My Favorite Riders in October

 THE NINE-YEAR-OLD WORLD TRAVELER

I was driving a man and his nine-year-old daughter to the airport for a quick trip to New York.  I found out that his nine-year-old daughter had traveled to many places in the world.  At first she said, "I've had one hundred flights," but her dad thought it was more like thirty.  Either way, she been on more planes than I have. She said, "My favorite places are Italy and New York, where I was born." Her mom is from Israel and she has fifty cousins there.

Her dad was very interested in art so I asked him about Meow Wolf in Denver which is a very interactive place that was worth seeing.  His daughter said, "I love the unicorn poop ice cream they have."  It is a real dessert that they have in the cafe which has rainbow colors.  I asked the nine-year who was very mature, "What do you want to be when you're older and working?" She gave a great answer.  "I want to be an Olympic gymnast, a mom, and have a small business."  She has a very bright future which is a credit to her parents.

THE FUTURE RESTAURANT OWNER IN SWEDEN

At the age of 31, he's already accomplished a lot.  With two degrees he's worked in animal rescue assisting the Navy, was a baker at a Publix for six years, lived in Sweden for three years and he is currently the general manager of a bar, although he was never a bar manager.  He's a very personable guy who wants to, "Learn all parts of the hospitality industry.  He has a clear goal to go back to Sweden and open up his own restaurant and I have no doubt that he will be doing that over the next few years.  He made our early morning ride to the airport a fascinating one.

FROM CASHIER TO FLIGHT ATTENDANT

The young woman was working in Germany as a cashier when her uncle told her that the major airline was hiring and she got hired as a flight attendant.  She obviously enjoyed traveling and I asked her what she liked best about her job and she made me laugh when she said, "Anytime I want I can go to Saudi Arabia and get some sunshine when others are in the cold."  I told her that no one in this country thinks of going to Saudi Arabia for sunshine.  She told me that sleeping is a challenge and, "Sometimes I go forty straight hours with almost no sleep."  She's had some some difficulty adjusting to time changes which are eight hours between here and Germany.  She gave me the below coin from the Berlin zoo, which is the first "zoo coin" I've ever gotten.

COLORADO WAS HIS LAST STOP

He pointed out his RV and said, "My wife and I have been traveling in it for the past three years with our four kids."  The children are all under ten and I asked if they were getting a medal for doing it.  They had been searching for some land to buy so they could build their "homestead."  That night they were heading to Tulsa, Oklahoma which will be the place they are going to settle down.  They've had a great trip and along the way he has been running a small accounting firm.  What was this goal oriented person doing at 6 am. on a Saturday morning? He was going on a long hike with one of his clients.  I'm wishing him and his family all the best in their new home.

SHE HAD ONE OF THE BEST MANNEQUIN STORIES

I was having a very good ride with a woman who was visiting Colorado and meeting her sister for a girl's weekend. Originally from Albania and now living in Oklahoma, she had been a surgical nurse and also a manager.  "I worked two full-time jobs, because I wanted my kids to have things I didn't." She is still working one job, but she told me a story I will repeat many times.  Below is her picture with my mannequin and the story of her adventure with a male mannequin that she showed me a picture of.

She: "Seventeen years ago in Pennsylvania, I used to go into the office around 9 pm. and open everything up for the night shift.  We had a clothed male mannequin that they would move around the office to scare me. One night it wasn't there, but when I went into the ladies bathroom, I just saw the head they had taken off.  I screamed so much I actually cried.  They have it on video and they still play it today and I post it around Halloween each year."  

She's sending this picture to her friends who will love it, but not as much as her video.

"THE GREAT TREE OF IRIS" IS HERE!

Many, many years ago in the 1960's, my dad wrote and published a book on banking. Over the last few years, my niece has written a number of books for young adults and three years ago I wrote and published my book, "Driving on the Sunny Side With 10,000 Strangers."

This past week, we have a new author in the family.  My oldest daughter, Jess, published her first book, "The Great Tree of Iris,"  which came out on Tuesday. It is a romantic fantasy that she has worked on for the past three years. She self-published the book through Amazon(paperback $26.99 and Kindle $6.99)

On Saturday, my wife and I attended her book launch in Flemington, New Jersey.  Jess talked about why and how she wrote the book and answered questions from a group of forty friends and family for around ninety minutes.  She is pictured below in front of a very colorful quilt she made.

