Home  >> Stories  >> The Tale Spinner #2018-22

---

IN THIS ISSUE

• An anonymous writer owes a lot to a caring stranger
• Irene Harvalias sends a story worthy of forwarding
• Barbara Wear forwards a tale about a British explorer
• Catherine Nesbitt shares this account of a high school reunion
• Here´s an oldie but goodie, IMO
• The editor has a question for you
• Tom Telfer suggests an interesting site

In Heroic Stories, an anonymous author realizes that

SHE DIDN´T HAVE TO CARE

I am a divorced 26-year-old, a single mother of one four-year-old son who is precocious but has a speech problem. Until August of 2006, we were renting a second home my mother owns. Normally, you would assume that things would work out well with such an arrangement - but you see, my mother is a severe alcoholic.

Mother decided to sell her primary home and move into the rental home we´re living in. So now we have to go. There is limited time for us to find a place to live.

It´s made harder, since my credit is a ruin that would cause most people to look down on me.

I have a good job that I´ve been with for years. But between bills and other expenses, it has been difficult and slow going to pay off the debts my ex-husband incurred that looped me into debt.

I went to a local apartment complex and met a wonderful woman I´ll call "Alice." She understood the situation, though I left out the bit about my mother´s alcoholism. Alice had been divorced when she was my age and had young children at that time (all grown now, of course). We had a chat together, and Alice made me easily smile in a time where there is a lot of stress.

When my credit check came back, Alice´s manager denied my application. I will not be able to get that apartment. I was crushed; but this was not the first denial so I guess it wasn´t totally unexpected.

I offered more deposit, but there was nothing Alice could do to change the situation. Then the following day I got an e-mail.

It was from Alice, who must have gotten my e-mail off the application. She had attached a list of local apartment complexes for me to call. The day after that, I got another e-mail with a few more leads.

Later that day, Alice sent an e-mail saying that if my mother continues to be unreasonable with allowing us to remain, her family will gladly help us with a place to stay for short-term.

I think I cried.

As of late August, I haven´t found a place yet, but this one woman has given me a great deal of hope.

I´m a perfect stranger to her. She only knows me from a few conversations and very few e-mails. Yet, she and her family would open their hearts and homes for my son and me - I´m not used to that. My mother has even required stipulations for us to stay in her house that have made me uncomfortable.

However, this one woman has reached out and cares. Words cannot truly express what this means to me, and I can only hope Alice sees this story as a way of thanks.

She didn´t have to care ... but she did.

E-mail subscriptions to HeroicStories are free. Sign up here: HeroicStories.org.

Irene Harvalias claims that this is

ONE OF THE BEST E-MAILS I HAVE EVER READ

At the end you will have two choices. What would you do?....you make the choice. Don´t look for a punch line - there isn´t one. Read it anyway. My question is: Would you have made the same choice?

At a fundraising dinner for a school that serves children with learning disabilities, the father of one of the students delivered a speech that would never be forgotten by all who attended. After extolling the school and its dedicated staff, he offered a question:

"When not interfered with by outside influences, everything nature does is done with perfection. Yet my son, Shay, cannot learn things as other children do. He cannot understand things as other children do. Where is the natural order of things in my son?"

The audience was stilled by the query.

The father continued. "I believe that when a child like Shay, who is mentally and physically disabled, comes into the world, an opportunity to realize true human nature presents itself, and it comes in the way other people treat that child."

Then he told the following story: Shay and I had walked past a park where some boys Shay knew were playing baseball. Shay asked, "Do you think they´ll let me play?" I knew that most of the boys would not want someone like Shay on their team, but as a father, I also understood that if my son were allowed to play, it would give him a much-needed sense of belonging and some confidence to be accepted by others in spite of his handicaps.

I approached one of the boys on the field and asked (not expecting much) if Shay could play. The boy looked around for guidance and said, "We´re losing by six runs and the game is in the eighth inning. I guess he can be on our team and we´ll try to put him in to bat in the ninth inning."

Shay struggled over to the team´s bench, and with a broad smile, put on a team shirt. I watched with a small tear in my eye and warmth in my heart. The boys saw my joy at my son´s being accepted.

In the bottom of the eighth inning, Shay´s team scored a few runs but was still behind by three. In the top of the ninth inning, Shay put on a glove and played in the right field. Even though no hits came his way, he was obviously ecstatic just to be in the game and on the field, grinning from ear to ear as I waved to him from the stands.

