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"A Thousand Marbles"
This is a story that
a friend of mine gave me. It really makes you think about your
life and priorities. Please take a few minutes to read it…it
is worth your time. As a fellow marble collector, I would like
to share this story with you….God Bless….
The older I get, the more
I enjoy Saturday mornings. Perhaps it's the quiet solitude that
comes with being the first one 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 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 3,900, 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.' |