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George Foreman was born on January 10, 1949 in Marshall, Texas.  When he was very young, his mother moved to Houston to look for work.  He and his six siblings grew up without a father in Houston's rough Fifth Ward.  As a youth, George often roamed the streets getting into trouble.  He often lived in abandoned houses, picked pockets, mugged drunks and made trouble for everyone he met.   His mother was so overwhelmed by his bad behavior that she was hospitalized for emotional collapse when George was only 14 years old.  By the time he was 16, he was tough and street-smart, but he could barely read or write.

For reasons known only to himself, George suddenly faced the reality that he had become a criminal, had dropped out of school and had no direction to go with his life. After seeing an advertisement for the Job Corp (a program that educated young people and gave them job skills), he immediately signed up and, after an initial adjustment period, he learned bricklaying, forestry, and carpentry; he also learned to read and write.  To siphon off the energy he used to spend street fighting, he learned the sport of boxing.  Each month, he sent $50 home to his mother.

George began boxing professionally when he was 17 years old.  Fighting through the boxing ranks, he won his first 37 fights, including 34 knockouts.  His talent for the sport won him the Olympic Gold Medal in boxing in 1968 and the World Heavweight Championship in 1973.

In 1977, after losing a 12-round match to Jimmy Young in San Juan, Puerto Rico, George became ill in his dressing room, suffering from exhaustion and heatstroke, and believed he had experienced a near-death experience. He claimed he found himself in a hellish, frightening place of nothingness and despair and began to plead with God to help him change his life and ways.  George became a born-again Christian at that moment, dedicated the next decade of his life to God and family.  He left the boxing world and cut his ties with the boxing world, and disappeared to become just a regular guy in the crowd.  He cut his hair and rid himself of all his luxury cars, several houses, his pet tiger and lion, and stopped flying first class.  He also gave up exercising, ate whatever he wanted and gained a great deal of weight.  His new enlightenment led him to become an ordained Christian minister in a small Houston church which he co-founded, and he became a traveling evangelical preacher.  With his brother, Reid, he founded the George Foreman Youth and Community Development Center in Houston, which intended to keep young people active and away from crime and drugs by offering basketball, weight lifting, boxing and a library.  However, when the center eventually ran out of funding, George went back to the only way he knew how to make money to keep the center open.  He returned to the boxing ring in 1987 amid many press commentaries about his potential inability to make a comeback because of his weight and his age.  However, by adopting a new healthy lifestyle and healthy eating regime, and after 24 wins, including 23 knockouts, he was viewed as a true contender to regain the heavyweight title -- which he achieved on November 5, 1994 at the age of 45.

After George's remarkable comeback, 53-year-old independent inventor Michael W. Boehm of Batavia, Illinois  approached him to represent his newest and biggest invention to date:  an indoor, electrically-heated grill that cooks on the top and bottom at the same time, and drains fat and grease into a removable drip tray.  Because George was also known to enjoy a burger or two before a fight, and his previous experience as a TV pitchman, a bond was established and the grill was named the "George Foreman Grill."  Salton, Inc. was chosen to manufacture and market the grill. The George Foreman Grill has resulted in sales of over 100 million units since it was first launched in 1995, a feat that was achieved in a little over 15 years.  Although Foreman has never confirmed exactly how much he has earned from the endorsement, what is known is that Salton, Inc. paid him $137 million in 1999 in order to buy out the right to use his name.  Previous to that, he was being paid about 40% of the profits on each grill sold (earning him $4.5 million a month in payouts at its peak) so it is estimated he has made a total of over $200 million from the endorsement, a sum that is substantially more than he earned as a boxer.

George retired from boxing for the second time in 1997 with a record 76-5, with 68 knockouts.  

George has ten children -- five girls and five boys.  The boys are all named George Edward Foreman, with the addtion of numerals.  He said he named all of his sons after himself because "I wanted my boys to have something that nobody could ever take from them, and I figured, give them a name that they could run into whenever they had problems or if they ever got lost."  He also explained that he was deeply affected by the fact that he did not know who his real father was until 1976, and he wanted to make sure his own sons never had any doubt about their own origins.

 
In 2003, George Foreman was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame.  In the same year, his first book, George Foreman's Guide to Life, was published.  In October 2000, he wrote and published, By George: The Autobiography of George Foreman.  And, God in My Corner, hit the bookstores in 2007.   In a Publisher's Weekly interview, George said that the most important piece of advice he wanted to pass on to people was, "Learn to trust in yourself.  There's not a better person you're going to meet in this life, and there's not anyone you're going to know any better than you.  The best advice will come from within you."

