Bull Dozer

Posts Tagged ‘God’

Olive trees, ‘Olea europaea,’ are the oldest fruit trees and certainly are one of the most important fruit trees in history. Olive tree culture has been closely connected to the rise and fall of Mediterranean empires and other advanced civilizations throughout the ages. Because olive trees offered wealth and future food supplies to established civilizations, the agricultural nations became stable societies, resulting from a secure expectation from past experience of an uninterrupted food and olive oil supply. This factor was a necessary requirement for population growth and increase. Dependable fruit production and olive oil production means that olive trees must exist in a stable society and a peaceful environment. That stability must extend for many years, since most ancient seedling olive trees required eight or more years before ever producing the first crop of fruit. Productive orchards of olive trees meant that a foundation of the great empires of Greece and Rome had arisen and developed into complex economic and political forces. It is interesting to note that the historical decline of these empires corresponded to the destruction of their olive tree orchards that reduced the available supplies of olives, olive oil, olive wood, and olive soap. In connection with the destruction of olive orchards, it is interesting to note that in the Israeli wars with Palestine, 50,000 olive trees were destroyed by Israeli bulldozers. That act of agricultural destruction resulted in considerable anger and unrest along the Gaza strip and the West Bank, because the economic livelihood of many Palestinian farmers depended on their products from the uprooted olive trees. Additionally, the olive tree was historically a ‘peace and goodwill’ symbol, and when the olive trees were leveled near the city of Bethlehem, the birthplace of Jesus and the “Cradle of Biblical History,” that elimination of olive trees seemed like a deliberate provocation to end the ‘peace’ with the Palestinian settlers and farmers.

The Greeks recognized that in their vast empire they must avoid hostilities and war during the period that the Olympic Games were being conducted, and they declared a worldwide armistice so that their complete attention could be directed toward their athletic events and games.

Medical properties of olive oil were reported by many ancient Greek writers and philosophers, their importance in creating nutritional benefits and wealth for Greek citizens continues abundantly today–some Greek olive tree orchards containing a million or more trees. Aristotle wrote extensively about the accepted methods of successfully growing olive trees.

Greek mythology records that Athena, the Goddess of wisdom and peace, struck her magic spear into the Earth, and it turned into an olive tree, thus, the location where the olive tree appeared and grew was named Athens, Greece, in honor of the Goddess, Athena. Local legend tells us that the original olive tree still stands growing after many centuries at the ancient sacred site. Citizens still claim that all Greek olive trees originated from rooted cuttings that were grown from that original olive tree. Homer claimed in his writings that the ancient olive tree growing in Athens was already 10,000 years old. Homer stated that Greek courts sentenced people to death if they destroyed an olive tree. In 775 BC Olympia, Greece, at the site of the ancient Olympic stadium, athletes competed and trained, and winners were triumphantly acclaimed and crowned with a wreath made of olive twigs. Ancient gold coins that were minted in Athens depicted the face of the Goddess, Athena, wearing an olive leaf wreath on her helmet holding a clay vessel of olive oil. The Greeks began olive cultivation in 700 BC. The sacred lamp that was used in ancient Greek culture for lighting dark rooms at night was fueled by olive oil. Aged olive oil was also used in sacred anointing rituals of the church at weddings and at baptisms. Herodotus wrote in 500 BC, that the growing and exporting of olives and olive oil were so sacred that only virgins and eunuchs were allowed to cultivate orchards of olive trees. The first documented plantings of olive trees may have occurred during the Minoan civilization on the island of Crete and are believed to have been growing around 3500 BC. That civilization predates the discovered Mycenae olive fossils from 1600 BC and later in the Greek empire. Sturt Manning, an archeologist from Cornell University, reported in Live Science Magazine (Apr 28, 2005) that the most devastating volcano in 10,000 years occurred on the Greek Island of Thera, after which the city of Akrotiri was totally buried by the falling ash. The finding of olive wood and olive seed fossils buried near the site has shown through carbon dating that the volcanic eruption occurred between 1660 and 1600 BC and may have contributed to the total destruction of the advanced Minoan civilization (Atlantis) on the isle of Crete and may have led to the formation of the Sahara desert in North Africa after vaporizing the native forests there.

In the Old Testament of the Hebrew Bible (Gen 8:11), Noah was given an olive branch by a dove after the great flood as a symbol of peace and love of God, which it remains today. In the book of Exodus, Moses explains that God expected olive oil to be used in various rituals that were performed by priests of Israel. Olive oil was used as an anointing oil to be poured over the heads of Kings and priests that acknowledged their authority as an agent of God. Many other references to olives are given in the Bible. Psalms 52:8 “But I am like the green olive tree in the house of God, I trust in the steadfast love of God forever and ever.” Finally, Jesus was to spend his last day praying at the mount of olives garden of Gethsemane, in Jerusalem before his crucifixion. Jesus was arrested there, tried, convicted, crucified and later ascended to heaven, after his resurrection from the tomb.

Impressionist artists were stunned by the antique age and beauty of olive trees and their productiveness that resulted in masterpiece paintings by Van Gogh, Cezanne, Renoir, and Matisse. The world’s great Biblical reporters, literary writers, and poets immortalized the olive tree, such people as Jesus, Milton, Shakespeare, and Lord Byron.

Thomas Jefferson wrote “The olive tree is the richest gift of heaven.” The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has reported “Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson, who traveled abroad, brought plant material such as olive trees and rice back to the U.S. to develop United States agricultural production.” Thomas Jefferson was the U.S. ambassador to France during the Revolutionary War, and he began to import olive trees and seeds into the southern U.S. The excessive humidity of South Carolina and Georgia did not allow profitable olive tree orchards to develop properly in those areas. Jefferson wrote “The greatest service which can be rendered to any country is to add a useful plant to its culture.” He ranked his introduction of the olive tree and dry rice into South Carolina as two of his top lifetime achievements. Thomas Jefferson wrote to James Ronaldson on January 13, 1813, “it is now twenty-five years since I sent them (southern planters) two shipments of about 500 plants of the olive tree of Aix, the finest olive trees in the world.”

The fragrant flowers of olive trees are small and creamy white, hidden within the thick leaves. Some cultivars will self pollinate, but others will not. The blossoms usually begin appearing in April and can continue for many months. A wild, seedling olive tree normally begins to flower and produce fruit at the age of 8 years. The fruit of the olive tree is a purplish-black when completely ripe, but a few cultivars are green when ripe and some olives turn a color of copper-brown. The size of the olive fruit is variable, even on the same tree, and the shape ranges from round to oval with pointed ends. Some olives can be eaten fresh after sun-drying and the taste is sweet, but most olive cultivars are bitter and must be treated by various chemical solutions before developing into edible olives. If the olives are thinned on the limbs of the trees to 2 or 3 per twig, the ultimate size of the olives will be much larger. The fruit is gathered in mid October and should be processed as soon as possible to prevent fermentation and a decline in quality.