In the bottom of the ninth inning, Shay´s team scored again. Now, with two outs and the bases loaded, the potential winning run was on base, and Shay was scheduled to be next at bat. At this juncture, do they let Shay bat and give away their chance to win the game? Surprisingly, Shay was given the bat.

Everyone knew that a hit was all but impossible because Shay didn´t even know how to hold the bat properly, much less connect with the ball. However, as Shay stepped up to the plate, the pitcher, recognizing that the other team was putting winning aside for this moment in Shay´s life, moved in a few steps to lob the ball in softly so Shay could at least make contact.

The first pitch came and Shay swung clumsily and missed. The pitcher again took a few steps forward to toss the ball softly towards Shay. As the pitch came in, Shay swung at the ball and hit a slow ground ball right back to the pitcher. The game would now be over.

The pitcher picked up the soft grounder and could have easily thrown the ball to the first baseman. Shay would have been out and that would have been the end of the game. Instead, the pitcher threw the ball right over the first baseman´s head, out of reach of all teammates.

Everyone from the stands and both teams started yelling, "Shay, run to first! Run to first!"

Never in his life had Shay ever run that far, but he made it to first base. He scampered down the baseline, wide-eyed and startled.

Everyone yelled, "Run to second, run to second!"

Catching his breath, Shay awkwardly ran towards second, gleaming and struggling to make it to the base. By the time Shay rounded towards second base, the right fielder had the ball. The smallest guy on their team had his first chance to be the hero for his team. He could have thrown the ball to the second-baseman for the tag, but he understood the pitcher´s intentions so he, too, intentionally threw the ball high and far over the third-baseman´s head.

Shay ran toward third base deliriously as the runners ahead of him circled the bases toward home. All were screaming, "Shay, Shay, Shay, all the way, Shay!"

Shay reached third base because the opposing shortstop ran to help him by turning him in the direction of third base, and shouted, "Run to third! Shay, run to third!"

As Shay rounded third, the boys from both teams and the spectators were on their feet screaming, "Shay, run home! Run home!"

Shay ran to home, stepped on the plate, and was cheered as the hero who hit the grand slam and won the game for his team.

"That day", said the father softly with tears now rolling down his face, "the boys from both teams helped bring a piece of true love and humanity into this world.

Shay didn´t make it to another summer. He died that winter, having never forgotten being the hero and making me so happy, and coming home and seeing his mother tearfully embrace her little hero of the day!

And now a little footnote to this story:

We all send thousands of jokes through the e-mail without a second thought, but when it comes to sending messages about life choices, people hesitate. The crude, vulgar, and often obscene pass freely through cyberspace, but public discussion about decency is too often suppressed in our schools and workplaces.

If you´re thinking about forwarding this message, chances are that you´re probably sorting out the people in your address book who aren´t the "appropriate" ones to receive this type of message. Well, the person who sent you this believes that we all can make a difference.

We all have thousands of opportunities every single day to help realize the "natural order of things." So many seemingly trivial interactions between two people present us with a choice: Do we pass along a little spark of love and humanity, or do we pass up those opportunities and leave the world a little bit colder in the process?

A wise man once said, Every society is judged by how it treats the least fortunate amongst them. You now have two choices:

1. Delete. 2. Forward.

May your day be a Shay Day.

Barbara Wear sends this story of

A BRITISH EXPLORER

A famous British explorer was invited to a seaside town to give a talk about his adventures in the African jungle.

"Can you imagine a people so primitive that they love to eat the embryos of a certain bird and slices of the belly of a certain animal?" the explorer asked the assembled audience.

Its members gasped and looked around at each other in horror.

"They also grind up grass seed, make it into a paste, burn it over a fire, then smear the result with a greasy mess that´s extracted from the mammary fluid of certain other animals," the explorer continued.

"Utterly barbaric! How can people live like that?" said a lone voice.

"All I´ve described is a breakfast of bacon, eggs, and buttered toast, sir!" retorted the explorer.

Moral of the story: Don´t be quick to judge cultures before you understand your own!

Catherine Nesbitt forwards this touching story of

THE 60TH HIGH SCHOOL REUNION

He was a widower and she a widow. They had known each other for a number of years, having been high school classmates and having attended class reunions in the past, without fail.

