Sunday has a beautiful cloudy sky. The woods were lovely and dark and deep as I borrow the phrase from Robert Frost. Of course, I love clouds and rain and woods. I love the many facets of ambition. You know that is what gets us up in the morning and fuels our efforts during our days. Indeed there is a plethora of ambition that is not about money. Being blessed with two wonderful sons has been the passion of MJ’s and my life!

Our lives have been exciting and exhilarating and a magical and mysterious tour of enjoyment in Aaron and Jonathon! They each are their own men. They most certainly are not clones of mom and dad. Each day they reveal to me what new roads they are traveling. I think that we both live vicariously through their energy and uniqueness! Just being with them energizes me!

Ambition is often associated with how high a person can rise in the work world. It is in turn associated with how much money you can make. Now we all require money. But money is not the key to happiness or fulfillment. Money is a means to an end. That end is the realization of your dreams. I seriously doubt that we will require money in the afterlife. Ambition can be redirected to what makes you happy.

I wanted to be a salesman in my young days or a minister…which is a form of sales. I also had aspirations of becoming a lawyer in the halcyon days of yore. It seemed to me that I must become successful in the definite definition of what my peers and mentors described success as. Lo and behold I was hired as a Building Service Worker I at Southern Illinois University @ Carbondale. I was neither ashamed nor did I feel that I was doing something beneath my abilities. I determined that I was going to be a Housekeeping Professional! As the years whisked by I received promotion upon promotion and ended my career as the head of the department. This was not where I saw myself as a young man but it was just fit for me.

The opportunities that I was afforded to help others were plenteous during my career. Offering career opportunities to those who were unseen and unheard was a highlight of my work life. I had the best benefits of being a minister and management/administration is a sales profession on a daily basis. People are my strength. Helping others is my passion. The success of SIUC was my vision!

‘A Riddle Wrapped in a Mystery Inside an Enigma,’ has been my life story and I would not have it any other way!