Review: Worldprofit's home business bootcamp with George Kosch. Comprehensive practical training teaches you how to make money online, step by step.

The training program commenced with Bootcamp Instructor, George Kosch welcoming members to the LIVE interactive session.

The latest numbers are in!  George revealed a SHOCKING FACT...

98% of new members do not start the bootcamp training.

A discussion followed as to why this is, and how not doing the training sabotages your own success in this program - but also in your LIFETIME ability to earn online.

Worldprofit is primarily a training company providing online training to help people learn how to earn at home from reputable online sources using proven effective marketing strategies. Worldprofit is not a business opportunity. We teach you how to make money from multiple online sources using tested strategies that we ourselves use daily and have used for the last 20 years.

What we teach you is not theoretical, it's based on actual hands on skills and extensive experience that generates results.  
The training includes LIVE weekly training, video tuturials, online self-paced lesson plans as well as support services 365 days a year. You will not find as intensive and thorough program as that offered here at Worldprofit. Sadly some people come into the program, dabble, never really dig into the training to grasp the basic concepts that will lead to their own success.

George Kosch described the "SHINY NEW product" syndrome.  Those who do the training, and devote the consistent effort and time required will see results and will go on to build a successful online business that generates income. Those who quit to move on to the next "Shiny new product" are destined for a life of BUYING not SELLING.   A lifetime of discouragement, money out of pocket buying the latest "sure-fire money maker"  with no money coming in.  The skills we teach you can be applied to ANY online business or affiliate program. Learn the basics, and you have the foundation for a lifetime of online income.

We want YOU to be successful and get on the right track - NOW.   If you are reading this and have not yet started the bootcamp training, just login to your Worldprofit member area, on TOP MENU click on Training. There you will see the lessons, progress at your own pace. You've got over 90 lessons on a variety of topics all designed to help you get maximum benefit from the software and tools included in your Membership and to understand how to market ANY product or service online to generate consistent income.

REMEMBER! Help is available to you 365 days a year, just submit a Support form.
We will get back to you promptly with any help or guidance required.

TIP: Make sure you are getting ALL emails from Worldprofit by using a GMAIL address. Ensure that email from Worldprofit is whitelisted or approved email and is not ending up by error in your junk folder.

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Discussion: What's your personal daily check list?

Promotion. Learn the basics, then expand your reach.

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What's New at Worldprofit?

For those of you who've been following the bootcamp training you understand that Ebooks are easy to create with the software INCLUDED in your Silver or Platinum VIP Membership. There is NO extra cost for any of this!

You also know that niche ebooks are what generate LEADS and help you build your Email marketing list.

You know that LEADS generate SALES - money in your pocket.

That's why George Kosch has added 50 brand new articles that you can use to build your own lead generating ebooks!

These articles are valuable because they are KEY WORD rich and directly related to home business, online marketing and social media topics. This is the kind of content that is in demand and valuable to your prospects. Offer your ebooks for FREE as incentives to get sign ups.

So..... now you have EASY to use graphics, ecover makers, an ebook creator and with these lates 50 articles you now have over 2800 articles you can include in your ebooks.

-->>>> Here's how to access the EBook creation software and the new articles.

In your Worldprofit Member area on LEFT MENU, select ARTICLE / eBook Marketing.
In that section is located all the software you need to get started, as well as the Article Marketing Directory.

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What's in Development at Worldprofit?

Dr. Jeffrey Lant is in the process of finalizing his latest ebook. This Ebook will be made available exclusively to Worldprofit Silver and Platinum VIP members for personal use and to offer as a free incentive for the purpose of generating leads.  Worldprofit Members will be able to rebrand Dr. Lant's eBook at no cost.

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Featured Worldprofit Products and Services

Worldprofit Marketplace: What it is and how you benefit - included in your Worldprofit Membership

Stand Alone Safelist: What it is and how you benefit - OPTIONAL service made available ONLY to Worldprofit Members

Universal Bonus Builder: What it is and how you benefit - included in your Worldprofit Membership

Worldprofit Home Business Video Library: What it is and how you benefit - included in your Membership. http://www.worldprofit

Who's Logged in: What it is and how you benefit - included in your Worldprofit Membership

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Recommended Products and Services

Ad Swaps - purchage solo ads from list owners or if you are a list owner yourself do ad swaps. Great solution for those who understand the value of marketing to a list but who themselves have not yet build a large list.

FastTrack Ad Co-op - if you have limited time for doing promotion, join our Ad Co-op. George buys the ads at trusted sites and delivers the leads generated direct to you. 

 -->>>> Here's how to find out more about the FastTrack Ad Co-op and order.

In your Member area on LEFT MENU, select ADVERTISING / TRAFFIC select FASTTRACK VISITORS

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Questions / Demonstrations requested from training partipants

How does a Traffic Exchange work?

What is Fast Track?

What is an ad swap? 

On the fast track page, it looks like the same links at the top and bottom of the page.  If I use the links at the top for $89, then it is FastTrack and not GV?

CAN YOU GIVE A BRIEF DISCRIPTION OF THE MONEY MAKERS PROMO KIT?
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A few comments from session participants

Ruby: Its GREAT to see the big dog using the same tools that's promoted

Pam: Can you tell me how a Traffic Exchange works

Tania: I surf 5 Te"s every day choosing different ones.

Ruby: T E s seem easier to earn credits

Garrett: Use Traffic Exchange Browser or TEBrowser for best results

Pam: how do our links get shown and how do we know hey are getting hits

Tania: Manual Te's are the best

Rich: On the fast track page, it looks like the same links at the top and bottom of the page.  If I use the links at the top for $89, then it is FastTrack

and not GV?

Tania:  Br click on Adverting / Traffic on the left menu.

Elliott: can it be paid with commissions?

Tania: first option - Fast Traffic

Rich:  Thanks George

Kevin: CAN YOU GIVE A BREIF DISCRIPTION OF THE MONEY MAKERS PROMO KIT

Lance: Thanks for Everything

Cupid: Thanx George

Lance: Really appreciate the training George

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Thank you to everyone who participated in the LIVE training session today - it's far more beneficial when you ask questions and we can provide demonstrations as requested by you. It makes the training more meaningful and informative for all members. Your comments and feedback are much appreciated and help us develop and refine products and services that both help you and are easy to use.

RECORDING! The recording of the Home Business Bootcamp training is now posted to your member - to the TRAINING section.

Next LIVE Home Business Bootcamp training  session with George Kosch is Friday morning. EVERY Friday morning, George is available to you personally to help you build your own successful online business.

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Struggling to earn money online?  Tired of hype and no help?  Worldprofit can help you.

If you're reading this and not yet a Worldprofit member, join over one two million people worldwide who already are!