This 60th anniversary of their class, the widower and the widow made a foursome with two other singles. They had a wonderful evening, their spirits high, with the widower throwing admiring glances across the table, and the widow smiling coyly back at him.

Finally during one dance, he picked up courage to ask her, "Will you marry me? "

After about six seconds of careful consideration, she answered, "Yes! Yes I will!"

Needless to say, the evening ended on a happy note for the widower.

However, the next morning he was troubled. Did she say yes or did she say no? He couldn´t remember. Try as he would, he just could not recall. He went over and over the conversation of the previous evening, but his mind was blank. He remembered asking the question, but for the life of him could not recall her response.

With fear and trepidation, he picked up the phone and called her. First, he explained that he couldn´t remember as well as he used to. Then he reviewed the past evening. As he gained a little more courage, he then inquired of her, "When I asked if you would marry me, did you say yes or did you say no?"

"Why you silly man," she replied, "I said yes. Yes I will! And I meant it with all my heart!"

The widower was delighted. He felt his heart skip a beat.

Then she continued. "And I´m so glad you called, because I couldn´t remember who asked me."

THE TALKING DOG

A man sees a sign in front of a house: "Talking Dog Free to Good Home."

He rings the bell and the owner tells him the dog is in the back yard. The man goes into the back yard and sees a mutt sitting there.

"You talk?" he asks.

"Yep," the mutt replies.

"So what´s your story?"

The mutt looks up and says, "Well, I discovered this gift pretty young, and I wanted to help the government, so I told the CIA about my gift, and in no time they had me jetting from country to country, sitting in rooms with spies and world leaders, ´cause no-one figure a dog would be eavesdropping. I was one of their most valuable spies eight years running.

"The jetting around really tired me out, and I knew I wasn´t getting any younger and I wanted to settle down. So I signed up for a job at the airport to do some undercover security work, mostly wandering near suspicious characters and listening in. I uncovered some incredible dealings there and was awarded a batch of medals.

"Had a wife, a mess of puppies, and now I´m just retired."

The man is floored, but says to the owner, "This dog is amazing! Incredible! Why on earth are you giving him away?"

The owner replies, "He´s such a liar!"

FROM THE EDITOR´S DESKTOP

Did you notice the similarity between Irene´s story and the Heroic Story in the last issue? Both were about baseball games, and both about inept players being allowed to take part in the games, but the conclusions were exactly opposite.

In the Heroic Story, David, who was developmentally developed, was allowed to play in a tied game, and no allowances were made for his condition, and he struck out, allowing the opposing team to win.

In Irene´s story, Shay, also with physical and mental disabilities, was also allowed to play in the last inning. However, in this story, with the score tied, the opposing pitcher lobbed soft balls to Shay, who finally hit a grounder toward the pitcher. The pitcher tossed it over the head of the first baseman, and Shay, with the encouragement of the onlookers and all the players, ran to first. Each baseman in turn tossed the ball high so it couldn´t be caught, and Shay reached home safely. The opposing team lost the game, but obviously they thought it was worth the loss because it made Shaw so happy.

The conclusion in the Heroic Story was that rules should be followed, no matter what is at stake. In Shay´s story, the team thought the game was well lost for humanitarian reasons. Which message do you agree with?

SUGGESTED SITES

Tom Telfer sends this link to a Facebook site that shows a gymnast performing an amazing cheerleader routine:

If you are as furious as we on the West coast are at the Federal Government´s spending billions of Canadian dollar for a 65-year-old pipeline, read this opinion piece by a reporter who has been writing about the energy industry for two decades:

Check out this Canadian site which covers the important news stories from sea to sea. Incensed by the purchase of an oil pipeline? Surprised by Alberta´s approval of oilsands tailings ponds that don´t follow provincial rules? Concerned by the deaths of right whales in the St. Lawrence River? The Narwhal covers all these stories and more:

This video discusses the five most powerful families that secretly control the world. Some people believe that they have the order reversed, but either way is informative:

The unearthed fossil bones of a three-foot-tall human have been found on the Indonesian island of Flores. For an introduction to this fascinating subject, click on this site:

Dog waste can be used to create energy. This site tells about organizations who are turning waste into power:

In this TED talk in Toronto, Nick Saul talks about solutions to the problems of poverty and hunger in Canada: