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I found this very thought provoking. Hope you enjoy it too.
Judith
"3900 Saturday Mornings"
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."
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.
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