Originally posted by "Paul Strauss":
Wow! Paul Strauss I love you man! This is my slogan as well. Actually its a potrait of my life. Now I have to wonder if Calvin was a Democrat or a Rebuplican or an independant thinker !!
I have so often in my life of living around the uneducated been called smart, educated, genius, talented and many other misnomers that do not fit at all. I am none of the above but possibly talented in regard to persistence. It is the key winning factor in my life.
I shall share a too long a story with you now. Almost 4 years ago, my wife came from Panaman City Panama to visit with me and meet me in person after we had talked over the intrnet for several years. Mind you we was not the typical internet chat types and our conversations was mostly about her delicious exotic meals and my peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. I was disabled for an 8 year period and also just too contented to do anything about it. She was young and once she arrived I found out extremly attractive as well but I had no intentions of dating or marriage at all and I simply wanted to give her an oppertunity at a better life and thought I had the life skills to do so.
Well little did I know she was here on a more serious level and wanted to exclude me ( most likely) from her plans and move on with life and find a suitable marriage partner and life probably in England or France. Now mind you I was and am just an old hillbilly that had nothing but a corner of the world and many a shattered dream. I fell in love with that sweatest human being I ever met and not her external abundand beauty but her inner self for sure. I ask her to marry me some days after. I had nothing to offer her in terms of goods as I had literally given all my worldly possessions away 8 years before and given up.
A few days later she comes and hugs me and looks me in the eye. She says You know we are going to be dirt poor all our lives. I did something then I rarly do and that is make a promise. I will not be dirt poor was my response. We will build the dream together.
I took a 12.00 wool felt hat and put it on ebay and then I restarted a hat career that I have known better than the best. In 3 years time I parlayed that 12.00 hat ( which I got back from the disgruntled customer) into a 2.5 million dollar ultra custom hat making empire and now have a master hatter wife as well. We also bid against the worlds largest hat companies on commercial runs of hats now and pursue every profitable order that makes sense to us.
I never used my education, wealth, smarts or any of the things so many have and waste. I used the only thing I had at my disposal and that is the stick to it ness that has got me this far and the same that will make sure of one thing if nothing else. We will not be dirt poor.
While we reinvest every penny we make and do not share in the luxuries of others, we do proudly boast that we have 2 dogs, 2 cats, 2 horses, one mountain cabin that I did not give away to finish and a lot of happiness and no "dirt poorness" here except in the feable garden that we have not proved up yet.
Measure your suscess as you wish but you will get there best if and when you can stick to it regardless of what the desenters say and however hard they try to bring you down to the hell they live in.
Charlie
