Oh, my dear little librarian. You pile up enough tomorrows, and you’ll find you are left with nothing but a lot of empty yesterdays. I don’t know about you, but I’d like to make today worth remembering.– The Music Man

If you live long enough, you’re going to look back and say “If I had only…” about something.  Worse, you might say “If only I hadn’t…”.

I was having one of those days this morning.  I was sore all over, my head hurt, and I had to get up and go to work.  Irish Woman growled at me, I growled back.  What can I say? It’s love.  Girlie Bear was up and almost out the door before I got out of bed, and most of what she said to me was in reference to the pot of coffee I had promised to have ready to go this morning as a treat, but forgot to get together last night before I went to bed.  Boo, being a six year old boy, was bouncing from pillar to post because it’s four days and a wake up to summer vacation and today was “Donuts With Dad”, followed by numbers and stories, then an afternoon of playing in sprinklers and water slides.

Through it all, I was just trying to figure out which body part my socks go on and where in the name of all that is holy did I put my work boots?  At some point, a voice in my head asked how I got here.  When I was younger, I wanted to be a heart breaker and a world shaker.  I drove multi-ton war machines, visited distant lands, and got to play with whiz-bang technology the day after I got to play with high explosives.  Now, I’m a fat, balding schlub who was fumbling to tie his shoes before coffee.

My attitude didn’t improve much on the way to Boo’s school, but I behaved myself and chatted with the other dads before being shown into the school cafeteria.  There I found my place marked with a flowerpot hand painted by my youngest son, along with a hand-made Father’s Day card.  After a few moments, the kids came down and joined us, and a good time was had by all.

And that’s when I felt ashamed to regret the life I have.

If I had changed one decision in the last 43 years, I would have missed out on my son grabbing me by the ears, bonking me in the forehead with his, and saying “I love you, Daddy” this morning.  One zig instead of a zag, and I would have missed out on Irish Woman flirting with me when I went back to the house to drop off Boo’s flowerpot and card.  If I’d skipped out on the party where I met my first wife, as I fantasized about this morning, I never would have heard Girlie Bear say “You’re my favorite father” this morning.

All my yesterdays led to today.  None of the adventures I might have had if I had just done one or two things different would have been worth losing these moments.

He knows, because he once saw a guy stick his tongue to a railroad track on a bet, and the fire department had to come get the guy’s tongue off the track, because he couldn’t get it off.  — A Christmas Story

When someone says that you should do such and so, or that something or other is bad for you, you really need to demand they cite the original research.  Right now, children in the United States are catching measles, pertussis, and other childhood diseases in numbers that haven’t been seen in decades.  This has been attributed to the publicity that a Playboy model and actress gave to a now discredited study linking vaccinations to autism.  I still hear people at Boo’s school, many of whom have kids with autism-spectrum disorders, arguing about whether or not to get vaccinations.

A little knowledge can indeed be dangerous, but outright stupidity is homicidal.  Before reacting to the ‘scientific’ advice of someone whom you’ve never met and has no bona fides to back up that advice, seek out the actual data and make your own decision.

As a matter of fact, Pardner, you’re right. But I ain’t yet sunk to horse stealin’. Oh, I’ve salted claims, yeah. And I’ve sold whiskey to Injuns. And once a man in Walla Walla come at me with a gun and I killed him. I can’t think of one commandment I ain’t shattered regular. I never did fancy my mother and father, let alone respect ’em or honor ’em. And I have coveted my neighbor’s wife – whenever I had a neighbor and he had a wife, mm, mmm! And I gamble and I cheat at cards, but there’s one thing I do not do. I ain’t never gulled a pardner. The one sacred thing, even to low scuff like me, is a man’s pardner. — Paint Your Wagon

Abused trust is lost trust.  There has to be a line in any relationship beyond which the relationship disappears, or one member of the duo becomes the slave of the other.  That line needs to be bright, thick, and agreed upon before any relationship moves forward from square one.  Maybe it’s making sure that your significant other knows you will never put up with violence or infidelity.  Business partners should agree that all dealings will be transparent and to a mutual benefit.

No matter what that line is, once it is crossed, then you continue with the relationship at your own risk.  Someone who will abuse your trust once is likely to do it again.

Rango: [Wounded Bird is scratching his down feathers and scattering them into the wind] I see you’re communicating with the great spirits.
Wounded Bird: No. I’m molting. It means I’m ready to mate.

— Rango

It’s amazing how many things I see on-line or on television about how spiritual and healthy practices from around the world are, but when you dig deeper, you find that things are done in a certain way for almost pure practicality, and the ‘great spirit’ part is thrown in to impress the tourists.  If anyone ever asks why I wear a tan cotton hat with an embroidered bear paw on it, it’s because the bear is my totem, and I want to commune with its spirit.  I won’t tell them that it’s because I got a good deal on-line for them, and my scalp burns easily.

Mrs. Crockett: You’re a long way from home, aren’t you, Mr. Carpenter?
Klaatu: How did you know?
Mrs. Crockett: Oh, I can tell a New England accent a mile away.

— The Day The Earth Stood Still

I was truly a stranger in a strange land when I moved to Tennessee and Kentucky.  My accent was wrong, my tastes in food was wrong, and the way I dressed, as if I still lived in Arizona, was way off.  Walking into a Waffle House and asking if they had chorizo and eggs with chilis got me some of the strangest looks.  Luckily, I like biscuits and gravy, even if I do douse it in hot sauce.

Moving to California when I was a teenager was a bit rough, but mostly because my manners and speech were a bit old-fashioned for my classmates.  Let’s be honest:  Not a lot of teenagers in the Bay Area in 1987 stood up when they spoke  to a teacher and said ‘Yes, ma’am” and “No, sir”.  But they got over it.  I learned to like the food (there’s a reason I say I dated the United Nations when I was a junior and senior.  Immigrant mothers can cook!), found a way to be polite without making the teachers uncomfortable, and got on with life.

Wherever I went,  I was never rejected because I was different.  True, there were the occasional “Yankee” or whatever thrown my way, but rarely out of meanness.  The people I met were patient with my ignorance, open to listening to my differences, and willing to try my strange way of doing things.

It’s that openness that I miss the most when I go overseas.  No matter where I have been in the United States, so long as I was respectful, others were willing to accept me.  I can’t say the same about most other places I’ve been.  You always have to know the ways of the local tribes when you go to a new place, but nowhere else on Earth have the local tribes been so willing to take from me as much as they give.