7 Things to Carry Like a Crate of Eggs.

There are things we must carry and handle with extra-carefulness because these things are fragile and once broken, it is not easy to put back together and once some of these things get broken, they can lead to huge damage and destiny wastage.

1. Your Name: Your name is very important and fragile. There are names that stinks in the ears of people simply because, those who bear those names spoilt the name. The way to handle your name with care is to be careful of your doings. Your actions can rubbish your name. A good name can open doors for you & for your children and generations after you. Carry your name with carefulness. It is a huge asset. Here is one of the quotes written by Shakespeare: 'Whoever steals my purse steals trash; 'tis something, nothing;

'Twas mine, 'tis his, and has been slave to thousands;

But he that filches from me my good name, my enviable reputation 

Robs me of that which does not enrich him, But makes me poor indeed'.



2: Your Heart: Many hearts are broken, shattered, wounded and bitter today. One of the factors responsible for this is because many of these hearts' owners were careless with their hearts. You can guard your heart from being broken and bitter. Run away from people, and things that are bent on breaking your heart. Carry your heart like a crate of eggs. You need a whole heart before you can be said to be fully whole!

3: Your Purpose: Your purpose is your destiny. If you don't handle it with utmost care, it can slip off your hands and gaze and get broken. So many things can come like pressure on this crate of egg of purpose. Discouragement, lack of fund, anxieties, etc. These are things that may want to come like pressure on your purpose to break it. Don't allow them! Carry it with care. Carry your purpose away from people and things that may want to put pressure on it and break it.

4: Your Health: You have only this body as a vehicle that will carry you through your journey of destiny in this life. Handle your health with care. No matter how big your vision is, once you are dead, nobody can really run the vision like you! Fight for your health. Avoid things that can destroy your health. Wealth is useless when your health becomes useless. Don't kill yourself before your time. Do your best to stay alive. WE STILL NEED YOU HERE ON EARTH. Don't use your FORK, KNIFE, GLASS and your SPOON to dig your grave. Watch what you EAT and DRINK. Don't eat anything because it is edible and don't drink anything because it is appetizing. Always pray for divine immunization against sickness and diseases. 

5: Your Marriage: SO MANY PEOPLE HANDLE THEIR MARRIAGES LIKE CARTONS OF INDOMIE NODDLES.  Your marriage is fragile. Handle it like a crate of egg. It must not break! A broken marriage is not easily put back together, because, when a marriage breaks, many things get broken with it. But Remember it takes two to tango, Husband and wife must always carry their marriage like an egg. It must not break! 

6: Your Words: Your worth is attached to your words. Be careful with words. Once broken, you can't gather them up again. Many people are careless with their words. They speak violently. They make empty promises and break them. Some say things they later wish they never said. Guard your words. Be careful with your diction.

7: Your Eternity: The matter of eternity is not something you should handle with levity. Think about where you will spend eternity. You will die one day. I will also die one day. All that we are and have in this world are vanity upon vanity.

Keeping The Roots (of children) Stronger.

Once upon a time, there were two neighbors living next to each other. One of them was a retired teacher and another was an insurance agent who had a lot of interest in technology. Both of them had planted different plants in their garden. The retired teacher was giving a small amount of water to his plants and didn’t always give a full attention to them, while the other neighbor interested in technology, had given a lot of water to his plants and looked after them too well.

The retired teacher’s plants were simple but looked good. The insurance agent’s plants were much fuller and greener. One day, during the night, there was a heavy rain and a wind due to a minor storm. Next morning, both of the neighbors came out to inspect the damage to their garden. The neighbor who was an insurance agent saw that his plants came off from the roots and were totally destroyed. But, the retired teacher’s plants were not damaged at all and were standing firm. 

The insurance agent neighbor was surprised to see it, he went to the retired teacher and asked, “We both grew the same plants together, I actually looked after my plants better than you did for yours, and even gave them more water. Still, my plants came off from the roots, while yours didn’t. How is that possible?”

The retired teacher smiled and said, “You gave your plants more attention and water, but because of that they didn’t need to work themselves for it. You made it easy for them. While I gave them just an adequate amount of water and let their roots search for more. And, because of that, their roots went deeper and that made their position stronger. That is why my plants survived”. 

