Bulletin for June 14 2009:
A Pitcher's Mound
by Steve Higginbotham

I guess you have to know my dad to appreciate this one. But for those of you who don't know him, I'll introduce you to one of his character traits. Dad loves his lawn. I have countless memories of my dad working in the lawn. Dad didn't just work in the lawn, he "groomed" the lawn (remember those hand-held scissor tools used for trimming? I was never so thankful for the invention of the weed eater!).

Anyway, our yard was pristine, beautifully manicured...except for one spot in the back. There was a bare spot in the middle of our back yard where no grass would grow. One day, someone visiting with my dad, who could obviously see that he took great pride in his yard, asked him why there was a bare spot in the back yard. My dad's response to him was simply, "Don't you know a pitcher's mound when you see one?"

You see, as much as my dad loved his lawn, he loved his son more. Dad wasn't raising grass, he was raising a boy. And I for one, am thankful for his perspective.

What about you? How's your perspective? Give it some thought.



Great One-liners:
• If at first you don’t succeed, skydiving is not for you.
• Money can’t buy happiness. But it sure makes misery easier to live with.
• Nothing in the known universe travels faster than a bad check.
• Vital papers will demonstrate their vitality by moving from where you left them to where you can’t find them.
• The trouble with doing something right the first time is that nobody appreciates how difficult it was.
• It may be that your sole purpose in life is simply to serve as warning to others.
• Ray’s Law: You can’t fall off the floor.
• Paranoids are people too; they have their own problems. It’s easy to criticize, but if everybody hated you, you’d be paranoid too.
• Eagles may soar, but weasels aren’t sucked into jet engines.
• If at first you don’t succeed, destroy all evidence that you tried.
• A conclusion is the place where you got tired of thinking.
• Experience is something you don’t get until just after you need it.
• For every action, there is an equal and opposite criticism.
• Success always occurs in private, and failure in full view.
• To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism; to steal from many is research.
• To succeed in politics, it is often necessary to rise above your principles.
• The sooner you fall behind, the more time you’ll have to catch up.
• A clear conscience is usually the sign of a bad memory.
• If you must choose between two evils, pick the one you’ve never tried before.
• Change is inevitable....except from vending machines.
• Plan to be spontaneous tomorrow.
• Hard work pays off in the future. Laziness pays off now.
• Borrow money from pessimists - they don’t expect it back.