This is the first fantasy book I've read and it is impressive.  There are dozens of characters, a detailed plot full of twists and turns and the creation of a whole new world. I just received my copy and I'm 75% through it.  It's a terrific book and my wife and I are very proud of what she's done.

So if you're looking for a fantasy, I highly recommend it!

What Did Franklin Roosevelt Say?

Eighty years ago this past April President Franklin Delano Roosevelt died of a stroke at the age of 63 after serving 12 years as President of The United States.  His two most famous quotes are these: About the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, he said that December 7th, 1941 would be, "A date that will live in infamy."  He also said, "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself."  He was certainly right about those comments.  

Below are some other quotes from him and my comments.  By reading them you can feel his optimism, his strength and his intelligence.

1. "If you treat people right-people will treat you right 90% of the time."

You can treat everyone well and how you would want to be treated, but it's unlikely that you'll be treated the same way by everyone.  Sometimes we are treated unfairly, because we're not dealing with the same information that someone else is, or it could be that we're very different people and how we measure treating someone well just isn't the same thing.

2. "We do not retreat. We are not content to stand still. As Americans, we go forward, in the service of our country."

These are positive, optimistic, words of a leader, for sure.  It is important to look at the past so we don't make the same mistakes, but the future should always be a focus of where we want to go individually and as a country.

3. "Confidence thrives on honesty, on honor, on the sacredness of obligation, on faithful protection and on unselfish performance. Without them, it cannot live."

It's important to be honest and be honorable whether you're leading a country or being a spouse or a parent or a good employee.  It's easy to think all the time about what you want, but when your focus is always on others, I think it's a much better way to live.

4. "Let us not be afraid to help each other-let us never forget that government is ourselves and not an alien power over us."

People don't like to be told what to do and over the years there's been a lot of opinions on how much should government be involved in our lives.  Without getting political, there are people who want more government and others who want a lot less.  What is a good balance? Does it depend on who you are or where you live or how old you are? I don't have an answer to those questions, but eighty years later it is still a big issue.

5. "Competition has been shown to be useful up to a certain point and no further, but cooperation, which is the thing we must strive for today, begins where competition leaves off."

People have learned a lot from being on teams and playing sports. Part of being on a team is learning to work together towards a mutual goal.  Cooperation in a marriage or family is obviously more important that competition between each other.  How do we work together in the future better than we have in the past?

6. "The structure of world peace cannot be the work of one man, or one party, or one nation, it must be a peace which rests on the cooperative efforts of the whole world."

Over the years it's been easy to see how difficult the concept of world peace is. Diplomacy is important, but has been challenging in the past and in the present day.  Like people, countries can be very different and have different ideas that don't fit comfortably with other nations.

7. "Men are not prisoners of fate, but only prisoners of their own minds."

I've read many books that talk about how true this is. Sometimes people will play over and over in their minds how they were wronged in the past or the things that they messed up.  We have the power to expose ourselves to more positive things and forgive others and say, "This too shall pass."  Sometimes watching the news or too much social media can do a lot of harm to a person.

8. "Repetition does not transform a lie into a truth."

This is true, but you can gain confidence by telling yourself positive things.  It's very easy to put yourself down and think about times you messed up.  When you go for a job interview you need to be expecting that you will do well and not that you won't get the job.  The same thing does apply to living day to day.  To do our best and be our best we need to expect the best, although things don't always work out for the best.  When that happens, it is very helpful to ask, what is good about this?

9. "Human kindness has never weakened the stamina or softened the fiber of a free people. A nation does not have to be cruel to be tough."

 On a personal level, we need more kindness in the world.  I recently copied this quote from Scott Adams, "Remember there is no such thing as a small act of kindness. Every act creates a ripple with no logical end." This does work on a personal level and I think it does also on a national level.

10. "The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts of today."

Focusing on what we want in our future definitely will get better results.  He didn't say "a positive attitude," but that's how it sounds to me.  He overcame polio and was elected President of the United States four times and helped lead the world to defeat Hitler.  He added action to his attitude and is recognized as one of the top leaders in all of world history.

"When Do You Want To Dig Up The Bushes?"

