Shem Creek Read Free Page A

profession), you will surely bust your ass.
    Women seem to know this by instinct. Men don’t. Men are conditioned from birth to be providers and basically, our success is measured by how well we do that job. This somehow neatly translates to how much we earn and how many trophies we can accumulate over a lifetime. Cars, second houses, antiques, jewelry for the wife . . . the list goes on and on. We have to graduate from the right schools, become a partner in the right firm, marry the right girl, be invited to join the right club and develop a decent game of golf and tennis.
    Right? Wrong! That entire unholy plan, my friends, is a truckload of manure.
    Isn’t it? I swear, I laugh now when I think about the years I spent chasing the almighty buck. Money, money, money. And, chasing the almighty buck with my wife, Loretta, who always was and continues to be a misery. Well, I can laugh now, but a few months ago, it was not funny at all.
    Overall, daughters are so much luckier than sons. Their mothers tell them to follow their hearts, right? They say, Darlin’? If you want to go study history, you go right ahead. Honey? If you want to be a chemist, go right ahead! Sure enough, women will graduate and can usually earn a decent living with their degree, doing something they love. Of course, women get screwed right and left because they don’t earn the same money that their male colleagues do for performing the same jobs and for a whole variety of other reasons, but for the most part, I think women are happier in their professional lives. And yes, I guess you could say that I am kind of a male feminist.
    But, sons are another matter entirely. When I look at the number of kids coming out of graduate school with business degrees, I am absolutely astonished. I mean, where are they all going to find the fortunes that they think are waiting for them? The ones they think they are entitled to? And law school? Don’t get me started! Do we really need more lawyers?
    What has happened to humanity is this. The world has become vicious, because the devil’s real name is greed. Our ability to justify our greed is staggering. If you believe what you read, see and hear around you, our children’s future will be all about heeding the call and joining the detestable clamor for money and power. It breaks your heart.
    When I think about how I used to run my life, I am sure I must have been completely out of my mind. Besides working seventy-hour weeks, I used to read three newspapers every day— The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times and The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. No more. Now I read the front page of the Post & Courier and guess what? It’s as much as I want to know about what’s going on “out there.” And, I check the weather and the tide tables.
    Let me ask you something. Have you ever been to Italy? Did you know that Italy has the sixth largest economy in the world? But when you go there, you see shops closed for hours in the middle of the day, everyone seems to be drinking wine and espresso, smoking Marlboro Reds, and it looks like no one’s working! What is going on in Italy? Ahem. They are really living. And, guess what? Their lives last just as long as ours do. But! They’re enjoying their lives one helluva lot more than we are. So, I said to myself, Brad? One day, you’re gonna be dead and buried. That’s when I decided to become Italian.
    I want to have a romance with life! I want to love women and children and savor all the beauty and good to be found in the world. I was missing everything! So hitting rock bottom was a good thing. Otherwise, I’d still be a hamster, running on a worthless, pointless wheel, racing to the grave.
    “Mr. Brad? Your appointment is here.”
    “Okay, I’ll be right there! Thanks!”
    That was Louise Waring. Who’s she? Well, Louise is the greatest woman in the world, that’s all. She runs the kitchen, everybody and everything. She’s the chef when Duane takes days off, and the