KNOWLEDGE PICKER'S ARCHIVE

Pick 44 - Patriotic Sacrifices

My late father was a Veteran of WWII, but was not recognized as such until 1988. He was a Merchant Marine. In peacetime, the Merchant Marine is a civilian service that handles commercial cargo. But the Merchant Marine Act of 1936 allowed it to be converted during wartime to an auxiliary of the U.S. Navy. And during the war, the Merchant Marine provided vital logistical support as allied forces fought on three continents. As then Gen. Dwight Eisenhower put it, "When final victory is ours there is no organization that will share its credit more deservedly than the Merchant Marine."

But when World War II was over, the Merchant Marine's greatest advocate, Franklin Roosevelt, was dead. And Congress never conferred official veterans' status on the service, meaning merchant mariners didn't get to take advantage of G.I. Bill or home loan programs that veterans of the other branches did. Only in 1988, following a federal court ruling, were they given official discharge papers and allowed access to federally administered medical care by the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Merchant mariners played a critical support role for the Navy and other branches during World War II, ferrying fuel, troops and cargo to hot spots where fighting was taking place. Even though merchant vessels didn't have a combat mission, many were attacked and 733 were sunk. A year after the war, the government reported that 5,638 merchant seamen and officers were dead or missing and 581 were taken prisoner. In fact, the Merchant Marine death rate was 1 in 26, the highest rate among the services in World War II.

My father was never bitter about this gross oversight. Although several of the ships he sailed during the war were sunk by German submarines he felt that God had protected him and the Merchant Marine Corps had given him more adventure and insight into life than any other experience. He sailed around the world twice--once from the West Coast and once from the East Coast. One of the supply ships he sailed on had delivered supplies to a desperate Russian port city that was under attack. Shortly after the Cold War ended with the break up of the Soviet Union, the new Russian Ambassador to the US delivered a special note of thanks addressed to all of the crew on that ship. The official notice included a medal of valor awarded by the Russian Government to all who had helped the port city survive the German invasion. My father just shrugged it off...typical of The Greatest Generation. From him I learned that the hidden value in patriotic sacrifice does not lie in the sacrifice itself but in the lessons the next generation takes from it. Thanks for serving Dad!

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Pick 43 – The Curator

I was browsing through the on-line job postings for freelance writers today when I came across a term that I had never encountered before:

“We are looking to expand our content creation strategies with an increased focus on content curation. We require a curation expert with an indepth knowledge of the process of curating content.”

It immediately occurred to me that there must be some hidden value here because I do a lot of on-line research and google all kinds of unusual terms but had not come across the term “curation” Moreover, no one in my LinkedIn network of thought leaders and professional writers claimed to have an in-depth knowledge of this process. So I deferred to the omniscient mind of Google and found:

Curation is the process of discovering, gathering, adding value, presenting and making accesible a set of contents, despite its formats (video, audio, text, images...), which describes or defines a topic or matter from the point of view of the content curator.

I may be old-fashioned or just too old to understand the difference, but the definition sounds like what I have been doing most of my professional life: RESEARCH

Perhaps the hidden value is in the perception that a content curator has a broader perspective than an ordinary researcher and can command higher rates. If so, I will have to change my profile and start calling myself a “content curator” I can use the extra money.

ez does it!

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Pick 42 - The Underdog

I learned a very important lesson on Election Day 2012 when I entered the voting booth at 3:15 PM. I was totally undecided...not independent like many other voters...just decidedly undecided. I am, and have been for most of my voter life, a card-carrying Republican. I can tell you that I voted for Nixon and Reagan. I did not vote for Ford or George W. I will generally vote for moderate Republicans who are fiscal conservatives but I will also vote for moderate Democrats who are fiscal conservatives. I have voted in every election since 1968 and have managed to select the winner in every case except for Bush the Elder and Al Gore. There was something about both those elections that skewed my judgement. I was afraid I would repeat that error in this election. In fact, I even considered not voting--at least not for the presidential slot. I also had to select a Senator and some state officials, so I had other motives to get myself to the polling station and have my vote counted. I was going to leave the Obama vs Romney ballot unchecked until an image came into my mind at the last second.