In over forty-two years of marriage my wife has asked me a lot of funny questions, but this one is ridiculous and I did LOL.  If I made a list of one thousand things I might want to do, I promise you that digging up bushes would not make the list.

My wife loves to garden and she's really, really, really good at it.  Moving rocks and plants and bushes are just not fun for me and if I had the choice I would prefer to do it during rem sleep, but only once a month.

Our neighborhood is still being built and the two model houses in the front of the neighborhood and around the corner from us, have been sold.  They have started on the landscaping and in the next week they will begin on the rest of the property.

Since it's in the front of our neighborhood, there are at least a couple dozen plants, flowers, and other things in the ground for people to see.  My wife asked our neighborhood advisor if we could dig up some of the plants that were about to be dug up and FORTUNATELY she said we could.

Thirty minutes after my wife asked me the question, the two of us were digging up I think six bushes. These are the pictures of my wife after we captured our prey.  I told her I needed the picture for when the police came by to ask what we were doing.    

       

Do you think anyone will notice that the bushes are gone?

 

Did we get enough bushes? Absolutely not and two days later we had to go back and get three more.  

This one was more challenging. They are building a house next door and before they could fill in the hole some of the dirt collapsed taking part of our fence and two garbage cans with them pictured below.

                              

Our wheel barrel was in the back and we couldn't take it along the side, so we carried it through the house.  When we arrived back to the house from digging up the bushes, we carried two of the bushes through the house to the backyard.  We now have a bunch of bushes that will look nice for many years.

Round and Round it Will Continue to Go

 

The picture above is one of the most famous merry-go-rounds in the world.  It was built in 1926, but it became famous because one man used to take his kids there.  He used to watch them play in the park and on the merry-go-round and he would sit on a bench eating peanuts.  "I felt there should be a place where the children and the parents could have fun together."

His name of course was Walt Disney and the park was in the Los Feliz neighborhood of Los Angeles, near Disney's home.  The carousel has been closed since 2022 for repairs and due to a probate battle when the owner suddenly died.  The city of Los Angeles purchased the carousel for $1 million and is going to revamp it for its 2026 centennial.

In 2009, Griffith Park was designated a Historic Cultural Monument, the carousel is very unique. There are 68 hand carved and painted horses with some of them going all the way back to 1895.  Some of the wood comes from trees that are now extinct.  The carousel has a military organ that plays 1,500 songs and used to provide music for the whole park.

There are very few merry-go-rounds in the world like this one and it's the only that has a bench with the inscription, "Walt, Diane, and Sharon loved this carousel."  You could say this is a Disney ride and I'm going to bet that there are going to be some great Disney songs added to its playlist for next year.

Trapped at the Craft Show?

A craft show is not a place that odd things happen.  People go to the show and walk around and sometimes buy some things.  Vendors set-up their tables, chairs and products and then they pack them up in the end.  There are usually no surprises, it's a very common thing to do.

The craft show I went to in my home town of Brighton, Colorado had vendors in two different buildings.  Since they were building a new parking that wasn't ready yet, they asked vendors to park in a parking lot that was further away so customers could park close to the buildings. I thought it was at the end of the world, but it was closer than that.

I moved my car and followed the signs for "vendor parking." It was far down the main road in front of the buildings and I pulled into a large lot with a few cars and then a smaller gated area.  When I got out of the car I realized there was no shortcut and I would have to walk all the way back along the road.  After a minute or two of walking, there was a young woman on a golf cart and she was waiting to drive people back.

I had Lily, my mannequin with me, and the girl thought it was hysterical.  I told her that if she drove me back at the end of the show, I would show off the museum in my car.

At the end of the show I started to walk back for five or ten minutes and the same girl picked me up again and I was carrying Lily again.  As we approached the area where my car was, the fence was locked. It was the construction area and everyone had gone home.

As I stood at the gate with a chain on it, there was some room to squeeze in. Was there enough room? I was thinking of putting a foot in and getting on the ground, but the girl stopped me.  She told me to hop into the golf cart and we would go around and see if there was another entrance. She was driving pretty fast and I was hanging on to Lily, when my driver said, "don't lose your head."  When she finally stopped, I was able to take this picture of Lily, whose hair was pretty messed up.