Moral: This story is about parenting where children are like plants. If everything is given to them, they will not understand the hard work it takes to earn those things. They will not learn to work themselves and respect it. Sometimes it’s best to guide them instead of giving them. Teach them how to walk, but let them follow their paths.

The Many Origins of Father’s Day.

 

The campaign to celebrate the nation’s fathers did not meet with the same enthusiasm as that of the Mothers’ Day. This, perhaps, was because “fathers haven’t the same sentimental appeal that mothers have.”  

A Spokane, Washington woman named Sonora Smart Dodd, one of six children raised by a widower, tried to establish an official equivalent to Mother’s Day for male parents. She went to local churches, the YMCA, shopkeepers and government officials to drum up support for her idea, and she was successful: Washington State celebrated the nation’s first statewide Father’s Day on June 19, 1910.  

Slowly, the holiday spread. In 1916, President Wilson honored the day by using telegraph signals to unfurl a flag in Spokane when he pressed a button in Washington, D.C. In 1924, President Calvin Coolidge urged state governments to observe Father’s Day. Today, the day honoring fathers is celebrated in the United States on the third Sunday of June: Father’s Day 2017 occurs on June 18; the following year, Father’s Day 2018 falls on June 17.

 

In other countries, especially in Europe and Latin America, fathers have always been honored on St. Joseph’s Day, a traditional Catholic holiday that falls on March 19.  

During the 1920s and 1930s, a movement arose to scrap Mother’s Day and Father’s Day altogether in favor of a single holiday, Parents’ Day. Every year on Mother’s Day, pro-Parents’ Day groups rallied in New York City’s Central Park, a public reminder that both parents should be loved and respected together. Paradoxically however, the Great Depression derailed this effort to combine and de-commercialize the holidays. Struggling retailers and advertisers redoubled their efforts to make Father’s Day a “second Christmas” for men, promoting goods such as neckties, hats, socks, pipes and tobacco, golf clubs and other sporting goods, and greeting cards.

And finally, in 1972, during a hard-fought presidential re-election campaign, Richard Nixon signed a proclamation making Father’s Day a federal holiday. Today, economists estimate that Americans spend more than $1 billion each year on Father’s Day gifts.

Too Many Nigerian Men are Killing their Wives in America.

“Yes, I have killed the woman that messed up my life; the woman that has destroyed me. I am at Shalom West. My name is David and I am all yours.” Those were David Ochola’s words during his 911 (U.S. Emergency Number) call to authorities after shooting dead, his 28 years old wife, Priscilla Ochola, in Hennepin, Minnesota. The couple had two children – four years old boy and a three year old girl.

The 50-years old, husband was tired of being “disrespected” by his wife, a Registered Nurse (RN) whom he had brought from Nigeria and sponsored through nursing school only to have her make much more than him in salary – a situation which led to Mrs. Ochola “coming and going as she chose without regard for her husband.”

In Texas, Babajide Okeowo had been separated from his wife, Funke Okeowo, with whom he resided at their Dallas home. Upon the divorce, the husband lost the house to his wife, along with most of the contents therein, as is usually the tradition in the U.S. Divorces where the couple still has underage children.  Mr. Okeowo, 48, divorced his wife because not long after she became an RN and made more money than him, she “took control” of the family finances and “controlled” her husband’s expenditure and movement.  The husband could no longer make any meaningful contribution to his family back in Nigeria unless the wife “approved” it. He could not go out without her permission. Frustrated that his formerly malleable wife had suddenly become such a “terror” to him to the point of asking for in court and getting virtually everything for which he had worked since coming to the US thirty years prior, the husband got in his vehicle and drove a few hundred miles to Dallas to settle the scores. 

He found her in her SUV, adorned in full Nigerian attire on her way to the birthday bash organized in her honor. She had turned 46 on that day. Mr. Okeowo fired several rounds into his wife’s torso while she sat at the steering wheel, mercilessly killing her in broad daylight. 

Also in Dallas (they sure need anger management classes in Dallas), Moses Egharevba, 45, did not even bother to get a gun. The husband of Grace Egharevba, 35, bludgeoned her to death with a sledge hammer while their seven year old daughter watched and screamed for peace. Mrs. Egharevba’s “sin” was that she became an RN and started to make more money than her husband. This led to her “financial liberation” from a supposedly tight-fisted husband who had not only brought her from Nigeria, but had also funded her nursing school education. 