Anyone familiar with the Rocky movies starring Sylvester Stallone will understand what I mean when I say the opposition managed to turn Obama into the underdog. That's allowed in American politics. But once they achieved that, they continued to beat him up mercilessly. And, in some corner of the American psyche, beating up the underdog is just plain wrong. Ask yourself: would John Wayne have ever stooped that low? I don't think so! So, with that image in mind, I found my index finger slowly and almost reluctantly heading for the Obama checkbox. I touched the button. The check mark appeared beside Barack Obama and almost instantaneously I pressed the large "Cast Vote" button which confirmed my vote. The deed was done--for better or worse.

This time I had found a hidden value in the American psyche. We respect the underdog. Maybe that is because whether our ancestors came here on the Mayflower or on a makeshift raft, we can all identify with the underdog. Those who cannot find hidden value in the underdog may have lost an important facet of their American identity.

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Pick 41 - Video Games

I try not to be a curmudgeon. I try very hard.

However, sometimes the limits of my patience are tested, and it appears that the world is conspiring, in my later years, to turn me into a grumpy, disapproving stereotype – the kind of person that, as a boy, I tried to avoid.

To illustrate, I recently visited my grandchildren. Usually, they are happy to see me – and I want to keep it that way.

However, what proved to be my trial was The Game – a video game, of course. My sensitive, intelligent granddaughter had begun to play it as I was sitting comfortably on the living room couch.

Understand: this was not Pac-Man, which I could have tolerated. No. It was a shockingly realistic, nightmarish gore fest which, I was told, is called Silent Hill.

This fictitious location featured dark, fog draped streets strewn with mangled dead bodies. Lumbering, deformed creatures emerged from the mist, necks tilted at unnatural angles, heads wobbling. One of these gurgling, hissing, slurping monstrosities was coming toward my grand-daughter – at least the character she was controlling on the screen – as her thumbs twitched furiously in self-defense.

Here, among other things, was my problem: When my granddaughter was even younger, she used to have terrible nightmares that woke her up at night and reduced her to a trembling heap – and sometimes even to tears.

There are so many ways to enjoy life, I thought. There are not only libraries full of fascinating literature to explore; there is the refreshing lure of the outdoors, and so much natural beauty that goes unappreciated – not to mention the magic of imagination. Instead of enjoying these wonders, my grand-daughter had chosen to sit in a dimly lit living room and play a game that terrified her – she had chosen a nightmare over some of the best things life has to offer.

My grand-daughter turned to me. “Look,” she said. “Did you see that? I got him.” She was clutching the controller so hard, I thought she might break it.

I forced a tolerant smile, and hoped it did not turn into the curmudgeonly grimace I felt trying to form. I had decided not to ruin her fun.

Then, something happened. The vision on the screen was indescribable – a grotesque perversion of nature ripping into something else with malicious, and possibly even sadistic, intent – in an orgy of death and violence surpassing any horror I had ever seen. And now it was advancing toward my grand-daughter.

It was too much. I felt the curmudgeon inside me rising to take control; it had an entire speech prepared, and I was about to deliver it for him. Just as the creature found its way to my daughter, a voice from another room interrupted: “Supper is ready.”

“Hold on mom,” my grand-daughter said. “I’m coming.” She paused the game, freezing the creature before it could do any damage. She set down the controller, got up, then smiled charmingly – and beautifully – at me. “Come on, Grandpa,” she said. And then she was gone.

For a second, I could not move, or breathe. When the monster had paused, something inside me had paused as well. As I stared at the newly static screen, a flicker of understanding had arisen.

This was not the nightmare of her childhood. This was not any fear she dealt with everyday. Here, and perhaps here alone, she could put her fears on pause. These monsters were no threat to her. The game allowed her an extraordinary power – a way to confront her nightmares in a way that was completely safe.