The leaves of olive trees are gray-green and are replaced at 2-3 year intervals during the spring after new growth appears. Pruning yearly and severely is very important to insure continued production. The trees have the unproductive limbs removed, “so that it will be more fruitful” John 15:2. An olive tree can grow to 50 feet with a limb spread of 30 feet, but most growers will keep the tree pruned to 20 feet to assure maximum production. New sprouts and trees will emerge from the olive tree stump roots, even if the trees are cut down. Some olive trees are believed to be over a thousand years old, and most will live to the ripe old age of 500 years.

Olives generally are beaten off trees with poles, harvested mechanically or by shaking the fruit from the trees onto canvas. Most ripening olives are removed from the trees after the majority of the fruit begins to change in color. It is important to squeeze out the olive oil within a day after harvesting or else fermentation or decline in flavor and quality will occur. The olive oil can be consumed or used in cooking immediately after its collection from the press. Olive oils are unique and distinct, each brand of olive oil having its own character, as determined by many factors, like those unique flavor differences found in fine wines. Prepared commercial olive oils can vary greatly in aroma, fruit flavor; whether the taste is, flowery, nutty, delicate, or mild, and the coloring of olive oil is quite variable.

Olive oil produces many health benefits when used in cooking or when poured over salads. The use of olive oil can improve digestion and can benefit heart metabolism through its low content of cholesterol. Experts claim that olive oil consumption will cause a person to grow shiny hair, prevent dandruff, prevent wrinkles, prevent dry skin and acne, strengthen nails, stop muscle aching, lower blood pressure and cancel out the effects of alcohol.

Olive trees can survive droughts and strong winds, and they grow well on well drained soils up to a pH of 8.5 and the trees can tolerate salt water conditions. In Europe, olive trees are normally fertilized every other year with an organic fertilizer. Alternate bearing can be avoided by heavy pruning and generally the trees respond to this very quickly and favorably.

Olive trees should be purchased that have been vegetatively propagated or grafted, because the seed grown trees will revert to a wild type that yields small olives with an insipid taste. Olive trees are more resistant to diseases and insects than any other fruit tree and, therefore, are sprayed less than any other crop.

The Romans conquered Greece in 146 BC, and the victors took olive secrets to Rome, but since then Greece has remained the greatest exporter of olive oil during the centuries. The olive tree seems to be perfectly adapted for growing in the mild climate of the Mediterranean countries. The trees grow well in dry areas with mild winters and long hot summers, even enduring drought conditions or high winds. The European area of the Mediterranean produces 98% of the world olive oil supply. Olive seed are believed to have been brought to California in 1769 to grow into trees hardy to 12 degrees Fahrenheit. Those olive trees were cultivated in the Franciscan Spanish monasteries.

Even though commercial production of olives in the United States is only 2% of the world market, great interest in growing olives throughout the South has been stimulated by the recent introduction of promising cold hardy olive trees from European hybridizers. Many European immigrants to the United States grow their own olive trees in large pots, that can be moved in and out of the house during seasonal changes.

Olive trees, ‘Olea europaea,’ are the oldest fruit trees and certainly are one of the most important fruit trees in history. Olive tree culture has been closely connected to the rise and fall of Mediterranean empires and other advanced civilizations throughout the ages. Because olive trees offered wealth and future food supplies to established civilizations, the agricultural nations became stable societies, resulting from a secure expectation from past experience of an uninterrupted food and olive oil supply. This factor was a necessary requirement for population growth and increase. Dependable fruit production and olive oil production means that olive trees must exist in a stable society and a peaceful environment. That stability must extend for many years, since most ancient seedling olive trees required eight or more years before ever producing the first crop of fruit. Productive orchards of olive trees meant that a foundation of the great empires of Greece and Rome had arisen and developed into complex economic and political forces. It is interesting to note that the historical decline of these empires corresponded to the destruction of their olive tree orchards that reduced the available supplies of olives, olive oil, olive wood, and olive soap. In connection with the destruction of olive orchards, it is interesting to note that in the Israeli wars with Palestine, 50,000 olive trees were destroyed by Israeli bulldozers. That act of agricultural destruction resulted in considerable anger and unrest along the Gaza strip and the West Bank, because the economic livelihood of many Palestinian farmers depended on their products from the uprooted olive trees. Additionally, the olive tree was historically a ‘peace and goodwill’ symbol, and when the olive trees were leveled near the city of Bethlehem, the birthplace of Jesus and the “Cradle of Biblical History,” that elimination of olive trees seemed like a deliberate provocation to end the ‘peace’ with the Palestinian settlers and farmers.

The Greeks recognized that in their vast empire they must avoid hostilities and war during the period that the Olympic Games were being conducted, and they declared a worldwide armistice so that their complete attention could be directed toward their athletic events and games.

Medical properties of olive oil were reported by many ancient Greek writers and philosophers, their importance in creating nutritional benefits and wealth for Greek citizens continues abundantly today–some Greek olive tree orchards containing a million or more trees. Aristotle wrote extensively about the accepted methods of successfully growing olive trees.

Greek mythology records that Athena, the Goddess of wisdom and peace, struck her magic spear into the Earth, and it turned into an olive tree, thus, the location where the olive tree appeared and grew was named Athens, Greece, in honor of the Goddess, Athena. Local legend tells us that the original olive tree still stands growing after many centuries at the ancient sacred site. Citizens still claim that all Greek olive trees originated from rooted cuttings that were grown from that original olive tree. Homer claimed in his writings that the ancient olive tree growing in Athens was already 10,000 years old. Homer stated that Greek courts sentenced people to death if they destroyed an olive tree. In 775 BC Olympia, Greece, at the site of the ancient Olympic stadium, athletes competed and trained, and winners were triumphantly acclaimed and crowned with a wreath made of olive twigs. Ancient gold coins that were minted in Athens depicted the face of the Goddess, Athena, wearing an olive leaf wreath on her helmet holding a clay vessel of olive oil. The Greeks began olive cultivation in 700 BC. The sacred lamp that was used in ancient Greek culture for lighting dark rooms at night was fueled by olive oil. Aged olive oil was also used in sacred anointing rituals of the church at weddings and at baptisms. Herodotus wrote in 500 BC, that the growing and exporting of olives and olive oil were so sacred that only virgins and eunuchs were allowed to cultivate orchards of olive trees. The first documented plantings of olive trees may have occurred during the Minoan civilization on the island of Crete and are believed to have been growing around 3500 BC. That civilization predates the discovered Mycenae olive fossils from 1600 BC and later in the Greek empire. Sturt Manning, an archeologist from Cornell University, reported in Live Science Magazine (Apr 28, 2005) that the most devastating volcano in 10,000 years occurred on the Greek Island of Thera, after which the city of Akrotiri was totally buried by the falling ash. The finding of olive wood and olive seed fossils buried near the site has shown through carbon dating that the volcanic eruption occurred between 1660 and 1600 BC and may have contributed to the total destruction of the advanced Minoan civilization (Atlantis) on the isle of Crete and may have led to the formation of the Sahara desert in North Africa after vaporizing the native forests there.

