Advice I got from my mother

I have no idea why the subject ever came up with my mother, but sometime when I was about 13 years old, I somehow received advice from her about... unbelievably ... about the subject of girls.

Now, I could have really used some practical tips on how to chat up girls, or where to go on a date, or even something like kissing girls in the back row at the movies, but what my mother came up with ... well, it probably set me back socially about 5 years.

The essence of the advice (which, give me some credit here.... I NEVER acted on) was to "smile at them"

That was it...... just smile at girls.... thanks a lot, Mom.

So, at age 13 I thought it was the most useless thing I had ever heard.

And at age 23, it was still banging around in my head, and I still thought that Mom really hadn't given me much of a practical plan.

And at age 33, years after she had passed away, I still wondered what she could possibly have been thinking.

But, finally, just a few years ago, at 43, with a couple of kids of my own soon to be teenagers....

I could almost imagine those words rolling off of my lips someday......

The Beatles vs. the Monkees

When I was in the third grade, back at Carver Elemetary School in Long Beach, sometime in the mid 1960's, a controversy raged between 9-year old girls and 9-year old boys as to which band was "better", the Beatles or the Monkees.

What "better" meant may never be known, but the dividing line was 100% clear... girls chose the Monkees and boys were left with the Beatles. As I recall, the arguments went somethng along the lines of ".. is so" .... "is not"... and repeated.... History has proved one of the two sides correct.

For the record, I was for the Beatles, but what does the opinion of 9-year old me matter today?

Now, I'll get to the point. The Monkees at least did me the favor of putting my name in one of their songs.... albeit not a song of much passing value.

My first name is Bill and my last, Lever, rhymes with "fever"... So put the parts together and "I'm a B Lever"... "I couldn't leave her, if I tried".....

If you haven't heard it.. don't bother looking for it. If you do, it's your own fault.