Get a free Worldprofit Associate membership and see for yourself why over the last 20 years, Worldprofit has grown to be the #1 popular choice for online home business training. Republished with author's permission by Ruthsella Corasol http://WorkingAtHome101.com

'Many a new day... I'll scrub my neck and I'll brush my hair and start all over again." My father, Oklahoma, life, hope.

by Dr. Jeffrey Lant

 Author's program note. He waited a spell before he said it, no doubt carefully  looking for just the right moment to tell me, knowing that the intelligence would be  unwelcome, even unsettling, certainly life changing, therefore potentially dangerous,  a thing to be approached and dealt with as if holding a radio active element with tongs.  Yes, hazardous indeed...

 "I'm going to do it," he said... I didn't need to be told what "it" was, I knew. And  to tell the strict truth, he had laid down a trail of clues, hints and innuendos for  months just like Hansel and Gretel with their bread crumbs. But that was just conjecture,  a possibility, table talk to be treated as serious or not depending on how many pieces  of pie had been ingested whilst the subject was under discussion. One slice meant not  likely, two suggested a distinct possibility, and any more than two he was packing his trunk  bidding the world to catch up or eat his dust... and there is nothing more serious than  that.

 Quo vadis?

 Could it be just as simple as the simple fact that humans like to see what is on the other  side of that hill over yonder? "Why did the chicken cross the road?", my father used to  ask the unwary. "Why, to get to the other side", and then he'd laugh as you would laugh  at a rube from the city who didn't know up from down. Maybe we're programmed by the  Ultimate Authority to leave hearth and home... in pursuit of the "something  better"  we're sure is our individual and collective destiny.

 I used to wonder about this when I was growing up. Why did Abraham Lincoln's family,  for instance, move so much... to Virginia...to Kentucky... to Indiana... to Illinois? Were  they reckless, feckless, incapable of staying put and turning the good into the better?

 Or were they far sighted visionaries who had to go because remaining would have  been so much easier and thus beneath them, for they were a proud, assertive people  and knew they were worthy of any benefit they might dream of and seize?

 They called that destiny, and it was manifest to each of them... and so they went on  their travels to achieve it... as they so often did. To move was to live and so they must  go until their very last journey to their eternal destination.

 Just a year ago.

 It's been just about a year now since this journey seemed likely for him. His wife,  my step-mother Miss Ellie, slipped into the hereafter as easily as taking a breath. We  were advised to expect the worst, at any time.

 As for him he looked like he was waiting for the Grim Reaper to open the door of the  Black Mariah and escort him to forever. He suddenly seemed ancient, frail, ready,  resigned, even eager for what was coming.

 Waiting seemed pointless, aggravating, irritating, and a threat to the perfect tableau  of death we were all constructing, more to show ourselves that we had given him a  good send-off, the send-off he had waited a lifetime to get and which must showcase  him with all due respect, love, and the certainty that he had received his due, every jot  and tittle.

 "I'm ready for whenever the Good Lord takes me". The vital concerns of daily  life were no longer part of his reality. He had put his foot on the next road, the  final road... but in the event he did not commence the journey.

 Everything, everyone was ready for the new, sleek, easy as snap, crackle, and pop,  3-step, "Howdie, ma'am", quick speed, strip the corpse and burn it American way of  death, prayers extra. We were awaiting this... we were prepared for this... we knew  how to do this. But then the unexpected occurred, the thing that upset the apple cart.  He lived. And this startled us, astounded us, and forced us to change the game plan,  just as he was having to do. ("I can still catch the 4.45 to Chicago if I run.")

 What is it that causes a man whose deteriorating condition has prompted the urgent  and adamant communications of a posse of medical  personnel to stop the process  of withdrawal and expiration and live again?

 The sapient physicians will cite a given tablet or therapy. Family members and friends  will speak confidently of the infinite power of love, whilst the still living being at the  center of the conundrum says God's will, which despite a legion of disbelieving  scientists remains credible, vibrant, and reassuring. And so the first of many a new  day dawned on an enigma, with awe, relief, joy, and a renewed commitment to life, the  most important condition of our human reality, for without it nothing is possible. With it,  everything is.

 "O Death where is thy sting?" Now what?

 The process of dying is the average Joe's only opportunity to enjoy the prerogatives  and privileges of a prince. At the court of  Louis XIV, for instance, when the king was  ill, and especially when the king lay dying (1715) the smell of his gangrene overpowered  the combined perfumes of the gentlemen of France. Learned physicians from the  Sorbonne in their long, sweeping silk gowns would troop ensemble to la chambre  du roi to sniff his evacuations and render their opinion about his longevity; an opinion  on which the future of many gentlemen rested, for to be too early in leaving the  old regime... or too late in embracing the new... had the most serious consequences.  "Charme' " was the highest rating for what they passed in chamber pot under their  fastidious noses and minute review. "Charme'" meant life.

 In our death averse civilization, where we hope that mentioning the matter as little  as possible will forestall its certain existence and execution, each of us becomes as  much the center of affairs as the Sun King himself.

 As death approaches, we are admitted, weighed, dieted, measured, wheel chaired,  analyzed, observed, discussed, considered, reconsidered, lamented, wept over,  wept for, babied, prayed for, praised, kissed (including by total strangers), fluffed,  boxed, organized, advised, critiqued, photographed, questioned, listened to,  eulogized, spruced up, sent flowers, sent candy, send cakes and cookies... and this  is only part of our way of death.

 All this is done for you on the expectation that you will do your share,  namely be as upbeat and cheerful as possible; that you will go through all the  necessary and inevitable steps promptly, without inconveniencing anyone by  failing to adhere to their (always brisk) schedule for your demise, and that at the  end of the day you die... allowing the final obsequies to occur and every cliche in  the calendar thought, given, photographed, videotaped, and complimented by  one and all at how well it had gone. Next!

 But he did not die despite the panoply of preparations, expectations, and the  learned opinions of every professional engaged in the matter. The lead physician in  the case called me one afternoon and told me with the polished certainties of the  medical ilk that death was scheduled for T minus 5 hours and counting. And that  was that.

 Only it wasn't.

 To the surprise of all, including the principal actor himself, the consternation of  many, and the downright irritation of some (those whose prayers and presentations  had been the most ostentatious), the man known to history as Donald Marshall  Lant lived... thereby being continued in the dicey, unpredictable, messy and  often baffling business of living, rather than the adamant certainties of death.

 For instance, when he returned alive to the dining room of the assisted living  facility where he had last been discussed and hugged as a certain goner, there  was a notable frisson, as if he had farted in the elevator; it was, it seemed, mal vu  to return alive after such a perfect farewell. "Forgotten but not gone", as one wag  quipped.

 What a comedown for the man who expected to wake up in the bosom of the  Lord, amongst the saints who are marching in, most assuredly one of their  high-stepping number. But instead he lived... and that was the greatest gift of all,  the rest certain to occur in due course but put aside for now. There could still  be, would be dreams... and these dreams could still come true in the many a  new day that were now his.

