Wednesday, May 27, 2009

Role Models


Role models: Everyone’s got ‘em. Whether you’re conscious of them or not-you’ve got them. The trick is to make them good ones! If your role model is a rap star going to prison for illegal gun trade then maybe you should rethink that one.

Fortunately I think I lucked out. I have my brother Jim for a role model. Jim, (who Janet is a lot like) has always been success driven, with minimal excitement levels, but smart and funny with the famous Turner dry wit. Growing up it was always easy to look up to him, he did great in school and I always loved school. He learned a lot of neat things and continues to learn-which might be why I’m just starting to plug away in the piano world while working on learning German.

When we were little he entered a Bike Parade and there was contest for the best decorated bike, and Jim, always looking to be the best at what he does of course had the best decorated bike and won a nice new bike-even got his picture in the paper. How cool is that.

He was the Life Guard and Red Cross certified. He was a Life Guard at our Church Camp and once gave mouth to mouth to a guy having a heart attack at a Bowling Alley! On a lesser scale, but still more ingrained in my memory is when I stepped on a colored toothpick and I was hysterical (Imagine that) but he calmed me down and took care of it.

He even did fun things with his schooling-I remember his ‘log cabin’ made out of Pretzel Sticks that I think he made in college.

Me and Doris used to go visit him in his office in Ann Arbor and I always thought that was so cool that he had his own office and a good job.

Now that he’s retired he got a very cool article in a U of M magazine for the Architecture Department.

Best of all is how he has always helped me out when I call him with stupid things-like every time I had to figure out a percentage, I could never remember how to do that. It’s nice to have that person that you can call like that.

So all of you are looking up to rapper TI-you might want to spend the next 365 days before he gets out of jail, readjusting your goals.

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