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.
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 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 roundup 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
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 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."
HAVE A GREAT WEEK AND MAY ALL YOUR SATURDAYS BE
SPECIAL!