This one struck me as I've bene thinking about "time" a lot
lately. Thank you all for being my friends. This is a new email
address; it's good to be back online after almost three months.

With Much Love,
Jude

p.s. Thanks Pam for sending this in to the Happiest People Alive
group. You're the cat's pajamas!


A Thousand Marbles

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 basement ham-shack 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 thrownit
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.

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

~Author Unknown to me