I am a Mormon

I am posting up on this subject today to make a point. The point is that we live in a nation principally built upon the basis of freedom of religion. I converted to the Mormon church in 1963 in Montgomery Alabama. My family lived next door to a family of Mormons. He was a Navy Chief assigned to Gunter Air Force base in Montgomery. I had never heard of the Mormon church. I was religious having attended many churches my entire life. I had been Presbyterian, Baptist, Church of Christ, Jehovah’s Witness until I was 16 and joined up with the Mormons. I was granted a bachelor’s degree by Huntingdon College. Huntingdon is a small private college owned by the Methodist church. I never heard anything in that four year curriculum to convince me that I was practicing my faith in a cult. The formal name of our church is The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. I have had many people tell me that I was not a Christian. How can that be if my church carries His name?

Now I will have to admit that over the almost 50 years that I have been a member of this church in the south, I have felt the sting of bias, bigotry and intolerance. At one time, if you were a Mormon, and lived in Missouri there was a standing gubernatorial extermination order issued by Governor Lilburn Boggs in the 1840’s. That extermination order was only recently rescinded by the legislature of Missouri. In my lifetime of membership in this church I have seen it grow from 1 million members when I joined to a number rapidly approaching 15 million members worldwide. It is the fourth largest congregation in America. It follows Catholicism, the Southern Baptists and the Methodists.

I married a girl who was born into the church. She was as all American as any girl could ever be. Her Mother raised her in the church. She was immensely popular in her school. She was a cheerleader, a beauty queen, a beta club member and always set an example of living her life to a very high standard and does that to this day. She attended and graduated from Brigham Young University in 1970. Mitt Romney was her classmate.

She and I have raised 3 children in this church. Our son is a college graduate and is a law enforcement officer for one of the biggest agencies in Florida. He played baseball in High School and some in college. He served a two year mission in Argentina. He speaks fluent Spanish. He married a Mormon girl who is cut from the same bolt of cloth as his Mother. She is superlative in any way you want to analyze her. She is beautiful, hard-working, a faithful wife and Mother and a college graduate. They are raising their little daughter in the church.

Our oldest daughter has always been a top performer in anything you would like to measure her in. She graduated from a high school of more than 2,000 students. She was top 50 in her class. She played softball, was all Big Bend. She was a member of the National Honor Society. She was elected prom queen and was a member of the homecoming court. She went on to graduate from Florida State University, cum laude. She married a young man who served a two year church mission in France. He speaks french fluently. He graduated magna cum laude from Florida State and from their medical school. He and my daughter completed a medical residency in Pensacola where he was chief resident. He is a practicing Obstetrician/Gynecologist. They have three wonderful, bright and popular little girls that they are raising in the church.

Our youngest daughter is immensely talented and is a graduate of the University of Florida. She attended the University of Florida on an academic scholarship. She has always worked hard and made fabulous decisions. She played tennis in high school . She is beautiful and has an immense cadre of friends. She married a young man who served a mission in Venezuela. He speaks fluent Spanish. He holds a BA from U of F and an MA from Florida State University. He worked as a software consultant for a worldwide company. He traveled internationally and performed well for them. He currently works for the Florida State University helping to administer their People Soft program. They are raising their three children in this church.

I worked for a Fortune 400 company for thirty years and advanced to work at an executive level . I currently run my own company as a sole proprietor. I have volunteered as a little league president, boy scout leader, been a Kiwanis club member, volunteer at the local homeless shelter, etc.

All of this information is in order to communicate to the reader that my Mormon faith has contributed to making my family MAINSTREAM American. At the same time we are in the midst of a presidential race and a frontrunner to the nomination is a Mormon. Most of the talking heads characterize him as unelectable. They soft shoe around the reason why. It is not that he is too moderate, too rich, too much of a flip flopper, too this and too that. The basic reason that most people proclaim him to be unelectable is that he is too Mormon.

Bias, prejudice and intolerance reigns supreme in the hearts of way too many Americans. We are a better country than that.

Merry Christmas and a Happy Illusion to you

Henry Wordsworth Longfellow wrote a beautiful Christmas hymn that we sing this time of the year. He wrote it in the 19th century. He lived 1807-1882. The hymn is I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day . It is a stirring hymn and the first and third verses contain these words:

I heard the bells on Christmas Day.
Their old familiar carols play.
And wild and sweet the words repeat.
Of peace on earth, good will towards men.