 Thus he was informing me, not asking my permission or inviting my opinion  but acting like the patriarch he had been for so long. He was leaving the California  where he had lived so long and with such comfort and contentment and moving  to Oklahoma. He had a list of "reasons" at the ready, my brother and his simpatica  wife of long standing were near at hand, the cost of living was dramatically  lower, and, perhaps though unstated, the poignant memories of Miss Ellie were  too potent and bittersweet in the suite where they had loved and lost each other.

 But there was, I think, one more reason, that to stay ensconced in the verdant  grandeur of California was like waiting for the inevitability of death, a condition  that sapped the joy from everything and left him dispirited and low. Motion meant  life... and he still had life to spend and in abundance.

 Thus whilst I advanced reasons for caution and deliberation, his mind and imagination  raced ahead, Rodgers and Hammerstein giving him in "Oklahoma" (1943) not just one  of the most lyric of their incomparable repertoire but the best reason of all: I sang off key   "Many a new face will please my eye", and he instantly responded off key, "Many a  new love will find me." Then I knew for a certainty many a new day would dawn for him  and that these would be the best of all.

 Envoi.

 Go now to any search engine, and play "Many A New Day" and let this plucky song work its happy magic for you.



About the Author

 Harvard-educated Dr. Jeffrey Lant is the author of over a dozen best selling business and marketing books, several ebooks as well as over one thousand articles on a variety of topics. Republished with author's permission by Ruthsella Corasol http://WorkingAtHome101.com.

'I've been workin' on my rewrite, that's right.' An open letter to a young friend who wants to be a scribbler.

Author's program note. I saw the way you looked at that photo of me on the  back of my first book. I looked so young, well-scrubbed, brushed and combed,  so smart with a dollop of profound sensitivity about the mouth, supposing I was  ready for anything, not even knowing the questions needing to be answered, much  less the answers themselves.  '  While your father, who is the best friend you'll ever have in this world (just help  him show you) uttered the expected pleasantries to ascertain how I was  faring on Spaceship Earth and what mischief I was bringing to the world these  days, I really looked at you in that disconcerting way I have. Your eyes, that  fleeting look offered nothing less than the first real confession of your young life.  And it was nothing less than a revelation and best kept under cerebral lock  and key for infrequent reminding.

 You saw that picture of me and understood, if only for a minute, that I had once been  as young as you are today, as young and determined, fortified by ardor and bold  audacity. You saw me... and thought about yourself, as one does. It was no longer  my photo on that cover... it was yours and the magic of the photographer's craft  mixed with the total fire power you packed into that glance made for an image to  make the indolent world sit up and take notice. You had arrived... you were ready  to astonish and awe... you had something to say and the words to say it... and were  determined the world should hear it.

 And then you heard your so decent, ever practical father say, "Look at the electrical  outlets, son. Dr. Lant was just telling me they're solid gold.", and he gave one of them  a good smart tap reiterating the words to ensure you understood what he'd said.  Words per se might mean nothing to your dad, but words that produced the  dazzling ostentation of gold electrical outlets were well worth the understanding.  The man who could throw away good money on self-indulgent lavishness was  a man worth knowing, and that's a fact. And so I was...

 ...and so I did what folks blessed with the riches of knowledge must do to justify their  existence... they must share, and not just insipid platitudes either, but as much naked,  undeniable truth as their youthful auditor can stand, and even more.

 For in such a conversation we elders transfer our civilization and learned achievements  to the only people who matter at such a time, our successors; the people we must  instruct or lose the best of who we are. And so I, notoriously brusque and impatient.  resolve to speak to you slowly, with care and thoughtful consideration, but mostly and  above all else with the unvarnished truth, so help me, God.

 A curriculum for young scribblers, things no one but a successful writer can tell  you.

 Every word in this intimate and necessary epistle between the present and the  future which will, and all too soon, be the present some day, is vital. Every word is honest  and such may disconcert and even affront you and your painfully young and ill-informed  ideas. We must both understand that I know far more than you do; a thought you might  not like or even acknowledge...

  ... this could be construed as arrogance and crippling conceit... on your part. It is  certainly insensitive. Still we must both recognize that there is an urgency about our need  to understand each other and a deep fear almost palpable, that I (or any writer of my  generation) shall forget to tell you something of significance or, worse, that having told you  something of such significance, you will not heed it, to the detriment of each generation's  master plan for keeping the whole thing rolling along and of constantly increasing utility and  knowledge.    I now take this opportunity to introduce you to another writer, brilliant lyricist, heart touching  songster, a master poet, hence meticulous word handler. His name is Paul Simon (born  1947), and if you are round about my age (67 this year) you would have grown up with his  shibboleths, whimsies, condescensions, cleverness, never convenient truths, admonitions,  larks and bombastic, hummable moralistic rages all just a radio dial away, always master of  the searing truth so difficult for so many to see and acknowledge, but critical if we are ever  to inhabit the Promised Land, or even find the direction to it, staying thereafter on the adamant  and always challenging path.

 Simon's song "Rewrite" (from the 2011 album "So Beautiful Or So What") should  be required reading (and immediately accessible posting)  by every writer, aspiring or  otherwise. It is about a young writer who confides in the auditor just what his version of  the writer's craft is all about. "Every minute after midnight, all the time I'm spending/ Is just  for workin' on my rewrite, that's right/ I'm gonna turn it into cash."

 But Simon knows, and we elder statespeople of the writer's craft know, that Simon's writer  is delusional. He's not a writer, he is a seeker after big bucks. If he can't conjure what  he needs from "where the father has a breakdown", he'll do it by substituting "a car chase  and a race across the rooftops/ Where the father saves the children and he holds them  in his arms. "This isn't writing." master stylist and writing pioneer Truman Capote once  sniffed. "It's typewriting," that is to say bogus, facile, insincere and superficial.

 If you're destined to be a writer, you must do better, lots better, and  I am doing you the  favor to tell you what that is.

 Memorize the dictionary.

 Your writing is laboriously assembled and crafted from the words you know. The more  words you know and use, the better and more completely you can render human reality...  and, make no mistake about it, that is what all writers do, good, bad, or indifferent. We tell  what happens to humans... everything that happens; their struggles, their dreams, their  aspirations, their love affairs that end in misery, the ones that end in tears and tribulation,  the ones that start in love and end in sublimity and awe.

 Every word we master and use enables us to tell the more complete and accurate  truth about the reality we know and can, in nuanced measure, describe more accurately  once we have the words at our command, when we finally understand what love really  is and can do.

 We can, we must work to do this because it is only when we have the words that  we can even attempt to write the whole truth and nothing but the truth...and, it is only  when we have truth that writing transcends the mundane and allows us to approach God  who is the embodiment of truth and the ultimate destination of every writer whatever  story he tells.

 On your dawning love affair with words... and the truth they reveal and convey.

 How many words do you know today? To the extent  to which you mean to write, the  correct answer is "too few, far too few."  This is not merely a fact; it is a declaration of  immediate commitment and lifelong purpose. If you mean to write, you must here  and now pledge yourself to words, for only then can you succeed in achieving your  objective.

 Thus, pledge yourself to learning just three new words every day.  "Just that?", you say  Yes, just that, which means just this.

 Open the dictionary (whether online or off; I use both).

 Take a 3"x5" card and write the word you have decided to embrace.

 Put it on your tongue, taste it, savor it with the understanding that if you can  incorporate it into your very essence you will be a better person, a smarter person,  a person with yet another puissant tool, the better to achieve your objective, and  ultimately your grand goal. This is how you craft yourself. This is what you must do  to be the world-changing eminence you can become... leaving the rest behind,  those who might have been but without such effort they will never be.

 Now use the word in a sentence or two. Do not just have the word, employ the word.  The actual word and its part of speech should go on one side of the card; its definition  on the reverse. These are now your flash cards. Treat them with the importance they  deserve.

 You have now taken the first step. You have told yourself what you mean to do...  and you have begun to do it. Now continue. If this is your avocation, your mission,  then do it, and it must become your destiny.

 Envoi.

 Too often Paul Simon has come across as sanctimonious, condescending,  hectoring, superior, aloof and dismissive, but not in this song or this album, to  which I listened with the felicity of an open mind and ear. Now in his late  sixties, he sounds like an engaging and completely charming adolescent,  and for that I say, " 'Thank you/ I'd no idea that you were there' pleased to  meet you' ". Go to any search engine and listen to him all over again.


About the Author Harvard-educated Dr. Jeffrey Lant is the author of over a dozen best selling marketing and business books, as well as several ebooks and over one thousand online articles on a variety of topics. Republished with author's permission by Ruthsella Corasol http://WorkingAtHome101.com.

'I never get a single thing that's new.' An appreciation for America's pack rat, Alex Shear, dead at 73, January 10, 2014, now in God's collection.

by Dr. Jeffrey Lant

 Author's program note. This is not merely an article. It is instead a declaration  of support and unity for people like Alex Shear (and, yes, me) who are (far)  beyond obsessive in their acquisition of... everything. We have endured snide  comments, ribald jokes, side slapping "humor", ridicule, even the ultimate indignity  of having our closets, cupboards, drawers, basements, garages, and attics  opened and "organized" by the insensitive relations, too often our own mothers  and wives, who claim to love us but do not understand the vital importance of  what we do, why we do it, and our crucial significance in maintaining for future  generations the vital artifacts each of which is an aperture into the lives and times  of those now gone and relying on us to continue their praiseworthy work.

 Today all of us come together not just to bury one of the best of us but to praise  him extravagantly, and (if the whole truth be known) to check out his stuff and  catch a coupla bargains. When's the sale anyway, and could I have a preview?

 Pack rats.

 Considering the fact that I've been called a "pack rat" my entire life, since  my beloved Grammie Victoria Burgess Lauing, laid this monikker on me  as a boy (never mind she evinced similar tendencies herself) I admit to  knowing precious little about them. I mean, if Grammie said I was a pack  rat, simply perusing myself in the mirror should have told me all I needed to  know about the breed, right? Right down to those cute pointed ears which  got me elected "E" in my high school senior class alphabet poll and a picture  of the back of my head in the class book, ears rampant and strikingly apparent.

 Neotoma.

 A pack rat can be any of the species in the rodent genus "Neotoma". They have  a rat-like appearance (keep an open mind, please) with long tails and big black  eyes which are constantly on the look-out for free stuff. They are totally focused on  bringing home this stuff, but it must be up to their discerning standards.

 Thus, when they find something they like (a constant occurrence), they drop what  they are currently carrying and "trade" it for the new thing that has taken their fancy,  the more so if that thing is shiny. These two traits have inspired an anecdote wherein  pack rats find the teller's dime and replace it by two nickels. Yikes, Grammie was right.

 What causes this unrelenting acquisitive behavior anyway?

 Some psychologist at a minor institution of superficial learning is even now finishing  up a study financed by the government on the subject. His conclusion? People become  pack rats because they like having more of what they like, lots more, because more, still  more and yet still more beget radiant happiness and a sense that God loves them best.  Thus, from their earliest moment of recognition that they can have as much as they want,  they set upon the lifelong odyssey of getting it. "I acquire, therefor I am."

 Alex Shear was such a man... and it's time you met him.

 About Alexander Joel Shear.

 Shear was born in Lancaster, PA, March 5,1940, into a mercantile family.  His  mother's family ran a department store in Florida; his father, a grocer turned  toy wholesaler, had tons of stuff that Alex wanted, but couldn't have: yo-yos, Hula- Hoops, Flexible Flyers and a whole lot more of Just What He Had Always Wanted.  "Come on, Dad!" (Champ wheedlers beget champ collectors.)

 After receiving an accounting degree from Franklin & Marshall College in  Lancaster he joined Macy's in New York, where he ran one of the store's  seasonal Christmas shops. There as department store buyer and product  designer he had what he needed for a lifetime of ardent, never-ending accumulation,  a word he preferred to "collector," which he judged with suitable condescension  to be pedestrian.

 The question wasn't whether he'd accumulate. The question was what. And here  he gave himself the maximum latitude, for unlike most collectors who focused  on Victorian toys... or piggy banks... or baseball cards... or matchbook covers...  or cigarette lighters, he focused on everything, so long as everything was  product of the Great Republic and its post World War II material culture, the  genre belittled by so many as kitsch, that is to say a low-brow style of mass-  produced art or design using popular or cultural icons.

 It was also called "tacky", but not by Shear, for he saw beyond the object to the Great  Republic which produced it, its industrious peoples, mores, values and beliefs. It was  he fervently believed throughout his life a window into the soul of the greatest nation on  Earth, the stuff of life, a tangible hedge against the ages to come.

 Thus with his broad, engaging smile, the collector's fine-tuned eye, and a  burning, unquenchable desire to build his astonishing empire, he went out, to  find, to haggle, to acquire, to love and, like every accumulator in the world,  to show off, brag about and overawe lesser beings with his intelligence,  sleuthing procedures, and a luck God had surely bestowed.

 Like others of his ilk, Shear thought big, but he didn't just talk a good game;  he was out early and late winning it. And so he brought back a constant stream  of "I had to have it" treasures which his typical New York apartment just wasn't  designed to accommodate, not remotely commodious enough.

 Thus, he found himself exulting when his wife Betty Blum left him in 1980. It gave  him more space... but of course all seven rooms were used up in an instant. Of  course people, less visionary people, people who didn't understand him one little  bit, told him to slow down, get a grip, stop and savor what he already had. They just  didn't get it... and so he packed 11 storage facilities in three states with the goodies  which were drawn to him like magic.

