Up The Creek Without A Paddle
Have a great life, Class of 2007, and all of you!
by Terry Toole

I sometimes wonder if our graduates or anyone else read any of our words of wisdom that we attempt to share. They possibly wonder why we waste our time trying to tell them how they should act and make good choices. I have those same thoughts, but if you will listen to what we did right or wrong, it might just save you some of the heartaches we bring on ourselves.

Haven't they been going to school for the past 12 to 14 years? That's not for those who might not pass every grade. Some have been going since pre-kindergarten as some do today. In another few years, they will be taken out of the cradle to start learning. In some cases, it might not be too bad.

For the past week, and especially the past month, they have made this old man wonder how much longer I will be able to keep up this pace. I have been invited to everything you can think of. If I'm not going to take one of the thousands of photos at school functions, conferences and meetings around town, it is coverage of one of the many honors programs or banquets for our students. It's not that I'm all that popular. I just work cheap. I guess the young folks and old ones feel comfortable around me since I've been taking their photos from birth, all through school, and a few weddings and 50th wedding anniversaries, not to mention the wrecks and news stories of their lives.

It is always a treat to see how well our students and teachers conduct themselves at these public meetings, and it makes me so proud as people from out-of-town come and brag on our young people for their respect and attentiveness. As one visitor stated recently, "This is not the norm. These young people are taught at home and at school to respect others."

Then I go to one of our many board of commissioners or board of education meeting and listen in disbelief as grown people act like a bunch of unruly children, with vengefulness and abuse of power. We who are from here cringe when someone from out-of-town listens to our boards bicker like a bunch of untaught children before they go into closed sessions to fuss more. That is the only thing closed sessions are good for. Others don't have to listen to them. I guess hiding some things from the citizens might not be all bad. At least we don't know until we, or our children have to pay for it.

Thank goodness not many of our young people attend these meetings. We all learn by example, in most cases. Thanks goodness most of us are hybrids or rejects. It usually depends on how we act.

If anyone is still reading this, I guess it's the time of the year to give our young people some advice from past experiences. That's the best and cheapest advice you will ever get, some of the experiences from others.

Get all the education that you can possibly get. There is nothing that you learn that will not possibly help you in the future. Who would have thought that the math, English and typing that I took in the 1950s would have helped me to make a living when I'm in my 70s. There was no such thing as a computer, yet the things I learned way back then have been a blessing to me as I continue to learn how to operate computers and programs that help us get out the largest newspaper the Miller County Liberal has produced in the past 110 years.

I always enjoyed photography, but I never thought that being in a Photography Club and being editor of the school paper and the annual in high school would help me later in life with one of my last professions.

This is a long way of saying that money isn't everything. Don't work to make the most money. Choose a work of life that you enjoy. If you enjoy it, it doesn't seem like work.

If you learn everything you can, at sometime in life, your knowledge will help you if you make good choices and work hard at it. I have found the harder work, the luckier I am at life. We all have the same opportunity to have a good life or a bad one. It's not the length of time we live, it's what we do with our time.

I have found the more we give to others to help them or help them help themselves, the better life we all have.

God made us all, but gave us free choice. Choose wisely, members of the Class of 2007, for this life is short and eternity is forever. The choice is our own, individually.