And in despair I bowed my head.
"There is no peace on earth," I said.
For hate is strong and mocks the song.
Of peace on earth, good will towards men.

I studied Longfellow at Huntingdon College back in the 60's in an English literature class I was required to take to obtain a degree. He was a prolific writer and is quite famous for the words which he penned. He wrote An Ode on Intimations of Immortality . He demonstrates himself as a man of faith and strong religious beliefs.

I am approaching my 66th birthday and have walked the paths of life for some time now. I have experienced: Christmas as a child, baseball, football, basketball, track and field as both a player and supporter. I have lived the thrill of: first kisses, sunrises, sunsets, starry nights, scary storms and new and old dreams. I have survived: getting married, getting divorced, many moves to new towns, new jobs, old jobs, heavy assignments and aches, pains and fevers. I have met many people: Young folks, old folks, regular folks, important folks, humble folks and arrogant folks. I have stood on stages and taught or spoken to large crowds, small groups, classrooms, and mentored people one on one. I have seen people at their best and their worst. I have comforted small children and dying friends. I have been complimented, flirted with, prayed for and preyed upon. I have been spoken ill of, spoken ill of others, debated, confronted others and been betrayed in the most injurious ways. I have loved, been loved, treated kindly and unkindly and swept aside by people that I gave 30 years of my life to.

Yet from where I stand, I know that I will experience many more things both good and bad before I sleep the deep sleep of death. I am convinced that life is an illusion. We make of it what we will. That is not an original thought or idea. We can choose to be cynical about the scars we have been dealt or to be happy for what we have overcome.

I have experienced the birth of all my children and grand-children. I have held them close and hugged and kissed them and tickled thier tummies. I have seen them accomplish some special things in their lives. They are a lively and special tribe of people. I have brought home puppies from the pet store to squeals of laughter and adoration. Is anything as soft and warm as a small puppy asleep in your lap? I have taken those puppies to the vet for one last visit and have had their lives ended. Is there anything as despairing as the helpless grief we feel at seeing them leave us?

We live in a fallen and selfish world. I practice in the world of real estate. Trust me there are a lot people out there who need to be locked up somewhere away from decent people. I have lobbied government all over the country. Trust me there are people out there that only care about you for your vote, your financial support or your influence. I will take the company of a grand child or a warm puppy anyday to theirs.

Longfellow wrote in his fourth verse of this song:

Then peeled the bells more loud and deep.
God is not dead nor does he sleep.
The wrong shall fail the right prevail.
With peace on earth, good will to men.

It is that peace which I seek. I wish it for you. Particularly so at this time of the year when much of the world is an illusion of commercialism, greed, malice and downright hostility.

Losing and lessons learned

Ray Charles addressed this issue about as well as can be addressed in his song Born to Lose.. One of the truisms of life is that we are all going to lose sometimes. In fact every time someone wins then someone else loses. As parents I believe that our primary function is to build up our children to believe that they are winners. Then we must build that concept so high and deep that when they lose, which they surely will, that they still believe that they are winners.

We are fortunate if we have someone who believes in us. That is the role of a Mother I think predominantly. I believe that there is a bond between child and Mother that is like no other. A Mother accepts and nourishes her child no matter the shortcomings of her life's creation. Is that always the case? No, not hardly. There are many people who give birth in an act of misgiving over bad choices. They then spend the rest of thier lives resenting and disavowing that child. The child fights an uphill battle in trying to amass some feelings of self esteem. Many times serendipity provides a collateral artery of life giving affirmation. It could be a coach, a friend, a church congregation, a spouse, a cause, etc. There has to be something occur in the life of every human being that resonates with the idea that they are important to someone. They are a winner.

I watched Alabama play LSU last night. It was a very entertaining game. Alabama lost in overtime. No one scored a touchdown. It was a clearly defined, oldtime defensive battle. Both teams made mistakes. The mistakes were magnified because of the lack of scoring. I was intrigued by how the coaches stood up for the players on both teams. Les Miles, the winning coach, bragged on his players and the opposing teams players. Nick Saban, the losing coach, bragged on his own players and the LSU players. Is it a possibility that successful coaches mirror the nurturing nature of a successful Mother? It would be hard to carry that analogy too very far.

