Monday, October 25, 2010

THE PURGING OF THE POCKET NOTEBOOKS

FOR DECADES, I have carried small spiral-bound notebooks around in my shirt pocket keeping shopping lists, directions, phone numbers, project dimensions, notes on road conditions, and story starters or random thoughts for later use.

Today, in policing the house, I uncovered more than a half dozen of these primitive Palm Pilots. I set myself to purging any page that had writing on it, saving only the aforementioned random thoughts. Most of them, I think, are original and they are listed here:


  • You can’t be getting your nails done and cry poor at the same time.
  • I’m a little ticked off about anger management.
  • Being stupid protects people from getting old.
  • If you set the bar just so, everybody can do excellent.
  • Lord, grant me the enough wealth to be enlightened, but enough creature comforts to not have to bother.
  • The less well read a person is, the more sure they are of their beliefs.
  • Decisio-terrorism:  The act of sabotaging a decision arrived at through group consensus.
  • Arrange the facts to support the conclusion.
  • How do we avoid what happened before and what do we create when we do?
  • Not all who grow grapes should make wine.
  • The end of an appointment cannot be before it starts.
  • The closer they are to chickens, the better children will behave.
  • The grass may not be greener, but you still may want to hop that fence and chew on it a while.
  • Defensible decisions receive support because they are defensible decisions - not because somebody asks for the support from colleagues or underlings.
  • People, forever, will fall short of expectations they do not know exist.
  • Where does a UPS truck go to die?
  • Get even: be the reason the other line moves much faster.
  • Prosperity is not what one can afford, but what one can afford to give away.  
  • I was workin’ on learnin’ a song when you walked through the door.
  • There are 100 routes from here to there.  Just find ‘em.  Heck, just find one.
  • An idea, well proffered, moves giants.

THE GOOD NEWS is that I now have eight or nine little notebooks with varied numbers of blank pages in each; all ready for more service in support of my weakened faculty for remembering a thought. Or a grocery list.

2 comments:

  1. ..but how do you write such thoughtful stuff from astride the GS @ 60+ MPH? Fun read. Thanks

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  2. DS: Words to live by! However, it is not until you have lived it do you completely understand. I completely understand that chicken quote.

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