Every life has a beginning. Mine started in an average-size town in East Texas in 1933. I was the middle child of five. My father was a barber. Mom was a housewife. What could have been more average? Life has its glaring moments, and my first one came about with my great-grandmother. I was very young at the time, and this part of my story is as encompassed by one phrase: "To understand wisdom, you need a wise grandmother."

Sarah Savannah was my great-grandmother. She always talked in aphorisms, such as, "Everyone and everything needs an anchor. Otherwise, you just drift." She gave me an anchor for my life when I was at a very young age. She said to me, "Boy, you have something the other kids don't have. For as long as you live, whatever you do, don't you dare disappoint Mr. God and me, and mess it up. Do you understand?" (It occurs to me now to wonder if I was ADD—today's explanation for deviate brain wiring.) I denounce that derogatory conclusion and prefer to believe that I was only TOTC (Totally Opposed to Compliance). Regardless, that encounter has motivated and modified my conduct even to this day. As you can imagine, Granny Savannah was a crusty old gal. She was barely five feet tall, not a huggy-kissy type of person, and she seldom smiled, and spoke sparingly. When she did speak, you listened. You can only fancy how many times I reflect on her Mr. God admonishment. She died shortly after that. She knew Mr. God! She possessed wisdom and freely proclaimed, "You can't get it anywhere else; it is a gift from Mr. God."

A lot of what you will be exposed to in this book is a recitation of some of her quotes, comments, and with your sanction, some offerings of what I think she would have said about our current world and society.

"We become whatever we regard in life, so don't confuse cotton for silk."

"Don't defend your bad conduct. Pride is the ultimate parasite."

"You are not using a time-saving tool when you put something off until tomorrow."

"On Judgment Day, the most some of us can look forward to, is a suspended sentence."

"At the end of the day, be done with it. Hopefully, you have done the best you can do. You may have messed it up, you may have stumbled, but it's not necessary to drag a cross through every tomorrow. Begin each day with serenity and high hopes with no worry or dread."

"Judgment is more about planting seeds than it is about harvesting because you're going to get back what you scatter."

"Mr. God won't help you make a bad decision, nor will he help when you won't make a decision."

"Fools never change their minds; wise folks sometimes do."

"I can put up with a fool making me laugh, better than with one who makes me wonder!"

"I have to be careful talking about folks who irritate me, because that's a cloak of ignorance. I go into that complaint closet of my mind, and I see hooks on the wall filled with shrouds of gripes and grudges. Pray that I can tear that closet out and turn it into an adulation arbor. I am not great, but I'd rather be."

"Choose your friends carefully; you are like whoever you stay around. My advice would be to spend time around folks who have more sense, compassion, and wealth than you do. If anything rubs off on you, these three things are not love, but they are not bad."

"Love that asks nothing in return is the most powerful. It creates and does not destroy."

"I practice behaving myself every day for the same reason that I brush my teeth, because I ought to."

"You know what's funny to me? Reality won't go away because you don't believe in it."

"Badly deformed and exceptionally brilliant people have much in common. There are only a few of each in the mix of people. They draw our attention because of that. We pay money to observe them, to learn, or to be entertained by them. We spend time making fun of them or imitating them. The deformed wake up slow and aggravate us. The brilliant wake-up fast and startle us into doing nothing. You will be better off spending time working on what Mr. God was thinking about when he made you."

"It's all right to be ugly, fat, or dumb, but would you mind just staying at home?"

"There is no way you can make a fool of yourself and not know it, if you're married!"

"A woman cannot make a fool out of a man without a lot of cooperation."

"When you're down and out, usually the first thing that shows up is your neighbor's nose."

"He who laughs last is usually the dumbest."

"Don't be greedy; we all only get one grave."

"You are your nearest of kin, and you are your own heir. You're going to create your own future and your own past. Think about it! I've seen people live a whole lifetime doing nothing, waiting on a rich relative to die, and then I attend the funeral of the one who was waiting. That is a sad but comical thing to watch. I'll say this also: people with money should be careful about saying, `I'm going to leave everything to you when I die.' Don't they realize what the heir is praying for every night?"

"Conscience is a strange fabric. Lose one stitch while working on it and a hole big enough to put your head through will appear."

"You've got to be one or the other, sad or joyful. You can't be just content; that's reserved for pigs in mud."

"I once knew an old woman who remembered things that never happened."

"You can't come back from some place you ain't never been."

"Shut your face. You're making my back end tired."

"Y'all come see me and bring what you like to eat."

"When we tell folks we have quit something harmful to us, it's usually after it goes out of fashion or we can no longer afford it. The truth is, it just quits us. The wisdom of this is things just change. Change seldom happens because of error. It more often happens out of boredom of the past. Wise folks are always looking for a better way to do something. That is the most pleasing cause of change."

"Wouldn't that blow your dress over your head?"

"If you think a seat belt is uncomfortable, try one of those morgue slabs."

"I think the world has about achieved perpetual commotion."

"If you are not going to sow, don't plow." (Don't gossip.)

"Say kind words about folks while they're alive. Taffy is better than epitaph-y."

"Even if you don't speak the English language, you can travel from coast-to-coast with just these few phrases: `How do you do?'; `I love you'; `Forgive me'; `Forget me'; and `Ham and eggs, please!'"

"Having a fortune and being fortunate are not always the same. Having what you define and need in a good family to be proud of and be a part of is my definition of being most fortunate. If that is all you possess in life, you're never going to be poor."

"When you take my picture, don't show me full-length—that's for cowboys so you can see their boots. I believe the other end of me is the valuable part."

"I sometimes find myself halfway between wit and beauty—without ever possessing either."

"Arguing is a waste of time for me, because in the back of every argument is an amazing display of one or both folk's ignorance."

"Time is the slowest activity, unless you happen to enjoy it."

"A good grandmother is worth a dozen teachers."

"You're a good grandchild. You deserve a grandmother like me."

"Best I can tell, his mind is closed for repairs."

"You can get to the top of things by starting at the bottom of them."

"You'll be better off wanting what you get rather than getting what you want."

"I can't stand for anyone to `weak wobble' my hand. When you take a hand to greet a person, make the contact reflect some feeling. I am not talking about injuring them, I'm talking about making them know you're proud to see them."

"If we lock up all the feeble-minded folks, who is going to write our songs?"

"That man can cram more words into the dumbest ideas of anyone I ever knew."

"A friend forgets your faults, and a lover doesn't see them." "Brainy folks have their limitations, but stupid folks are not restricted in any manner."

"Explaining a conviction seldom makes you mad, but justifying a prejudice sure can."

"The difference in a grave and a rut is how deep it goes."

"You'd be better off wearing out than rusting out."

"I've about decided that although his mind is closed, it is operating off of stored fat."

"Don't worry about hard times; when you're sleeping on the floor, you are not going to fall out of bed."

"The first thing I look at when I meet someone new is their eyes. If their eyes are avoiding mine, then there is not much chance we're going to be able to be of benefit to one another. The soul spends its time in your eyes so it can detect companions. It does its best work in a communion."

"He that tooteth not his own horn, the same shall not be tooted."

"You've made enough mistakes. Don't do something, just stand there."

"If you have an afternoon with nothing to do, and then can spend it in a useless manner, you have learned to live."

"If all politicians were laid end-to-end, I could enjoy that."

"She and I spent the afternoon exchanging ideas, and my head is perfectly empty. I'm glad she got weary and went home. She was so tired she could barely hold her mouth open."

"Be either a hammer or an anvil, not just simply the bellows."

"News is scarce when you mind your own business."

"One good thing about contentment: folks don't try to borrow it from you."

"The first lie detector was made out of a woman's rib."

"You know scientists have learned how to improve everything but people."

"I love Christmas when it snows. It doesn't snow much where I live, so when it does, it shoves my mind in a special place. Snow cleans up the air. Snow `quietens' the world. Snow decorates ugly things. Snow slows me down. Then I am made to stop and think. I bet it snowed that day when that little baby boy Jesus was born in Bethlehem, 'cause I feel closer to him when it snows at Christmas."

"It's a good time to find the truth about yourself when you're trying to reform your neighbor."

The three best ways to get along with a woman are to "surrender, capitulate, or retreat."

"He ought to call her Echo, because she always has the last word."

"Experience is one thing you can't get on the easy payment method."

"Animals don't laugh. They would if they had politicians."

"That barber is going to be mad when he finds out Wilbur is deaf." (And you should never ask a barber, "Do I need a haircut?")

"It has just occurred to me that the only muscles that are not controlled by Uncle Will's brain are his heart and his tongue."

"Being broad-minded is when you can laugh at both sides of the story."

"Lord, I wish I could yawn with my mouth closed."

"Did you ever find yourself making your company feel at home when you wished they were?"

"Never hesitate to make folks happy, even if it means staying at home."