If only real life granted this, I thought. Being able to actively confront fears without true danger was a hidden value – and I had missed it.

I imagined a world in which everyone could freeze time when bad things happened and then, go to eat supper. I thought I could appreciate this world a bit now, with its frozen monster, a place where my granddaughter would never feel helpless; where the threats were not real – where she ventured bravely toward the monsters, rather than waiting for them to come to her.

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Pick 40 - American Dream

The great thing about Americans is that we are only as constrained in our lives as we allow ourselves to be. We are free to think outside the box and even imagine ourselves in the luxury fit for a king while we are still in rags. Yet no one laughs at us because many other Americans have had those dreams and achieved them despite all odds.

That is the hidden value in the American psyche that will never be purged by terror or diminished by apathy. If we are able to dream, we are able to pursue those dreams without the fear of censure or suppression. Our Constitution assures us of that.

Tonight millions of people around the globe will tune into the Presidential Debate in order to hear two typical Americans fight for the honor to become our next President. Both of them were dreamers of the dream at some point in their lives. One of them was so unlikely to achieve it that even tonight there will be some who wonder how he got there the first time. The other may have had more potential to achieve the dream but still has to work hard to earn it and hold on to it. Yet even if he fails, that will not stop his children from seeking it someday. No true American will laugh at them or remind them of their proper place in society. Anyone who would even think that way could not be a true American--regardless of what it may say on their birth certificate.

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Pick 39 - Attitude

I was standing in an exceptionally long line at our local convenience store yesterday. Since I was going to be late anyway, I decided to use the down time to observe the people around me. Some of them were waiting patiently, smiling at each person that walked by them. Others were obviously impatient; shifting back and forth from one foot to the other and glaring around the rest of the line at the harried clerk who was madly ringing up sodas, mystery meat sandwiches, and lotto tickets as fast as he could run the scanner.

There was the standard stranger-chit chat going on between the people in line around me. Some were complaining that the store should obviously have more clerks working during the busiest hours of the day while others pointed out that it was a good economic sign that the store was so busy. Without fail, those who were pointing out the positive sides to standing in line for 10 minutes were the same ones who were smiling at each new person who walked in the door. My idle curiosity sharpened into professional interest as I continued to observe my fellow shoppers.

What, exactly, was the difference in attitude? We were all in exactly the same situation. It was lunch hour and most likely at least some of my cheerier line mates were in just as big a hurry as those who were impatiently glancing at their watches every 10 seconds. So…what gives?

Suddenly it occurred to me that I was observing first-hand the hidden value of optimism. Those smiling people who were marking time by spreading sunshine probably had just as many things left on their daily to-do lists as everyone else in line. The major difference was that to them, the wait time was just a temporary setback that would be over shortly. Life would go on, and at least the wait was only 10 minutes instead of 20.

These glass-half-full people were obviously more relaxed and more capable of enjoying the everyday details of life. They weren’t so focused on the loss of time that they didn’t see what was going on around them. The world wasn’t passing them by, and most amazing to me was that it was all a matter of perspective. They simply chose to make the best of a frustrating situation instead of viewing it as a disastrous loss. No big deal.

If we all chose to deal with life’s curveballs in such a positive manner, the world would be a much more relaxed place and the lifespan of the average human would increase by a decade. I’d be willing to bet that the number of people on antidepressants and anti-anxiety medications would decrease significantly, too.

I’m not advocating sticking your head in the sand and refusing to take life seriously. What I am suggesting is that perhaps we should slow down a little and take a look at the big picture instead of getting mired down in the details. That, in essence, is the hidden value of optimism – the ability to see the good things in life even when the scenery isn’t so great.

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Pick 38 - The Debates

Like millions of others last night, I watched the Republican debate. I watched it mainly for entertainment because I knew from past experience there would be nothing new or factual revealed. Ever since the live Nixon-Kennedy TV Debate, these spectacles have been more choreographed than anything the World Wide Wrestling Federation could possibly achieve. The very fact that a spontaneous flub or appealing nuance can shift voter loyalty by several polling points is astounding. What other professional sport can boast that capability? Even in the great American sport of baseball, it takes a pitcher multiple shut out games and a hitter a string of home runs to pull the slightest fan loyalty away from the opposing team. So if we were to take a closer look at Presidential Debates using the criteria applied to professional baseball, we would easily conclude that a league realignment and some basic rule changes were in order.