Like Moses Egharevba, Christopher Ndubuisi of Garland, Texas, (these Texas people!) also did not bother to get a gun. He crept into the bedroom where his wife, Christiana, was sleeping and, with several blows of the sledge hammer, crushed her head.  Two years before Christiana was killed, her mother, who had been visiting from Nigeria, was found dead in the bathtub under circumstances believed to be suspicious.

Of course, Christiana was a RN whose income dwarfed that of her husband as soon as she graduated from nursing school. The husband believed that his role as a husband and head of the household had been usurped by his wife. Mr. Ndubuisi’s several entreaties to his wife’s family to intercede and bring Christiana back under his control had all failed.

If the circumstances surrounding the death of Christiana’s mother were suspicious, those surrounding the death of a Tennessee woman’s mother were not. Agnes Nwodo, an RN, lived in squalor before her husband, Godfrey Nwodo, rescued her and brought her to the US. He enrolled her in nursing school right away. Upon qualifying as a RN, Mrs. Nwodo assumed “full control” of the household. She brought her mother to live with them against her husband’s wishes. Mrs. Nwodo quickly familiarized herself with US Family Laws and took full advantage of them. Each time the couple argued, the police forced the husband to leave the house whether he had a place to sleep or not. On many occasions, Mr. Nwodo spent days in police cells. Upon divorcing his wife, Mr. Nwodo lost to his wife, the house he had owned for almost 20 years before he married her. He also lost custody of their three children to her, with the court awarding him only periodic visitation rights. Even seeing the children during visitation was always a hassle as the wife would “arrive late at the neutral meeting place and leave early with impunity.” Mr. Nwodo endured so many embarrassing moments from his wife and her mother until he could take it no more. One day, he bought himself a shotgun and killed both his wife and her mother. 

Caleb Onwudike’s wife, Chinyere Onwudike, 36, became a RN and no longer saw the need to be controlled by her husband. Mr. Onwudike, 41, worked two jobs to send his wife to her dream school upon bringing her to the US from Nigeria. After four years, she qualified as an RN. Once she started to make more money than her husband, she began to “call the shots” at home. She “overruled” her husband on the size and cost of the house they purchased in Burtonsville, Maryland. She began to build a house solely in her name in their native Umuahia town of Abia State, Nigeria, without her husband’s input whatsoever. Mrs. Onwudike came and went “as she liked,” within the US and outside the US. In fact, she once travelled to Nigeria for three weeks “without her husband’s permission” to lavishly bury her father, despite her husband’s protestations that they had better things to do with the money.

 Mrs. Onwudike let her husband know that this was mostly her money and she would spend it however she wanted. Through her hard work, she had risen to a managerial position at the medical center where she worked. Upon her return from burying her father, her husband got one of her kitchen knives and carved her up like a Thanksgiving turkey inside their home on New Year’s Day.

Death is death, no matter how it comes. But the goriest of these maniacal killings is probably the one that happened here in Los Angeles, California. Joseph Mbu, 50, was tired of his RN wife’s “serial disrespect” of him. The disrespect began as soon as she became a RN. Gloria Mbu, 40, had once told her husband he must be “smoking crack cocaine” if he thought he could tell her what to do with her money now that she made more money than him. Before she became a RN, Mr. Mbu had been very strict with family finances and was borderline dictatorial in his dealings with Mrs. Mbu. However, Mrs. Mbu learned the American system and would no longer allow any man to “put her down.” When Joseph Mbu could not take it anymore, he subdued his wife one day, tied her to his vehicle and dragged her on paved roads all around Los Angeles until her head split in many pieces.

Courtesy: lindaikejisblog



My Marriage Broke Down Around Age 30 — And So Did Most of My Friends' Relationships by Eva Woods.

We began dropping like flies, one divorce or breakup after another...

Things started out so well. My wedding day was perfect. The sun shone down on the 15th-century castle we’d hired for a hundred guests, even though it was April in Ireland. I wore a silk and lace gown with hundreds of tiny sequins, and I was marrying the man I’d been with for three years.

We’d met working for a charity, and we both cared about trying to make the world better – we imagined ourselves living overseas, and probably having a baby in a year or so. He was straightforward, and kind, and supported me. Surely marriage would be easy… Yet just a year later I was contemplating divorce.

