So You Think You Can Dance? C'mon then

Once upon on a time on a Saturday Evening at Club Elevations I got up the nerve to ask the hottest woman in the room to dance. At first she declined my request because she said that she was married. I asked her if her husband was there and she said, " No, he's back home in San Diego."
So I got bold and said, " Listen, tomorrow, you can get on a plane and go back to being Mrs. Whomever, but tonight I just want to dance with you."
She got up out of her seat and said," So you think you can dance, then c'mon and let me see what you've got then!"
We did every line dance imaginable such as The Chinese Checker, The Chicago Bus Stop, The Bunny Hop and much more. She even came out of her heels to dance with me.
We stayed on the floor until one of us tapped out.
It was me that ended up tapping out.
She told me at the end of the night that her name was Nikki and I never saw her again.
I learned a valuable lesson that night.
I learned that to never under estimate anyone when it comes to a challenge.
You might receive a little more than you were prepared to handle.

5 Lessons Learned from Old J.C.

On July 20, 1982 in Russellville, Arkansas , my mother re-married an older gentleman by the name of J.C. Clemons Sr. I was turning 5 years old the year that this happened.
A couple of years later we would move into our new home located  at 66 Goldmine Springs Road. 
From the time of my elementary years until the time that I became an adult, I lived in this home under the guidance of this man. 
I won't lie. Not every day was a sunny day in that house. In fact, there were more days of chaos than were necessary. Regardless of how chaotic is was, I managed to learn a lot of valuable information from him concerning women. 

Lesson 1: Always pay attention to your woman's eyes when you are speaking to her. There are of one two things that are going on when she is not looking at you. 1. She could not be very interested in what you have to say. 2. She could be hiding very valuable information from you. You'd better hope that it is not the latter. 
Lesson 2: Always make sure that you if you have a woman at home raising your kids that you do what you can to separate her from that chaos from time to time. It does wonders for your love life and it helps her to maintain her sanity. 

Lesson 3: When it comes to your woman, you have to listen, but you don't have to agree with her. 
During odd hours of the day, your woman will want to talk to you. The topics may not be something that generally interest you, but you have to give her your undivided at all times. 
This is highly important because if she has to feel as if she has to confide in other men about her problems, it could give old Jody a window of opportunity to try and steal her from you. 
Also know that no woman can be stolen from a man unless she was already thinking about leaving.

Lesson 4: Make date night a mandatory night at least 3 times a month. Do it so that you can keep Jody away from your door. Enough said.

Lesson 5: If you get a woman that acts as if she is a human calculator, she will be good at saving you money. Also don't get into arguments over her collections of coupons. You may save more money than you realize. 

All of the lessons that I learned from my stepfather proved to be bulletproof. 

Sadly, On April 8th of 2010, our family said goodbye to him as he lost his battle with lung cancer. 
Our family has not been the same since his absence.  I wanted to share his lessons with the world in order to insure that his legacy lives on. 
I hope that these lessons are as helpful to you as they were to me.

The Smoking Jacket Chronicles

Kids: Payback for your mistakes as a child

Whenever I hear about the things that my young nieces have done, it reminds me of the familiar phrase that I once heard as a child, " What on earth were you thinking?" That phrase was always uttered by my mom whenever we had done things that completely made no sense.
Even though I end up having to be the bad guy when I talk to them, inside I am cracking up laughing because my sister is getting back all of the grief that she put our mom through.
Mom used to always say, "Wait until you have kids.......! "
I only hope that when I am married with kids that my payback doesn't come back as hard.

Ouch that Hurt:

I grew up in a household with two younger sisters. We were always at each others throats whenever the time permitted. However, there were times that I did have mercy for them. Those times were when they were getting their hair combed by my mother. Whenever the comb would be thrust back across their scalp they would always scream as if they were getting killed. Their screams for mercy didn't matter to my mom. They would just get accused of being tender headed.

After all of their suffering, they would usually end up in pigtails and barrets.

As an adult, the horrified screaming of little girls getting their hair combed still haunts me. I just pray that if you are a parent that is raising young women please go easy on them when you comb their hair. Their pain and suffering is real !

Making An Investment

I heard this tale years ago when I was a teenager:

Once upon a time, a farmer went on a regular routine into town to buy groceries. While he was at the local market store, he came across a homeless man that held a sign that read " Out of Work. Will work for food!"
The farmer thought about the wood at his home that he needed to have chopped so he decided to take the man up on his offer.
After the farmer had left the man to do the work for an hour, he decided to go and check on him.
The farmer became furious because the work was being poorly done.
He said to the man, " Why are you not doing this job well? I thought that you could do the work?"
The man replied, " Feed Me! I have no energy!"
The farmer took the man inside and he fed him.
After the man had finished eating, he went outside to finish the job.
A couple of hours later, the farmer went back to check on the man.
The farmer was so impressed with the job that man had done that he wanted to hire him full time as a ranch hand.
The moral of this story is this: Sometimes the best investment that you can make is not in the stock market, it is making an investment into your fellow man. Not everything that looks good on paper will always pan out.
However, when you learn to look into the eyes of people and really look deep into their character, you may find out that they are worth more than meets the eye.

Who You Gonna Call?

Whenever I go to see my maternal grandmother we get on the phone and just start calling random people that know her. I give her that opportunity because it is a privilege that she does not use while she is in the nursing home. It makes her smile and it moves me up in the ranks of the cool grand kids ! We are starting to run out of numbers to call because a lot of people have either died or have to work.
Nevertheless, there is no price tag that you can put on good quality time spent with the ones that you love.