Let's start with league alignments. Yes there are two distinct political franchises and each has its own team color and mascot. But don't let that comparison with other professional team leagues fool you. In baseball, everyone understands that the Yankees have always stood for and will always stand for a style of competition based on the principle that big money draws the best players. A team composed of the best players in the entire league is more likely to win more games than the average team. Likewise Yankee fans don't buy expensive season tickets with the naive hope that their team "might" win the World Series. They count on it. Red Sox fans may depend on faith,hope and luck, but not Yankee fans. Winning is part of the Yankee brand.

With American Political parties, there is no such enduring brand recognition. Some seasons one team wins despite the odds and other seasons, the opposition wins against the very same odds. To make matters worse, the average fan has no way of keeping score nor is there a seasoned group of objective referees who are charged with keeping the playing field level. For those who were dumbfounded when a bad call was made by an inexperienced replacement referee at the Packers vs Seahawks game, imagine the same game with no referees. That is essentially what we have now in the sport of American Politics. The highest level of authority on the field during the World Series of Presidential Elections will be the volunteer officials at each polling both across the nation. Although their primary responsibility is to ensure that all legal votes are counted, we know how that worked in the 2001 Presidential election. But this blog is dedicated to finding the hidden value in events such as this. Where is it?

The more American voters can relate Presidential Debates to their favorite professional sport, the easier it will be for them to ferret out misaligned teams and develop enforceable rules for score keeping and selection of the winner. With that ability will come a brand loyalty that is based on preference not prejudice. Divisiveness will give way to good old-fashioned rivalry. And best of all, the Political Franchises may begin to draft formidable candidates from the entire pool of eligible players instead of having to depend on an in-bred bull pen of wanna be leaders backed by financiers with no skin in the game.

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Pick 37- Work Smart

Some of us are morning people; others are not. This post is for the “are not” folks who feel pressured by morning people. We have all heard Ben Franklin’s advice: “Early to bed and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.” That may have been passed along to us by parents, well-intentioned teachers, and employers. During most of the Industrial Age, especially the part that peaked during the 20^th Century, getting you to work on time was a major concern for employers in any manufacturing enterprise. Every task in the manufacturing process was people-dependent on another task. If the employee responsible for any task was absent, it slowed down “the production line” and that may have left employers healthy and wise but definitely not wealthy.

Now we are well into the Knowledge Age. Most manufacturing processes have been automated or engineered to have fewer people-dependent tasks. The new employer mantra, “Work smarter—not harder” was coined by Allan F. Morgensen. His intent was to improve the ability of people to produce more with less effort. A hidden value in this new approach was the ability of employers to work smarter by limiting the need for people to work in lock step fashion at all. Once employees were freed from the "production line" mentality, they were enabled to set their own work hours (e.g. flex time) or to work primarily from home. However, we should not be too quick to dismiss Ben Franklin's advice. He had his feet in both the Industrial Age and in the Knowledge Age. He could see work from both an employer's and employee's perspective. So we cannot assume that his idea of "early to bed" was the same as those expected to work from sunrise to sunset. He may have seen the hidden value in seeking a good night's sleep only after a good evening dedicated to fun, fantasy, and fraternity. In that sense he was way ahead of his time.

