As I have aged and hopefully grown wiser with the passing of years, and as I have matured from experiencing many more involvements with different types and kinds of people, I have to honestly stop, recognize, and give praise and thankfulness to the fact as to how wonderfully blessed I have been for having had the great parents I had for the first 56 years of my life.  My parents were simply incredible people.  They taught all of we children (three of us) so much about life and how to live it.  They were such great examples from whom we could learn how to love, care for, and nurture a family of our own.  Mom and Dad, (Kitty and Al) were highly intelligent and shared their knowledge freely with all of us in their attempts to raise us well.

My dad was a very successful businessman.  He was a business leader within his own community. He worked hard, and followed his work ethic by playing hard.  He loved his wife and family and provided for all of our needs.  He was a disciplinarian.  As a retired U. S. Navy Chief he not only expected we children to follow his verbal instructions,…he demanded that we did so.  There was never a need for him to repeat himself or ask a second or third time for us to do something.  Whenever mom or dad spoke, we three children responded,…we all responded immediately.

The manner and way in which children are raised plays a most critically important role as to how they grow into mature adults and responsible members of their own future families.  I believe I can make this truthful statement based upon my seven and one-half decades of observation and learning:

It takes good people to make good people.  Good parents raise up good children who go on to become good citizens.  Good parents instill (mostly by example) their good qualities into their children.  Good parents raise good children who go on to produce good or even better grandchildren.  Pride, honor, and godly upbringing techniques are the fruits of committed and loving relationships among all members of a family throughout all of its generations. 

For those parents who do things in a proper and godly manner, the blessings of God will flow over onto them and all generations of their family from today and on into the future.  It surely does pay to do things right.

Now before going any further I want to say that the opposite of doing things correctly, i.e. doing things in the wrong manner or way or doing them incorrectly or without the inclusion of teaching your offspring about God Almighty and His Laws of the Universe virtually guarantees you will experience heartache and heartburn almost daily over the course of your lifetime.  There is no right way to do the wrong thing.

God created man.  Therefore God is greater than man.  God Almighty is a God of love, and justice.  God is jealous and wants  our worship and recognition of His Almighty position in relation to the world He created and the things and people who populate it.  God makes no mistakes.  He is in total control of everything within His creation.  Everything happens for a reason.  God controls all the things and events in which we live. He also controls all of the timing of the things in life that we experience.  This is why He is in total control and we as humans are not.

A real secret of all success is for you to first come to know who you really are.  The next thing for you to discover is what are you going to do with the use of the life that God has given you.

Until you come to fully know the answers to these two questions, life is going to continue to throw you lots of strikes, sufferings, miseries, and hurts.

Do not spend your life doing what other people are trying to tell you to do.  No,…you start and continue to think for yourself.  Make your own decisions.  Conduct yourself with total honesty and integrity in every personal relationship you have or develop and in every activity in which you perform.  Always do the right, righteous, and honest thing even if it does not seem to be the best thing for you personally.   

You see, dear friends, God will never lie, cheat, or steal.  He will never violate His own character.  He will never go back on His Word.  He will always do or allow the right thing to be done or to happen….and so should you do the same.   Doing so is the true road to happiness and peace of mind.

Now listen, if you want to be the happiest in the living of your life, then make sure that you really like and enjoy doing what you have chosen to do—that you love doing and/or accomplishing those things in your life that you like and want to do.  Do not spend your life doing things that you dislike or that you don’t want to do.—things that cause you heart break, suffering, and misery.  No!  Don’t waste your life in uneventful, unfulfilled, and empty pursuits.  Take some time.  Consider your ways.  Comprehensively review your life and evaluate properly with some guidance and counsel from your mentors as to what changes need to be made and what new and different activities need to be taken up.

Never forget this godly admonition: You will be the happiest in the living of your life when you are the most productive.