Things seemed to change at our one-year anniversary when we went to Germany for a friend’s wedding. On that trip I remember wondering: is this all there is? Spending whole days apart on holiday, because I wanted to go to museums and he wanted to shop? Having to beg him to turn off his work emails for a few days? Coming home and not speaking for hours at a time. At the time, I dismissed these as silly doubts. There was no question of it not working out. And all my friends seemed happily settled too, and my parents and sister had both been married since they were teenagers – I didn’t know how to admit to them marriage wasn’t quite what I’d hoped for. I told myself was just being naïve, expecting everything to be perfect. 

But things continued to change. I would lay awake at night and wonder about leaving –where would I live? We owned a beautiful house together and I hadn’t rented in years. Would I even get a place on my freelance income? I couldn’t go back to a flatshare at 31, especially not when most of my friends were buying homes with their partners. Who would look after our dog? Who’d get the car? What if I never met anyone else and never had children? I couldn’t face the final decision to leave, so I put it off, frightened of what might be on the other side.

However, I was amazed when, the year my friends and I all turned thirty, a wave of break-ups began. One day my friend Michelle emailed us to say she was leaving her husband of five years, and that things had not been right for years. This finally forced my ex and I to have the difficult conversation we’d been avoiding all this time. He said we could work on it, see a therapist which we did try to little success. He kept insisting that I was giving up too easily, refusing to face up to my own issues. We struggled on, but then just a few weeks after Michelle’s revelation, our friend Cathy called off her wedding. One day they were looking at venues for an elaborate celebration, then the next it was over and she’d moved out of their house. I felt stunned. It seemed as if the break-ups sent seismic waves through our friendship group. Suddenly, couples were having to face the fact that maybe they weren’t that happy, either. 

I realized then that I couldn’t keep putting off the decision about my own marriage. The only way I could do it was in small steps. I found a flat, moved out and finally worked up the courage to tell my friends. With one in particular, I remember being at lunch together, ready for me to tell her my news when she blurted out, ‘So I’m getting divorced.’ She’d been with her husband for ten years and I had no idea anything was wrong. All I could think to say was, ‘Um…me too.’ 

My biggest surprise was how easy it is to hide an unhappy marriage from your friends. I had no idea they were on the brink of a split, and they didn’t know I was. I only told my parents a month before I moved out. I was ashamed to tell them – after all, they’d paid for the wedding. They they were very surprised, but supportive. It made me see I should have talked to people sooner, explained that our marriage – on the surface so great, with our nice house and exotic holidays – was falling apart. It might have made me face the problems sooner, rather than hoping they would just go away. I don’t know if anything could have saved our marriage, but perhaps I would have had the courage to end it sooner. 

Over the following year, while I was moving all my things out and trying to start my life again, four other friends had big break-ups, like a divorce domino effect. We were all in our early to mid-thirties, without children, and had been married or in serious relationships since our twenties. In most cases the splits happened because people grew apart and changed, started wanting different things from life. My friends are quite ambitious, high-flying people and maybe that makes it harder to compromise – or maybe we chose the people and lives we thought we should want, rather than what we actually needed. 

I’m not sure if I would get married again. I would feel strange making those vows, knowing how impossible it is to promise things on behalf of your future self. I wish we had thought about that more carefully before getting married, and that I’d been clearer about what I wanted from life instead of just trying to support him. But three years on, I am in a committed relationship, doing work I enjoy and living a life I love. All it took was that one leap of bravery, and perhaps a bit of that domino effect. 

Eva Woods is the author of The Ex Factor, out now.

 

 

How Are You Raising Your Kids?

Too many young women and men are daily regretting their choices of spouses. But wait a minute, who raised/trained those terrible husbands and wives?

Mothers, when was the last time you instructed your son to wash the dishes or do some household chores? Fathers, are you raising your sons to be gentlemen or beasts? And, how did you both react the first time the boy raised his hand to beat a girl? Please note that whatever a man does today is a reflection of his parents' manner of raising him. So, blame his mother for a poor job and the father who looked the other way when the man was being badly raised!