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Pick 36 - Silence

We Americans know the value of our constitutional right to freedom of speech. If that value is hidden to any of us, we are either living under a rock or are newcomers to the American way of life. However, there is a collateral value to freedom of speech that has remained well hidden. In fact, until the emergence of instant global communication this unofficial freedom has had a quiet life of its own. I am talking about the right to remain silent. As children growing up in the first half of the 20th century, we may have heard our parents or teachers admonish us that "speech is silver but silence is golden" Yes. We heard it but who of us ever promoted that pearl of wisdom. How could we pass that wisdom along to our children in an age sincerely dedicated to the proposition that "the squeaky wheel gets the grease" This became ever more evident during the string of wars that have encrusted us since Vietnam. To remain silent about going to war was to remain unknown and even disenfranchised. So many of us spoke up for one side or the other. The same was true when the financial crisis of 2008 threatened the American Dream. Many of us protested and demanded accountability from our politicians and our bankers. We may even have expressed our views in the voting booth. A few of us chose to remain silent.

The hidden value in silence lies in its ability to clear the mind, to think before saying or doing anything. It is like the "pause" button on a media streaming application. The pause does not destroy the media itself. Silence does not destroy thoughts. Press the "play" button and whatever you were watching or listening to continues unabated. You can also "rewind" or "fast forward" and still retain the same media presentation. Silence works the same way for your mind. It provides time to rethink your stand on an issue or choose your words carefully. It also provides a level of privacy that is inalienable and has rarely been penetrated by tyrannical governments. That is likely to change if we continue to dilute our freedom of speech with banal, useless but addictive talk. Our only hope for rehabilitation may be to decode the hidden value in the admonition our parents and teachers once gave us: speech is silver but silence is golden.

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Pick 35 - Remain Silent

I have tried to avoid it but today I began to take an interest in the Presidential election. I confess that I do not have a favorite running in this race but I wish I did. In fact, it has been several decades since I was able to get really excited about one of the candidates. Usually it became clear by Election Day that I would have to pick the lesser of two incompetents--again. The person best suited to assume the Office of the President of the United States--in my opinion--was too smart or not crazy enough to seek the punishment this office is capable of dishing out.

In my lifetime I have voted in every Presidential election since Richard Nixon ran against Hubert Humphrey. I must admit that I envy those who can cut to the chase and go bonkers for the candidate their Party has selected to run. I cannot get past my skepticism to go down that road. Even when I voted for the candidate who offered the best solutions to the problems of the day, that candidate lost the election or worse yet, that candidate won, then proceeded to do the opposite of what he promised to do in the campaign.

If I actually vote in this election--I may still exercise my right to remain silent--I will not be able to decide until I am actually in the voting booth with my subconscious wisdom directing my finger toward the button I should press.

Sure, I tell myself, it would be a lot easier living in a country where the choice is not between two and sometimes three candidates but only one. That would be easy.
Just show up. Vote for that candidate and go home knowing that I had made the right choice because it was the only choice. And there would be no problem with Voter IDs or any other annoyances we Americans have managed to inject into a tradition that goes back centuries. NO. I am not talking about casting a vote. I am talking about the freedom to remain silent on Election Day. In fact, not only can I chose to remain silent without the fear of that ominous knock on the door in the middle of the night, I can even post a bumper sticker on my car the next day proclaiming: DON'T BLAME ME; I DIDN'T VOTE FOR HIM.

That is the hidden value guaranteed by our Constitution: Not only are we allowed to vote for whomever we want to lead us; we are also allowed to remain silent on that question without incrimination or censure from our fellow citizens.

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Pick 34 - Soft Lenses

I have worn glasses since I was 12 years old. Well, that’s not really correct. I started wearing contact lenses when soft contacts became affordable in the early 1980’s. I still remember the first time I attempted to pop a contact into my eye. My wife had them before me and she made it look easy. Just place the lens on the tip of your finger. Bring your finger close enough to your eye to let the lens jump off your finger and attach to your eye. So after 25 years of spraying, wiping, scratching, misplacing and sometimes cussing my eyeglasses, I decided to give contact lenses a try.