Let me give you a quick example of what my dad did to and for me when I was a young child in the fourth grade.  I did not like to read.  I was a poor and very slow reader.  As I mentioned earlier, my father was a disciplinarian.  He instilled in me the importance of getting good school grades and learning the subjects being taught thoroughly.  

Paramount of his instructions was that you learn as much as is possible and that have a great command of the English language.  That, of course, demanded that you needed to master good and proper spelling, word selection and usage, punctuation, and enunciation of all English words.  Reading was the best source of learning.  If you could read well, you then could learn to spell well.  You could then learn proper sentence structure and word selection.  You could then learn how to speak well.  Hence you could then be well prepared and positioned to become a good or even great communicator and thereby and therewith become a highly successful adult.  From my father’s perspective, it was all a process to be initiated and properly completed.  

This process began at birth; it carried on through the formative years of life, and on into elementary school; then high school and then on into college.  You were expected to go to college and to graduate!  There was no room for argument.  That is just what you did.  Once you had  graduated from college, you were then to enter military service to your country and spend at least two years serving (giving back) to your great homeland what had been provided to you up to this point in your life.  There was no “wiggle room” to get out of these obligations as long as you were healthy and physically able to do them.  First Things First!

After the military commitment ended, then you sought out and acquired gainful employment.  You then found your own place to live (not at home) and became self supporting.  Period !  You were to work diligently and make a good contribution to your community and to your family and its good name.

During this developmental period of labor and maturation, you could then accumulate a nice financial “nest egg.”  And then after accomplishing and reaching that point in your life’s development, you could begin to make preparations for taking a wife and beginning your own family.  You see, this process to success was to continue on until terminated with your own death.  It ended only at your own funeral.  This whole process was dad’s game plan for success.  If diligently followed, you would indeed create a great life for your God, for your country, for your family, and finally for yourself! 

Now I know, for some of you readers and listeners this is simply too much preplanned structure for your personal life.  You lack sufficient fortitude, commitment, submission, and forbearance to ever adhere to or endure such stringent procedures of compliance.  That is O. K.  You do your own thing or the best as you can do, with your own plan…Just don’t go off into the big wide world without some sort of game plan.  Just don’t go off half-cocked and start taking on familial responsibilities without first being able to take proper care of yourself.

Back to learning how to become a good reader…..

As a struggling reader, dad took me quietly aside one evening and asked me what I really liked to learn about in school.  What really interested me and caused me to want to know more about it.  The answer to his question immediately and profusely flowed out of my mouth.  “I want to learn more about Idaho history.”

“Well,” he said, “Let’s go get you a couple of good books about Idaho history so that you can begin learning more about it.”

That sound, solid, loving, and nurturing fatherly advice changed my entire life.  I began to voraciously read and re-read every book that I could get my hands on about the historical truths of the state of Idaho.  But more importantly it launched me into a lifetime of enjoyment and education and on-going learning about the things in my life that I loved the most.

Oh yes, a couple of more things that dad’s advice allowed me to achieve and acquire as I aged.  I did become a good speller.  I did develop a great command of the English language.  I did learn how to speak and write well.  I did complete 4 years in the U.S. Army.  I did graduate from college and become a licensed C.P.A.  I did start and operate my own highly profitable international marketing business.  I did save my money.  I did meet and marry my beautiful wife.  We raised three wonderful children.  And during the 42 years of our great marriage had a ball living life to the fullest,… before a dreaded fatal disease took her away from this earth.

I have worked hard, and I have played hard.  I have tried my best to make significant contributions to my family, my country, my community, my business, my church, and my God.  I have added to the strength and value of my family name.  I became successful operating my own business in the American Free Enterprise Economic System.  I would like to think that I have been a good and honest man, husband, father, and grandfather.  And I would like to think that I have established a family legacy that will carry on into the future long after I leave this world

Thanks Mom and Dad for teaching and training and preparing me for the road ahead.  You did a wonderful job.  And I hope I have done you proud.

Peace And Love to All of You……………………Poppa Bear