Oh yeah, it’s going to get real right now! Being born to an entrepreneurial ex-drill instructor patriarch was challenging. I have still living great parents that taught my sister and me to stay mobilized for opportunity and getting things done. There was always a great deal of love in our house, but things came with responsibility and hard directives as one can imagine. Dad was a salty bird with language and emotions. He had been raised in the Great Depression and remembered the broken men his mother would serve meals to for having completed work on their property. He watched them shuffle off to parts unknown. This brokenness haunted him and he wanted none of that in his life, or his children’s lives. So he worked his ass off and taught us to do the same. He loved work as the staff of life and purpose. There was nothing else to be done with the day. No one could keep up with him (still can’t at 82) and all those that did not were either secretly or oft times openly deemed weak, and or outright fired. There was never a bigger fireball of a man. Though not a Christian man until the age of 63, he believed in God in a basic way and espoused Golden Rule motivation. He also taught us to never lie, cheat or steal. He taught us to help the widow, the fatherless, and the poor. We understood and embraced. All our lives he taught us that money was just a hammer to get things done, and that material things and the dollar were not to be worshiped. He was and always has been philanthropic, gives out cash to strangers in need at Christmas, works to help local charities, and has been recognized by large companies and the county we live in for his homeless work. My wife and I are as well involved in the same in a lesser role.
It was tough coming up under drill instructor rule. As the only son I sometimes took it hard. Mornings growing up were often with his voice ringing, “get your little ass out of bed and git to school”. We had to hustle off to make good grades. After school, my younger sister and I had chores to do, and if they were not done before my parents came home from work all hell broke loose. Lots of screaming and yelling. We were hit with the belt when appropriate and taken up to welts on the legs without breaking the skin (up to age 12). This was not child abuse, only the confused politically correct and passive don’t understand this. It was acceptable and necessary since we were as willful as he was. We had to learn, and it was all just general biblical discipline widely accepted in the saner 1960s and 70s. Today, the big problem with some of the younger Gen Xers and especially most Millennials is the inherent lack of corporal punishment in their upbringing, the lack of profound emphasis of any teaching from sturdy and declarative adults. They may never grow up.
Coming up, I was also expected as the only man-child to protect my younger sister. Father had been a champion boxer for the US Army team and trained us on the speed bag and the heavy bag from the time we could walk. We were taught about the weaknesses of others and how to exploit them in battle. It was amazing training. We were taught to hurt people when needed, and only then. Life always had a little bit of boot camp to it. Both my sister and I took to the self-defense training, but not much else of the haranguing about other things did we enjoy. Back in those days people were not snowflakes, so it was a life of fighting as righteous indignation needed. Yet there is this dark side, as three different times (among so many fights) I had the awful necessity to beat the living shit out of boys (or men) that messed with my sister. I never hesitated, beat all three, but they were heavy bleeders so it made me inherently aware of the fragility of life. It taught me how ugly violence was and to use it as a last resort. I was 100% correct in my actions to resolve conflict for my innocent sister (they never pestered or looked at her again), but man it gets scary when people bleed. I did not enjoy that. No sane person would.Yet one has to protect their family and the reason why I mention any of this is because American men need to have someone to remind them to stay ready. The climate in this country now is filled with lose/lose losers, dangerous illegals, people that hate prosperity and America.
So with the whole boot camp flavor to our developing lives, in my teens I began to rebel. Many kids in the seventies tended to idolize the rock and roll generation of the sixties. I was one of those with the bell bottoms, the colored t-shirts, the earth shoes and the long hair. There were constant verbal fights about my hair and as soon as it hit my shoulder it had to be cut. That was our compromise. Yet along with the epic rock concerts came the weed, alcohol and drug use. I went to the pinnacle high school with the rich kids and it did not help being popular with much flair and personality.
Finally, at 20 years old I got into a fight, wound up running from the cops, and got caught. It was one of those overnight misdemeanor things back then. I was more afraid of my father than anyone. It all blew up and I changed overnight. Quit the weed and alcohol for the next 14 years! (I never returned to the weed). Yes the SHTF and that night and it was the best thing that could have ever happened. I cleaned up, embraced a spiritual mode of life with Christian leanings, stayed in college and worked. I had the will of my fathers before me to suddenly change to wake up.
I was married by 21 years of age and after that it became a life of family, school and work. I slowly began to understand what father had been trying to tell me about life and how to be.
Through the many years, I went on to excel in sales, set records in credit and finance at some of the biggest companies, helped to build a manufacturing franchise chain with 34 stores and millions in revenue, learn to build, market and sell furniture for large regional chains, to sell RVs to hundreds of clients in the biggest RV market in the country, to take my writing ability into marketing copywriting for the largest tourism markets in the US (L.A., Florida, and South Carolina), and become a newly published author with good reviews from the biggest review house in America, as well as the public.
My new book Wild Willful Heart will enthrall and entertain you with the remarkable struggles I have overcome with the help of God. You will learn why we are nothing without Him. My book will give you a snarky and humorous look at southern American life from the 1960s to the present age. Wild Willful Heart offers serious solutions from mental and spiritual suffering, insight into the Mormons, the New Age movement, American Indian fundamentalism, Christianity, and the paranormal. On the business side you will learn about victoriuos forays into making entrepreneurial moves in the workplace, the challenges of NAFTA, and realizing true purpose. You will visit exotic locales from the paradise of Florida islands, mountain retreats, the California coast and even an isolated mansion on historic lands. Prepare to be terrified and breathless over the dangers in life that are very real and present. You’ll see the adventures of a family of that also has flair and personality, and ultimately the astounding groundbreaking inspirational revelations that make this book a prophetic harbinger of American life in 2017.