GREAT LIFE LESSON

THIS IS A GREAT LIFE LESSON - A MUST READ!
STOP WONDERING WHY THIS WORLD IS THE WAY IT IS!

Twenty-one years ago, in Nashville, Tennessee, during the first week of January 1996, more than 4,000 baseball coaches descended upon the Opryland Hotel for the 52nd annual American Baseball Coaches Association's (ABCA) convention.

While I waited in line to register with the hotel staff, I heard other more veteran coaches rumbling about the lineup of speakers scheduled to present during the weekend. One name, in particular, kept resurfacing, always with the same sentiment — "John Scolinos is here? Oh, man, worth every penny of my airfare."

Who is John Scolinos, I wondered. No matter; I was just happy to be there.

In 1996, Coach Scolinos was 78 years old and five years retired from a college coaching career that began in 1948. He shuffled to the stage to an impressive standing ovation, wearing dark polyester pants, a light blue shirt, and a string around his neck from which home plate hung — a full-sized, stark-white home plate.

Seriously, I wondered, who is this guy?

After speaking for twenty-five minutes, not once mentioning the prop hanging around his neck, Coach Scolinos appeared to notice the snickering among some of the coaches. Even those who knew Coach Scolinos had to wonder exactly where he was going with this, or if he had simply forgotten about home plate since he'd gotten on stage. Then, finally...

"You're probably all wondering why I'm wearing home plate around my neck," he said, his voice growing irascible. I laughed along with the others, acknowledging the possibility. "I may be old, but I'm not crazy. The reason I stand before you today is to share with you baseball people what I've learned in my life, what I've learned about home plate in my 78 years."

Several hands went up when Scolinos asked how many Little League coaches were in the room. "Do you know how wide home plate is in Little League?"

After a pause, someone offered, "Seventeen inches?", more of a question than an answer.

"That's right," he said. "How about in Babe Ruth's day? Any Babe Ruth coaches in the house?" Another long pause.

"Seventeen inches?" a guess from another reluctant coach.

"That's right," said Scolinos. "Now, how many high school coaches do we have in the room?" Hundreds of hands shot up, as the pattern began to appear. "How wide is home plate in high school baseball?"

"Seventeen inches," they said, sounding more confident.

"You're right!" Scolinos barked. "And you college coaches, how wide is home plate in college?"

"Seventeen inches!" we said, in unison.

"Any Minor League coaches here? How wide is home plate in pro ball?" "Seventeen inches!"

"RIGHT! And in the Major Leagues, how wide home plate is in the Major Leagues?

"Seventeen inches!"

"SEVENTEEN INCHES!" he confirmed, his voice bellowing off the walls. "And what do they do with a Big League pitcher who can't throw the ball over seventeen inches?" Pause.

"They send him to Pocatello!" he hollered, drawing raucous laughter. "What they don't do is this: they don't say, 'Ah, that's okay, Jimmy. If you can't hit a seventeen-inch target?

We'll make it eighteen inches or nineteen inches. We'll make it twenty inches so you have a better chance of hitting it. If you can't hit that, let us know so we can make it wider still, say twenty-five inches."

Pause. "Coaches... what do we do when your best player shows up late to practice? or when our team rules forbid facial hair and a guy shows up unshaven? What if he gets caught drinking? Do we hold him accountable? Or do we change the rules to fit him? Do we widen home plate?"

The chuckles gradually faded as four thousand coaches grew quiet, the fog lifting as the old coach's message began to unfold. He turned the plate toward himself and, using a Sharpie, began to draw something. When he turned it toward the crowd, point up, a house was revealed, complete with a freshly drawn door and two windows. "This is the problem in our homes today. With our marriages, with the way we parent our kids. With our discipline.

We don't teach accountability to our kids, and there is no consequence for failing to meet standards. We just widen the plate!"

Pause. Then, to the point at the top of the house he added a small American flag. "This is the problem in our schools today. The quality of our education is going downhill fast and teachers have been stripped of the tools they need to be successful, and to educate and discipline our young people. We are allowing others to widen home plate! Where is that getting us?"

Silence. He replaced the flag with a Cross. "And this is the problem in the Church, where powerful people in positions of authority have taken advantage of young children, only to have such an atrocity swept under the rug for years. Our church leaders are widening home plate for themselves! And we allow it."

