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 basement shack 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 whoever 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. 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 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 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 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. 75 year Old Man, this
is 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. Hey, can we stop at a toy store while we're out?
I
need to buy some marbles." |