In the Old Testament of the Hebrew Bible (Gen 8:11), Noah was given an olive branch by a dove after the great flood as a symbol of peace and love of God, which it remains today. In the book of Exodus, Moses explains that God expected olive oil to be used in various rituals that were performed by priests of Israel. Olive oil was used as an anointing oil to be poured over the heads of Kings and priests that acknowledged their authority as an agent of God. Many other references to olives are given in the Bible. Psalms 52:8 “But I am like the green olive tree in the house of God, I trust in the steadfast love of God forever and ever.” Finally, Jesus was to spend his last day praying at the mount of olives garden of Gethsemane, in Jerusalem before his crucifixion. Jesus was arrested there, tried, convicted, crucified and later ascended to heaven, after his resurrection from the tomb.

Impressionist artists were stunned by the antique age and beauty of olive trees and their productiveness that resulted in masterpiece paintings by Van Gogh, Cezanne, Renoir, and Matisse. The world’s great Biblical reporters, literary writers, and poets immortalized the olive tree, such people as Jesus, Milton, Shakespeare, and Lord Byron.

Thomas Jefferson wrote “The olive tree is the richest gift of heaven.” The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has reported “Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson, who traveled abroad, brought plant material such as olive trees and rice back to the U.S. to develop United States agricultural production.” Thomas Jefferson was the U.S. ambassador to France during the Revolutionary War, and he began to import olive trees and seeds into the southern U.S. The excessive humidity of South Carolina and Georgia did not allow profitable olive tree orchards to develop properly in those areas. Jefferson wrote “The greatest service which can be rendered to any country is to add a useful plant to its culture.” He ranked his introduction of the olive tree and dry rice into South Carolina as two of his top lifetime achievements. Thomas Jefferson wrote to James Ronaldson on January 13, 1813, “it is now twenty-five years since I sent them (southern planters) two shipments of about 500 plants of the olive tree of Aix, the finest olive trees in the world.”

The fragrant flowers of olive trees are small and creamy white, hidden within the thick leaves. Some cultivars will self pollinate, but others will not. The blossoms usually begin appearing in April and can continue for many months. A wild, seedling olive tree normally begins to flower and produce fruit at the age of 8 years. The fruit of the olive tree is a purplish-black when completely ripe, but a few cultivars are green when ripe and some olives turn a color of copper-brown. The size of the olive fruit is variable, even on the same tree, and the shape ranges from round to oval with pointed ends. Some olives can be eaten fresh after sun-drying and the taste is sweet, but most olive cultivars are bitter and must be treated by various chemical solutions before developing into edible olives. If the olives are thinned on the limbs of the trees to 2 or 3 per twig, the ultimate size of the olives will be much larger. The fruit is gathered in mid October and should be processed as soon as possible to prevent fermentation and a decline in quality.

The leaves of olive trees are gray-green and are replaced at 2-3 year intervals during the spring after new growth appears. Pruning yearly and severely is very important to insure continued production. The trees have the unproductive limbs removed, “so that it will be more fruitful” John 15:2. An olive tree can grow to 50 feet with a limb spread of 30 feet, but most growers will keep the tree pruned to 20 feet to assure maximum production. New sprouts and trees will emerge from the olive tree stump roots, even if the trees are cut down. Some olive trees are believed to be over a thousand years old, and most will live to the ripe old age of 500 years.

Olives generally are beaten off trees with poles, harvested mechanically or by shaking the fruit from the trees onto canvas. Most ripening olives are removed from the trees after the majority of the fruit begins to change in color. It is important to squeeze out the olive oil within a day after harvesting or else fermentation or decline in flavor and quality will occur. The olive oil can be consumed or used in cooking immediately after its collection from the press. Olive oils are unique and distinct, each brand of olive oil having its own character, as determined by many factors, like those unique flavor differences found in fine wines. Prepared commercial olive oils can vary greatly in aroma, fruit flavor; whether the taste is, flowery, nutty, delicate, or mild, and the coloring of olive oil is quite variable.

Olive oil produces many health benefits when used in cooking or when poured over salads. The use of olive oil can improve digestion and can benefit heart metabolism through its low content of cholesterol. Experts claim that olive oil consumption will cause a person to grow shiny hair, prevent dandruff, prevent wrinkles, prevent dry skin and acne, strengthen nails, stop muscle aching, lower blood pressure and cancel out the effects of alcohol.

Olive trees can survive droughts and strong winds, and they grow well on well drained soils up to a pH of 8.5 and the trees can tolerate salt water conditions. In Europe, olive trees are normally fertilized every other year with an organic fertilizer. Alternate bearing can be avoided by heavy pruning and generally the trees respond to this very quickly and favorably.

Olive trees should be purchased that have been vegetatively propagated or grafted, because the seed grown trees will revert to a wild type that yields small olives with an insipid taste. Olive trees are more resistant to diseases and insects than any other fruit tree and, therefore, are sprayed less than any other crop.

The Romans conquered Greece in 146 BC, and the victors took olive secrets to Rome, but since then Greece has remained the greatest exporter of olive oil during the centuries. The olive tree seems to be perfectly adapted for growing in the mild climate of the Mediterranean countries. The trees grow well in dry areas with mild winters and long hot summers, even enduring drought conditions or high winds. The European area of the Mediterranean produces 98% of the world olive oil supply. Olive seed are believed to have been brought to California in 1769 to grow into trees hardy to 12 degrees Fahrenheit. Those olive trees were cultivated in the Franciscan Spanish monasteries.

Even though commercial production of olives in the United States is only 2% of the world market, great interest in growing olives throughout the South has been stimulated by the recent introduction of promising cold hardy olive trees from European hybridizers. Many European immigrants to the United States grow their own olive trees in large pots, that can be moved in and out of the house during seasonal changes.

I am aboard Apolonia, a 43-foot cabin cruiser, riding in Colonial Beach’s Riverfest boat parade. Riverfest is the town’s biggest do and it has been held annually since 1951, come hell or high water—and believe me, they’ve had plenty of both. We have just pulled out into the Potomac from the shelter of Monroe Bay, which forms the town’s back door, and are working our way north, past Colonial Beach Yacht Center and Gum Bar Point and heading for the once and future municipal pier. To our starboard and stretching astern are the famous Kettle Bottom Shoals—historically some of the richest oyster banks in the world. It’s about 1:30 in the afternoon and the June sky is overcast and threatening, but the Potomac is flat and happy, at least it feels that way in the comfort ofApolonia. Her owner, Paul Bolin, is at the wheel, easing us along the parade route in the number-two position, just behind the fleet commander and ahead of the rest of the pack.

It is just here, as I look out across the six-mile-wide Potomac and then back at the town’s famous three-mile beach, that it strikes me: It’s a good thing I’m not driving this boat, because if I were at the helm I’d be dodging ghosts. You see, this particular part of the Potomac, 60 miles from Washington and 40 from Point Lookout, is positively crowded with historical apparitions, and this afternoon I see them every way I turn. For example, there off the starboard bow, I see a ghostly fleet of British warships being warped by hand across the oyster-thick shoals on their way to capture Washington. It is 1814, and they will succeed. Coming back down the river they will have an additional 25 prize ships in tow, and, again, the crews will offload everything and pull the ships across the shoals by hand. A slow and agonizing process, to be sure, but still they will make it to Baltimore harbor in time for Francis Scott Key to see their rockets’ red glare. And look, there, tearing across our wake, it’s a Maryland patrol boat hot on the tail of a local oyster dredger. Hear the machine-gun fire? One of them is going to end up dead. Now look ahead of us, just passing under the U.S. Route 301 bridge, there’s the ghost of the famous paddlewheel steamer St. Johns, its rails crammed with happy early-20th-century excursionists bound for Colonial Beach. Yes, from the ring of a thousand one-armed bandits to the creak of an oar as a Confederate spy slips between a pair of Federal warships, the water off Colonial Beach is alarmingly and charmingly crowded with ghosts.

Paul Bolin, however, is not distracted. He holds Apolonia steady on her course. His eye is not on the past but on the future of Colonial Beach and what this town, which has had more ups and downs than a bobber in a five-foot swell, is on its way to becoming. Because Colonial Beach, most recently walloped by Isabel’s unprecedented storm surge, is as surely on its way up the next big wave as the life of the waterman is on the decline.

With us on this Sunday drive in the barque are the parade’s grand marshals, Sonny and Dottie Schick, who live next door to Bolin’s Bell House Bed & Breakfast, and their son Kyle and his wife Relda. Kyle and Relda are particularly looking forward to a ride up any wave at all, since Isabel was actually the second punch in a one-two combination that left their Colonial Beach Yacht Center reeling.

The largest and one of the oldest marinas in the area, Colonial Beach Yacht Center was first devastated in May 2002 by a fire that tore through the marina’s docks, blowing up boat after boat like so many harbor mines. Fifty-six vessels, some of them irreplaceable wooden classics, were destroyed. Many of those lost woodies would have been with us today in the boat parade, but instead are now part of yet another ghostly flotilla. After the fire, the Schicks set about rebuilding the marina and were making good headway—until Isabel rolled through like a bulldozer, tossing around thousand-pound rocks and destroying another 40 boats, many of them on trailers and cradles.

“What the fire didn’t take, the hurricane did,” Kyle Schick had told me as we toured the Yacht Center earlier that weekend in a golf cart, Colonial Beach’s new vehicle of choice. Damaged in the storm were the Yacht Center’s Dockside Restaurant, ship’s store, boathouse, boat-lift area, pump-out area and fuel station. “We’re putting things back together, but better,” Schick said. “We’ve had a lot of support from the community and other marinas, but insurance never covers what you think it will.”

The new docks are wider than the old ones and all have pedestals with a phone jack and enough power for even the hottest days and the most demanding boats. The new covered docks will be made of galvanized trusses and canvas that form an arch over each slip. They will be fire resistant and keep UV rays out while letting in the sun. With a number of the new docks already in, the Yacht Center will soon have 100 open slips and 20 covered slips. There is room for another 100 boats on the hard. Currently, there are 15 transient slips with plans for 40.

Colonial Beach Yacht Center’s position at the entrance to Monroe Bay has long made it appealing to large boats coming and going from Washington, D.C., but at the same time it makes the marina more vulnerable to storms than those tucked into Monroe Bay. The facility was originally an oyster-packing house established in the 1930s. During the great hurricane of 1933, the building floated off its piers, but it was hauled back and a concrete slab was poured to keep it in place. In the 1940s, when the marina was developed with about 200 slips, the oyster-packing house became a restaurant. Isabel failed to move it but she did destroy the interior. That has since been restored, and the Dockside Restaurant reopened earlier this spring.

Two other popular Colonial Beach restaurants on the water also were destroyed—the Happy Clam and Wilkerson’s Restaurant, both at the north end of town. Wilkerson’s, since rebuilt, reopened several months ago with fresh fish, piping hot hush puppies and a wall of windows on the Potomac. But the Happy Clam has yet to make its comeback.

Although the Yacht Center was the only marina in the area to lose boats in the storm, others felt the effect as well. Jan Swink of Nightingale Motel and Marina on Monroe Bay stands in the center of her new kitchen to show me where she stood that night, knee-deep in water, watching minnows swim between her toes. “Our docks were like an accordion in some spots,” she says. In Nightingale’s motel rooms, the water rose above the headboards; all six units had to be entirely redone. But like hundreds of others all over town, Swink and her husband Bob got to work and were ready to reopen in time for the 2004 boating season. “And I got to make some changes I wanted to, anyway,” she adds, opening the doors to show me two new bathrooms and showers for boaters.

Just a little way up the bay from the Nightingale is Colonial Beach’s last marine railway and a must-see stop for any boat lover. There, the doyenne of Colonial Beach’s marina owners, Mary Virginia Stanford of Stanford’s Marine Railway, sits in the ship’s store “living room” and shakes her silver head slowly when I ask about the loss from Isabel. “So many people had trees fall on their houses,” she says sadly. “In the car the next day, I would ride a little bit, then cry a little bit.” At the railway, where for more than 60 years her husband Clarence built boats that are still in use today, the wind blew off part of a roof and the water rose halfway up the shop building. But it did no serious damage, since all of the electrical equipment had been moved earlier to higher ground. The slips survived, as did the covered wharf, which house both Hermione, a meticulously restored 1927 Elco, and Pathfinder II, the last boat Clarence Stanford built.

Back in the center of town at Doc’s Motel, Ellie Carruthers and her husband, “Little Doc,” simply went to bed when it got too dark to take any more storm pictures and the power failed. “The next morning I said, ‘Oh, my God!’ ” Ellie says. The last surge of water had lifted debris over the four-foot fence that separates the town’s oldest motel from the Potomac and left it strewn between the two wings of rooms. “We filled eighty big bags,” she says. “Everybody set to. It was like being in a parade to the dump. Finally, they had to close the dump.”

North of Doc’s, the town pier lay in ruins that day, as did a neighboring charterboat dock. When I visited the spot before the boat parade, I could see that the charterboat dock was back in place, but the town pier still needed a few more planks to be finished.

Past Doc’s and the piers stretches Colonial Beach’s famous boardwalk, once alive with vacationing families who crowded the wooden walkway and food stands. Today, it’s a concrete sidewalk snaking through the sand, bordered only by two or three food vending survivors. Buy an ice cream and take a walk along the boardwalk, though, and you won’t be alone, you’ll be in the company of some of the beach’s most raucous ghosts—the gambling casinos and dance halls that drew tens of thousands of eager summer visitors from the late 1940s through the ’50s. But time, antigambling laws, a fire in the 1960s and several earlier storms took their toll, and the Monte Carlo, the Jackpot, Joyland, Little Steel Pier and their like were gone years before Hurricane Isabel was so much as a zephyr in the Sahara. Only the Riverboat (once the Little Reno) remained, perched over the Maryland-owned Potomac and offering off-track betting, keno, two state lotteries and lunch to a quiet summer crowd. But the Riverboat is gone, too, another victim of Isabel. Unlike the others, however, the Riverboat will be back.