"And the same is true with our government Our so called representatives make rules for us that don't apply to themselves. They take bribes from lobbyists and foreign countries. They no longer serve us. And we allow them to widen home plate! We see our country falling into a dark abyss while we just watch."

I was amazed. At a baseball convention where I expected to learn something about curve balls and bunting and how to run better practices, I had learned something far more valuable from an old man with home plate strung around his neck, I had learned something about life, about myself, about my own weaknesses and about my responsibilities as a leader. I had to hold myself and others accountable to that which I knew to be right, lest our families, our faith, and our society continue down an undesirable path.

"If I am lucky," Coach Scolinos concluded, "you will remember one thing from this old coach today.
It is this: "If we fail to hold ourselves to a higher standard, a standard of what we know to be right; if we fail to hold our spouses and our children to the same standards, if we are unwilling or unable to provide a consequence when they do not meet the standard; and if our schools & churches & our government fail to hold themselves accountable to those they serve, there is but one thing to look forward to..."

With that, he held home plate in front of his chest, turned it around, and revealed its dark black backside, "We have dark days ahead!"

Note: Coach Scolinos died in 2009 at the age of 91, but not before touching the lives of hundreds of players and coaches, including mine. Meeting him at my first ABCA convention kept me returning year after year, looking for similar wisdom and inspiration from other coaches. He is the best clinic speaker the ABCA has ever known because he was so much more than a baseball coach. His message was clear: "Coaches, keep your players—no matter how good they are—your own children, your churches, your government, and most of
all, keep yourself at seventeen inches."

And this my friends is what our country has become and what is wrong with it today, and now go out there and fix it!

"Don't widen the plate."

Advice From An Old Farmer

Advice From An Old Farmer

Your fences need to be horse-high, pig-tight and bull-strong.

Keep skunks and bankers at a distance.

Life is simpler when you plow around the stump.

A bumble bee is considerably faster than a John Deere tractor.

Words that soak into your ears are whispered… not yelled.

Meanness don't jes' happen overnight.

Forgive your enemies; it messes up their heads.

Do not corner something that you know is meaner than you.

It don't take a very big person to carry a grudge.

You cannot unsay a cruel word.

Every path has a few puddles.

When you wallow with pigs, expect to get dirty.

The best sermons are lived, not preached.

Most of the stuff people worry about ain't never gonna happen anyway.

Don't judge folks by their relatives.

Remember that silence is sometimes the best answer.

Live a good, honorable life… Then when you get older and think back, you'll enjoy it a second time.

Don 't interfere with somethin' that ain't bothering you none.

Timing has a lot to do with the outcome of a Rain dance.

If you find yourself in a hole, the first thing to do is stop diggin'.

Sometimes you get, and sometimes you get got.

The biggest troublemaker you'll probably ever have to deal with, watches you from the mirror every mornin'.

Always drink upstream from the herd.

Good judgment comes from experience, and a lotta that comes from bad judgment.

Lettin' the cat outta the bag is a whole lot easier than puttin' it back in.

If you get to thinkin' you're a person of some influence, try orderin' somebody else's dog around..

Live simply. Love generously. Care deeply. Speak kindly. Leave the rest to God.

Don't pick a fight with an old man. If he is too old to fight, he'll just kill you.

Most times, it just gets down to common sense.

LETTER FROM US MARINE APPARENTLY

From a Marine directed at Antifa and the extreme left:

