Maybe it is becoming a crutch that I must have. Maybe it should be more than a crutch.

Twice in two days I have let the Sprint GPS woman get me out of a bind. Well, it is not like I could not have gotten out of it, but I decided to put my confidence in the GPS woman - and it worked. My being where I am proves that.

The first time, coming into Nashville, I decided to let GPS get me to the Broadway Embassy. But I lost confidence right away because the GPS woman was not saying what I thought she should be saying. I shut her down to operated on my own instincts. Well, I got off down in a residential neighborhood. Frankly, I did not know where I was!

I plugged in the GPS while in the residential neighborhood, and I decided to let GPS do the directing. In no time, I was in front of Embassy on Broadway!

Then, last night I had gone over to meet friends about 20 miles from Nashville. We went to eat at an O Charlies, which was really right next to the Interstate I came in on. Well, on departing, I obviously took a wrong turn. I got on back roads and drove and drove but never found the Interstate. I could have by following the truck compass, but there was no road going that way. I did not have a map, either.

So, I am traveling down this highway and decided I was not getting anywhere. I turned on the Sprint Navigator, plugged in the hotel address (using a recent one, already there), and immediately, the GPS woman said, "Do a U-turn, and travel nine point six miles." I followed instructions. She put me back on the Interstate in nothing flat. And, she had me back at the hotel in a much shorter distance than I would have done, using my former knowledge.

Isn't technology Great! Just learning to trust is the hard thing. But I am becoming convinced that GPS has arrived for my travels, anyway. I am a believer!

GPS is not new. It is, though for the everyday person. I remember 50 years ago questioning a pilot on why he was taking so long to make his takeoff run. Turned out he was programming coordinates to get to where he was going. Asking him more, he said that the GPS would get him within 20 feet of his destination, a far away place, as I remember. So, GPS has come to me, and I know I am a late comer! But I am a user, never to deride that latest technology available to the automobile traveler.

Life is Good!

It must be the heat!

Well, it is sure hot here in South Texas. Heat, too much of it, can cause one just to be cranky. ha. Well, I will lay it to that. I do prefer to write happy stuff.... I do! But here is another perhaps complainy one.

I have always been amazed at how easy the scamers get away with stealing from people. It runs rampant. I think it even is a part of the economic melt down we have been going through. It is because of greediness. It is also caused because people will tend to fall for anything. I like the axiom if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

We ought to be better at avoiding being taken. We really ought.

Now to what is rubbing me wrong today.

I have been listing to C-SPAN radio on my truck XM radio, lately mostly because I wanted to stay in tune with the questioning of the Supreme Court nominee. But today that was all gone, and there was a House committee, I think it was, questioning a panel on how to tighten the rules to stop scamers (that is my take of the reason, because that is what I was hearing, and it is what got my blood boiling - thinking of heat and air conditioning).

Here is what I heard from a representative for the FTC (Federal Trade Commission, I think). Someone asked him how long it would take putting a rule out that could enforce stopping people from scaming? Answer: ABOUT TWO YEARS! Yep, and while we are waiting for a rule, the scammers get rich!

That is what angers me. Apparently we think we have to have too many rules. Otherwise, somehow, we are mistreating even the mistreaters! Now isn't that a kick?

Why can't we just say it is wrong to cheat? If you do what we think is cheating, you are going to cease and desist until we can get a judge somewhere to validate what it is you are doing. Seems to me right and wrong ought to be pretty easy to figure out. Now, why can't we do that.

Here is the rest of it: No one, not one mentioned what I am saying. What I heard for a good while was just people giving speeches, going this way and that way. This left me to believe no one, not anyone at the Federal level is earning his or her keep on this question. Why, it will take them two years at least to finish the panel that was supposed to (I think) come to some conclusion that would either cause action on laws as now writing or come up with one that will.