Hey. Thanks for stopping by. Who knows how to start these things? Do you spout a bunch of drivel about how your childhood was screwed up? Do you mourn lost dreams and now-obscured paths? Or, do you hope to draw someone in with a bright, cheery disposition? Maybe hang onto the last shreds of optimism you can muster? Or a bit of all those things? Aren't we all an amalgam of yin and yang anyway? I wish I could answer those questions. I can't and neither can you.

So, I'll muddle through this thing as best I can. I hope you find something in these words to inspire, inform, or cause you to pause. If not, the action of examining my own thoughts will be of worth to me. Self-serving to the end, I suppose.

I am, by nature I think, pragmatic. Maybe there is something in the water in Missouri (the Show Me state). Maybe I got suckered one too many times as a kid.

I remember being about 8 years old and walking through my neighborhood alone, pretty near the old drugstore called Sands. A man, maybe about 30, called out of a house and said, "Hey, kid, go get me a newspaper and I'll give you a quarter." Being 1968, a quarter was worth a bit more than today (no pun intended), so I said sure. He asked if I had any money and I said that I had enough to buy a paper, so he told me to go get it and we'd settle up when I got back. Being a good kid, I ran the hundred yards or so to the store, bought the paper (25 cents out of my own pocket), and ran back to the man's house. He met me at the door, took the paper, gave me 25 cents, and closed the door. It took only a few seconds to realize that I just ran my ass off for the same quarter I just spent. Surely, there was some mistake. I thought for a minute, did the math. Yep, this guy owed me another quarter.

I knocked politely on the door. No answer. I knocked again with a bit more authority. This time he answered with, "What!" I asked for my other quarter and he just got a big smile and said, "Didn't I say I'd give you a quarter? Huh? I didn't say I'd give you two quarters, did I?" I tried to complain, but it was too late-- the door closed again. He didn't answer any of my other knocks.

So, what's the point? Maybe that words have real meaning? Despite his inferred promise, he did what he said he would. Lawyerly of him, yes, but he did what he said he would. I was at least partially to blame for hearing what I wanted to hear (almost free money!) instead of what was really said.

Maybe that's why to this day I get so upset with advertising claims, half-truths from politicians, and people who can't give a straight answer. Hey, if you don't have the vocabulary of a 4-year-old, I forgive you. However, if you're a reasonably normal person then say the truth, say what you think, and say what you feel. You may also want to consider the ethics of swindling a kid, too. Karma is a bitch.

By the way, despite my misspent teen years and questionable choices during those same years, I can honestly say I never took retribution in any form on that man. Although with eggs in hand, his car was very close to a Halloween gift one year.