Peggy Browning Linthacum and Laura Raley, who are sisters, preside over a small construction trailer at the beach end of the Riverboat’s ruined pier. Their job is to assure the curious—me, for example—that the Riverboat is indeed going to be rebuilt. “We had to go all the way through the permit process, which has taken a long time,” Linthacum tells me. “But the Riverboat was pretty much grandfathered in, so it’s finally okayed.” Linthacum and Raley are the sisters of Peggy Flanagan, who with her husband Tom has owned the Riverboat since 1992. The new Riverboat, which must keep to the same footprint as the old, will actually look like a riverboat this time, Linthacum says, complete with a working paddlewheel. “We were the number one lottery sellers in Maryland,” Raley says proudly. “Customers would buy a Virginia lottery ticket and then a Maryland ticket just a few steps away.”

It was the ability to take those few steps, from the Virginia shore to the casinos that sat on long piers over the Maryland Potomac, that set the neon blazing and the joint a-jumpin’ from 1949 to 1958, when the one-armed bandit was king of Maryland amusements. After the completion of the U.S. Route 301 bridge across the Potomac in 1941, Colonial Beach was no longer such a long drive from Washington and Baltimore, and the town’s hundreds of slot machines, casinos, dance halls, welcoming beach and a boardwalk jam-packed with amusements gave people plenty of reasons to come.

“We used to open the motel on May fifteenth and stay full all summer,” Ellie Carruthers recalls. “If we weren’t full by noon, we wondered what was wrong.” Carruthers herself first came to Colonial Beach when her father, a Washington bricklayer, finally found the time to take the family on a precious two-week vacation. “When I came in 1951, there were slot machines everywhere. It was crazy!” She met Little Doc (his father was the Doc) at the Riverside and never left. “You would go up on the boardwalk at night, with mothers and fathers and children of all ages, all having a wonderful time,” she tells me as we sit in her tiny but comfortable motel office. Now in her 70s, Carruthers recently broke her hip, but, unfazed by the experience, she puts me in her wheelchair to chat while she settles into the office chair. “I have guests who met one another on the boardwalk, and other couples who make their reservations to meet here at the same time each year. Some of my customers have stayed with me every year for fifty years. I make the reservations for them before they even call.”
Watching this year’s boat parade from Doc’s is one of the motel’s first guests, now a frail old gentleman in his 90s. With him are his daughter, his granddaughter and his great-granddaughter and their families. They have taken six rooms for the weekend. Mary Virginia Stanford is another long-ago come-here to Colonial Beach who fondly remembers its wild and crazy decade. She met been-here Clarence during World War II while he was in Apalachicola, Fla., on a menhaden fishing expedition with his father. She and Clarence returned to Colonial Beach and in 1945 built a marine store and boatworks which, she says, “We’ve been working on all our lives.” They are both now in their 80s, and while Mary Virginia remains active, Clarence is confined to a wheelchair.

Mary Virginia had no objection to the old slot machines, though. “I’m all for gambling. Live and let live.” She played the nickel machine one time, she says. “I put one in and sixteen came out. I put them in my pocket, went home and bought curtains.” She remembers the boardwalk, the old homes and the time singer Jimmy Dean, “before he was famous,” came to Colonial Beach to perform. “My head came to his belt buckle.”

Stanford also remembers the Oyster Wars of the 1950s, when Maryland marine police would give chase to Virgin-ians who were dredging Maryland oysters (in the Potomac they were all Maryland oysters). Power dredging had long been ruled illegal in Maryland because it tore up the already diminished oyster beds. Only hand-tonging, slow and work intensive, was allowed (and, on certain days, skipjacks could dredge under sail). A tonger pulled oysters up with what looks very much like a Brobdingnagian posthole digger, bringing in only enough at one time for a moderately hungry man’s hors d’oeuvre. But dredging (or dragging) the beds could bring in many more bushels of oysters than tonging. If the illegal dredgers hightailed it, it wasn’t uncommon for the marine patrols to open fire as they gave chase—sometimes all the way up Monroe Bay.

“I was standing out in back with a baby in my arms,” Stanford recalls, “when the police followed a boat into the bay. The two boats came flying in. The bullets were ricocheting all around me.” Carruthers, too, remembers the sound of machine guns in the night. “The young men would just come up on the beach to be in Virginia when the Maryland police were after them. I saw one young man walk up out of the water and call back, ‘You can’t get me.’ They sat there and waited for him.”

On April 17, 1959, the bullets finally found a target and left Colonial Beach resident Berkley Muse dead. The fatality prompted the governors of Maryland and Virginia to reach a compromise, and the Oyster Wars, which had been waged off and on for a century, more or less ended.

But as the oyster harvest slackened and the slots disappeared, vacation habits changed, too, and for the next 40 years, Colonial Beach became a quiet place indeed, “a dreamer of a colorful past,” as Frederick Tilp called it in his 1978 book, This Was Potomac River. 

In 1985, residents discovered a few ghosts they hadn’t even known about. One morning after a bad storm, strollers came upon several skeleton feet sticking out of a sand bank at Gum Bar Point. When excavated, the bodies all showed they had received a blow to the skull. “They probably were immigrants pressed out of Baltimore bars in the late 1800s to work aboard a skipjack oystering,” Kyle Schick tells me as Apolonia passes what is now often called Ghost Point. “This was their payoff.”

Now it seems that Colonial Beach is about to receive a payoff of a very different kind. In the past year, real estate prices have grown wings, and real estate agents like Bob Swink of Colonial Beach Realty can’t keep enough listings to meet the demand. Homes now sell often within a week of coming on the market, something of a novelty for home–owners on Virginia’s Northern Neck. Michael Wardman, who recently invested in a block of downtown real estate of his own, told me that for the price he purchased his Colonial Beach home a few years ago, he couldn’t even buy the lots now. Housing starts are way up, as well. “In the past two years, we’ve built about ninety new homes. Before that, it was less than ten a year,” Town Manager Brian Hooten said. “The beach has been rediscovered.”

Colonial Beach’s Planning and Zoning Commission has also given preliminary approval to two big development projects. The larger would put an 18-hole championship golf course and about 900 housing units on 600 acres near Wilkerson’s Restaurant. The second, more controversial because it includes a proposed marina, would create 250 housing units, mostly townhouses, and boat slips for residents on 50 acres bordering Monroe Point. “With all this growth, the biggest challenge the town has now is maintaining its charm,” Wardman said. “It’s a big opportunity.”

It’s a challenge much on the mind of Brian Hooten, as well. About 10 years ago, the town bought up all the boardwalk’s neglected and derelict properties and then demolished them. Now the town has put those four acres of land out for bid in the hope of drawing an offer to develop the site with tourist-friendly businesses. After doing this twice, Hooten said, the city is still not satisfied. “The proposals have been weighted toward residential,” Hooten said. “We want commercial applications used by tourists and residents—like restaurants and ice-cream parlors.” The proposed residential projects are also multistory, which both Hooten and Wardman oppose. “I’m against high- and mid-rise buildings here,” Wardman said. “I don’t think it would be a good decision because it would make Colonial Beach look like everywhere else.”