When we lose at anything there are lessons to be learned. We miss out on a job we want. We don't get accepted to a particular school. We don't get the promotion at work. We get the crap kicked out of us in a particular form of competition, golf, tennis, bridge, chess, a beauty contest, and so forth. It is hard to isolate the lessons in losing.

Losing teaches us to be humble. Humility is a valuable lesson. The other side of humility is arrogance. Arrogance is more of a negative factor for living than losing on occassion. We have all met people who are not gracious losers. They are numbered amongst those who are embittered and brooding personalities.

Losing also teaches us that we need to train harder. If you lose a marathon with a lousy time then you know if you ever want to win you need to train harder. If you lose consistently at golf becaue you cannot putt, then you need to practice putting until your back hurts. If you consistently miss the business as a salesman then you need to work on your closing skills, presenting skills or get out of the business and become a mortician.

You can bet that Alabama is going to go out and recruit the very best kickers they can find for the upcoming seasons. I suppose that the definition of a loser is someone who does nothing after they lose. Becoming a winner is a proactive pursuit and requires a lot of help along the way. That help comes from people who, for one reason or other, chooses to believe in you.

Some call it sexual harrassment

When Eve told Adam why she ate the apple she explained that she was beguiled by the serpent and he influenced her to make an unwise choice. So called Lucifer, the son of the morning star, must have had powers of suggestion, some sort of compelling appeal, charisma. He used those along with his other talents to change the course of creation. To this day this sort of influence continues all across the network of humanity.

A little third grade boy gives up his favorite dessert from his lunchbox to a little third grade girl for no other reason than she influenced him with some sort of fascination with her personna and appearance.

Some years ago the corporation where I worked for thirty years required that I attend a conference that was dedicated to sexual harrassment in the work place. I spent a week in a luxury hotel listening to a team of hired specialists that represented a hired consultant organization that had developed training on this subject. I was required to sign a document that stated that if I ever became aware of any sort of sexual harrassment in the workplace that I had a singular responsibility to report it to our human resources department.

Why do you suppose that they would go to all that expense and effort to lay down such a footprint on the conduct of business? The answer is clear and concise. There had been many instances of supervisors intimidating female workers into embarrassing situations that surrounded their jobs and the security of their jobs. Some had filed law suits successfully and had received large awards for having had to endure these unsolicited advances. Once a person had attended one of these seminars they were locked into a dangerous place. An off color joke, a ride in a car unchaperoned with a person of the opposite gender or a compliment on appearance could land you in some hot water. The female person only had to raise the spectrum of impropriety. If they threatened a lawsuit the corporation was safe because they had held a work shop on the issue. You see Mr. John Doe attended our workshop and agreed that he would abstain from such tomfoolery. Here is his written affadavit that he would eschew such a practice. You can go after Mr. Doe, who incidentally doesn't work here anymore, but you cannot pursue us because we have done all that is necessary.

The roll out on all this over the years has been interesting. Did it curtail fooling around in the work place? Not hardly. To me it seemed like it put the whole work place into absolute role reversal. It was always presumed that the more aggressive male workers were the culprits. I have personally seen that it seemed to make women much more bold. They seemed to become more aggressive. Not only in their new supervisory positions but in their speech and actions. It seemed to me that whereas males were on alert as to anything that they said and did might be interpreted as sexual harrassment, women went just the opposite direction.

I have been out of the workplace for almost ten years. I work by myself and have not thought much about all that until the headlines of this morning and Mr. Cain's predicament brought it back to my mind. In the court of the people's minds, the accusation has only to be raised and the perpetrator is considered guilty. Mr. Cain is most likely guilty of repeating a joke delivered in bad taste. If you are the boss, welcome to the world of sensitivity of the female mind. "Why, I was appalled by his comments. I was made to feel diminished, small, an object of lust and derision." I have been in the presence of females who have unabashedly told a joke or made a comment to which they have no accountability. If you were a man and went to human resources reporting that you were sexually harrassed by a female co-worker you would be laughed out of the office. Yet we all know it goes on and have experienced it at one level or another.

