Bird Droppings November 26, 2025

Living a moment at a time

On Tuesday morning, I walked out into my yard to take a few photos after missing the sunrise. From the field behind us, a red-tailed hawk soared around once and landed in a large, black walnut tree next to us. It was only seventy-five feet away, atop the walnut tree. The majestic hawk looked over, turned its head towards us, and then flew off. I am always amazed by these types of moments: a second or two difference here or there, and the moment would have been unseen or lost in its entirety. As a parent, grandparent, and teacher, I wonder daily how many of these moments occur in a day and how many I have missed. I want to think I am attentive, and I am looking for them. I recall a few years back, one morning, my wife and I were proofreading a paper for my youngest son. It was emailed at 1:30 AM, and he needed it back for a 9:00 AM class. I happened to check my email before leaving for school during my morning meanderings and saw it. It is in the moments we find integrity.

“Real integrity is doing the right thing, knowing that nobody’s going to know whether you did it or not.” Oprah Winfrey

I am sure there are many events we will never hear about that Oprah has done over the years. I remember when she gave away 250 or so cars to her audience. It was an advertising experiment for Pontiac, but still, Oprah was directly involved. I look at the venues she chooses to do good, and I am impressed. On a similar note ever so often I will hear a story from Pennsylvania about how my dad did this or that for someone else’s dad or mom and every once in a while, I will hear a story as my brother or sister after a business trip to South Africa where a miner or mine manager will tell them what my dad did for them twenty five or more years ago.

Integrity is a powerful word. It is one that politicians often try to promote themselves. I received an ad through email about how this politician has integrity, “SEE RIGHT HERE”. You do not buy integrity. I was thinking back a few years to a moment when, for whatever reason, my mother had my youngest son, and I move a cabinet for her. She wanted to bring her piano into her room where she could play more often. On top of the cabinet were a group of pins, badges, and other tiny trinkets. She asked if we would like any as we left. One was a gold A charm; it turned out to have been given to my father in college when he graduated in 1952 from Albright College. My youngest son now has that A. Another was a very special pin from my grandfather. He was an engineer on a coal train nearly 100 years ago. This was his railroad pin, and my wife put it in safekeeping for his namesake, my oldest son. Integrity, we cannot buy it or trade it.

“Integrity is what we do, what we say, and what we say we do.” Don Galer

“Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind.” Ralph Waldo Emerson

Looking at the definition of integrity, it is the totality of being what we say we are, but also the daily undertakings and events that transpire from our footsteps, and, in effect, how others see us as we walk through the day.

“If you believe in unlimited quality and act in all your business dealings with total integrity, the rest will take care of itself.” Frank Perdue

I remember the first time I saw a Perdue ad for yellow chickens. There was no actor, just Frank Perdue and a chicken. It was a pretty simple concept, but Perdue has become one of the leading marketers of chicken and higher-dollar poultry in the nation by marketing its integrity. I have never questioned Perdue chicken. In Georgia, we have another yellow ad campaign, Yellow Wood, which is pressure-treated lumber. The campaign basically started with integrity and went from there. They put their money where their mouth is, and the super cute ads with everything yellow have taken hold, and now, in pressure-treated lumber, “Yellow Wood” is number one.

“Losers make promises they often break. Winners make commitments they always keep. Denis Waitley

Waitley is a leader in performance management and the author of fifteen books on production and management.

“The power brokers in the new global arena will be the knowledge facilitators. Ignorance will be even more tyrannical and enslaving than before. As you look in the mirror to see the 21st-century you, another image will stand beside you. It is your competition. Your competition, from now on, will be a hungry immigrant with a wireless, hand-held, digital assistant. Hungry for food, hungry for a home, for a new car, for security, for a college education. Hungry for knowledge. Smart, quick-thinking, skilled, and willing to do whatever is necessary to be competitive in the world marketplace. Working long hours and Saturdays, staying open later, serving customers better and more cheerfully. To be a player in the 21st Century, you have to be willing to give more in service than you receive in payment.” Denis Waitley

As I read this paragraph and thought about so many days at school, we were not simply preparing students to leave school but competing in this world marketplace and, sadly, to be eager worker bees. The last line very much emulates Phillip Crosby, the great guru of Quality: “You have to be willing to give more in service than you receive in payment.” Crosby defined “Quality is exceeding the expectations of the customer.” Integrity is providing to those around you more than they expect and expecting nothing in return. However, as I read the first line about who is gaining power in the new world, it hit me what is going on in education today. Whoever controls education will control the world.

“The Lord doesn’t ask about your ability, only your availability; and, if you prove your dependability, the Lord will increase your capability.” Source unknown

“Integrity: A name is the blueprint of the thing we call character. You ask, what’s in a name? I answer, just about everything you do.” Morris Mandel

I have perhaps started a bad habit of watching TV shows, particularly NCIS and Law & Order. My wife, our oldest son when he is home, and I will watch several back-to-back episodes of Law and Order, for example. It was a few months back, by chance, that on one show, a young attorney was being tried for information he knew to be client-privileged. The prosecutor commented something to the effect, “No bar in America will disbar you for telling us what you know in these circumstances”. The young public defender responded, “They should”. A man of integrity, he was found guilty and faced prison time for it. How many of us would do that? I was asked a question yesterday, and in thinking back on it, the responses from my students and my own children, I find perhaps we are leaving integrity by the wayside far too often. I was asked on May 4th if my students were aware of Kent State and the shootings forty years previous. Not one student or child of mine knew anything about it. Ronald Takaki, in his book A Different Mirror, discusses how the winners write history. Changes occur, and in Texas today, school boards are deciding what they want in the history books. This is the integrity of our grandchildren and great-grandchildren at stake. Please keep all in harm’s way in your heart and on your minds, and always give thanks, Namaste.

My family and friends, I do not say this lightly,

Mitakuye Oyasin

(We are all related)

docbird