This is long, but good advice. Enjoy.

 
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.

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.


Amanda

Hi Amanda

Thank you for sharing this, yet another wonderful story.  Time is a precious thing,  and we should all be grateful for everyday that God gives us.

Thank you for sharing this with us.

Bj

Hi Amanda,

What a wonderful thought provoking story. How many Saturdays have we let slip away that could have been shared with loved one. We all need to stop to smell the roses, as the old saying goes because time flies and once it's gone we can't get it back.

Best wishes,

Hello BJ,


You are very welcome and glad you were received something from reading this story as I did.


Amanda