At the heart of all this is the tort system that protects some of us and throws the rest of us under the bus. The same book I read the stuff about Lucifer and Eve I also read a quote about lawyers and hypocrites. And so it goes in this fallen, ever worsening world that we live in. You just have to wonder what is next?

For the love of money

It has been a while since I posted to this BLOG. I have just sort of been in a dry spell as far as ideas. I decided to post on a subject that is far too wide to say anything especially cogent about. That is money and the relative merits of what it does to drive or lessen our basic characters.

Over the past couple of months I have made it a point to volunteer to feed the homeless at the local shelter. This is an effort by our community to deliver some of the charitable means that are garnered by many. The United Way and part of the city of Tallahassee's budget are pointed in this direction. Food and commodities are made available from those budget funds. What is needed are actual boots on the ground to serve the food to the 150-200 consistently hungry folks that are the recipients of this effort. I generally feel good about participating.

This morning I happened on to a live Senate hearing on the subject of charitable dollars and their eligibility as tax deductions. Several members of a committee chaired by Utah's Orrin Hatch queried numerous holy men who represented those who cling steadily to that tax deduction allowance. It seems that the recession is having its toll on those funds. People are more in survival mode than ever at the lower rungs of our society. The question on the table, as I watched, was would it be possible to set limits on what people gave or put a bottom level on how much you could give and still deduct it from your taxes. There was great animus reflected amongst the participants.

There is also this phenomena ongoing called "occupy wall street". This is an effort that seems to take its bearing from the communist manifesto. It seems that the homogeneity of this group is the theme that they represent the 99% of Americans who think that corporate greed is a decidedly bad thing. I for one think it is dangerous to qualify the free enterprise system, the root of capitalism, as "greed".

This system has fostered the greatest society that has ever peopled the planet. What is the solution according to these misdirected people is to attack our system and demand that there be a redistribution of wealth. That would flow from the greedy one percent of the haves to the 99% of the have nots. Those who have applied their creativity and taken great risks and become wealthy would, if the anti-greed people have their way, give all their money to them.

I feel that what they fail to see is that the same love of money prevails in their minds as it does in the minds of those who have strived to attain wealth. They seem to take the position that their thirst for money is more noble than the wealthy.

I do not see a demarcation between the two camps.

Do yourself a favor and copy and paste this little video link into your browser. Takes 2 minutes to run and is a quick study from a great mind.

http://dauckster.posterous.com/a-31-year-old-video-clip-absolutely-worth-you

A Home does not have to be ostentatious to be special

I have been doing some reflection here lately on the brands and styles of homes that are the current appeal to consumers. I am in the home sales business. I see a current trend towards simplifying in choice of homes. Most of the press I read expresses the fact that people in general are leaning towards this simplification in terms of housing. Not that long ago the McMansions were the order of the day. A home purchase was predominately for the purpose of gaining equity so that you could spin off and buy something bigger and better eventually with that equity.

Now you are lucky if you have a mortgage payment that is manageably within the framework of your family budget. There are many, many homes sitting without occupants that are memorials to the tendency of Americans to use the home for a cash cow in second and third mortgages to finance expensive vacations, buy bigger cars and purchase those beach houses. Those are all lovely things but unfortunately the current financial crisis has exacerbated many people in the direction of short sales and foreclosures. If you do a walk through of the current MLS I would wager that 1 in every 3 offered for sale is a short sale. We live in hard times. Hard times that are largely of our own making.

Back in the early 70's my sweet wife was into needle point. She loved to make little samplers with pithy little sayings, framed for display in the homes of those she loved. One she made for her parents said this: " A house is made of brick and stone. A home is made of love alone." That is a pertinent call for reflection.

Her parent's home was a monument to living within one's means. It was just the three of them in that home. You had to search very far to find a little family that just flat out loved one another and led a more happy life than they did.

I was raised in a home that my grandmother owned in southern West Virginia. There was a total absence of indoor plumbing. I had to follow a well worn path some 500 yards from the house for bio-function. We drank water from an old cistern that was gathered from the rain when it came. I remember very well getting our first TV and our first telephone.

I now live in a much nicer house. It has three full baths indoors. We have phones galore, wireless ones, cellular ones and have a TV in three of our four bedrooms and of course one that is much bigger in our family room. There is a pool in the back yard and a golf course 50 yards from the front of my house.