For some twenty years my contact lenses served me well. Then I developed cataracts in both eyes. In earlier times this might have spelled the end of my contact lens days. All of the "older" people I knew who had the cataract surgery spent the rest of their sighted days wearing eyeglasses that resembled the bottoms of Coke bottles. Even if these glasses allowed them to avoid the "legally blind" stigma, they were still prohibited from driving or doing any jobs that required good vision. But it turned out that my cataract surgery had hidden value beyond my wildest dreams. When my eye surgeon removed my clouded natural lens, he implanted a newly developed artificial lens in the muscle tissue left from the natural lens. Within a day of the surgery I had 20/20 vision. With these new implants, I could see better than ever. The only drawback was that my brain could no longer control the severed muscles to focus for reading or close work. But a $5.00 pair of reading glasses was all I needed to remedy that. About a year later, my Optometrist found additional value hidden in those implant lenses. They were evenly matched for the best focal plane. This meant he could prescribe a single contact lens for one eye that converted it to a "reading eye" and my brain would focus from the eye that gave the best results: left eye for reading, right eye for driving. This was hidden value as far as the eye could see!

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Pick 33 - Google Ads

This morning as I was checking my e-mail--I use Google mail--I noticed that the ads quietly and unobtrusively appearing beside my messages tended to track my thoughts. If I used the word vacation in my message I was reminded that XYZ Cruise Line had last minute get-away deals. If I admitted that I had another sleepless night, the ads offered several natural remedies for insomnia.

I had never paid much attention to these ads because they are mostly text and not animated like those that scream out to you on Facebook and similar sites. Also, I felt it was a reasonable trade-off since Google's e-mail service provides free features that I use frequently. They help organize the hundreds of personal and business messages I send and receive each week. However, now that these ads have gotten my attention I wondered if this intuitive approach might have some hidden value.

To my pleasant surprise, I discovered that I can use the Google ads preference manager, to change my demographic profile. If I am getting too many ads oriented to my mature senior status, I can make myself younger and more vibrant to Google just by changing my profile in the preference manager. No more ads for senior-friendly cruises or remedies for incontinence. Now Google will guide me to Club Med and encourage me to use protection during those unplanned intimate moments. Einstein was right; time is really relative.

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Pick 2 - Happiness

The search for Happiness is a universal one. And in the USA, our pursuit of it is guaranteed by the Constitution. Some of us seek it in material wealth. Some of us expect others to make us happy. Some wonder why happiness is so elusive. And some of us would not know happiness if it poked us in the eye. Most of us have learned that a smile does not necessarily mean that the person flashing it is happy. Many of us believe we have had a taste of happiness at some points in our life. But that might have been when we were children and had not yet encountered disappointments and cynicism in our life. So can there be any hidden value in happiness that would make its pursuit worthwhile?

Perhaps a better approach would be to search for the hidden key to happiness that lies within us. I believe that hidden key is our own attitude. We can choose to be happy. We can choose to have a positive outlook on the events that reality throws our way. Or we can choose to stew in our own juices. Either way: it is our choice to make. And that choice is the hidden value in our attitude. We must pause to remember that our attitude is under our personal control. If we misdirect it then the consequences are all ours.

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Pick 32 - Diversity

This morning I took the usual stroll around my neighborhood. As I walked, I thought about the changes this blue collar neighborhood of 230 duplex units had experienced during the nearly 31 years I have lived here. For many of the residents who had moved in when these homes were built in 1979, this would be their "starter home" They would endure life here surrounded by struggling tradesmen and service workers until they could afford that dream house. My home was only 2 years old when I bought it from the original owner. He had made a killing in the emerging Industrial Cleaning business and he and his wife were moving to a Resort Area to open a Real Estate Management service. It would provide cleaning, maintenance, and security services to wealthy people who owned vacation homes that they rarely visited. As far as I know, he did quite well at that and likely bought his own "vacation" home where he lived year round. His story was not unique in the 1980's and 1990's. And I am sure it was repeated many times by former residents of my neighborhood.