"You can't fool all the people all of the time, but that is not necessary. A majority will do just fine."

"You'll be fine when you learn to settle up and settle down."

"I think the wreck happened when they both tried to run over the same armadillo."

"Money is not a passport to heaven, nor is it a ticket to happiness."

"The pursuit of happiness is exactly that—you have to catch up with it. It is constantly moving."

"Believe half of what you hear and half of that for what you think."

"Lots of arguments are sound—nothing but sound!"

"Why is it that there is always two sides to something we are just not interested in?"

"Why do folks spend so much time detouring on their way to weak points?"

"A vacant mind is not the same as an open one."

"I decided to quit telling folks I'd had `newmonia' when I realized I couldn't spell it."

"The moon has an effect on the tide and the untied (unmarried)."

"The best exercise to lose weight is to move your head from side-to-side when offered dessert."

"The folks with the big head are not going to get the biggest crowns in heaven."

"He's so dumb he answers anonymous letters."

"That preacher is so bad he doesn't need a song leader—he needs a body guard."

"Mabel said she took the recipe for this cake out of a cookbook. She did the right thing. In my opinion, it should not have ever been in there to start with."

"You know what to do when your life gets into a hole? Quit digging!"

"I just read where Minerva was the Goddess of Wisdom, and do I understand she never married?"

You, of course, realize that Granny was my incubator for a lot of this text, but nothing great or small comes from any other kind of base. Look for the people and somethings in your life that can develop and stretch who and what you are. You won't be disappointed!

Mr. God's gift of wisdom to Granny Savannah arrived in the dirt of experience, in the compost of example, in the vapor of desire, and in the good weather of gratification.

Let's pause here and insert another aspect into my story. Shortly after Granny died, life took a strange and dark turn. December 20, 1941, two weeks after World War 11 started, one of my brothers was killed while riding his bike by a hit-and-run driver. That event was bad enough, but it was impacted by another sad fact. He was on his way to meet our mom to be punished for what was considered to be, at that time in the South, a cultural misbehavior: gambling. He had bought a raffle ticket for a five-pound box of candy, and had won. He died three blocks from where he was to meet our mother. Calamity!

Upside down is not good enough to describe our family situation after that. Mom was emotionally destroyed, unable to get out of bed for months. My dad and another brother did not possess anything approaching caregiver status. It was somehow understood that they would not be available for duty. I had a little sister who was fifteen months old at the time, and Mom was pregnant with my baby brother (not due until July). The result was the next best life lesson for me. We had friends and relatives that stayed for a short period to help, but they soon had to return to their homes. You guessed it! I became the ultimate caregiver.

Mom gave me instructions in cooking, housekeeping, and babysitting as best as she could under the circumstances. Let me say here that that was to be (after Granny Savannah) my next best core life lesson. Mom, eventually, was able to get up and take care of the household duties, but I was to be the babysitter for many years to come.

Life does go on, and we are taught (if we pay attention) that all of it will reveal a purpose and a guide. For every down, there is an up. For every no, there is a yes. For every cloudy day, there is sunshine. You know the drill.

Yes, there is more to my story. I did the normal things that boys do. I mowed yards, sold magazines, and shined shoes at my father's shop. I managed the concession stands at the ballpark and the swimming pool. Oh, yes, I ran away from home several times, staying at a friend's house and being mentored by his mom. Everyone called her Honey, a wise old gal. She cursed like a sailor and would kick your butt in a heartbeat. But, she taught me how to get up when I fell down, as did many more people the next thirty years, which included a stint in the military (I was not a happy soldier).

My wife and I married in 1956 (she was eighteen, and I was twenty-three). I was working for General Motors in finance at that time. We had two sons, both of whom are now Lawyers. Both sons have two beautiful daughters (all of whom are now college educated). I also spent five years with the NFL, selling advertising and promotions in every state in the union. This was fun and mind-stretching. Last but not least, my wife and I had a commercial real-estate brokerage firm buying, selling, and managing income-producing property. We sold our business and have been self-unemployed for many years. I want to emphasize to you again that there were mentors during all of these activities, all of whom are no longer alive (I miss them dearly). Each one must have seen what Granny Savannah did, because I was taught, shoved, and pleaded on to get up when you fall down, be brave, do more than you are paid for, keep working when you are exhausted, never lose your sense of humor, and trust your instincts. My goal has been and always will be to do these things, knowing that if you, "See that enough people get what they want, you will never want for anything." Try it! It can change your world, or again, you may get your butt kicked. So what?