--
A THOUSAND MARBLES!!!
(How many do we have left??)
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 kitchen 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 volume up on my radio in order to listen to a Saturday morning
talk show. I heard an older sounding chap with a golden voice. You know the
kind - he
sounded like he should be in the broadcasting business himself. He was
talking
about "a thousand marbles" to someone named "Tom".
I was intrigued and sat down 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. Too bad you missed your daughter's dance recital."
He continued, "Let me tell you something Tom, something that has helped me
keep a good perspective on 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 weeks 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 of a large, clear plastic container right here in
my
workshop next to the radio. 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 really 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. So, I figure if I make it until next Saturday then I have been
given a
little extra time. And the one thing we can all use and we all want is a
little
more time."
"It was nice to talk to you Tom, I hope you spend more time with your loved
ones, and I hope to meet you again someday. Have a good morning!"
You could have heard a pin drop when he finished. Even the show's moderator
didn't have anything to say for a few moments. I guess he gave us all a
lot to think about. I had planned to do some work that morning, then go to
the gym. 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. Hey, can we stop at a toy store while we're out? I
need to buy some marbles."
YOU HAVE A GREAT WEEKEND
AND MAY ALL SATURDAYS BE SPECIAL!