IMPORTANT MESSAGE FROM A MARINE.... HATERS IN AMERICA HAD BETTER LISTEN UP FOR THEIR OWN GOOD!
From a Marine:
"If you are paid $25.00 an hour to show up to a rally to "counter" the other party using physical force and violence, you are not a "counter protestor."
You are a mercenary.
There is no need for further debate on this. You were paid to attack someone you don't know for reasons that you couldn't care enough about to go there for free. You did your "job" and collected your check and your reimbursement of expenses.
You're a mercenary.
Not a Patriot. Not a Social Justice Warrior. Not a Defender of Freedom or Liberty. Not an upholder of Truth or Justice. None of those things you claim to be.
You are a mercenary.
And mercenaries are not lawful combatants and deserve whatever comes their way at the hands of the people they are attacking.
You have no 1st Amendment rights when you're a mercenary.
Doesn't matter what side you're on. Doesn't matter what cause you're showing up to disrupt.
If you can't express yourself peacefully through diplomatic means, then you better be prepared to meet your maker at the hands of someone who is only barely keeping their own violent tendencies at bay through a massive exercise of self-control.
I know it sounds romantic to attend these rallies and get shit started with the other side. And when you're young and passionate, it's really easy to get whipped up into a frenzy of raw emotions. There is a reason why young people are preferred when it comes to warfare. They are easy to manipulate and control and set off.
But I'm telling you all this right now. You've got no idea what road you are starting down. Romance and idealism wears off really fast when you're laying in a pool of your own blood trying to stuff your intestines back into your torn abdomen.
I've been lucky enough to go forty-two years without having to put the skills I learned in the Marines to use. I continue to train and keep those skills up to date because I see the madness that is happening all across this country. I don't train to attack others like you do. I train to defend others FROM you. I'm not alone either.
There are thousands of men and women in this country who have seen war and death and don't want anymore to do with it. They want to live in peace. They want to forget the things they've had to do in the service of their country. They want to raise their kids and have family BBQs and build tree houses and soap box derby cars and have tea parties.
They don't want this shit that you're selling.
You have the extremist left and the extremist right that are doing their best to get something started. To force us into a Civil War. Even in the 1860's, the violence between the North and South was nowhere near what we see today. Nowhere. Even. Close.
And yet we still had a war of ideology that consumed hundreds of thousands of lives.
All you young and naive kids on both sides of this equation who think that having a Civil War will advance your agenda or restore your vision of what you think is America, just remember this...
Those of us older generations aren't having this shit. And if you jump off, you better be prepared to deal with US. We don't care what color you're wearing or what sign you're holding if you come after us, our friends, our family, our co-workers, our neighbors, etc., WE will kill you.
So remember that when you're thinking that it's just Left vs Right, or Liberal vs Conservative, or Commie vs. Fascist. We are the variable you're not considering.
That "Silent Majority" that you pretend does not exist is getting really sick and tired of your bullshit.

HOW STRICT GUN CONTROL WORKED IN CHIRAQ THE SATURDAY NIGHT 8/19/17-8/20/17

At least 33 people were wounded, 6 fatally, within 13 hours from Saturday to Sunday across the city in separate shootings, which includes an attack in the West Pullman neighborhood that left one man dead and wounded six other people

DEMOCRATS SHOOTING DEMOCRATS!

Violence in the city has drawn a great deal of media attention because it is where former president Barack Obama worked as a civil rights attorney and law professor and where he still maintains a high profile.

COMPUTERS FROM SENIOR POINT OF VIEW

INTERESTING LOOK AT GUN CONTROL

A very interesting read.  I have not verified the statistics quoted. Sounds about right tho!

1 woman’s response on FB to Va. Gov. call for gun reform:
I wonder if the liberal left understand how ridiculous they sound. The majority could not find their way out of a paper bag! So, let me help you here on this one.........There are 30,000 gun related deaths per year by firearms, and this number is not disputed. The U.S. population is 324,059,091 as of June 22, 2016. Do the math: 0.000000925% of the population dies from gun related actions each year. Statistically speaking, this is insignificant! What is never told, however, is a breakdown of those 30,000 deaths, to put them in perspective as compared to other causes of death:
• 65% of those deaths are by suicide, which would never be prevented by gun laws.
• 15% are by law enforcement in the line of duty and justified.
• 17% are through criminal activity, gang and drug related or mentally ill persons – better known as gun violence.
• 3% are accidental discharge deaths.
So technically, "gun violence" is not 30,000 annually, but drops to 5,100. Still too many? Now lets look at how those deaths spanned across the nation.
• 480 homicides (9.4%) were in Chicago
• 344 homicides (6.7%) were in Baltimore
• 333 homicides (6.5%) were in Detroit
• 119 homicides (2.3%) were in Washington D.C (a 54% increase over prior years)
So basically, 25% of all gun crime happens in just 4 cities. All 4 of those cities have strict gun laws, so it is not the lack of law that is the root cause.
This basically leaves 3,825 for the entire rest of the nation, or about 75 deaths per state. That is an average because some States have much higher rates than others. For example, California had 1,169 and Alabama had 1.
Now, who has the strictest gun laws by far? California, of course, but understand, it is not guns causing this It is a crime rate spawned by the number of criminal persons residing in those cities and states. So if all cities and states are not created equal, then there must be something other than the tool causing the gun deaths.
Are 5,100 deaths per year horrific? How about in comparison to other deaths? All death is sad and especially so when it is in the commission of a crime but that is the nature of crime. Robbery, death, rape, assault are all done by criminals. It is ludicrous to think that criminals will obey laws. That is why they are called criminals.
But what about other deaths each year?
• 40,000+ die from a drug overdose–THERE IS NO EXCUSE FOR THAT!
• 36,000 people die per year from the flu, far exceeding the criminal gun deaths.
• 34,000 people die per year in traffic fatalities(exceeding gun deaths even if you include suicide).
Now it gets good:
• 200,000+ people die each year (and growing) from preventable medical errors. You are safer walking in the worst areas of Chicago than you are when you are in a hospital!
• 710,000 people die per year from heart disease. It’s time to stop the double cheeseburgers! So what is the point? If the liberal loons and the anti-gun movement focused their attention on heart disease, even a 10% decrease in cardiac deaths would save twice the number of lives annually of all gun-related deaths (including suicide, law enforcement, etc.). A 10% reduction in medical errors would be 66% of the total number of gun deaths or 4 times the number of criminal homicides ................ Simple, easily preventable 10% reductions! So you have to ask yourself, in the grand scheme of things, why the focus on guns? It's pretty simple:
Taking away guns gives control to governments. The founders of this nation knew that regardless of the form of government, those in power may become corrupt and seek to rule as the British did by trying to disarm the populace of the colonies. It is not difficult to understand that a disarmed populace is a controlled populace.
Thus, the second amendment was proudly and boldly included in the U.S. Constitution. It must be preserved at all costs. So the next time someone tries to tell you that gun control is about saving lives, look at these facts and remember these words from Noah Webster: "Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed.

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CHIRAQ.....NOT MY KINDA TOWN

RETIREMENT-SENIORS

Why  I Like Retirement !

Question:   How many days in a week?   
Answer:   6 Saturdays, 1 Sunday  



Question:   When is a retiree's bedtime?   
Answer:   Two hours after he falls asleep on the couch.  


Question:   How many retirees to change a light bulb?   
Answer:   Only one, but it might take all day  



Question:   What's the biggest gripe of retirees?   
Answer:   There is not enough time to get everything done.  


Question:   Why don't retirees mind being called Seniors?   
Answer:   The term comes with a 10% discount.  



Question:   Among retirees, what is considered formal attire?   
Answer:   Tied shoes.  


Question:   Why do retirees count pennies?   
Answer:   They are the only ones who have the time.  



Question:   What is the common term for someone who enjoys work and refuses to retire?  
Answer:   NUTS!  


Question:   Why are retirees so slow to clean out the basement, attic or garage?  
Answer:   They know that as soon as they do, one of their adult kids will want to store stuff there.



Question:   What do retirees call a long lunch?   
Answer:   Normal.  

Question :   What is the best way to describe retirement?
Answer:   The never ending Coffee Break.  


Question:   What's the biggest advantage of going back to school as a retiree?  
Answer:   If you cut classes, no one calls your parents.  



Question:   Why does a retiree often say he doesn't miss work, but misses the people he used to work with?  
Answer:   He is too polite to tell the whole truth.  




And, my very favorite.... 
QUESTION:   What do you do all week?  
Answer:   Monday through Friday, NOTHING. Saturday & Sunday, I rest.  


SERENITY

Just before the funeral services, the undertaker came up to the very elderly widow and asked, 
'How old was your husband?' '98,' she replied.... 
'Two years older than me' 
'So you're 96,' the undertaker commented.. 
She responded, 'Hardly worth going home, is it?
  

Reporters interviewing a 104-year-old woman: 
'And what do you think is the best thing 
about being 104?' the reporter asked... 
She simply replied, 'No peer pressure.'
  

The nice thing about being senile is 
you can hide your own Easter eggs
and have fun finding them.
  

I've sure gotten old! 
I've had two bypass surgeries, a hip replacement, new knees, fought prostate
cancer and diabetes. I'm half blind, 
can't hear anything quieter than a jet engine, 
take 40 different medications that 
make me dizzy, winded, and subject to
blackouts. Have bouts with dementia. 
Have poor circulation; hardly feel my
hands and feet anymore. Can't remember
if I'm 85 or 92. Have lost all my friends.
But, thank God, I still have my driver's license.
  

