Home  >> Stories  >> The Tale Spinner #2018-28

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IN THIS ISSUE

• The daughter of an alcoholic remembers how a seed was planted
• Carol Dilworth writes an article about soccer
• Barbara Wear forwards some powerful short stories
• Catherine Nesbitt reminds us of the old Burma Shave signs
• Barbara Wear, Catherine Nesbitt, Kate Brookfield, and Tom Telfer suggest sites

In this Heroic Story, "The Daughter" from Mission Bay, California, remembers how

A SEED WAS PLANTED

I was 17 and my life was on the cusp of falling apart. My parents were in the middle of a divorce. My father was an alcoholic, in and out of recovery, suicide attempts, and weird relationships with girls barely older than I was. When I came home at night, I might be the one to turn off the stereo and cover him with a blanket, as he was passed out on the couch. Little did I know I was going to spend ten years making things worse all by myself - years of doing drugs, drinking, messing up jobs, and dropping out of college. On several occasions I could have died from my stupidity.

My father´s best friend was a teacher at the local community college, helping the kids who came out of high school yet still couldn´t read. He was about 55, with seven children of his own. He had been sober for about 10 years at the time, and was trying to help my father.

One day he took time out of his life to try to help me. He picked me up and we drove to a meeting at a community centre about 15 miles away. I had known this man most of my life, but I was nervous, not knowing what to expect. He told me that he thought these people might be able to help me deal with my father. I walked up to the building and there must have been over 60 people there.

It was a new group of people for me - people whose parents were alcoholics. They talked about how that made them feel and how they dealt with it. They spoke from the heart about things I had never heard people discuss. I spent most of that hour-and-a-half trying not to cry.

He must have thought that he had failed, for I couldn´t go back to another of those meetings. You see, I felt so alone and so hurt. The isolation I had created to protect myself helped keep the pain manageable. I could tell that these people understood how I felt. If I were to get too close to them, it would have broken though my shell, and I didn´t believe I could handle that kind of anguish.

The seed was planted, though. I didn´t return to that group of people, but I found others like them. Today it has been 10 years since I last touched any alcohol or drugs. My daughter has never seen me drunk and never will. I went back and finished that college degree. I have a full life and I appreciate deeply the joy of just being who I am. Pain and anguish don´t rule my life any more.

He had seven kids of his own and hundreds more at school, but he took time out of his busy life to plant a seed … and save a life.

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Carol Dilworth writes about

SOCCER

I´ve been following the World Cup and Wimbledon is just beginning; that´s where people´s attention may be focussed.

I created a World Cup spreadsheet, with comparison to four years ago regarding which countries qualified. Those who missed the details may enjoy it and can write to me at cdilworth@bell.net for a copy of the spreadsheet.

Commentators are saying that the 2018 World Cup is the best one ever. It´s been full of surprises, with the usual winners being knocked out, some fairly early. The final is France versus either Croatia or England (which in itself is a surprise). Apparently English fans are streaming to Russia.

A young lady who lives near me and is fifteen years old hopes to play for Canada in the under-17 international soccer tournament in Uruguay in November. I haven´t met her yet but some of the children along my paper route know her - her photo was on the front page of last Thursday´s edition. She´s home only briefly because she attends a secondary school that´s affiliated with her sports training.

The women´s World Cup is next year in France. Our superstar Christine Sinclair is Canada´s captain and has scored 173 goals for Canada. The world record for goals scored for a country is 186, held by the (retired) American Abby Wambach, so Christine is already second in the world (no man has scored that many goals for his country). There were 22,000 of us who watched Christine score #173 a few weeks ago when Canada played a friendly game against Germany in Hamilton, a forty-five minute drive from my home. The game was sold out and I am hopeful that this bodes well for women´s soccer so that the salaries begin to rise. I gather that the spread between men´s and women´s salaries is astronomical. I must say that if Christine were a man and the sport was hockey, the entire country would know about her (him). I hope we can spread the word and help fix this. In January, Christine was made an Officer of the Order of Canada, so fortunately some people are watching.

Christine is also captain of her professional team, the Portland Thorns, so I take my nephew and his family to a game when I visit them. The toddler has already been to two games and the new baby was almost born in the stands! (The weekend was exciting and he arrived two days later, almost three weeks early and over eight pounds!)

Barbara Wear forwards some

POWERFUL VERY SHORT STORIES

These short stories make us think twice about the daily happenings in our lives as we deal with others.

Today, I interviewed my grandmother for part of a research paper I´m working on for my psychology class. When I asked her to define success in her own words, she said, "Success is when you look back at your life and the memories make you smile."

I asked my mentor, a very successful businessman in his 70s, what his top three tips were for success. He smiled and said, "Read something no one else is reading, think something no one else is thinking, and do something no one else is doing."

After my 72-hour shift at the fire station, a woman ran up to me at the grocery store and gave me a hug. When I tensed up, she realized I didn´t recognize her. She let go with tears of joy in her eyes and the most sincere smile and said, "On 9-11-2001, you carried me out of the World Trade Centre."

After I watched my dog get run over by a car, I sat on the side of the road holding him and crying. And just before he died, he licked the tears off my face.

Today at 7:00 a.m., I woke up feeling ill, but decided I needed the money, so I went into work. At 3:00 p.m. I was laid off. On my drive home I got a flat tire. When I went into the trunk for the spare, it was flat too.

A man in a BMW pulled over, gave me a ride, we chatted, and then he offered me a job. I start tomorrow.

As my father, three brothers, and two sisters stood around my mother´s hospital bed, my mother uttered her last coherent words before she died. She simply said, "I feel so loved right now. We should have gotten together like this more often."

I kissed my dad on the forehead as he passed away in a small hospital bed. About five seconds after he passed, I realized it was the first time I had given him a kiss since I was a little boy.

In the cutest voice, my eight-year-old daughter asked me to start recycling. I chuckled and asked, "Why?" She replied, "So you can help me save the planet." I chuckled again and asked, "And why do you want to save the planet?" "Because that´s where I keep all my stuff," she said.

When I witnessed a 27-year-old breast cancer patient laughing hysterically at her two-year-old daughter´s antics, I suddenly realized that I need to stop complaining about my life and start celebrating it again.

A boy in a wheelchair saw me desperately struggling on crutches with my broken leg and offered to carry my backpack and books for me. He helped me all the way across campus to my class and as he was leaving he said, "I hope you feel better soon."

I was feeling down because the results of a biopsy came back malignant. When I got home, I opened an e-mail that said, "Thinking of you today. If you need me, I´m a phone call away." It was from a high school friend I hadn´t seen in 10 years.

I was traveling in Kenya and I met a refugee from Zimbabwe. He said he hadn´t eaten anything in over three days and looked extremely skinny and unhealthy. Then my friend offered him the rest of the sandwich he was eating. The first thing the man said was, "We can share it."

The best sermons are lived, not preached.

Catherine Nesbitt reminds us of the old

BURMA SHAVE SIGNS

For those who never saw any of the Burma Shave signs, here is a quick lesson in the history of the 1930s and ´40s. Before there were interstates, when everyone drove the old two-lane roads, Burma Shave signs would be posted all over the countryside in farmers´ fields. They were small red signs with white letters. Five signs, about 100 feet apart, each containing one line of a four-line couplet and the obligatory fifth sign advertising Burma Shave, a popular shaving cream.

DON'T STICK YOUR ELBOW
OUT SO FAR
IT MAY GO HOME
IN ANOTHER CAR.
Burma Shave

TRAINS DON'T WANDER
ALL OVER THE MAP
'CAUSE NOBODY SITS
IN THE ENGINEER'S LAP.
Burma Shave

SHE KISSED THE HAIRBRUSH
BY MISTAKE
SHE THOUGHT IT WAS
HER HUSBAND JAKE.
Burma Shave

DON'T LOSE YOUR HEAD
TO GAIN A MINUTE
YOU NEED YOUR HEAD
YOUR BRAINS ARE IN IT.
Burma Shave

DROVE TOO LONG
DRIVER SNOOZING
WHAT HAPPENED NEXT
IS NOT AMUSING.
Burma Shave

BROTHER SPEEDER
LET'S REHEARSE
ALL TOGETHER
GOOD MORNING, NURSE.
Burma Shave

CAUTIOUS RIDER
TO HER RECKLESS DEAR
LET'S HAVE LESS BULL
AND A LITTLE MORE STEER.
Burma Shave

SPEED WAS HIGH
WEATHER WAS NOT
TIRES WERE THIN
X MARKS THE SPOT.
Burma Shave

THE MIDNIGHT RIDE
OF PAUL FOR BEER
LED TO A WARMER
HEMISPHERE.
Burma Shave

AROUND THE CURVE
LICKETY-SPLIT
BEAUTIFUL CAR
WASN'T IT?
Burma Shave

NO MATTER THE PRICE
NO MATTER HOW NEW
THE BEST SAFETY DEVICE
IN THE CAR IS YOU.
Burma Shave

A GUY WHO DRIVES
A CAR WIDE OPEN
IS NOT THINKIN'
HE'S JUST HOPING
Burma Shave

AT INTERSECTIONS
LOOK EACH WAY
A HARP SOUNDS NICE
BUT IT'S HARD TO PLAY
Burma Shave

BOTH HANDS ON THE WHEEL
EYES ON THE ROAD
THAT'S THE SKILLFUL
DRIVER'S CODE
Burma Shave

THE ONE WHO DRIVES
WHEN HE'S BEEN DRINKING
DEPENDS ON YOU
TO DO HIS THINKING.
Burma Shave

CAR IN DITCH
DRIVER IN TREE
THE MOON WAS FULL
AND SO WAS HE.
Burma Shave

PASSING SCHOOL ZONE
TAKE IT SLOW
LET OUR LITTLE
SHAVERS GROW.
Burma Shave

Do these bring back any old memories? If not, you´re merely a child. If they do - then you´re old as dirt, like me! I loved reading them. Have a great day!

SUGGESTED SITES

Barbara Wear forwards this link to spectacular photos of the Grand Canyon which show the results of millions of years of erosion:

Catherine Nesbitt shares spectacular video of many beautiful places in the world:

Kate Brookfield posted this message on her Facebook page about the war on the future of our world:

Tom Telfer forwards the URL for stunning photos of Germany from above:

More than 250 people participated in a ´feelgood´ stunt one morning during rush hour at the Central Station in Antwerp, Belgium:

This video shows some of the most bizarre and surprising animal friendships:

And here is a video of heartwarming animal reunions with their former owners:

In this TED talk, Pamela Meyer explains how to spot when someone is lying: