The older I get, the more I enjoy
Saturday mornings. Perhaps it's the quiet solitude that comes with being the
first to rise, or maybe it's the unbounded joy of not having to be at work.
Either way, the first few hours of a Saturday morning are most
enjoyable.
A few weeks ago, I was shuffling
toward the garage with a steaming cup of coffee in one hand and the morning
paper in the other. What began as a typical Saturday morning turned into one of
those lessons that life seems to hand you from time to time. Let me tell you
about it:
I turned the dial up into the phone
portion of the band on my ham radio in order to listen to a Saturday morning
swap net. Along the way, I came across an older sounding chap, with a tremendous
signal and a golden voice. You know the kind; he sounded like he should be in
the broadcasting business. He was telling whom-ever he was talking with
something about "a thousand marbles." I was intrigued and stopped to listen to
what he had to say--
"Well, Tom, it sure sounds like
you're busy with your job. I'm sure they pay you well but it's a shame you have
to be away from home and your family so much. Hard to believe a young fellow
should have to work sixty or seventy hours a week to make ends meet. It's too
bad you missed your daughter's "dance recital" he continued."Let me tell you
something that has helped me keep my own priorities." And that's when he began
to explain his theory of a "thousand marbles."
"You see, I sat down one day and
did a little arithmetic. The average person lives about seventy-five years. I
know, some live more and some live less, but on average, folks live about
seventy-five years.
"Now then, I multiplied 75 times 52
and I came up with 3900, which is the number of Saturdays that the average
person has in their entire lifetime. Now, stick with me, Tom, I'm getting to the
important part.
It took me until I was fifty-five
years old to think about all this in any detail", he went on, "and by that time
I had lived through over twenty-eight hundred Saturdays." "I got to thinking
that if I lived to be seventy-five, I only had about a thousand of them left to
enjoy. So I went to a toy store and bought every single marble they had. I ended
up having to visit three toy stores to round up 1000 marbles. I took them home
and put them inside a large, clear plastic container right here in the shack
next to my gear."
"Every Saturday since then, I have
taken one marble out and thrown it away. I found that by watching the marbles
diminish, I focused more on the really important things in life.
There is nothing like watching your
time here on this earth run out to help get your priorities
straight."
"Now let me tell you one last thing
before I sign-off with you and take my lovely wife out for breakfast. This
morning, I took the very last marble out of the container. I figure that if I
make it until next Saturday then I have been given a little extra time. And the
one thing we can all use is a little more time."
"It was nice to meet you Tom, I
hope you spend more time with your family, and I hope to meet you again here on
the band. This is a 75 Year old Man, K9NZQ, clear and going QRT, good
morning!"
You could have heard a pin drop on the band when this fellow signed off. I guess he gave us all a lot to think about. I had planned to work on the antenna that morning, and then I was going to meet up with a few hams to work on the next club newsletter.
You could have heard a pin drop on the band when this fellow signed off. I guess he gave us all a lot to think about. I had planned to work on the antenna that morning, and then I was going to meet up with a few hams to work on the next club newsletter.
Instead, I went upstairs and woke
my wife up with a kiss. "C'mon honey, I'm taking you and the kids to breakfast."
"What brought this on?" she asked with a smile. "Oh, nothing special, it's just
been a long time since we spent a Saturday together with the kids. And hey, can
we stop at a toy store while we're out? I need to buy some marbles.
A friend sent this to me, so I to
you, my friend.
And so, as one smart bear once
said..."If you live to be a hundred, I want to live to be a hundred minus one
day, so I never have to live without you." - Winnie the Pooh.
Pass this on to all of your
FRIENDS, even if it means sending it to the person that sent it to
you.
And if you receive this e-mail many
times from many different people, it only means that you have many
FRIENDS.
And if you get it but once, do not
be discouraged for you will know that you have at least one good
friend...
And that would be ME.
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