Part of me was sad that I had not been able to capture that same dream. But part of me was happy I did not go for it. I raised three hard-working children here. They all went to college and two of them are now married with children of their own. Thanks to a low mortgage and a professional salary, my wife was able to stay home with the kids when they needed her most. She returned to her service job as a teacher assistant when our youngest child started school. Even then it was only part time until he was old enough to be home alone. We are both retired now and our home is an empty nest. Although it is small by "dream home" standards, the 1200 square feet of living space it provides now seems too much for just the two of us. Some of our friends sold their large colonials and moved to these new 55+ communities in our area. My wife and I considered that too but when we looked at the hidden value this home now holds for us, we decided to stay here until we are both too decrepit or too poor to take care of it.

Part of the hidden value we have here are the neighbors on our street. We don't get into each others business as I've seen in some of the 55+ communities. There are no restrictions on how we landscape, or what color our vinyl siding must be. We can park our cars in our driveway or on the street as long as they don't block mail delivery. Each home has its own rural-type mailbox at the end of the driveway. If you park too close to it the mailman will not deliver the mail. Some families have four cars and only three parking spaces but we work it out. No rules or police enforcement...we just work it out among ourselves. My next door neighbor has a rusty old pick-up truck with a snow plow parked in his driveway year round. It is a bit unsightly but I know from past years that when that big snowfall hits us, he will plow my drive way and clear our street parking spaces without my asking. My other neighbor has a snow blower. I don't. Two years ago when we had a snow storm, he plowed the sidewalk for our whole block. His reason? "I just got it and wanted to give it a workout." He continued to give it the same workout the rest of that season and last year too.

The other hidden value here lies in the newest neighbors who are chasing the American Dream. Just on my block we have an Egyptian family, a Korean family, an Indian family, and an Afro-American Family. We all get along but we do not get in each others business. There is a ball field and walking trail adjacent to our neighborhood. On any Summer Sunday there is a Cricket game on the field. In
Fall the Regional Rugby match is held there, Most other times there is either a youth Soccer game or Legion Baseball game going on. If you notice the hidden value here you we realize that while we are a diverse community, we are not a divisive community.

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Pick 31 - My Word

He needed a hand up and I happened to be the only one willing to provide it. I am not wealthy and there were times in my life when I was the one needing the hand up. But on this day I had the amount of money in my wallet that he needed and on this day I did not need it. So I explained the terms. This was not a hand out. I expected him to pay me back on the day I needed that money to be back in my wallet. He agreed and we shook hands on our agreement. I did not expect him to sign a note or give me any collateral. I am not a Pawn Broker or a Loan Shark. I just wanted his word and handshake that he would pay me back and that was enough.

On the agreed payback day, he met me at the agreed place and handed me the money. He wanted to add interest to the amount but, I assured him I did not expect that. Instead, I suggested he pay that forward. Give it to charity or use it to give someone else a hand up when the opportunity came along. I do not know if he did so or not. But I do know that I can trust him to keep his word.

That was not the case for some other people that I had helped this way. Despite the sincere handshake and promises, I received only excuses and delays. That would not have bothered me if the offending person really did have a run of bad luck and was willing but unable to pay me back. That was not the case. This person clearly decided to take advantage of me. His gain came at my loss. But from many years of experience with these things I know that my loss will be covered in some other way. It always seems to work out that way. I cannot say the same for the person who took advantage of me. The time will come when he will need a hand up again. But this time his word will have no value and his open hand will be seen as no better than a pickpocket. That is the hidden value in a sincere person's word and handshake. I know that same hand will be there for me if I need a hand up.

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Pick 30 - Heat Wave

For the past few days it has been in the 90's here in the North East. Many folks here consider that a heat wave and long for cooler weather. But I like to think there is hidden value in this heat wave. It is the beginning of August. In this part of the country we have grown up with the perception that it is always too warm and humid in August. So we usually complain and look forward to the cooler weather that Fall will soon bring us. However, what if we were to convince ourselves that it is not August but February--usually the coldest month in the North East. But we have been fortunate enough to afford a two-week stay at a luxury hotel on a Florida beach. Now we would begin to feel sorry for our friends and relatives stuck back in the cold North East. The temperature has not changed but our mental attitude has. Attitude is the hidden value lurking in our own mind and under our control alone.

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