Fathers, for what benefits will your future son(s) in-law be thankful to you? In Yoruba land, it's said that "When a father sees his son in-law and the young man prostrates to show respect, that's his reward for raising a good daughter. On the other hand, if the son in-law merely extends his hand for a lousy, angry handshake, that's also a reward for producing a terrible daughter." Only a man really knows what makes a good wife. Therefore, partner with your wife to raise your daughters into good, educated, well-mannered, virtuous women. The painstaking job of raising kids does not lie only in the hands of mothers. Queen Esther was properly raised by her uncle and it's no wonder that she won the hearts of the men in the palace ( thank GOD for favors as well, but DON

'T rule out her uncle's training). Jairus ran after Jesus for the healing of his daughter. He didn't leave that responsibility to her mother.

Unlike weddings (of a few hours) marriages are supposed to be lifetime events. And it takes pure hard work, patience and the grace of God for them to last the distance. You might wonder, what about love? Yes, it's also important. But love is fleeting and can be very fragile in its existence. Therefore, it takes the above (hard work, patience and God's grace) to maintain it. As parents therefore, let's start preparing for the success of our kids' marriages from the moment they are born.

Changing the World, one Home at a Time.

Charities are supposed to begin at home. How I wish all those who are trying to "change the world" either in the political or religious realm, would start from their immediate environments.

 

They need to build and nurture honest, unselfish and positive lifestyles. Afterwards, they can show the whole world how such noble, moral virtues have produced joy, peace and a sense of contentment in their respective homes.

These are the exemplary and vindicating factors that will always precede them in the process of convincing their audiences. Even the Yoruba say, "The person who wishes to give one a gift of clothes will first have to be seen for what he or she wears."

Tribute to all Happily-Married Couples.

This song by Ray Charles, has always been after my heart. It's my most favorite love song, especially in the appreciation of Titilola, my wife and the most precious treasure in my life. And, in commemoration of our 28th wedding anniversary therefore, I dedicate the song to all happily-married couples.

28th Wedding Anniversary.

 The marital union between me and my precious treasure commenced on Saturday, August 1st, 1987.

Five months after the wedding.

28 years later.

Appreciating What You Have.

There was this story about a young couple. Both the husband and wife were educated professionals living in a Philadelphia apartment building. And they were notorious for their frequent noisy fights. At least, once in a month, the wife would throw her husband out after heated arguments.

On one such occasion, the two were in the middle of another noisy fight in the evening when the wife began to throw the man’s shirts, shoes and other stuff out while screaming at him to go find somewhere to stay for the night. As she did this, their next-door neighbor quietly opened her door and called out to the man to bring his stuff into her apartment.

“Seriously?” the wife asked the neighbor in fury. “Are you out of your frigging mind…asking my husband to move into your apartment?”

Nodding her head calmly, the other women stated. “You don’t appreciate what you have. If you did, you’d not be throwing your husband out every time you have a quarrel…”

Now amused by the turn of event, the husband stared at his stupefied wife who, at this stage, tried to hide her embarrassment by screaming at her husband one more time. “And what are you staring at the bitch for…will you pick up your stuff and get right back inside?”

 

 

 

 

Tasha Smith: When Life Imitates Arts.

When the movie, "Why Did I Get Married?" by Tyler Perry came out, I was of the opinion that a lot of single women should learn from the lessons that were abundantly exhibited in the movie in the area of marriage. This is because too many women appear to be interested only in mundane issues when considering future husbands. It’s always irritating to me when I hear women give reasons why they are in love or marrying a man. The stupid reasons usually range from “Oh, the guy is so cute!” to “He is great in bed”, “The man is rich” and “He has a nice car”. The most annoying part of it is that the affected women are the educated types that are not expected to be so dumb.

And, of course, the dumbest in this group of women are the celebrities. I often wonder whether it’s the fame or money that gets in the way of their common sense. An example of this stupidity is that of Tasha Smith, star of Tyler Perry’s "Why Did I Get Married?" It’s a classic case of life imitating arts. The woman obviously learned nothing from the movie’s many lessons.

According to TMZ, the actress “will think twice about getting hitched again -- the now ex-husband she calls a glorified assistant just scored a fat settlement in their divorce.” The woman has been ordered by a court to “hand over nearly $7k/month in spousal support to Keith Douglas. That's on top of the $50k she already shelled out to him in December.” The million Dollar question now is what was the woman thinking when she met, courted and getting married to a guy she now suddenly consider to be a “glorified assistant”? If the man actually fits that description then, she must be a glorified, damned fool!

U.S. Rep. Chaka Fattah Sr: Physician, Heal Thyself.

According to news reports, Chaka Fattah Jr. the son of U.S. Rep. Chaka Fattah Sr. is currently awaiting trial over $200,000 in various spurious bank loans. The Feds are of the view that Chaka Fattah Jr. diverted the loans to live his fun-filled life as a “socialite”. In spite of his being a drop-out, the young man is said to have his residence in a $600,000 Ritz-Carlton condo. He is also reportedly spending lavishly on exotic cars for him and his girlfriend. And lest I forget, the man is alleged to have racked up over $33,000 in casino gambling debts.

The Bible says "Physicians, heal thyself." I have often wondered how some guys can claim to be effective in running the affairs of state, as huge as it is, when they cannot manage their lives or homes. Now, which is a greater responsibility?

The senior Fattah, a U.S. Rep; is supposed to be representing the interest of millions of people at the federal level. Yet, he cannot really be said to have got his life in order. He is twice divorced and on a third wife. And here is just one of his kids that is alleged to be a downward spiral educationally, and yet living large on other people’s money. This is an irritating irony of life that is common among folks who are in the public eyes. It’s worse for political leaders that are entrusted with caring for the lives of those in their political constituents, many of whom are poor.

These public figures are like some pastors whose charity don’t begin at home. They preach about morals, being “born again” and all that. Yet, their kids are the essential anti-thesis to everything they sermonize about on daily basis.

When It’s Time to Grow Up.

A COUPLE OF weeks after their wedding, Tunde had unwittingly resumed the reckless lifestyle he was pursuing as a bachelor. Quite undeterred by the adverse effects of his dangerous, rollicking past, the young man joined his friends to continue living as “boys” instead of the “men” they had become.
Every day, Tunde would always return home at the “eleventh hour” and with a different excuse per day. It was either an impromptu party he had to attend somewhere or simply that he had to go out with the “boys”. And on each occasion, he would return home looking drained, worn out and in a terribly drunken state.
In spite of these provocative attitude and lifestyle, a very patient Bola would, on each night, welcome the man home without any fuss.
This simple attitude, Tunde noted, was completely different from those of his friend’s wives. Almost every morning in the office, he would listen as his friends exchanged stories on the bitter quarrels and war of words that their wives waged against them for coming home late the previous night. He wondered why his wife never did any of such things to him.
He decided to satisfy his curiosity one night.
On the fateful night, the man had returned home very late as usual.
As Bola, holding on to a pillow that had been her companion all night, was on her way to the bedroom after chanting the “good night” line, he called her.
“Bola, can I have a word with you?”
The young lady stopped in her tracks. Then she turned back to face him with a curious expression.
“I hope there is no problem.”
“No…no problem. I just wanted to ask a question.”
“A question?”
“Yes. I’m just curious. Why is it that you don’t complain?”
“Complain…about what?”
“Come on, Bola…you’ve never complained about my night crawling…why?”
The young lady stared at her husband briefly without uttering a word in response. Then she smiled.
It was a very cold, cynical smile.
“Are you sure you want me to express my opinion on that issue?”
“Why not…go ahead.”
“Okay…I think the problem with young men like you is that you have refused to grow up.”
“What…what’s that supposed to mean, Bola?”
Even as Tunde’s expression turned ugly in reaction to this remark, Bola only shrugged her shoulders with her cold smile.
“Well…I did ask if you wanted me to express my opinion. And I’m just starting.”
“Ah…what else do you have to say after that ridiculous statement?”
“I’ll continue anyway. Unlike what obtains in many Nigerian homes, some of you young men have been privileged to acquire great academic education from some of the best universities in the world. But in spite of your fantastic qualifications, you are dense in attitudes. Absolutely empty…”
A stunned Tunde looked on speechlessly while the young lady continued with her vituperation.
“Look at you, for instance. Your parents sent you to the prestigious Harvard University in America to obtain a great academic education. But unfortunately and manifestly, you still lack the appropriate psychological stamina to cope with the real challenges of life…”
“Hey…now wait a minute!” Tunde interrupted, his eyes blazing red. “This is preposterous.”
“Please let me finish before you make your response. I’m forced to make this speech in the first place because you asked for it…”
“And so damn what?…” he cut in again.
“And so, you’ll have to wait till I’m done, alright?”
For a very few moment, both husband and wife glared at each other until the woman resumed her speech.
“Now, as I was saying…one of the challenges in life is marriage. You claim to be a married man but every evening, you keep talking about going out with the boys…boys? And I keep asking, when is my husband going to become a man…when is he going to grow up?”
She paused briefly on realizing that the man was speechless as he stared at her in utter disbelief.
“I can’t belief this…” Tunde finally managed to note quietly.
Unimpressed however, the young lady continued with her speech.
“And you thought I would complain…the same way your friends’ wives complain on daily basis…making fools of themselves? No sir! I married you for better, for worse. So, I just have to wait patiently and dutifully for you to grow up.”
She was about to leave but then turned around again.
“And by the way, have a good night, dear.”
With this conclusion, the obviously tired young lady finally turned to walk slowly towards the bedroom.
Stunned and stupefied beyond words, Tunde continued to glare at her contritely as she walked steadily into the bedroom.
“Wow…I guess I’ve got myself a philosopher for wife.”
Although there was to be no more reference to that strange incident, much to Bola’s surprise, Tunde stopped his wayward, boys-about-town activities, right from the following day. And whenever the man felt he had to attend a social function, he would insist that his wife accompanied him.

