Home  >> Stories  >> The Tale Spinner #2017-34

---

IN THIS ISSUE

• Terry Ann Fielding believes that giving leads to receiving
• Shirley Conlon has discovered her age group
• Rafiki forwards a philosophical essay on the nature of time
• Tom Telfer sends examples of clueless people
• Zvonko Springer shares thoughts on growing older
• Sites are suggested by Barbara Wear and Tom Telfer

In Heroic Stories, Terry Ann Fielding of Brandon, Miss., writes that

TO GIVE IS TO RECEIVE

When I was about 12, my father decided that I needed something constructive to occupy my day; something that wasn´t devoted just to me. At that age I was kind of selfish and felt that the world meant being with girlfriends, dreaming about guys, eating and sleeping. He had other ideas: I was signed up to be a Junior Volunteer at Children´s Hospital in New Orleans.

The hospital was for any child who needed specialized care. It didn´t matter if they were poor, rich, black, or white. All had severe health problems, and many would not even live to be my age. Most were very sick, in wheelchairs, missing limbs, blind, and some deaf. Some were there temporarily, until they were well enough to go home, and some were there so long you had to wonder if they ever would leave.

The hospital wasn´t a dreary place. It was painted in bright colors, and always had cheerful volunteer workers and a staff that filled the need of surrogate family during their stay. I was assigned the job of playing with the kids. Sounds easy, but it was a challenge to figure out games that you could play as a group, or something to do one-on-one when a child needed special attention.

One sticks out above the rest even after all these years. She taught me to be thankful for all the great things I had, but sometimes took for granted - parents, regular schooling, clothes, food and, above all, good health. She never asked for much, and was always happy, smiling, and chattering a mile a minute. She was only about four years old, and seemed to have adapted rather well to her disability.

One day she wanted to paint a picture with watercolors. Easy enough, except she didn´t have any arms. I felt sick that I was encountering a problem I couldn´t solve. That is when I learned how to accept what you have, and how to use it to the best of your ability. Yes, she did paint her picture. To this day I can close my eyes and see her painting with a brush taped between her toes. No, the picture wasn´t perfect, but to me it was a Picasso: a simple flower in yellow and green.

That child brought me into the real world and taught me many valuable tools for life. It led me to a life of giving whenever I could. I worked at the hospital for two years, and it was my honor to share that little girl´s life and grow from it. She gave more to me than I could have ever given to her.

I don´t know whatever became of her - whether she eventually went home, or even lived. I have often wondered if she was one of the lucky ones to survive. Not knowing, I have chosen to visualize her as a teacher, or a wonderful mother to a houseful of noisy children, teaching all around her to shine.

ED. NOTE: To comment on this story, or to tell your own story, or to get a free subscription, click on

http://www.heroicstories.org

Shirley Conlon has just discovered her age group. She is

A SEENAGER

(Senior teenager)

I have everything that I wanted as a teenager, only 50-60 years later.

I don´t have to go to school or work.

I get an allowance every month.

I have my own pad.

I don´t have a curfew

I have a driver´s license and my own car.

I have ID that gets me into bars and the wine store. I like the wine store best.

The people I hang around with are not scared of getting pregnant, they aren´t scared of anything. They have been blessed to live this long, why be scared?

And I don´t have acne.

Life is good! Also, you will feel much more intelligent after reading this, if you are a Seenager.

Brains of older people are slow because they know so much.

People do not decline mentally with age; it just takes them longer to recall facts because they have more information in their brains.

Scientists believe this also makes you hard of hearing as it puts pressure on your inner ear.

Also, older people often go to another room to get something and when they get there, they stand there wondering what they came for. It is not a memory problem; it is nature´s way of making older people get more exercise.

SO THERE!!

I have more friends I should send this to, but right now I can´t remember their names.

So please forward this to your friends; they may be my friends too.

Rafiki forwards this philosophical essay on

TIME

This summer has been a summer like the ones from my early childhood: bright, sunny, hot days and warm, windless, still summer nights. It´s been awhile since we´ve had a summer like this one. I am thoroughly enjoying it, especially my summer walks, which usually begin under twilight skies and end in darkness under a canopy of shimmering summer stars. The heat and the frenzy of the days melt away in the soft summer nights.

