"Mark My Words...."

Actually, I should have titled it, "Mark, His Words"....

Good ol' Samuel Clemens, Sammy C who goes by Mark T, as in Twain. I'll rank him right up there with the wit of Will Rogers for providing us with tongue-in-cheek humor that toys with Life's topics much like a cat that endlessly toys with a mouse instead of pouncing on it once and for all.

One of my favorite Twain quotes goes something like this:

"There are 3 types of lies in this world: lies, damned lies, and statistics."

Amen to that...the veritable rubber band of truth, statistics. I recently ran across one statistic that said 5 out of 4 adults have trouble with fractions...and another that said with 100% surety that if your grandparents couldn't have children, you couldn't either.

"The man with a new idea is a crank until the idea succeeds."

Truth be told, I'm working on some big, new ideas/plans, and I'm 87% sure I've got male PMS today as a result of the whole planning and efforting process...

Just the other day I was in the grocery store and heard, 2 aisles over, two little kids screaming and running up and down the aisle...I glanced over at a vendor stocking a shelf and said, "And where is the mom or dad???" He mused back that they had just come down his aisle and if I were to go look for myself I'd understand 'why'....I knew I'd best not go see for myself, since I had a good chance of saying something...alas, I was garbed in my fire engine red News 14 coat and thought better of it...so when I read this baseball story I had to laugh...

"To the Public:
TWO HUNDRED & FIVE DOLLARS REWARD--At the great baseball match on Tuesday, while I was engaged in hurrahing, a small boy walked off with an English-made brown silk UMBRELLA belonging to me, & forgot to bring it back. I will pay $5 for the return of that umbrella in good condition to my house on Farmington avenue. I do not want the boy (in an active state) but will pay two hundred dollars for his remains. - Samuel L. Clemens."

I am a big proponent of being all you can be (no, that doesn't mean join the Army), taking advantage of open doors, or when you hit a shut door that you look for a couple of open windows instead...to follow your dreams and truly 'live' your Life. This Twain quote is another pearl of wisdom for us all...

"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover."

Good advice. How will you know you lived to your fullest?

"Let us so live that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry."

Good ol' Mark Twain...