 These finds included special promotional items from every big corporation  and advertiser you could think of -- Chef Boyardee, Campbell's Soup, Tootsie  Roll, Frito Lay, Coca Cola -- and hundreds of others your taste buds remember  better than you did.

 The odd, the commonplace, the unique, the designs you saw a million times,  and the one you never heard of at all, all made their way to Alex's atelier where  he chirped about what he had found, how he'd suckered its hapless former  owner to "give" it away, a "steal". "American culture is now global culture," he  told the marketing magazine "Promo" in 2000. "And the good news for me is  that I own most of it."

 He wasn't kidding.

 Over the course of five decades and more, Shear acquired and acquired and  when you might have said, "Basta!", he acquired the rest until he had over  100,000 items, in over 120 categories, hidden away. He said he was keeping  them for "The Museum for Regular People", the institution that would memorialize  what he'd done, how well he'd done it, and provide his own pied a terre in the Cosmos.

 At his not-so-old age, Shear might well have had a bundle of productive years  ahead, years when his already mammoth, historic accumulation would have  surged still more. But man proposes, God disposes. And so on a fine winter's  day in Manhattan he was struck by a tour bus. It was an oddly appropriate way  to expire for a man who had become something of a celebrity himself. His  body was then collected by New York officials, who probably didn't know what  a find they had.

 Envoi.

 What will happen to his stupendous haul? No doubt his two sons, William and  Andrew, will decide. I wouldn't bet the ranch on it going to start The Museum for  Regular People. I'd say Sotheby's or Christie's. They know how to turn a parent's  obsession into sibling cash. Thus will his staggering plethora be dispersed in  the usual manner, finding in due course thousands of new homes and dauntless  accumulators.

 As for the music for this article, it could only be "Second Hand Rose", which  Barbra Streisand belted out in "Funny Girl" in 1968. What a lark it would have  been to see La Streisand visit Shear. How they would have liked the visit, both  pieces of grand Americana and brassy show-offs that they were.


About the Author

 Harvard-educated Dr. Jeffrey Lant is the author of over a dozen best selling business and marketing books, several ebooks and over one thousand online articles on a variety of interesting topics. Republished with author's permission by Ruthsella Corasol http://WorkingAtHome101.com.

by Dr. Jeffrey Lant

 Author's program note.  If I'd been smart, I  would have met Shirley Temple Black  in Prague August 20, 1968. I was finishing up several exhilarating days in the  ancient capital of the Kingdom of Bohemia during the waning hours of what  was called "Prague Spring." These were the glorious days when Alexander  Dubcek, local henchman of the USSR, played Tennessee Williams, cat  on a hot tin roof.
 
 On the most memorable day of all, just before his arrest, Dubcek went onto  the great balcony of Hradcany Castle and made the graceful, long-suffering people  believe that liberty was at hand... and they screamed their support, their belief,  their hope that deliverance was nigh. I shouted, too, tears in my eyes (as  they are now) that better days were coming, and soon.

 But the subjugated nations of the Soviet dominated Warsaw Pact had other  ideas, which among so many consequences would have given me a place in  Ambassador-designate Shirley Temple Black's motorcade out of Prague  to safety. Thus was the great square before the castle, just a day ago alive  with flowers, sprayed with bullets. Where I had cheered, there were now  bodies. Where I had exulted with fervent patriots, liberty their  passion, there  was puddled blood and the acrid smell of death.

 By that point if I'd had a lick of sense, I should have been en route home,  or at the very least to Vienna compliments of the U.S. embassy. But I was  instead alone on the last train out of Prague, trapped at the Austrian border,  what "information" there was lurid, frightening, a whiff away from panic.

 Thus I never met Shirley Temple or personally witnessed the radiant smile that  helped us survive the most difficult of times, uplifting then, eternal now. How had  this most "girl next door" managed to charm and inspire us so, to our everlasting  gratitude and awe?

 Golden girl in the Golden State in the Golden Age of the movies.
 One thing distinguished Shirley Temple from the moment  of her birth in Santa  Monica, California, April 23,1928 and that is the fact that everything connected  with this entirely normal event was entirely normal and so things remained, even  at the dizzying height of her celebrity. She was the daughter of Gertrude Amelia  Temple (nee' Krieger), a housemaker and George Francis Temple, a modest  bank employee. The family was of English, German, and Dutch ancestry. She  had two brothers, George Francis, Jr. and John Stanley.

 Like so many star-struck mothers, Shirley's encouraged her infant daughter's  singing, dancing, and acting talents, and in September 1931 enrolled her  in Mrs. Meglin's Dance School in Los Angeles for fifty-cents a week  About this  time, her mother began styling Shirley's hair like that of silent fiIm star Mary  Pickford. Ultimately this "do" evolved into the celebrated 56 curls that were the  quintessence of "cute" and which in turn evolved into a multi-million dollar empire  on which the smiles never set.

 In 1932, this sunny, blissful child ,"bathed in love" as she said, was discovered by a  movie agent and chosen to appear in "Baby Burlesks" , a series of sexually suggestive  shorts in which children played all the roles parodying film stars.The 4- and 5-year olds  wore fancy adult costumes which ended at the waist. Below the waist, they wore  diapers with over-sized safety pins. It was smut in top hat and satin garter, coming  perilously close to ending the career of America's Little Princess before it even got  started. Shirley Temple plays Mae West, indeed!

 (Years later in her autobiography "Child Star", Temple reported that when any of the  two dozen or so children cast in "Baby Burlesks" misbehaved, they were locked in a  windowless sound box with only a block of ice on which to sit. Her laconic conclusion?  "So far as I can tell, the black box did no lasting damage to my psyche." Nice. More  revealing was her final comment on this unsettling matter, "Its lesson of life was  profound and  unforgettable.Time is money. Wasted  time means wasted money  means trouble." This was exactly what the studios wanted  their "stars" to believe,  say, and do... Shirley Temple, pre-schooler, was their kind of gal, and  they were right.  Shirley never let them down.)

 1934, Hollywood "Stands Up And Cheers."

 It is easy to forget just how grim and frightening 1934 really was. So much had been  toppled and devastated by the Great Depression. The old verities, now twelve for a penny,  were challenged everywhere, scoffed at, derided, no longer venerated, no longer the  white hope of an expectant world.

 There was a lot more to fear than fear itself as every ism -- Nazism, Fascism,  Communism et al -- made its strenuous, plausible play for world domination. What  did the Great Republic offer in response? "People in the Depression wanted something to  cheer them up, and they fell in love with a dog, Rin Tin Tin, and a little girl", Mrs. Temple  Black often said in her unadorned way as if these few words were sufficient to  explain her astonishing success.  But more explanation is necessary.

