Five For a Start

You'd think they'd hand out maps or life strategy plans, wouldn't you? No one I ever knew had a map or even a guidebook for life. No three-point outlines. No "e;Sit down here and let me tell you how this works"e; kind of advice either. So how was I to know? I just jumped right in, like I did with everything else in my life. Didn't question how or why...just did it! That had always been my way of doin' things from the start. "e;Just do it."e; Even before the Nike commercials.Did ya ever wonder why our federal or state court systems don't make you take a marriage test or a kid-raisin' test? Seems to me like that's way more important to the welfare and safety of our society than drivin' a Lexus or a Dodge Ram TufTruck. You have to go the courthouse in any state in America to get a marriage license, but anyone can have a baby and keep it to raise without any kind of previous experience or license. Like I said, no how-to manual. So how does anybody know how to keep a marriage going for a lifetime or raise one, two, three, or more little helpless babies into grown adults fit to govern, heal, lead, and protect our society?Well, I didn't have a manual. No license. No mentor. I just jumped right in with my heart and soul and did the best I could bein' young as I was and all. I was hardly grown myself. Certainly in no way wise to the world or rich enough to get education past high school. At seventeen, I graduated from a little country school with thirty-one kids like me who thought they knew more than they actually did. A few years later, we learned that we really didn't know much at all.Fresh and new at life and ready to jump right in and start livin' it on my own, I was ready!