Mazon's success is directly related to your success.  The last thing we want is for you to lose a valuable customer.  Mazon is not a collection agency -- we will make routine courtesy collection calls, but we will not harass your customers for money.  Maintaining your customers' good will and confidence are extremely important to everyone at Mazon Associates.

If you would like to find out more about our factoring services for your business and/or apply for an account with Mazon Associates, please phone us at 972-554-6967 (toll-free 800-442-2740) or visit our website www.mazon.com.

It's some pitch -- lose lots of weight quickly with products you can try for free.  Even better -- the products seem to be endorsed by trusted news sites, and satisfied "reporters" attest to all the unwanted pounds they've dropped.

April 1: April Fool's Day; April 7: World Health Day; April 8: Easter; April 16: Patriot's Day; April 17: Federal Income Taxes Due*; April 22: Earth Day; April 25: Administrative Professionals Day (formerly "Secretaries Day"); April 27: Arbor Day.

 *Note:  The traditional tax return filing deadline is April 15 of each year, but April 15, 2012 is a Sunday and April 16 falls on Emancipation Day in the District of Columbia, thus April 17 is the tax date for 2012.

You may think the grass is greener on the other side, but if you take the time to water your own grass, it would be just as green.

Contributed by Betty Hazeltine (Facebook)

Easter Sunday takes place this year on April 8th.  While this Christian holiday celebrates the resurrection of Jesus Christ, it also includes very old Pagan traditions that you may find interesting:

Hot Cross Buns:  At the feast of Eostre, the Saxon fertility Goddess, an ox was sacrificed.  The ox's horns became a symbol for the feast.  They were carved into the ritual bread.  Thus originated "hot cross buns."  The word "buns" is derived from the Saxon word "Boun" which means "sacred ox." Later, the symbol of a symmetrical cross was used to decorate the buns: the cross represented the moon, the heavenly body associated with the Goddess, and its four quarters.

Easter Rabbit and Eggs:

·         The symbols of the Norse Goddess Ostara were the hare and the egg.  Both represented fertility.  From these, we have inherited the customs and symbols of the Easter egg and Easter rabbit.

·         Dyed eggs also formed part of the rituals of the ancient, pre-Christian Babylonian mystery religions.  The egg, as a symbol of fertility and of renewed life, goes back to the ancient Egyptians and Persians, who had also the custom of coloring and eating eggs during their spring festival.

·         Like the Easter egg, the Easter hare came to Christianity from antiquity. The hare is associated with the moon in the legends of ancient Egypt and other peoples  Through the fact that the Egyptian word for hare, UM, means also "open" and "period," that hare came to be associated with the idea of periodicity, both lunar and human, and with the beginning of new life in both the young man and young woman, and so a symbol of fertility of the renewal of life.  As such, the hare became linked with Easter ... eggs.

·         Christian tradition states that when Mary Magdalene visited Emperor Tiberias (14-17 CE), she gave him a red egg as a symbol of the Resurrection -- a symbol of new life.  Some believe that the Christian tradition of giving eggs to each other at Easter time came from this event.

Easter Sunrise Service:  This custom can be traced back to the ancient Pagan custom of welcoming the Sun God at the vernal equinox -- when daytime is about to exceed the length of the nighttime.  It was a time to celebrate the return of life and reproduction to animal and plant life as well.

Easter Candles:  These are sometimes lit in churches on the eve of Easter Sunday. Some commentators believe that these can be directly linked to the Pagan customs of lighting bonfires at this time of year to welcome the rebirth/resurrection of the Sun God.

There was a young farmer named Bubba who bought a fattened hog for $100 from his neighbor, Farmer Jake, who agreed to deliver the hog the next day.  When Farmer Jake drove up the next day, he said, "I am sorry, Bubba, but I have some bad news -- the hog is on my truck but he is dead."

Bubba replied, "Well then, just give me my money back!" 

Farmer Jake responded, "Can't do that, Bubba, I went out and spent it already."

Bubba sighed, "OK, just unload the hog anyway."

Farmer Jake asked, "What are you gonna do with a dead hog?"

Bubba contemplated, "I'll raffle him off."

Farmer Jake exclaimed, "You can't raffle off a dead hog!"

Bubba, with a big smile on his face, said, "Sure I can.  Watch.  Just don't tell anyone the hog is dead."

Farmer Jake met up with Bubba a month later and asked, "Whatever happened with that dead hog?"

Bubba replied, "I raffled him off.  I sold 500 tickets at $2.00 each and made a huge profit."

Farmer Jake, totally amazed, asked, "Didn't anyone complain that you had stolen their money because you lied about the hog being dead?"

Bubba chuckled, "The only one who found out about the hog being dead was the raffle winner, so when he came to claim his prize, I gave him his $2 back plus $200 extra, which is double the going value of a dead hog.  He thought I was a great fellow!"

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