Sundial

I grew up around elderly people who could look up at the sky and tell you almost exactly the time of the day from the position of the sun. This had been learned over a long life, when very few people owned a personal watch. Even clocks were rare in early American homes: mostly weighted, chiming clocks, all mechanical. The earliest method of telling time was a sundial, a device that measures time by the position of the sun. The sun casts a shadow from the sundial's style onto a flat surface marked with lines indicating the hours of the day. As the sun moves across the sky, the shadow aligns with different hour-lines on the plate (from Wikipedia).

The world's most expensive watches are the 201-carat Chopard (worth 25 million USD), and Patek Phillipe's Supercomplication (worth 11 Million USD). Now, these are not Mickey Mouse or Timex watches, but regardless of cost, the finest Swiss-made watch cannot be abused. The sundial, whether made of iron or stone can be abused, tolerate any weather condition, you could beat on it with a hammer and it will still maintain some accuracy. The watch, expensive or cheap, will not withstand much abuse.

If you want absolute time, absolute procedures, you must depend on the “absolutes of right and wrong”. There is no “gray area” or any “in-between”. Today's scientists and even today's citizens do not want approximations in any thing. Evading truth, just going through the motions, has become the practice rather than the exception in most areas of business.

It still bothers me to be disappointed with people...whether business associates or professionals. We talk about the corruption of politicians, unprincipled pastors, shyster lawyers, thieving businessmen; perception is usually reality, character determines destination, and 21st century people care little about people's opinions of their character, even god's opinion of their character. It is a matter of doing others, before they do you. The golden rule is no longer practiced: “So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.” (Matthew 7:12)

For many years, I have been involved in the real estate business as a landlord, I often think I have seen it all, certainly man's inhumanity to his fellow man...even one who is totally blind who has given his eyes for your country.

Some years ago, I leased a furnished house to a school superintendent of schools in Virginia, Dr. Ira Trolinger. He persuaded me to let him sign the lease, being responsible for everything so that his daughter, a college student would have a nice place to live. People do not believe the photographs I have from this disaster. Not only the condition of my house, but much of my furniture disappeared. One insurance company, one police department, and two lawyers later...I'm still trying to settle.

Knowing this history, I decided to put the house in question, after being restored, into the hands of a realtor...to do the “due diligence“ involved in finding and leasing to a more honest tenant. One can not believe this, unless they witness it themselves, but this realtor put a pharmacist into my house who did the very same thing. Why would a pharmacist, making the kind of salary he make, when moving, at the end of the lease, take my things. Things, that he could buy in any “dollar store”: all the trash cans, shower curtains, bathroom rugs, towels, bedspreads, dishes, drinking glasses, pots and pans, and even brooms. It is not just replacing these items, but the time involved in restoring an entire house. The yards were never touched, dog hair everywhere...all curtains, pictures, décor taken down. 90% of all wall space repainted without permission, even though, after the last fiasco, the house had been totally restored.

Both the tenant and the realtor told me in printed emails that the house was in good condition...every thing in order. Don't these men know that I have photographs? Do you want a pharmacist such as this filling your prescription? Do you want a realtor such as a this handling your property? Are these examples of today's professionals: just sundials with approximations of right and wrong?