There is an awful lot of difference between reading something and actually seeing it, for you can never tell, till you see it, just how big a liar History is. —  1926 Will Rogers I doubt if there is a thing in the world as wrong and unreliable as History. History ain’t what it is; it’s what some writer wanted it to be, and I just happened to thing I bet ours is as crooked as the rest. I bet we have started just as much devilment as was ever started against us — maybe more.  —  March 12,1932   … Continue reading About History…

Americans have one particular trait that they need never have any fear of some other nation copying, that is, we are the only people that will go where we know we are absolutely not wanted.   — Will Rogers January 8, 1927 — And you thought this was a recent thing didn’t you.  But once again Will shows us that we have been butting our noses in where we are not welcomed for at least eighty years now and I suspect much longer than that. This trait is very strange to me; about the same as our fascination with guns. … Continue reading Where We Are Not Wanted….

The more ignorant you are the quicker you fight. 12 August 1929   Will Rogers I must admit that I am a wimp when it comes to fighting. The last time I had a physical fight was when I was about seven years old. I punched my best friend Johnny Gallagher in the nose. I don’t really remember the circumstance behind the fight but I think I was goaded into it by some other kids. That seems to be the way many fights are started. I was devastated that I had actually hurt my buddy. I vowed then and there to … Continue reading Ignorance and Fighting….

I don’t care who you are, you just can’t reach middle life without having done and said a whole lot of foolish things. 29 December 1934   Will Rogers I have to admit that I have done some pretty foolish things in life, especially in my high school years. Things that I am not particularly proud of but I own up to them. Don’t get me wrong, nothing I did left any permanent harm on others and only a little to myself but some of them were a little bit unlawful. :) I used to readily admit that I drank much more before I was … Continue reading The Foolish Things We Do….

We got one thing to be thankful for anyhow. The country is not in as bad shape as the rumors have it. 3 September 1931  Will Rogers One of the things I have always liked about Will is that he seemed to be an eternal optimist. This quote was about three years into the Great Depression and he was still an optimist. But it does go to the heart of another of my favorite quotes and that is things are never as good as you had hoped or as bad as you had imagined. There are so many rumors around about what will … Continue reading Not As Bad Shape….

I think we kind of need to balance out the post from this morning with a quote from Will Rogers Money was appropriated in the hope that it would trickle down to the needy. Herbert Hoover was an engineer. He knew water trickled down. Put it uphill and let it go and it will find the driest little spot. So money was appropriated for the top in the hope that it would trickle down to the needy. But he didn’t know that money trickled up! Give it to the people at the bottom and the people at the top will … Continue reading Trickle Down….

If I happen to have some bean soup, I want to be able to locate, at pretty prompt intervals, some little objects that look to me like beans. I don’t want a bowl of it where the beans have just been driven through it at low tide.  July 17, 1927    Will Rogers

This quote from Will pretty much aligns with the one from this morning except now we are talking about wimpy food instead of people. But come to think of it maybe that is our problem, too much wimpy food.  In Will’s day they hadn’t discovered all the Cholesterol and vitamin  stuff so everyone was pretty much just ate what they wanted.   And for the most part they choose meat and potatoes, and big portions of it.

Continue reading “Bean Soup….”

I know when I was younger I always got a laugh about how old people seem to always be talking about having this pain or that. It was not of much interest to me to hear about others pain so I couldn’t understand why it seemed a daily conversation with so many old people.  Several of the blogs I browse daily are basically journal of the bloggers daily activity and of course that includes their pains; especially the blogs that have “retirement” in their title.

As I have gotten older I have come to understand this daily ritual. It is not so much that I want to hear about someone else’s pain but instead that I want to tell them about my pain.  Telling someone about your pain seems to make some of it go away. :)  I’m sure the other person is no more interested in my pain than I am about his but it is sort of a reciprocal thing. You listen to mine and I will listen to yours.

Continue reading “I’ve Got This Pain….”

The whole thing seems too good to be true, but the whole world is changing, so maybe they are going to turn human. – May 18, 1933    — Will Rogers

Sometimes I like to “talk” with my heroes. The following in my imagined soliloquy to Will Rogers about his quote for today:

Will, I must admit that I don’t really know where you are going with this quote? Maybe you are talking about how people came together with common support during the Great Depression when you said these words.  I too see the whole world changing and probably more rapidly than you ever did.  Although you did live through most of the Great Depression so maybe I am wrong in that regard.  But I seem to see the exact opposite this time around in the changing world. Continue reading “Turning Human???”

When you put down the good things you ought to have done, and leave out the bad ones you did do well, that’s Memoirs. – Will Rogers I think almost all of us who have ever put pen to paper so to speak have thought about writing our memoirs. But it seems that only those folks who are famous ever actually get theirs published and I have a sneaking suspicion that many of even those are actually ghost written. I guess I have sort of written my memoirs in that I have been keeping a journal for about twenty years … Continue reading Memoirs…..

The West has got lots of open country but none that you can live on. – October 1, 1933  Will Rogers Of course when Will talked about the “West” I’m sure he was not talking about the States along the coast but instead those along the east slope of the Rocky Mountains.  But it turns out that he was mostly right in that not many people live in that area of the U.S.  I always remember the old saying that “50% of the people in the U.S. live within 50 miles of the coast”. But, just how many people live … Continue reading The Great American Desert….

We stick to the old American principle of only working when the boss is looking. – April 8, 1933  Will Rogers I’m sure this is as true today and maybe more so that it was in Will’s day only the techniques of not getting caught has changed. I read a statistic somewhere that said that up to 40% of a desk jockey’s time at the office now days is spent cruising the Internet, posting on Facebook, or ordering personal items on-line. When I retired twelve years ago I was surrounded by three computers all connected to the Internet but I … Continue reading When The Boss Is Looking….

Over here you can write whatever you want to. The only trouble getting somebody that will read it. – April 18, 1933  Will Rogers Sometimes we in the U.S. forget just how good we have it. As Will says over here we can write whatever we want.  That is definitely not the case in many parts of the world today.  Yes, FaceBook and such have made putting your words out there easier but they can still cause some bodily harm. Let’s never forget that we have it so well here. But to us authors, I am including all us bloggers … Continue reading Getting Someone To Read It…..

A few years ago we were so afraid that the poor people was liable to take a drink. Now we’ve fixed it so that they can’t even get something to eat.  — Will Rogers Every time I look at all my source quotes from Will for one to the included here I am amazed at how they apply to our times as well as Will’s eighty years ago.  Most of Will’s quotes come from the Depression years of the 1930s. While he was one of the 1% of his era he had the mind and compassion for the common folk. … Continue reading To Take a Drink…