Paul Bolin, too, is a prime mover in Colonial Beach’s renaissance. He is president of the Chamber of Commerce in addition to operating the Bell House Bed & Breakfast with his wife Anne and taking guests out on Apolonia for four-course dinner cruises. He is also spearheading “Vision 2015,” which he says will develop a consensus among residents for the town’s direction and growth. “I think the town will change,” he tells me as he holds Apolonia off the town pier so we can watch the rest of the parade. “But once you start development it’s hard to control where it goes. There’s no rheostat.”

“In this town it’s often the old residents, the ones who were young in the ’50s, who want to see the town get crazy again,” says Relda Schick, coming up to sit beside me on Apolonia’s flying bridge as we watch the Elco glide elegantly by. “And it’s the younger ones who want it to keep its quaint charm. It’s one of the ironies of Colonial Beach.”

There is at least one resident, how-ever, who would like to have it both ways. “I’d like to see some development, but I’d hate to see things change,” Mary Virginia Stanford had said to me as a duck walked in the front door of the ship’s store at Stanford’s Marine Railway. And that mallard, at least, was no ghost. 

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So how do you stay tranquil, composed and sustain self worth in a tough environment? Here are some tips you may to need to reflect on as a starter guide to boosting your self improvement.

Think of yourself as a Pin Cushion Board. Everything and everybody else on all sides of you may become Dart Pins, at one time or another. These pins will demolish your self esteem and pull you down in ways you won’t even remember. Don’t let them crush you, or get the best of you. So which pins ought you avoid?

Dart Pin #1 : Bad Work Environment
Beware of “dog eat dog” thesis where everyone else is struggling only to get ahead. This is where those that arent appreciative of effort, usually succeed. No one will appreciate your support even if you miss lunch and dinner, and remain up late. Most of the time you get to work too successfully without getting assistance from people concerned. Stay out of this, it will ruin your self esteem. Competition is at stake anywhere. Be healthy and able to compete, but in a healthy competition that is.

Dart Pin #2: Other People’s Behavior
Bulldozers, crawlers, people who gossip, whine, backstab, snipe, walking wounded, controller freaks, those that nagg, complain, and so many more… all these kinds of people will pose bad vibes for your self esteem, as well as to your self improvement scheme.

Dart Pin #3: Changing Environment
You can’t be a amateurish bug on a brown field. Changes question our paradigms. It tests our versatility, adaptability and alters the way we think. Changes will make life difficult for awhile, it may cause stress but it will help us find ways to better our selves. Change may be there forever, we must be open to it.

Dart Pin #4: Recent Experience
It’s enough to cry and say “ouch!” when we experience pain. But don’t let discomfort change itself into fearfulness. It may grab you by the tail and wave you around. Treat each failure and mistake as a lesson-learned.

Dart Pin #5: Negative Wordly View
Pay attention at what you’re looking at. Don’t surround yourself up with all the negativities of the world. In building self esteem, we must learn how to create the best out of worst situations.

Dart Pin #6: Perseverance Theory
The way you are and your behavioral traits is said to be a mixed end product of your inherited traits (genetics), your upbringing (psychic), and your environmental surroundings such as your spouse, the company, the economy or your ring of friends. You possess your own identity. If your father is a failure, it doesn’t follow that you have to be a failure too. Learn from other people’s experience, so you’ll never have to encounter the same mistakes.
Often-times, you may want to wonder if other people are born leaders or deep thinkers. NO. Being deep, and staying positive is a choice. Creating self esteem and drawing lines for self improvement is a choice, not a guideline or a strength. God wouldn’t look down from paradise and tell you “George, you may now have the consent to build self esteem and better your self.”

In life, its hard to stay tough specially when things and people around you insist on pulling you down. When we get to the battle field, we should choose the right luggage to carry and armors to use, and opt for those that are bullet proof. Life’s options give us arrays of more options. Along the battle, we may get hit and bruised. And donning a bullet proof armor at best means ‘self change’. The kind of change which comes from within. Voluntarily. Armor or Self Change changes 3 things: our attitude, our behavior and our way of thinking.

Boosting our self esteem will ultimately lead us to self betterment if we begin to take responsibilty for ourselves, what we possess and what we try to do. Its like a flame that should gradually spread like a brush fire from inside and out. When we reveal self esteem, we gain control of our task, values and training. Self esteem brings about self improvement, true assessment, and determination.

So how do you start putting up the building blocks of self esteem? Be sure. Be contented and satisfied. Be appreciative. Never miss an chance to compliment. A sure way of living will assist you build self esteem, your starter guide to self improvement.

So how do you stay calm, composed and maintain self esteem in a tough environment? Here are some tips you may to consider as a starter guide to self improvement.

Imagine yourself as a Dart Board. Everything and everyone else around you may become Dart Pins, at one point or another. These dart pins will destroy your self esteem and pull you down in ways you won’t even remember. Don’t let them destroy you, or get the best of you. So which dart pins should you avoid?

Dart Pin #1 : Negative Work Environment
Beware of “dog eat dog” theory where everyone else is fighting just to get ahead. This is where non-appreciative people usually thrive. No one will appreciate your contributions even if you miss lunch and dinner, and stay up late. Most of the time you get to work too much without getting help from people concerned. Stay out of this, it will ruin your self esteem. Competition is at stake anywhere. Be healthy enough to compete, but in a healthy competition that is.

Dart Pin #2: Other People’s Behavior
Bulldozers, brown nosers, gossipmongers, whiners, backstabbers, snipers, people walking wounded, controllers, naggers, complainers, exploders, patronizers, sluffers,all these kinds of people will pose bad vibes for your self esteem, as well as to your self improvement scheme.

Dart Pin #3: Changing Environment
You can’t be a green bug on a brown field. Changes challenge our paradigms. It tests our flexibility, adaptability and alters the way we think. Changes will make life difficult for awhile, it may cause stress but it will help us find ways to improve our selves. Change will be there forever, we must be susceptible to it.

Dart Pin #4: Past Experience
It’s okay to cry and say “ouch!” when we experience pain. But don’t let pain transform itself into fear. It might grab you by the tail and swing you around. Treat each failure and mistake as a lesson.

Dart Pin #5: Negative World View
Look at what you’re looking at. Don’t wrap yourself up with all the negativities of the world. In building self esteem, we must learn how to make the best out of worst situations.

Dart Pin #6: Determination Theory
The way you are and your behavioral traits is said to be a mixed end product of your inherited traits (genetics), your upbringing (psychic), and your environmental surroundings such as your spouse, the company, the economy or your circle of friends. You have your own identity. If your father is a failure, it doesn’t mean you have to be a failure too. Learn from other people’s experience, so you’ll never have to encounter the same mistakes.

Sometimes, you may want to wonder if some people are born leaders or positive thinkers. NO. Being positive, and staying positive is a choice. Building self esteem and drawing lines for self improvement is a choice, not a rule or a talent. God wouldn’t come down from heaven and tell you “George, you may now have the permission to build self esteem and improve your self.”

In life, its hard to stay tough specially when things and people around you keep pulling you down. When we get to the battle field, we should choose the right luggage to bring and armors to use, and pick those that are bullet proof. Life’s options give us arrays of more options. Along the battle, we will get hit and bruised. And wearing a bullet proof armor ideally means ‘self change’. The kind of change which comes from within. Voluntarily. Armor or Self Change changes 3 things: our attitude, our behavior and our way of thinking.