Do all of these amenities make me a happier person? Not in the least. My happiness is drawn from the person I am married to. The three children who have given us, so far, 7 grand children are the reservoir of happiness for myself and my wife.

So I sit back and reflect now at 66 yoa and think back to a thirty year career chasing a paycheck which could buy me a little bigger house, car and play things and realize that the pursuit was superfluous to the things that matter. Perhaps that is one positive aside from this recession/depression that we find ourselves mired within. I think that we have all learned a valuable lesson from this belt tightening experience.

Biding our time

One of the Associate editors of the Tallahassee "mullet wrapper" did an interesting little column this weekend on his experience of waiting an excessive amount of time in a physician's office and finally walking out without seeing the physician. I think that all of us have had that experience.

For twenty years of a thirty year career I used to have to try and access physicians in thier offices to detail them on our pharmaceutical products. I facetiously called myself a professional waiter. The drill went thusly: you walked into an office and presented your card to the receptionist and asked if there was any possible way that you might grab their doctor for a moment. You then sat down and waited. Many times the receptionist was kind enough to tell you that there was no time today because they were slammed. Towards the mid part of that twenty years, I would wait 30 minutes maximum and then leave some literature and be on my way. Otherwise you could be sitting in the corner there for hours.

I have observed steamed patients giving the receptionist an earful of painful monologue, interjected with severe profanity after having spent 2-3 hours in the pursuit of an appointment and still no face time with the physician. " If I ran my business as inefficiently as you run this business, I would starve to death." I had a man almost attack me once in a parking lot as I was putting my detail bag back in my trunk. I had just spent 30-45 minutes with the physician talking about drugs, football, the war and telling jokes. This man had been steaming in the waiting room to see the physician and blamed me for holding him up. His wife held him off from taking a swing at me as I advised him that the samples he held in his hand came from my trunk or one of my competitors. He was old, agitated and markedly short tempered. Of course who is to say that he didn't have a handgun in his pocket. I was therefore apologetic and diplomatic.

I could tell the personality of a physician before I ever met them. If you walked into a bright, cheery office and were greeted civilly, you can bet that the physician was bright, cheery and fun to be around. He enjoyed his job and took good care of his patients. If you were greeted cooly by a grouchy receptionist and the staff looked cowed and nervous, you could bet your boots that the physician was a near tyrant having a bad day. Best to steer clear and be on your way. I always liked that part of my job. I could have a very unpleasant exchange with the physician or a staff member and get my plow cleaned. However, as I drove away I assured myself how lucky I was to not have to work there. I had so many potential clients to call on that I really never had to go back into that office. Pity the poor people who had to go there everyday.

My wife has to go see a vitreoretinologist here in Tallahassee. One time she waited for 4 hours to have him spend 1.5 minutes with her. Cost? $120. That office is sheer chaos. The up front staff are the most sanguine, unfriendly people you will ever meet. Why do you suppose that is? I would conjecture that they catch heat every day from one or more patients over the extraordinary wait times. The physicians are overworked because there are no other such specialists within 2-3 hours of Tallahassee. They are the only show in town. You would think that they would set a schedule and adhere to it very rigidly. If they got off course then maybe you would be 30 minutes to an hour off your appointment time. But FOUR hours? Hardly excusable.

I remember calling on a physician in Blountstown named Elga White. He was a general practitioner and had a very busy practice. He would see drug reps just before lunch and just before 5:00 PM. On occassions he would see you in between I am assuming if he had a no show or two. On those occassions he had a nurse who monitored his time. If you got too embellished with him and took too much time she would come into the room and advise him that he was 5 minutes off pace in seeing patients. He would politely conclude his visit with you and return to his patients. Now that was a man in control.

I once read a book on time management. I cannot remember the name of it but I do remember one very impactful quote." Time is life. It is irreplaceable and irreversible. Waste your time and you waste your life." As I have meandered down the road of life I find myself into my 66th year. I am becoming more and more conscious of how I spend my time. I am prioritizing more than I used to. I am irritated when people waste my time. They will do that seemingly intent on sucking the life out of you. You have to get in control of what you agree to do and you act on decisions related to time investment. It is a precious commodity. Bide your time and do it with stinginess and thought.