-Excerpts from The Price of Ignorance, http://www.amazon.com/Price-Ignorance-Femi-Olawole/dp/0615842968/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1426783343&sr=1-1&keywords=the+price+of+ignorance+by+femi+olawole

Joint Birthday Party for New York Couple Married 82 years.

As per Associated Press, a husband and wife thought to be one of the oldest married couples in New York have celebrated their birthdays — and their combined ages will be 212.

Duranord Veillard turned 108 on Saturday. His wife, Jeanne Veillard, would be 105 in May. The couple celebrated Saturday at the Spring Valley home they share with their daughter. Veillard is a native of Haiti who was a judge there.

He and his wife moved to the United States in 1968, raising five children while he worked as a hospital laboratory technician. Though nearly blind and hard of hearing, Veillard still cracks jokes in Creole and does push-ups after getting up before dawn.

The Veillards have been married 82 years.

A Forgettable Anniversary.

Like Kutcher, like Cannon: The Marriage Games in Hollywood.

In the entertainment industry, ageing female celebrities have a way of dumping themselves on available young men as soon as they realize that old age is creeping on them. It’s often a case of a much younger man being used to brighten up the fading glory of an older woman. Such was the life story of Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore in the aftermath of the latter’s divorce from actor Bruce Willis.

And so it was with Nick Cannon whose youthfulness “helped” boost up the public image of a much older Mariah Carey.



Lest we forget, Mariah Carey (in her younger, glorious days) got married to record executive Tommy Mottola who was about 20 years older than her. The man had earlier dumped his erstwhile wife for Mariah Carey. And as soon as her singing career hits the peak, the woman promptly dumped Mottola. But whatever goes around always comes around.



As Ashton Kutcher’s movie career got a major boost with his marriage to the older Demi Moore, so also did Nick Cannon’s career in the entertainment industry galloped upon his marriage to the older Mariah Carey. And like Kutcher who eventually dumped Moore, Cannon has also decided to crawl his way out of the marriage to Carey.

In a recent media interview, Nick Cannon tried to further shore up his image by declaring that the break-up with Mariah Carey was something initiated by him. The young man went on to state that he was ending the marriage because of Mariah's emotional state.

Marriages among celebrities have always been very low on love but very high in the uplifting of careers, egos, money and other mundane stuff. This factor alone has contributed enormously to the lowest ebb in which the sacred institution of marriage has been kicked in the entertainment industry.

 

African Weddings and the Ominous effects of Evil Principalities.

Among Nigerians, very much like other Africans, there is always a very strong belief in the ominous effects of juju, voodoo or evil powers. This belief is sustained by the constant occurrence of mysterious phenomena in the lives of the people. And the belief can not really be discounted as unfounded or rubbished as a mere superstition because even the Holy Scriptures acknowledged the existence of witches, familiar spirits and other evil principalities.

The problem with this belief however is the flawed tendency of our African folks to ascribe every incident, including the consequences of personal recklessness and negligence to the unseen spiritual forces.