Building self esteem will eventually lead to self improvement if we start to become responsible for who we are, what we have and what we do. Its like a flame that should gradually spread like a brush fire from inside and out. When we develop self esteem, we take control of our mission, values and discipline. Self esteem brings about self improvement, true assessment, and determination. So how do you start putting up the building blocks of self esteem? Be positive. Be contented and happy. Be appreciative. Never miss an opportunity to compliment. A positive way of living will help you build self esteem, your starter guide to self improvement.

Imagine yourself as a dart board. Everything and everyone else around you may become dart, at one point or another. These darts will destroy your self esteem and pull you down in ways you won’t even remember. Don’t let them destroy you, or get the best of you. So which darts should you avoid?

Dart #1: A Negative Work Environment

Beware of the “dog eat dog” theory where everyone else is fighting just to get ahead. This is where non-appreciative people usually thrive. No one will appreciate your contributions even if you miss lunch and dinner, and stay up late. Most of the time you get to work too much without getting help from people concerned. Stay out of this, it will ruin your self esteem. Competition is at stake anywhere. Be healthy enough to compete, but in a healthy environment. one of my friends used to say “The best part about banging your head on the wall is how good it feels when you stop!” How true!!

Dart #2: Other People’s Behavior

Bulldozers, brown nosers, gossipers, whiners, backstabbers, snipers, people walking wounded, controllers, naggers, complainers, exploders, patronizers, sluffers: all these kinds of people will pose bad vibes for your self esteem, as well as to your self improvement scheme. Stay away from them as mich as possible!

Dart #3: Changing Environment

You can’t be a green bug on a brown field. Changes challenge our paradigms. It tests our flexibility, adaptability and alters the way we think. Some changes will make life difficult for a while. They may cause stress, but it will help us find ways to improve our selves. Change will be there forever, we are susceptible to it. it is inevitable anmd we must be comfortable with its presence..

Dart #4: Past Experience

It’s okay to cry and say “ouch!” when we experience pain. But don’t let pain transform itself into fear. It might grab you by the tail and swing you around. Treat each failure and mistake as a lesson.

Dart #5: Negative World View

Look at what you’re looking at. In other words, don’t wrap yourself up with all the negativities of the world. In building self esteem, we must learn how to make the best out of the worst situations.

Dart #6: Determination Theory

Your behavioral traits are said to be a mixed end product of your inherited traits (genetics), your upbringing (psychic), and your environmental surroundings such as your spouse, your company, the economy, and your circle of friends. You have your own identity. If your father is a failure, it doesn’t mean you have to be a failure too. Learn from other people’s experiences, so you’ll never have to encounter the same mistakes.

Sometimes, you will wonder if some people are born leaders or positive thinkers. NO. Being positive, and staying positive is a choice. Building self esteem and drawing lines for self improvement is a choice, not a rule or a talent. God wouldn’t come down from heaven and tell you “George, you may now have the permission to build self esteem and improve your self.”

In life, its hard to stay tough. Especially when things and people around you keep pulling you down. When we get to the battle field, we should choose the right weapons to bring and armor to use. We need to pick those that are bullet proof. Life’s options give us an array of additional options. Along the battle, we will get hit, kicked, and bruised. Wearing a bullet proof armor (ideally) means “self change” or “self improvement.” This is the kind of change which only comes from within ourselves, voluntarily. Armor, or Self Change, changes 3 things: our attitude, our behavior and our way of thinking.

Building self esteem will eventually lead to self improvement if we start to become responsible for who we are, what we have and what we do. Its like a flame that should gradually spread like a brush fire from inside and out. When we develop self esteem, we take control of our mission, values and discipline. Self esteem brings about self improvement, true assessment, and determination.

So how do you start erecting up the building blocks of self esteem? Be positive. Be contented and happy. Be appreciative. Never miss an opportunity to pay a compliment. A positive way of living will help you build self esteem. This is your start to self improvement.

So how do you stay calm, composed and maintain self esteem in a tough environment? Here are some tips you may to consider as a starter guide to self improvement.

Imagine yourself as a Dart Board. Everything and everyone else around you may become Dart Pins, at one point or another. These dart pins will destroy your self esteem and pull you down in ways you won’t even remember. Don’t let them destroy you, or get the best of you. So which dart pins should you avoid?

Dart Pin #1 : Negative Work Environment

Beware of “dog eat dog” theory where everyone else is fighting just to get ahead. This is where non-appreciative people usually thrive. No one will appreciate your contributions even if you miss lunch and dinner, and stay up late. Most of the time you get to work too much without getting help from people concerned. Stay out of this, it will ruin your self esteem. Competition is at stake anywhere. Be healthy enough to compete, but in a healthy competition that is.

Dart Pin #2: Other People’s Behavior

Bulldozers, brown nosers, gossipmongers, whiners, backstabbers, snipers, people walking wounded, controllers, naggers, complainers, exploders, patronizers, sluffers… all these kinds of people will pose bad vibes for your self esteem, as well as to your self improvement scheme.

Dart Pin #3: Changing Environment

You can’t be a green bug on a brown field. Changes challenge our paradigms. It tests our flexibility, adaptability and alters the way we think. Changes will make life difficult for awhile, it may cause stress but it will help us find ways to improve our selves. Change will be there forever, we must be susceptible to it.

Dart Pin #4: Past Experience

It’s okay to cry and say “ouch!” when we experience pain. But don’t let pain transform itself into fear. It might grab you by the tail and swing you around. Treat each failure and mistake as a lesson.

Dart Pin #5: Negative World View

Look at what you’re looking at. Don’t wrap yourself up with all the negativities of the world. In building self esteem, we must learn how to make the best out of worst situations.

Dart Pin #6: Determination Theory

The way you are and your behavioral traits is said to be a mixed end product of your inherited traits (genetics), your upbringing (psychic), and your environmental surroundings such as your spouse, the company, the economy or your circle of friends. You have your own identity. If your father is a failure, it doesn’t mean you have to be a failure too. Learn from other people’s experience, so you’ll never have to encounter the same mistakes.

Sometimes, you may want to wonder if some people are born leaders or positive thinkers. NO. Being positive, and staying positive is a choice. Building self esteem and drawing lines for self improvement is a choice, not a rule or a talent. God wouldn’t come down from heaven and tell you – “George, you may now have the permission to build self esteem and improve your self.”

In life, its hard to stay tough specially when things and people around you keep pulling you down. When we get to the battle field, we should choose the right luggage to bring and armors to use, and pick those that are bullet proof. Life’s options give us arrays of more options. Along the battle, we will get hit and bruised. And wearing a bullet proof armor ideally means ‘self change’. The kind of change which comes from within. Voluntarily. Armor or Self Change changes 3 things: our attitude, our behavior and our way of thinking.

