David, this is my feeble attempt at a plant Shelley Harper

Men, You can’t live with them or without them.

OPENING CHAPTER, PLANT: I grew up with a strange chip on my shoulder toward men. Actually back it up. I have an early memory of being about four years old having a terrifying fear of hairy men. I don’t know why but my swim teacher was a young, hairy man. To me he might as well have been Chewbacca from the Star Wars film. My choices were: A) cling to said hairy man so that I wouldn't drown B) Swim in the scary water without knowing how. I think I had a little bit of hero worship with my dad. In my eyes he could do no wrong. He was perfect. At eleven years old I heard him say the word, “damn” when referring to my paint horse and I lost my mind. I was devastated and disappointed. Maybe I was a tad bit sheltered. But now my bubble was burst. Even still, I was hard pressed to find any man that could hold a candle to my dad. We had many talks about boys and men and basically somehow I got the impression that they were all after me and that I needed to fight them off at all costs. That and the fact that my mom was a real looker. She played it up, too. She wore heels, tight clothes and rocked them. I’ve always been an observant little thing and I would watch mens’ reactions to her looks. They all seemed like rabid animals or something and I didn’t like feeling like I had to protect her from them. God has a sense of humor though and he placed me with the manliest of men and gave me three sons who are three of my favorite human beings on the planet. As if that weren’t enough, he gave me a son in law that I adore, and two precious grandsons. I also have a darling granddaughter, a superstar daughter and a wonderful daughter in law but I am clearly surrounded by boys. After thirty plus years of marriage, and raising my ever growing family little by little, the chip got knocked off. I’ve discovered that I love men! Men are so cool! Men are so different! Men are amazing and bring so much to the table. What if all those things that I was afraid of about men or all those things that I didn't understand about men or even didn’t like about men were the very things that made me adore them? Society seems to want to change men. They’ve also been told by someone that men aren’t enough. But I would argue with this. Men don’t need to change. They just need to be men,