I feel like my body has gotten totally out of shape, so I got my doctor's permission to 
join a fitness club and start exercising. 
I decided to take an aerobics class for seniors. 
I bent, twisted, gyrated, jumped up and
down, and perspired for an hour. But, 
by the time I   got my leotards on, 
the class was over.
  

My memory's not as sharp as it used to be. 
Also, my memory's not as sharp as it used to be.

Know how to prevent sagging? 
Just eat till the wrinkles fill out.
  

It's scary when you start making the same
noises as your coffee maker.

These days about half the stuff   in my
shopping cart says, 'For fast relief.'
  

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.
  

Now, I think you're supposed to share this with 5 or 6, maybe 10 others Oh heck, give it to a bunch of your friends if you can remember who they are! 

Always Remember This: 
You don't stop laughing because you grow old, 
You grow old because you stop laughing!

MATURE HUMOR 080417

HOW STRICT GUN CONTROL WORKED IN CHIRAQ AS OF 073117

Gun-controlled Chiraq is on pace for another banner year. According to heyjackass.com, there have been 1,799 people shot and wounded, 380 people shot and killed, and 412 homicides (which has some stats that differ from the Chicago Sun-Times, as you’ll see below).

As of early Sunday afternoon, there were 24 people shot in the city over the weekend and a four-year-old boy was one of the victims.

From MyFoxChicago: A 4-year-old boy and an 89-year-old man were among 24 people shot across the city from Friday evening to Sunday morning, a period which also saw two homicides.

The most recent deaths were the latest of 375 people fatally shot in the city this year, according to data maintained by the Chicago Sun-Times. In all, more than 2,145 people have been shot since the start of the year.

DEMOCRATS SHOOTING DEMOCRATS!

Violence in the city has drawn a great deal of media attention because it is where former president Barack Obama worked as a civil rights attorney and law professor and where he still maintains a high profile.

ARE ELECTRIC CARS PRACTICAL?

OK! I saw this posted on FB. No sources were given and I can't substantiate but worth a read and consideration.

An interesting perspective on electric cars you may find of interest & your consideration.

Talking to a BC Hydro executive, I asked him how that renewable thing was doing. He laughed, then got serious. If you really intend to adopt electric vehicles, he pointed out, you had to face certain realities.

For example, a home charging system for a Tesla requires 75 amp service. The average house is equipped with 100 amp service. On our small street (approximately 25 homes), the electrical infrastructure would be unable to carry more than 3 houses with a single Tesla, each. For even half the homes to have electric vehicles, the system would be wildly over-loaded.

This is the elephant in the room with electric vehicles ... Our residential infrastructure cannot bear the load. So as our genius elected officials promote this nonsense, not only are we being urged to buy the damn things and replace our reliable, cheap generating systems with expensive, new windmills and solar cells, but we will also have to renovate our entire delivery system!

This latter "investment" will not be revealed until we're so far down this dead-end road that it will be presented with an oops and a shrug.

If you want to argue with a green person over cars that are
Eco-friendly, just read the following:

Eric test drove the Chevy Volt at the invitation of General
Motors...and he writes...For four days in a row, the fully charged battery lasted only 25 miles before the Volt switched to the reserve gasoline engine. Eric calculated the car got 30 mpg including the 25 miles it ran on the battery. So, the range including the 9-gallon gas tank and the 16 kwh battery is approximately 270 miles.

It will take you 4 1/2 hours to drive 270 miles at 60 mph. Then add 10 hours to charge the battery and you have a total trip time of 14.5 hours. In a typical road trip your average speed (including charging time) would be 20 mph.

According to General Motors, the Volt battery holds 16 kwh of
electricity. It takes a full 10 hours to charge a drained battery. The cost for the electricity to charge the Volt is never mentioned so I looked up what I pay for electricity.

I pay approximately (it varies with amount used and the seasons) $1.16 per kwh. 16 kwh x $1.16 per kwh = $18.56 to charge the battery.
$18.56 per charge divided by 25 miles = $0.74 per mile to operate the Volt using the battery.

Compare this to a similar size car with a gasoline engine that gets only 32 mpg. $3.19 per gallon divided by 32 mpg = $0.10 per mile.

The gasoline powered car costs about $15,000 while the Volt costs $46,000........So the American Government and Canadian Government wants loyal Citizens not to do the math, but simply pay 3 times as much for a car, that costs more than 7 times as much to run, and takes
3 times longer to drive across the country....

OR ANOTHER POINT OF VIEW