Building self esteem will eventually lead to self improvement if we start to become responsible for who we are, what we have and what we do. Its like a flame that should gradually spread like a brush fire from inside and out. When we develop self esteem, we take control of our mission, values and discipline. Self esteem brings about self improvement, true assessment, and determination. So how do you start putting up the building blocks of self esteem? Be positive. Be contented and happy. Be appreciative. Never miss an opportunity to compliment. A positive way of living will help you build self esteem, your starter guide to self improvement.

So how do you stay calm, composed and maintain self-esteem in a tough environment? Here are some tips you may to consider as a starter guide to self-improvement.

Imagine yourself as a Dart Board. Everything and everyone else around you may become Dart Pins, at one point or another. These dart pins will destroy your self-esteem and pull you down in ways you won’t even remember. Don’t let them destroy you, or get the best of you. So which dart pins should you avoid?

Dart Pin #1 : Negative Work Environment

Beware of “dog eat dog” theory where everyone else is fighting just to get ahead. This is where non-appreciative people usually thrive. No one will appreciate your contributions even if you miss lunch and dinner, and stay up late. Most of the time you get to work too much without getting help from people concerned. Stay out of this, it will ruin your self-esteem. Competition is at stake anywhere. Be healthy enough to compete, but in a healthy competition that is.

Dart Pin #2: Other People’s Behavior

Bulldozers, brown nosers, gossipmongers, whiners, backstabbers, snipers, people walking wounded, controllers, naggers, complainers, exploders, patronizers, sluffers… all these kinds of people will pose bad vibes for your self-esteem, as well as to your self-improvement scheme.

Dart Pin #3: Changing Environment

You can’t be a green bug on a brown field. Changes challenge our paradigms. It tests our flexibility, adaptability and alters the way we think. Changes will make life difficult for awhile, it may cause stress but it will help us find ways to improve our selves. Change will be there forever, we must be susceptible to it.

Dart Pin #4: Past Experience

It’s okay to cry and say “ouch!” when we experience pain. But don’t let pain transform itself into fear. It might grab you by the tail and swing you around. Treat each failure and mistake as a lesson.

Dart Pin #5: Negative World View

Look at what you’re looking at. Don’t wrap yourself up with all the negativities of the world. In building self-esteem, we must learn how to make the best out of worst situations.

Dart Pin #6: Determination Theory

The way you are and your behavioral traits is said to be a mixed end product of your inherited traits (genetics), your upbringing (psychic), and your environmental surroundings such as your spouse, the company, the economy or your circle of friends. You have your own identity. If your father is a failure, it doesn’t mean you have to be a failure too. Learn from other people’s experience, so you’ll never have to encounter the same mistakes.

Sometimes, you may want to wonder if some people are born leaders or positive thinkers. NO. Being positive, and staying positive is a choice. Building self-esteem and drawing lines for self-improvement is a choice, not a rule or a talent. God wouldn’t come down from heaven and tell you – “George, you may now have the permission to build self-esteem and improve your self.”

In life, it’s hard to stay tough specially when things and people around you keep pulling you down. When we get to the battlefield, we should choose the right luggage to bring and armors to use, and pick those that are bullet proof. Life’s options give us arrays of more options. Along the battle, we will get hit and bruised. And wearing a bulletproof armor ideally means ‘self change’. The kind of change which comes from within. Voluntarily. Armor or Self Change changes 3 things: our attitude, our behavior and our way of thinking.

Building self-esteem will eventually lead to self-improvement if we start to become responsible for who we are, what we have and what we do. Its like a flame that should gradually spread like a brush fire from inside and out. When we develop self-esteem, we take control of our mission, values and discipline. Self-esteem brings about self-improvement, true assessment, and determination. So how do you start putting up the building blocks of self-esteem? Be positive. Be contented and happy. Be appreciative. Never miss an opportunity to compliment. A positive way of living will help you build self-esteem, your starter guide to self-improvement.

So how do you stay calm, composed and maintain self esteem in a tough environment? Here are some tips you may to consider as a starter guide to self improvement.

Imagine yourself as a Dart Board. Everything and everyone else around you may become Dart Pins, at one point or another. These dart pins will destroy your self esteem and pull you down in ways you won’t even remember. Don’t let them destroy you, or get the best of you. So which dart pins should you avoid?

Dart Pin #1 : Negative Work Environment

Beware of “dog eat dog” theory where everyone else is fighting just to get ahead. This is where non-appreciative people usually thrive. No one will appreciate your contributions even if you miss lunch and dinner, and stay up late. Most of the time you get to work too much without getting help from people concerned. Stay out of this, it will ruin your self esteem. Competition is at stake anywhere. Be healthy enough to compete, but in a healthy competition that is.

Dart Pin #2: Other People’s Behavior

Bulldozers, brown nosers, gossipmongers, whiners, backstabbers, snipers, people walking wounded, controllers, naggers, complainers, exploders, patronizers, sluffers… all these kinds of people will pose bad vibes for your self esteem, as well as to your self improvement scheme.

Dart Pin #3: Changing Environment

You can’t be a green bug on a brown field. Changes challenge our paradigms. It tests our flexibility, adaptability and alters the way we think. Changes will make life difficult for awhile, it may cause stress but it will help us find ways to improve our selves. Change will be there forever, we must be susceptible to it.

Dart Pin #4: Past Experience

It’s okay to cry and say “ouch!” when we experience pain. But don’t let pain transform itself into fear. It might grab you by the tail and swing you around. Treat each failure and mistake as a lesson.

Dart Pin #5: Negative World View

Look at what you’re looking at. Don’t wrap yourself up with all the negativities of the world. In building self esteem, we must learn how to make the best out of worst situations.

Dart Pin #6: Determination Theory

The way you are and your behavioral traits is said to be a mixed end product of your inherited traits (genetics), your upbringing (psychic), and your environmental surroundings such as your spouse, the company, the economy or your circle of friends. You have your own identity. If your father is a failure, it doesn’t mean you have to be a failure too. Learn from other people’s experience, so you’ll never have to encounter the same mistakes.

Sometimes, you may want to wonder if some people are born leaders or positive thinkers. NO. Being positive, and staying positive is a choice. Building self esteem and drawing lines for self improvement is a choice, not a rule or a talent. God wouldn’t come down from heaven and tell you – “George, you may now have the permission to build self esteem and improve your self.”

In life, its hard to stay tough specially when things and people around you keep pulling you down. When we get to the battle field, we should choose the right luggage to bring and armors to use, and pick those that are bullet proof. Life’s options give us arrays of more options. Along the battle, we will get hit and bruised. And wearing a bullet proof armor ideally means ‘self change’. The kind of change which comes from within. Voluntarily. Armor or Self Change changes 3 things: our attitude, our behavior and our way of thinking.

Building self esteem will eventually lead to self improvement if we start to become responsible for who we are, what we have and what we do. Its like a flame that should gradually spread like a brush fire from inside and out. When we develop self esteem, we take control of our mission, values and discipline. Self esteem brings about self improvement, true assessment, and determination. So how do you start putting up the building blocks of self esteem? Be positive. Be contented and happy. Be appreciative. Never miss an opportunity to compliment. A positive way of living will help you build self esteem, your starter guide to self improvement.