 Not since Joan of Arc (1412-1431) had a great nation staked its future on a girl, much  less one barely out of rompers like Shirley Temple. St. Joan,  Pucelle de France, went  forward with the sacred Oriflamme in her hand and the certainty of God's  favor.  By contrast, Shirley conquered the world with the famous ringlets, an unbeatable smile,  and the warmest possible embrace for... everyone! And this begins to explain what  happened next to her, to the nation, and to a world that loved her at once, whatever their  race, creed, sex, age, national origin or anything else.

 Nothing like it had ever happened before... and it made people everywhere feel good;  made them feel happy now and optimistic about what was to come, no matter how gloomy  the current situation. She brought hope, and hope was what we all needed, and urgently...

 One year, 8 films, just 6 years old.
 For all that they prattle on about creativity and art, the titans of Hollywood would give  their eye teeth for a film model guaranteed to coin money over and over again. In 1934  Temple became the Most Important Star by providing it. The model, first seen in "Stand  Up and Cheer, had predictable, interchangeable parts that produced predictable riches.

 A feisty young girl caught in a jam, no parents apparent, adventures galore, all ending in  hugs and kisses on the deck of the good ship Lollipop where the minions under 20th  Century Fox head Darryl F. Zanuck shouted "Mazel Tov!", and tap danced around the  lovable moppet who had given them all a "happy landing on a chocolate bar."

 Once proven, the Hollywood Magic Machine worked overtime to provide suitable  properties for their ultra bankable asset. Nineteen writers known as the Shirley  Temple Story Development team created 11 original stories and some adaptations  of the classics for her. They made hay with a will while the sun shined. It was good  for everyone, not least the titans themselves whose studios just managed to avoid  bankruptcy by standing on her girlish shoulders; one smash hit after another,  each one a more perfect rendering of the golden model than the one before.

 Everyone, but everyone went to the movies to see her in action. Here's what  President Franklin D. Roosevelt had to say about his main competitor for America's  attention, the child who was far more photographed than he was. "It is a splendid thing  that for just fifteen cents an American can go to a movie and look at the smiling face of  a baby and forget his troubles."  Rarely has envy produced a more graceful compliment.  It was completely deserved.

 Needless to say, every element of a Shirley Temple  film was analyzed and  analyzed  again. What should she wear, what should she say, to whom should she say it,  how should she talk, sing, tap dance... each calculated decision contributing to her  image of naturalness, naivete and tomboyishness.

 The most controversial of these decisions involved the simple matter of Shirley holding  hands with Bill "Bojangles" Robinson, a helluva hoofer who happened to be Black. After  prolonged discussion, loving everyone triumphed over loving some. Their effervescent  dance steps in the 4 films they made together dazzled audiences everywhere and helped  move segregated America in the right direction.

 All good things...

 Sadly this marvelous situation couldn't last, was in fact being undermined by  Shirley herself ever single day. Winsome child stars, you see, make the fatal mistake  to grow up... and they  are never as cute and cuddly when they are loutish teen-agers  as they had been. Bad habits materialize (Shirley became a chain smoker) and  adolescent sulking makes bad box office. Thus, as her age went up, her appeal went  down until, after one wake-up call after another, Shirley Temple tossed  in  the sponge  and announced her retirement. She was just 22. 

 Now what?

 What happened next defied logic, at least big studio logic.Unlike others of her  ilk Shirley didn't fall apart thanks to drugs and arrogance. Instead she remained  what she had always been been. For her the shibboleths of Main Street Middle  America were always her bedrock beliefs and guiding lights. What you saw was  utterly and completely who she was.

 And so what she did was what we all do... get married (at 16) and divorced (4 years  later)... only to find love and happiness for fifty-four years with San Francisco Bay  area businessman, Charles Alden Black, a man who claimed he never saw any of her  films. She had three children (one with John Agar, Jr., two with Black) , and they had the  usual problems.

 She went back to work; some projects succeeded, some didn't. There was no mystery,  no enigma, no hidden secrets waiting to be revealed in supermarket check out lines.  Instead there was decency, patriotism, kindness, courtesy, good humor and most of  all love, tolerance, and acceptance, each an attribute which helped make her the  effective diplomat she became, for her embassy to the Czech Republic and its  playwright president Vaclav Havel, was no sinecure. She wouldn't have taken the job  if it had been, for she always valued and extolled the importance of hard work and did  more than her share. She might so easily have turned out so very different...

 Envoi.

 I didn't have to think twice about the music for this article. It was "On the Good Ship  Lollipop", Shirley Temple's signature song. Music by Richard A. Whiting, lyrics by Sidney  Clare, it was published in 1934, then used in "Bright Eyes." Over 500,000 copies  of the sheet music were sold and on any given night in that year of worry and anxiety,  families gathered 'round the piano to find uplift in its lively beat and happy lyrics. Thus  she shed her grace on we. Wherever she was going, she wanted us all to go... and  I, for one, am glad  and grateful I did.

 Go to any search engine now and remember how this pint-sized ball of purposeful  endeavor and never-say-die determination made you smile. No one ever did it better.

About the Author Harvard-educated Dr. Jeffrey Lant is the author of over a dozen best sellers on business and marketing, several ebooks and over one thousand online articles on a variety of topics. Republished with author's permission by Ruthsella Corasol http://WorkingAtHome101.com.

"I'm doing what I'm doing for love." Valentine's Day.

by Dr. Jeffrey Lant

Author's program note. She was the best of wives and the best of mothers. She was such a Yiddishe momme right out of Sophie Tucker, we used to laugh about it. She was the life support for a feckless husband born into cozy wealth who discovered at mid life that he wanted to be a mime (no, I am not making this up) and left her to explain as best she could to her inquisitive Brookline neighbors that Joel had selected grease paint, vacant stare, and rigid immobility in preference to her and the 3 kids.

She was on the cutting edge of every progressive issue, as every good Jewish mother is. And this meant the whole feminist shtick, especially gender equality. She was also a card-carrying member of the "Thatsa my boy" club in which the beloved elder son accepts for a pampered lifetime not just praise but sacred veneration and constant service. And that's why I'm starting my story here, the place you discover just how very splendored love can really be.

The first part takes place the year Ruth and Joel finally hit the divorce courts in the most amiable of actions. She was down but most assuredly not out and wanted to show her nosey friends and relations that she still had what it takes; that she'd had it with clowns of any age or shape, and that she'd snagged herself a wow of a man for her big come-back, one impressive dude, a Harvard man, someone cute and brainy, a goy of a boy, and what a kisser.

Using these enticing features and a slew of others made up to enhance the brew soon had her BBF Marie salivating, a Wagnerian sized shrew who hadn't a single feminine attribute or charm of any kind, but made up for these unfortunate lapses by being really REALLY rich. Marie, interested, became Marie, nagging. When could she meet this prodigy who put her own male lapdog in the shade? And the sooner, the better...  "So, stop with the excuses, already". It was put-up or shut up. How about a Valentine's Day dinner for 4 at the Cafe Budapest in Boston? There would be their famous cherry soup, tokay and Gypsy violinists, all on Marie of course. As I told you, she was REALLY rich.

"Jeffrey, I have a BIG favor to ask you."

The white stretch limousine was ontime to the minute, 7:30 p.m. All the characters were present. Marie was over dressed in what she called a Hungarian hussar costume; a tight fitting blue bodice with miles of gold thread and epaulettes that would have made a minor Habsburg archduke proud. I didn't know whether to laugh or salute... so I muttered the usual "glad to meet yous" and scrunched down to get in the Guido-mobile. But where was Marie's 'til death do us part?

Marie later told me she thought it would be "fun" if she dressed him as a Viennese coachman, circa 1880. No symbolism here, of course. He looked ridiculous, of course. Maybe that was Marie's intention. If so, she got her wish. His uniform was clearly two or three sizes too big for him. His top hat fell over his eyes... and his boots, while polished, were like flip-flops. I saluted him and tried to limit my smile to the appropriate length Emily Post recommended when you meet hubby the lap dog. I made it just a bit bigger because I felt sorry for the schlemiel. After all, he looked like Marie's lunch.

Ruth looked... well, I was bowled over. She was cute as a bug in a rug with a (was it?) mink collar. "Ruthie,"  Marie said,"you look..." and then she said it again as if she didn't quite believe what she was seeing "Henny, doesn't Ruthie look..." As her eyes took in every feature of my winsome self, you could see she was licking her lips, thinking Mazel tov... Mazel tov! And as if to answer Marie and establish ownership, my friend Ruth planted a kiss on me that was a lollapalooza of the genre, the real deal. I never saw it coming.

Okay, I looked terrific that evening. For a guy as disinterested in clothes as I was, (except for the blue cape with red silk lining I got on Carnaby Street in London), I could look like the well turned out gentleman my mother always demanded. I was wearing black tie evening dress, the duds cut by Oxford University's comme il faut tailor.

I was washed, brushed, combed, ironed, buttoned, zipped, bow-tied, with a smile nicely calibrated to be just proper enough to meet her friends and just wicked enough that she'd want to dump them as soon as possible. Rarely has any friend done so much to achieve the desired result. As I was complimenting myself, extolling my finesse and magnanimity Ruthie snuggled up as if there was no tomorrow. As for Marie, she never took her eyes off Ruth, which meant she never took her eyes off me. There was certainly a lot to look at...

"Madam, I understand today is a very special day. These flowers have just arrived for you."

With that the waiter handed over the biggest, most entrancing bouquet I had ever seen. And I got a real smacker as thanks. My initial was on the card... along with that fatal word "love." Only problem is, I didn't send them. I could guess of course, but I couldn't ask. The sender counted on my discretion, on not blurting anything out but playing my part in the play with consummate skill... and I did.

Ruth got up and hoisted a piece of exquisite crystal which featured the double-headed imperial eagle. The sommelier, standing by, filled it with the finest tokay, and then filled the other three glasses, too.

She never looked more beautiful, more determined, more certain of what she must say or how she would say it. The game had suddenly become very serious indeed. And every diner in the Cafe Budapest that memorable evening, immersed as they were in their own rituals of love, knew it.

Ruth, a practised thespian of so many years, had what every actor wants... a dedicated and sympathetic audience, in rapt attention, waiting expectantly for whatever she might say or do. She took her knife and hit her glass three times in prescribed fashion... then she turned and looked at me... her song beginning.

" I am one of those the world looked down on. I'm not what they think I ought to be. Love has made me do things people frown on. But love is life and everything to me."

She was singing to me. Her hands stroked my hair. Her eyes locked on mine. Her look was plaintive. She wanted me to know her, love her. She needed me to know that love wasn't just an important thing.... it was the only thing.

She breathed, she loved. She laughed, she loved. She cried, she loved. It was who she was... what she did. There was no beginning to it... no end. She was the Biblical Ruth of old... whither thou goest, I goeth.

Every person in the restaurant knew he was hearing searing honesty... total integrity. There was no art... no artifice... nothing but one woman and the man she had selected, giving everything, hoping for everything, too proud to ask for anything.

Then the song was over, its last words hanging in the air,

"If the after years bring me tears, it's all right, I'm satisfied. I've broken man made laws, but heaven will forgive me because I'm doing what I'm doing for love."

I wanted to say something, but everything that needed to be said had been said. She knew. And so before I opened my mouth, she touched my lips and whispered "Thanks for tonight. Thanks for everything." I should have gone down on one knee and said them to her...

Envoi.

Sophie Tucker (1886-1966) was known for her brassy, over-the-top style.. Where men were  concerned her tastes were insistent and voracious, entirely appropriate for the "Last of the Red Hot Mammas." But in 1929 she showed the world a very different, tender, beseeching side. The song was "I'm Doing What I'm Doing For Love", and it was that song that was sung for me that evening that is one of a handful of perfect occasions of my eventful life. 67 this year, I haven't married. Go now to any search engine and play this tune and remember your perfect  moment and what you did for love... or might still do.


About the Author

 Harvard-educated Dr. Jeffrey Lant is an avid collector, as well as author of 18 best selling business and marketing books, several ebooks and over one thousand online articles. Republished with author's permission by Ruthsella Corasol http://WorkingAtHome101.com.

'Life's not worth a damn, 'Til you can say, 'Hey, world, I am what I am' . Some thoughts on turning 67, February 16, 2014.

by Dr. Jeffrey Lant

 Author's program note. These kinds of things are happening to me all the time  now. I was sitting in a booth at the Cambridge Common Restaurant just the  other day and was anxious  to enjoy the same American fare I always get  there, namely a classic hamburger medium well, fresh lettuce and tomato  with a whisper of Bermuda onion; side of onion rings (a specialite' de  la maison), justly renowned up and down Massachusetts Avenue, three half  deviled eggs (uniquely available here) and large diet Coke; make sure there  are three slices of lime. I am most particular about such matters, and don't forget  it, Pookie. Mind, just two won't do.

 Then the snag. I couldn't get out of my top coat, suitably charcoal gray, the one  that I acquired so many years ago in London, at Austin Reed, in that long  ago era when being stylish still mattered to me, though even then not so very  much (to my mother's abiding chagrin).

 This coat, now my straight-jacket, now my jailor... for, you see, I couldn't take  it off and I couldn't get it on. I was a hostage and even doing the shimmy like my  sister Kate didn't help. Nothing did.

 My irksome dilemma was compounded by the fact no waitron (as we call  them in my progressive metropolis) was to hand. No, they were all bunched  together at the entrance, where at least 4 of them cast jaundiced eyes at  the folks (another Cambridge-ism) entering; what tip they might get their one  and only concern.

 And so I waited pondering the thoughts every hostage wherever held had thought;  thoughts like how did I get myself into this friggin' situation... how could I get myself  out of it... and where was the cavalry to rescue me? After all, I pay my taxes.

 Like I said, this wasn't the first time I was trapped inside my top coat... or my  favorite sweater, the thick one from France with the heraldic devices and  fastidious moths... or any of those Ralph Lauren polo shirts, the ones that  mysteriously disappear when certain light-fingered friends decide to spend  the night because they've over served themselves from my dwindling supply of  fine wines and liquors I shall never buy again.

 No, this wasn't the first time a determined garment decided to hold me for  ransom, but it was the longest and most public such event, thus deserving of  the most careful consideration and a thorough vetting of each and every detail,  no matter how picayune you might think. Besides, who asked you for an opinion  anyway?

 So, by now I was one exasperated puppy with a fast rising temperature. I  needed help and the staff had well and truly disappeared. Now what? Out of  the corner of my eye I saw an elderly couple just finishing up. Then the  absolutely unthinkable notion... they could help me. And all of a sudden I was  confronted by one of the most profound and undeniable aspects of aging... that  I, help giver par excellence for my entire life, now needed help.... and I didn't like  that one little bit... not least when my potential rescuers stood up and I realized  with horror the "elderly couple" was my age... yes, card carrying Baby Boomers.  It only worsened my dilemma... and made me feel damn foolish, too.

 I mean, why couldn't I just say in my most congenial and casual way, "Could  you folks give me a hand?". They would have said yes, pulled me up smartly  and removed me from the troublesome coat.

 They would then have smiled and quipped some phrase like "Don't take any  wooden nickles", waved and gone on their merry way with that happy  feeling that  comes when you've taken time to do a good deed you didn't need to do. The whole  thing would have taken 120 seconds, or less.    Besides, I had seen the gentleman look at me struggling. It seems to me he  wanted to help but didn't want to intrude, either for fear he'd be rebuffed by  me or somehow "get involved", a thing that trips us all up. We want to make  the world a better place, we prattle on about it without surcease, but we want  to do it without "getting involved". How this can be accomplished no one knows.  Thus I didn't request his help, and he didn't offer it. I remained trapped, arms pinned.  And to think the gray haired couple and I all grew up on Bob Dylan and  his 1974  masterpiece, "Forever Young," "May you always do for others/ And let others do  for you."

 Giving, yes. Getting, no.

 I'm ok with the first half of Dylan's line. Giving is what successful people do. Giving  is an important aspect of their success. It firmly and unequivocally establishes  them as a person of consequence, a person of empathy and kindness and  generosity; a person who should be touched to ensure good luck and whose every  word is solid gold, ready for chiseling on public buildings.

 Of course I see myself this way and give with the well-honed and always gracious  gesture of the grandest grand seigneur. When misery of any kind strikes within  my circle and often without; (think typhoons in far-away places which even I cannot  find with ease), I respond at once.

 It is not an act of thought; it is rather an act of indelible habit long ago taught and  constantly performed since. It affirms my superior status and good heart and  immediately suggests God's unqualified approbation and bounty. This thought  comforted my God-fearing Puritan ancestors; it comforts me as well, just as it  comforts me to give even where the response is anything but warm.

 One day when I was returning from my walk about the neighborhood, I saw a  family in distress.Their car didn't work, and they were in despair, young children  shrieking. I asked them where they were going and how much they needed.  Connecticut. $500.

 I offered to lend, not give, the money. Could they pay back, say, $50 a month?  "Oh, yes, sir, we can and we will." Fervent thanks were rendered and rendered  again. A week or two after the first payment date, no funds received, I called. I  expected an excuse and a promise for prompt recompense and renewed  appreciation. What I got was an earful of the bluest and most vulgar, every word  an expostulation of the rawest and most offensive; the whole proof positive that no  good deed goes unpunished.

 But here's the rub. I was not disconcerted by the torrent of malice; quite the contrary.  "There but for the grace of God..." What might so easily have resulted in a shouting  match turned instead into a moment of quiet satisfaction and proof of God's love.  Could the man shouting unanticipated obscenities have said as much? Yes, God  moves in mysterious ways and His account of the time we have been given and  used is absolute, infallible, eternal. Yes, this is what happens to the givers, each  blessed and rightly so. But what happens to those who are given? I didn't need  to consider this matter. It had been drilled into me from birth... and now prevented  me from asking for help.

 "If you want it done right, do it yourself," I'd been taught. "God helps those who  help themselves," I'd been assured." "Don't wait to be asked. Take the initiative to  do the right thing and do it now!", every phrase an adamant declaration for  independence here, independence now, independence forever.

 These were the shibboleths of the people who shaped me, theirs the adamant  voices ringing in my ear today. And they are right, for there is nothing more important  as you age than the personal freedom and independent living which are constantly  at risk and being chipped away, threatened, diminished day by day. Then out  of nowhere, I heard a song begin to gather in my brain. And it went something like  this...

 "I am what I am/ I am my own special creation/ So come take a look/  Give me the hook or the ovation."

 And all of a sudden, as the song rose and its insistent lyrics soared, I got that  feeling that I've known before, the feeling that He is there... that He is watching...  and against every logical thought and sentiment He cares.

 Thus did epiphany and perfect recognition hit me squarely between the eyes  in an urban greasy spoon in the unlikely form of an anthem for drag queens  everywhere featuring this electrifying line, "There's one life, and there's no return  and no deposit." (The song, of course, is "I Am What I Am" music and lyrics  by Jerry Herman from the 1983 production of "La Cage aux Folles". Go now to  any search engine and find it. I prefer the version by George Hearn with resonant.  adamant voice enough to uplift millions, including you and me.)

 "I don't want praise. I don't want pity."

 And so the truths poured out. I shuffle now, my once strident walk slower now.  This doesn't matter.

 My right hand tremors,  This doesn't  matter.

 Shoelaces a struggle to tie. This doesn't matter either.

 The agile letters that jump up and down on a page challenging meaning.  This, too, doesn't matter. What then does?

 The waitress knew. "I'm sorry you had to wait so long. Need some help with  your coat?" and so my incapacity begot a new friend with radiant smile  and, in short order deviled eggs, onion rings, and apple crunch with vanilla  ice cream... all on the house. "You deserve it," she said.... and maybe I'm ready  to admit that I do.

 Dedication by the Author. It is my privilege and pleasure to dedicate this article  to Daniel Fischer, my "monkey" and friend, a man of spirit, persistence,  dedication and love. Remember, you are not alone and  your example and  dazzling smile inspire us all and always will, none more so than me.

. About the Author Harvard-educated Dr. Jeffrey Lant is the author of over a dozen best selling business and marketing books, as well as several ebooks and over one thousand online articles on a variety of topics. Republished with author's permission by Ruthsella Corasol http://WorkingAtHome101.com.