Instead of taking apart some of the fence which they were going to do, there was a way they could open an unlocked gate wide enough and I could drive through.  This is a picture of my car escaping the locked in construction area. (I stopped to take the picture, the car is not driving itself)  I think I have to pay more attention to where I'm parking.

A $50,000 GIVEAWAY!

No, it's not coming from me, but from a famous author, James Patterson. At 78 years old he has written more than 285 books, in the mystery, thriller, romance and young adult genre. If you think that's a lot, the record holder is a Brazilian author, Ryoki Inoue, who published 1,075 books.(not pictured below)

Patterson recently announced the first twelve winners of $50,000 grants to writers so they can finish their novel.  He said, "There are so many incredible stories out there that never get written because life gets in the way." The program was put together with several other organizations such as PEN America, Author's Guild, The Iowa Writers' Workshop and other groups.  What a great way to give writers the thrill of having their own book published!

Patterson is best know for writing Alex Cross, Michael Bennett, Women's Murder Club, and Maximum Ride.  He also wrote a mystery years ago with former President Bill Clinton.  His books have sold more than 400 million copies. He has donated millions of dollars over the years to a variety of colleges, libraries and students.  

My Favorite Riders in September

HOW MANY J.P.'S ARE THERE?

My last ride one Saturday this month was truly a great ride.  It was fun as I drove someone from Louisiana which has not been a state I have had represented in my car very often the past seven years.  By the time the ride ended, he gave me a picture of his family on vacation and several Mexican bills for my car which is pictured below with a few other Mexican bills and another picture

The truck driver had flown into Colorado to pick-up a truck and drive it to another state.  The truck broke down a few miles away in a remote area and he was fortunate to have someone give him a lift to a hotel. I drove him back to his truck and then to the airport and we had some good laughs along the way.

He told me that he puts orange juice in his Frosted Flakes and Captain Crunch.  When I asked how that started he said, "I loved orange juice and I loved cereal, what could go wrong, diarrhea?" I asked him why he is called J.P.? He told me that those are his initials and his dad is known as J.P. and his sister and two brothers and two of his sons.  They all have different first names, but imagine how confusing family events can be?

OVERCOMING ADVERSITY

I've had a lot of conversations with riders that were filled with laughter, this was not one of them.  This was one the most inspiring and interesting thirty minute rides of the year and I greatly appreciated the young woman sharing with me her challenge.

She explained that she has a brain disability that makes her life a lot more challenging than most of us.  She has had a couple brain surgeries because her brain is too large for her head.  She was personal and articulate and told me that she is in school studying theology and its effect on illness.  Over the years she has been told by others that she should pray more and that is not necessarily the best advice for all physical medical issues.  She has decided to be a pastor and teach in the seminary.

I was inspired by her and shared some of the inspiring stories of my riders over the years and I think she enjoyed them.  I was taking her to a fundraising event for others with the same disability and I thanked her for riding with me and wished her the very best in her future.

SHE CLIMBED MT. FUJI

She had been in the Navy for around seven years and was stationed in Japan for over four years.  She said, "I loved living there, because there was so much to do."  She agreed that she loved the culture and the cleanliness which many people have told me, but she had a great experience climbing Mt. Fuji.  It is an active volcano and the largest peak in the country.  The group she was with took five hours or so to make the climb but, she said,  "It's the most exhausted I've ever been." 

SINGING ALL OVER THE COUNTRY

My early morning airport ride was unusual to say the least.  I picked up three singers, two women and one man, and they lived in three different states. (California, Florida, and Texas)  They had just met each other and the night before they sang together at a wedding.  They work for an entertainment company and they get to pick out what events they want to perform at.  I asked them, "How long does it take you to get used to singing with new people?" They replied, "Not long at all, we have to know a standard 200-300 songs."  If it wasn't 5:30 in the morning I would have asked for the three of them to sing one line to hear how they sounded, but I'm sure they sing a lot better than I do.

 THE MEXICAN MANNEQUIN STORY

The Mexican woman told me this incredible story of the legend of the Mexican mannequin. She said, "In Chihuahua, Mexico there is a bridal shop with a mannequin in the window in a bridal gown.  It is believed by some it was the owner's daughter who died on her wedding day and she had her embalmed."  She died after being bitten by a black widow spider.  The mannequin  was put in the store in 1930 and it is so lifelike that some people believe she is real and that her eyes follow you in the store.