Almost every evening before I go to sleep, I take a walk. During these extended walks I spend a great deal of this quiet time thinking. On one of my mid-evening walks a few days ago, I stopped for a moment and turned my gaze upward toward the stars. It always amazes me when I stop and look at all those stars. It actually sends chills through me when I ponder what I see.

The vastness of the universe, the billions of stars, the planets, all combine to remind me just how very small I am. I feel insignificant and unimportant. But that´s not a bad thing; it´s a good thing. A very good thing for all of us is to be reminded that we are not that important. Even the rich and powerful, who walk and live high above the masses, enjoying the benefits of power, privilege and money; these mighty ones are just as trivial as the rest of us compared to the awesome grandeur of the universe. We are all just "drops of water in an endless sea".

It comforts me to know that no matter how crazy things get, how bad things seem to be, no matter what happens to me, that in the end the universe is unfolding exactly as it should. In our daily lives we might not think things are going our way; we might feel we have not had a fair chance in life; we might feel our luck has not been good. But one thing is for certain: tomorrow will be what it will and not a single one of us, neither the meek nor the powerful, can change it. While that might be discouraging to some, it is profound and comforting to me.

And it occurs to me as I ponder the universe and my own existence, that our time on this earth is so very limited we do not have time to understand time at all.

While gazing up at the majesty of the stars and planets, I remember the words of astronomer Carl Sagan, who said: "Looking out at the stars is looking back in time." Indeed. The light from some of these stars began its journey to my eyes hundreds of thousands, even millions of years ago. Its journey through space began long before the earth gave birth to the first unicellular life. It has been traveling eons before I was born and will be traveling for eons after I am gone. Time only exists if someone exists to perceive it.

I perceive it. And I realize just how lucky I am to be here to experience the incomprehensible vastness and splendid beauty of the universe; to perceive time, yet be unable to understand it, humbles me. I feel fortunate to be a tiny part of the universe, even if my life amounts to an insignificant grain of sand in boundless enormity of it. I call it glorious insignificance. I feel lucky to have been born, and am able now to look far back in time in the light streaming from ancient stars. It leaves me breathless, awestruck, and humble. And I realize that no matter how smart any of us may be, none of us can even begin to comprehend the meaning of the universe. Or the meaning of time.

Time is relative, as Einstein proves in his Theory of Relativity. However, I have my own theory about time. Although I can´t comprehend the meaning of time, I can perceive it. My theory of relativity is applicable to each one of us.

During my childhood and my years in school, I eagerly awaited each year´s long summer vacation. Summer vacation was the time when the days stretched forever before me. Each day of summer vacation was an endless chain of hours created especially for me to do whatever I wanted, free from teachers, books, and bells. But as each summer waned, I began to look forward to autumn, going back to school and being back with my friends. Summer when I was young seemed to last forever. Summer seemed a bit too long then. Now it comes and goes in the blink of an eye. Summer is far too short now.

It doesn´t seem fair that when we are young, with our entire lives stretching before us, that time passes so slowly. Seasons last an eternity. Days last weeks; months last years. As we grow older and the days remaining in our lives grow fewer than the days which have passed, time becomes compressed and passes so much more quickly. The older I am, the faster time passes. Days fly by like hours; weeks like days, months like weeks, and years like months. It seems that time is playing a very cruel practical joke on me.

It does not seem fair to me that the younger you are, the slower time passes, and the older you are, the faster time passes. We cannot change our perceptions of time because none of us will ever have enough time to understand time at all. Maybe that is a very good thing. I´m sure that the universe is just exactly like it is supposed to be. And time will always be only what we perceive it to be.

"Time is too slow for those who wait, Too swift for those who fear, Too long for those who grieve, Too short for those who rejoice, But for those who love, Time is not." (Henry Van Dyke)

Tom Telfer forwards this article:

THEY WALK AMONG US

...and they breed.

A man bought a new fridge for his house.To get rid of his old fridge, he put it in his front yard and hung a sign on it saying: "Free to good home. You want it, you take it."

For three days the fridge sat there without anyone looking twice. He eventually decided that people were too mistrustful of this deal, so he changed the sign to read: "Fridge for sale, $50."

The next day someone stole it!

They walk amongst us!

One day I was walking down the beach with some friends when someone shouted, "Look at that dead bird!"

Someone looked up at the sky and said, "Where?"

They walk among us!

While looking at a house, my brother asked the real estate agent which direction was north because he didn´t want the sun waking him up every morning.

