People Make the Difference

DO YOU KNOW that in the 10 years ending in 2009, U.S. factories shed workers so fast that they erased almost all the gains of the previous 70 years, roughly one out of every three manufacturing jobs —about 6 million in total? If you do repetitive, average work, a staple of middle-class Americans, your prospects for future job satisfaction and lifestyle fulfillment will be limited. Your job could be next to be eliminated.

During the Feb. 4 Wisconsin-Ohio State basketball game in Madison, the announcers told us that Badger Coach Bo Ryan had made copies of a recent Tom Friedman column, published in The New York Times and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, and he gave them to members of his team to motivate them to raise the level of their play and not be satisfied with average.

WHAT WOULD OUR lives be like without challenges?
What we do when confronted with these challenges has a lot to do with how we perceive our place in this world. We can face the challenges or we can give in to them without a fight.
Most challenges provide us with opportunities. Opportunities can be disguised as hard work and be fraught with obstacles.
An old story tells about a king who placed a heavy stone in the middle of a much-traveled road. Many who came by berated the authorities for not keeping the road clear, but no one pushed the obstacle out of the way.

AS THE BABY BOOM generation reaches 60 years of age, newspaper articles and health-channel programs about aging issues seem to be talking directly to us.
While baby boomers still enjoy good health, they are realizing aches and pains are more frequent, clothes don’t fit as well, the eyesight and hearing aren’t what they used to be and co-workers are younger (often much younger) than we are. The following observations recently appeared at our mailbox.
The Senility Prayer: Grant me the senility to forget the people I never liked anyway, the good fortune to run into the ones I do and the eyesight to tell the difference.

EVERYONE IS familiar with the Murphy family. They gave the rest of us a book of laws we commonly refer to as Murphy’s Laws. Well, over the years, my family always considered the Murphy family, who lived just down the road from us, as “the lucky ones.”
You may also be familiar with Dr. Gumperson. He is famous for Gumperson’s Law. It accounts for the fact that you can throw a burnt match out the window of your car while going 60 mph and start a forest fire, while you can go through two boxes of matches and an entire edition of the News-Review without being able to start a fire under the dry logs in your fireplace.

SOMETIMES WHAT I say or write isn’t exactly what I mean, and not until I am reminded of what I said or wrote does it become clear that I was misquoted or misunderstood.
I’m sure we’ve all been misunderstood from time to time. These errors in speech are called malaprops. Back in 1994, state Sen. Rodney Moen (D-Whitehall) shared his list of bumbling statements collected in the Legislature with Milwaukee Journal Sentinel staff writer Alex Thien.

WE’RE IN THE dead of winter and, for those looking for some mental stimulation and an opportunity to socialize with like-minded individuals, here’s a sampling of classes being offered at various schools and community colleges.
Self-improvement courses include Ego Gratification Through Dieting, Whine Your Way to Alienation, Guilt Without Eating, You and Your Tattoos and Overcoming Peace of Mind. These classes were first offered in 1987, according to an article in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

ONE OF THE things that impresses most of us as we grow older is how many nice people there are in this world. Even people we used to find annoying or downright irritating don’t seem to bother us so much.
We discover that many of the ones we didn’t particularly like really aren’t as bad as we thought. Maybe you and I are a little smarter than we used to be? We have begun to understand why prickly pears are prickly and now make allowances for it.

NOW THAT Christmas is over, it is a good time to ask ourselves, “What did our children really want/need for Christmas?”
Steven Vannoy, author and lecturer, has given the question a lot of thought and written a best-selling book, “The Greatest Gifts I Give My Children.”
Vannoy asks, “Have you ever watched children sitting in the midst of a truckload of wrapped presents, furiously tearing open package after package, only to then sit disappointed when all the packages are open?”

A friend commented the other day that he was reading the papers, catching up on the news, when he realized he hadn’t read any articles that mentioned the fact that we should be celebrating the birth of Christ this Christmas.
Was this a case of trying to be politically correct? I noted that there have been quite a few Christmas-themed shows and movies on TV. The point he was making was the media is telling us how critical the holiday season is to the economy, but we shouldn’t forget the true reason for the season!
This occasion reminded me of an article published in the Dec. 20, 2001, edition of The Delphos Herald in Delphos, Ohio. That was shortly after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on America. I saved the article and I thought it would be appropriate to reprint it this week. The author or compiler of the list is not known. A very nice presentation of the list can also be found on the Internet.

SOMETIMES LIFE THROWS us a curve. If we let them, our problems can overwhelm us. When we are faced with trials and tribulations, we should remember the following story about the buzzard, the bat and the bumblebee.
The essay was sent to me about five years ago. Research says the author is unknown and the analogy used may be flawed but the message is still important as the story has been shared with friends for many years.
Buzzard — If you put a buzzard in a pen that is 6 feet by 8 feet and is entirely open at the top, the bird, in spite of its ability to fly, will be an absolute prisoner.