In 1987, my wife and I had a huge society wedding. This occasion came on the heels of some scary, mysterious events that occurred a few months before the wedding. From a strange illness that almost claimed the life of my wife to the subtle threats of spiritual harms from certain quarters, a low-keyed wedding ceremony would have been the ideal thing to do under the circumstance. As a couple however, we chose to brave through the scare.

And we did have our fun-filled wedding while enjoying the momentary fame as the cynosure of all eyes. Finally, we thanked God that everything went well as planned.

A few months after the wedding, my wife and I invited Goddy (the best man at our wedding) and Bimbo (Best Lady), to the annual Christmas party hosted by my employers.

We all went to the party in my car.

The week preceding the party had been one of great accomplishments for me in terms of my professional life and private business. With this sheer sense of joy in mind, I proceeded on a drinking binge as soon as we arrived at Federal Palace Hotel, Victoria Island, the venue of the party. When the bar ran out of my choice of white wine, I simply switched to VSOP Brandy that was much stronger.

We called it a day at about one o’clock in the morning of the following day. I remembered vividly how I opened the front passenger's door for my wife and the rear doors for our guests.

But that was all I could remember.

About an hour later, I looked in the rear-view mirror and found the rear seats empty.

“Where is Goddy…and Bimbo?” I turned to ask my wife.

Thinking that I was about launching into one of my dry jokes, she stared at me without a response.

“Listen…” I continued to say. “I’m serious. And by the way, where are we now?”

This time, my wife stared at me with a controlled anger before responding to my question.

“What are you talking about?” she asked irritably. “Can’t you see that we are in Ikeja?”

“Ah!” I exclaimed in panic.

“What do you mean by ah?” my wife asked again. “Aren’t you the one driving the car?”

In place of a response however, I continued to drive toward home.

Finally, we both arrived at home.

That was when I called my wife aside to tell her that I could not remember how I drove the car from the parking lot of the Federal Palace Hotel in Victoria Island all the way to Ikeja, covering several miles of distance in the process.

For a few seconds, all she did was stare at me in shock.

“What really are you trying to say?” she finally asked in fright. “…that you passed out while driving?”

“I guess so…” I answered, nodding my head solemnly. “Because I can’t remember anything.”

“Oh my God.” she remarked. “No wonder you were so quiet all the time Goddy, Bimbo and I were chatting and laughing. You just kept staring at the road ahead….”

“No, my eyes were shut tight.” I stated. “I only opened them when we got to Ikeja.”

“Really?” she screamed while clasping her palms atop her head in shock. “But…but you pulled over for Goddy to step out of the car at Palm Grove bus stop.”

“I did?” I asked, staring at her in surprise. “I can’t remember doing anything of sort.”

“What?” my wife yelled in astonishment. “And what about the time you pulled over at Maryland for Bimbo to get off?”

“I can’t remember doing that either.” I shook my head.

“But how then did you drive so smoothly all the way to Ikeja?” she wailed in shock.

“I don’t know…” again, I stated, shaking my head.

“Ah!” she exclaimed for the umpteenth time. “For God’s sake, you drove all the way from Victoria Island, a journey of several miles with curves and turns…all through the long Third Mainland Bridge and you can’t remember anything?”

“No…I can’t.” I answered.

For the next few minutes, we both meditated quietly over the strange phenomenon.

We both wondered aloud about whatever strange force had taken control of the car all the time I was unconscious. Without the benefits of that strange force or providence, which we finally ascribed to another special grace of God in my life, the car could have plunged into the looming, dark Lagoon beneath the Third Mainland Bridge if I had lost control of the car. And this was more so, after such a very flashy, lavished wedding ceremony.

“Do you know what people would have said?” my wife asked in consternation. “Our families, relations and friends would have blamed it all on the wicked engine of witch-crafty, sorcery or some other evil principalities.”

“Of course, yes. “ I nodded solemnly. “Even though, it would all have been my fault.” 

I marveled at the phenomenal event of that fateful day and resolved never again to drink, eat or do anything whatsoever in excess.

It has been 25 years since the incident took place. Had the situation been the other way around, someone else would probably have written this story as an eulogy in a memorial to me, my wife and our guests. May God be praised, thanked and glorified at all times.