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I heard a disc jockey make this observation earlier today. I think it kind of says it all !!
Read the 9 Things You Didn’t Know About Steve Jobs:
http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/technology-blog/8-things-didn-t-know-life-steve-jobs-172130955.html
What did we do to deserve dogs? Is it because we always treat them kindly, never yell at them or kick ‘em? Or because we promise to pamper them and pick up their poop? Why did God decide to gift humans with such a loyal companion?
I have a typical teenager in my house; wakes up late, rushes through the chores, grabs his backpack and then hurries off to school. The dogs wolf down their chow, accompany him to feed the horses and wait outside the door on the wild chance they might catch a scratch behind the ears or a “good dog” as he passes by. The car drives off takin’ him to school. They watch with the faint hope that somehow it might breakdown or turn around and come back. Alas, after it disappears from sight they disperse deflated, maybe the way spectators do after a NASA launch, back to their mundane existence.
The dogs glimpse at me but unless I call, they plop down on the porch or go sniffing around the place for something, or anything. Killing time until … their boy comes home! At 3:30 p.m. they surround the returned car, jostling for position, lining up to be recognized, acknowledged, petted, loved.
If you were able to ask the dogs what they did all day, they probably couldn’t tell you … just piddling, chase a rabbit, find a bone, bark at the javalina, but mostly just wait.
And I doubt if they have any sense of how much time has elapsed since the boy’s morning departure. I mean, what’s time to a dog. Any consciousness of it disappears the instant the boy opens the car door. They live for the moment.
He scratches and rubs and pats them as they circle him, tails banging, tongues lolling, whimpers of ‘pet me, pet me!’, bobbin’ like seals in the water, all beggin’ for attention. Oh, and so sad when the teen, preoccupied with urgency, goes inside, pushing through his canine fan club without so much as a howdy. They are stunned; no, confused. “We’ve waited all day, however long that is,” they must be thinking, “Why didn’t he stop? Where did he go?”
But then their minds quickly reset and they resolutely lie down by the door, knowing their boy is home and they have a good chance of seeing him next time the door comes open, even if it is the next morning. And I watch all this drama, wishing I could impress on my son the importance of appreciating their devotion and how even a simple pat on the head lasts all day.
Then I remember my own youth and it wasn’t ‘til I was a grown man with teens of my own that it dawned on me to thank my Mother, to call her occasionally. So, I guess what goes around comes around.
Remember, there’s always time to pet your dog.
https://www.drafthorsejournal.com/read/spring2009/common-sense
Hilarious! Growing up without a cell phone
If you are 35, or older, you might think this is hilarious!
When I was a kid, adults used to bore me to tears with their tedious diatribes about how hard things were. When they were growing up; what with walking twenty-five miles to school every morning…. Uphill… Barefoot… BOTH ways…yadda, yadda, yadda
And I remember promising myself that when I grew up, there was no way in hell I was going to lay a bunch of crap like that on my kids about how hard I had it and how easy they’ve got it!
But now that I’m over the ripe old age of forty, I can’t help but look around and notice the youth of today. You’ve got it so easy! I mean, compared to my childhood, you live in a damn Utopia! And I hate to say it, but you kids today, you don’t know how good you’ve got it!
1) I mean, when I was a kid we didn’t have the Internet. If we wanted to know something, we had to go to the damn library and look it up ourselves, in the card catalog!!
2) There was no email!! We had to actually write somebody a letter – with a pen! Then you had to walk all the way across the street and put it in the mailbox, and it would take like a week to get there! Stamps were 10 cents!
3) Child Protective Services didn’t care if our parents beat us. As a matter of fact, the parents of all my friends also had permission to kick our ass! Nowhere was safe! 4) There were no MP3′s or Napsters or iTunes! If you wanted to steal music, you had to hitchhike to the record store and shoplift it yourself!
5) Or you had to wait around all day to tape it off the radio, and the DJ would usually talk over the beginning and @#*% it all up! There were no CD players! We had tape decks in our car. We’d play our favorite tape and “eject” it when finished, and then the tape would come undone rendering it useless. Cause, hey, that’s how we rolled, Baby! Dig?
6) We didn’t have fancy crap like Call Waiting! If you were on the phone and somebody else called, they got a busy signal, that’s it! 7) There weren’t any freakin’ cell phones either. If you left the house, you just didn’t make a damn call or receive one. You actually had to be out of touch with your “friends”. OH MY GOSH !!! Think of the horror… not being in touch with someone 24/7!!! And then there’s TEXTING. Yeah, right. Please! You kids have no idea how annoying you are. 8) And we didn’t have fancy Caller ID either! When the phone rang, you had no idea who it was! It could be your school, your parents, your boss, your bookie, your drug dealer, the collection agent. you just didn’t know!!! You had to pick it up and take your chances, mister! 9) We didn’t have any fancy PlayStation or Xbox video games with high-resolution 3-D graphics! We had the Atari 2600! With games like ‘Space Invaders’ and ‘Asteroids’. Your screen guy was a little square! You actually had to use your imagination!!! And there were no multiple levels or screens, it was just one screen.. Forever! And you could never win. The game just kept getting harder and harder and faster and faster until you died! Just like LIFE! 10) You had to use a little book called a TV Guide to find out what was on! You were screwed when it came to channel surfing! You had to get off your ass and walk over to the TV to change the channel!!! NO REMOTES!!! Oh, no, what’s the world coming to?!?!11) There was no Cartoon Network either! You could only get cartoons on Saturday Morning. Do you hear what I’m saying? We had to wait ALL WEEK for cartoons, you spoiled little rat-bastards!12) And we didn’t have microwaves. If we wanted to heat something up, we had to use the stove! Imagine that!
13) And our parents told us to stay outside and play… all day long. Oh, no, no electronics to soothe and comfort. And if you came back inside… you were doing chores!
And car seats – oh, please! Mom threw you in the back seat and you hung on. If you were lucky, you got the “safety arm” across the chest at the last moment if she had to stop suddenly, and if your head hit the dashboard, well that was your fault for calling “shot gun” in the first place!
See! That’s exactly what I’m talking about! You kids today have got it too easy. You’re spoiled rotten! You guys wouldn’t have lasted five minutes back in 1970 or any time before!Regards,
The Over 40 Crowd
Today we pay tribute to Dad’s everywhere. It may be a cliche that “anyone can be a father, but it takes a real man to be a Dad”.
As we give thanks today for all that we have, even in these troubled times, let us remember to give thanks to those brave young mena and women who serve daily around the globe to protect our freedoms!!