She asked, "Does the sun rise in the north?"

My brother explained that the sun rises in the east, and has for some time. She shook her head and said, "Oh, I don´t keep up with all that stuff."

They Walk Among Us!

A man was driving when he saw the flash of a traffic camera. He figured that his picture had been taken for exceeding the limit, even though he knew that he was not speeding. Just to be sure, he went around the block and passed the same spot, driving even more slowly, but again the camera flashed. Now he began to think that this was quite funny, so he drove even slower as he passed the area again, but the traffic camera again flashed. He tried a fourth time with the same result. He did this a fifth time, and was now laughing when the camera flashed as he rolled past, this time at a snail´s pace. Two weeks later, he got five tickets in the mail for driving without a seat belt.

You can´t fix stupid.

My colleague and I were eating our lunch in our cafeteria when we overheard an admin. girl talking about the sunburn she got on her weekend drive to the beach. She drove down in a convertible, but said she didn´t think she´d get sunburned because the car was moving.

They Walk Among Us!

My sister has a lifesaving tool in her car which is designed to cut through a seat belt if she gets trapped. She keeps it in the car trunk.

They Walk Among Us!

I couldn´t find my luggage at the airport baggage area and went to the lost luggage office and reported the loss.The woman there smiled and told me not to worry because she was a trained professional and said I was in good hands.

"Now," she asked me, "has your plane arrived yet?" (I work with professionals like this.)

They Walk Among Us!

While working at a pizza parlor I observed a man ordering a small pizza to go. He appeared to be alone, and the cook asked him if he would like it cut into four pieces or six.

He thought about it for some time, then said, "Just cut it into four pieces; I don´t think I´m hungry enough to eat six pieces."

They Walk Among Us!

True story: A noted psychiatrist was a guest speaker at an academic function where Nancy Pelosi happened to appear. Ms. Pelosi took the opportunity to schmooze the good doctor a bit and asked him a question with which he was most at ease.

"Would you mind telling me, Doctor," she asked, "how you detect a mental deficiency in somebody who appears completely normal?"

"Nothing is easier," he replied. "You ask a simple question which anyone should answer with no trouble. If the person hesitates, that puts you on the track."

"What sort of question?" asked Pelosi.

"Well, you might ask, ´Captain Cook made three trips around the world and died during one of them. Which one?´´´

Pelosi thought a moment, and then said with a nervous laugh, "You wouldn´t happen to have another example, would you? I must confess I don´t know much about history."

Sadly, they walk among us.

Zvonko Springer shares these thoughts about

GROWING OLDER

- Your kids are becoming you, but your grandchildren are perfect!

- Going out is good. Coming home is better!

- You forget names, but it´s OK, because other people forgot they even knew you!

- You realize you´re never going to be really good at anything - especially golf.

- You sleep better on a lounge chair with the TV blaring than in bed. It´s called "pre-sleep."

- You miss the days when everything worked with just an "ON" and "OFF" switch.

- You tend to use more four-letter words: "what?" "when?" "where?"

- Now that you can afford expensive jewelry, it´s not safe to wear it anywhere.

- You notice everything they sell in stores is "sleeveless."

- What used to be freckles are now liver spots.

- Everybody whispers.

- You have three sizes of clothes in your closet ... two of which you will never wear.

- But old is good in some things: old songs, old movies, and best of all, old friends!

Stay well, old friends! Send this on to other old friends and let them laugh in agreement!

SUGGESTED SITES

Barbara Wear sends this link to a video of the fountains of Dubai dancing to the music of Sarah Brightman and Andrea Bocelli as they sing "Time to Say Goodby:"

Tom Telfer forwards the URL for a video of Darci Lynne, a 12-year-old ventriloquist, performing at America´s Got Talent:

Tom also sends this link to a video of the San Diego State women´s golf team showing off their trick shots and skills:

This video tells the story of Africa´s elephant queen in Kenya, who has been rescuing baby elephant orphans for fifty years:

For 4K ultra GHD videos of amazing places on our planet, click here:

This school police officer adopted a six-year-old boy who was seen as unadoptable:

Curtis Carmichael biked across Canada to bring the stigma of living in social housing to the notice of Canadians who were not aware of the problem:

This site tells us how long it takes ordinary household trash to decompose, and suggests that salvage is the best option:

Here are 14 funny church signs: