To Every Man His Eccentricities



President Adams' hobby gets him
in trouble with the press.

 Life is tough enough. Each of us should be allowed one or two eccentricities. Myself, I'd prefer everyone have lots of eccentricities. What a lovelier world it would be if each of us had all these lovely traits, hobbies and interests.

And what do you know?  We do. Virtually everyone has something about themselves that would surprise their friends, family and acquaintenances if they knew about it. Perhaps they like to watch Abbott and Costello movies on a quiet Sunday afternoon. Maybe they collect toy soldiers or those wonderfully tacky commemorative plates. Maybe they whittle chess pieces out of old scrap chair legs or dress up like a Union soldier and go on maneuvers with Civil War re-enactors. 

We are made in God's image and He is, above all, the Creator. We need to do our creative things, for our sanity, if nothing else. If we do not, we become stale, pedestrian and lose the very thing that makes us human. One wonders if a great man like Winston Churchill would have been quite so great without his landscape painting or his masonry work. George Washington liked fishing and riding. Thomas Jefferson played the violin. Lincoln liked to play baseball. Teddy Roosevelt had so many hobbies and interests it's a wonder he found time to be president. John Quincy Adams used to skinny dip in the Potomac where he was once caught in the act by a female reporter who staked out his swimming hole. She sat on his clothes and kept him pinned in the bushes till he granted her the first ever interview of a US president by a female reporter.

Speaking of skinny-dipping, Lyndon Johnson once invited Billy Graham to swim au' naturel in the White House pool and the famed evangelist took him up on it. Johnny Depp, who you'd expect to do things like that, actually has a huge collection of Barbie and Ken dolls. One congressman admitted to being a professional wrestling fan and a whole bunch of presidents liked fishing and sailing.

Be an interesting person. Don't just work and watch TV. Get yourself a serious hobby. It may be a pain to try and find a place for all those boxes of toy soldiers you collected when you're moving across country, but, trust me, it's darn well worth the effort. It makes you human!

Tom

What Women Want - The Morning Coffee Ritual

by Tom King (c) 2011

If your wife is not a morning person and has a profound need for coffee before she can function, count yourself fortunate. A recent discussion among the men of the banjo hangout site I visit every day, revealed that at least half of the guys brought coffee to their wives every day. Many of them described in intricate detail, the method of preparation and additives their spouses preferred.  Many also brought a simple breakfast along with coffee.

These men consider themselves fortunate.  They have discovered one thing their wives want (coffee), they know when they want it (first thing in the morning) and they can easily anticipate their wife's desire for it.

Guys who find something like bringing coffee in the morning that pleases their sweetie pie, tend to stick to the job like glue. After all, it's probably one of the few things that he's figured out that makes his woman consistently happy with him.

The great mystery with women is "What do they want?" We men have a very difficult time figuring that out.
The great frustration women have with men is that women always have to tell them what to do, as men seem to have great difficulty figuring it out on their own.

Since, near as I can tell after 57 years of close study, what women really want is for men to know what they want without actually asking them stupid questions and even when they don't know what they want, they want us to know what they want and to give it to them in a timely manner.

Actually, I still don't think I understand what I just said, even though I think it's pretty close to right. All I know is that she's no good in the morning till she's had her coffee and since I'm a morning person and don't like coffee, I've learned to make coffee just the way she likes it. I figure it's one of the few things I can do to make her happy that I actually know how to do and know when to do it so that it anticipates her need for caffeine.

When you figure out a thing like that, a man claims the job for your own and don't let nobody else have it. That way you can always say, "But I bring you coffee every morning, dear." when she complains about whatever it was that you did wrong most recently. Apparently, I'm not the only guy that has figured that out.

My advice to women, if you'd like your man to know what you want, is to tell him what you like for breakfast. If you don't like coffee, tea works just as well. Just keep it simple and you can pretty much count on getting it every morning till the old geezer is too old to totter into the kitchen and he'll still try to find a way to get it to you.  At least with a steady breakfast order, you start your hubbie out with at least one success.

Heck, he'll probably brag about being the only one who knows how to make coffee the way you really like it.  

Tom