Forty-One: The cardinal number immediately following forty and preceding forty-two. It's also the birth age of our baby boy, Rodney. Happy Birthday Son!

Rodney and his Mommy

Welcome. It is Monday, February 27, 2012. This is a very special day for us. It's our baby boy's birthday. I suppose that doesn't sound exactly right when our Rodney is turning 41, but he will always be our baby boy, no matter what his age. I had mentioned this birthday to my class last Wednesday and one of our men said he didn't think he had ever met our Rodney. One thing is sure. If he had, he would not have forgotten him. That's our Rodney. He has an infectious personality and a way of endearing himself to people. That I suppose is not a bad trait when you spend a lot of your time doing outside sales. We thank God for Rodney. We thank God that he is a family man. I suppose there is something to that introvert, extrovert moniker that we all find out about ourselves. Rodney would be in many ways the classic extrovert, in his own way, of course. Back in the day when we had our own little family Gospel singing group, Rodney was our lead singer. We used to stand him up on the piano bench beside his mom so that everyone could see and hear him sing. I think many people would identify Rodney by saying he is 'a character'. And, he has some character to go along with that and we thank God for him, his family, and his testimony of faith in Christ. We had a wonderful dinner and time of fellowship last night to celebrate your birthday, son, and today we ask God to bless you, on this, your special day. Love, Mom and Dad.

Our Governor here in the state of Texas is back from his run for the Republican nomination to be the next President of the United States. He has been back for several weeks now. According to published reports, he is required to make his official schedule of activities available for citizens to see. He must be really tired because his schedule only accounts for 10 hours of work since he came off the campaign trail. One of his spokespeople came up with a really good one. "The Governor was engaged in many other state related activities that didn't make it onto the schedule." Remind me to remember that one. I think I read somewhere that he said he hopes that one day he could be back on the national scene again. One would think his experience from his foray into the 'major league campaign school of hard knocks' would indicate otherwise, but I think he still has quite a bit of cash on hand and we do know that cash is the mother's milk of politics. A book that was popular back when I was involved in management stuff was The Peter Principle by Lawrence J. Peter. His theory says that in most hierarchical structures people typically rise or they are promoted to their level of incompetence. I think we were all required to read that book. As I recall, most of us tried to figure out the other fellows who had achieved that distinction, as opposed to focusing on ourselves. Maybe that's where Governor Perry finds himself today. We have met the enemy and he looks a whole lot like.........

Our Rodney was born in 1971. Gasoline was 40 cents per gallon. Average monthly rent was $150. You could mail a letter for 8 cents or go to a movie for $1.50. I suppose tissue sales must have gone up since it was the year the movie 'Love Story' came out. We may have listened to Tony Orlando and Dawn singing "Knock Three Times" on our car radio. The Patridge Family was a popular TV program along with McCloud, where Dennis Weaver played a cowboy detective assigned to the New York PD. The first soft contact lenses were introduced. Apollo 14 landed on the moon that year. President Richard Nixon implemented a 90 day freeze on all wages and prices in an attempt to control inflation. I well remember that one. I was told that while the Company was very pleased with my work, I couldn't get an increase in pay because of the Presidential freeze. I think I was not too happy about that. I'm almost certain I wasn't. Rodney shares his birth year with Lance Armstrong and Mariah Carey. Everyone was excited about the great innovation that came that year, the first pocket calculator. Wow! All those things were no doubt of importance in different ways to different people but we will always remember that year as being of great consequence because of our Rodney. I know he looks at the birth years of his children the same way. Have a great Monday and I'll do what I can the next time we meet. May God bless. Amen.          .....More later.