a thought

[the last engineer]

I'm not sure if any of you have seen or read this before, if not grab a cup of tea and park your rear for a couple of mins, my mrs (the special needs teacher :*) )sent this throught for me to read, this after the last few months of absolute mayhem at work were i come home absolutly shot and wasted and promptly fall akip on the sofa. take a minute to read, it stopped me in my tracks and put my math head into gear :*) :*) :*) see what you think, of cource the younger of you guys will scoff, take heed time waits for no-one

 

Martin

 

 

A few weeks ago, I was shuffling toward the basement

with a steaming cup of coffee in one hand and the morning paper in the other. 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. 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 roundup 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."

[Nildes]

I'll bet he stepped out of his radio shack door, slipped on a pile of marbles and broke his neck?

 

Nice story though

[new to the flock]

One of the main reasons I work from home now.

 

I use to work 10 days on 4 days off, not abad shift but the 10 on were away from home. Got tired of missing my Littles and my Wife so left the job. Most can't understand why I turn invites down to go away fishing or hunting...well its because I can do the same right out my back door, with my three lads, and be home in time to cook dinner for my wife. The kids dont care if we are only catching catfish or hunting squirrels just so long as we are out. They dont mind when we go away once or twice a year now for a week or two.

 

Best bit of advice I ever got was:

 

They only want to be with you for so long.

 

NTTF

 

P.S.

 

I LOST my marbles ages ago....

[henry d]

Why not get really morbid,go to the beach or river and collect a palm sized rock for every year you have left until you are 3 score years and 15 and if you are really lucky that is how many seasons you have left to shoot your favourite birds and beasts.

 

 

 

On the up side........why don`t you get 365marbles x (75 minus your age) and that......................................is how many times you can visit PW before you drop off your perch

[henry d]

O.K. Mrs.HD and myself have just had a discussion about this and our impending 25th wedding anniversary(April)and we understand that there are few years left ahead of us,but we are so happy that we have a milestone and something to boost the last few years of the older members of our family.

So we are quite happy to see the pebbles disappear slowly as the years go by.Don`t worry about it ........ENJOY IT........you have only got one.

 

 

 

 

end of sermon

[lurcherboy]

But some of us want to get away from the family TLE every weekend

 

Nice point you made though I will take it into consideration the next time around.

 

 

 

 

 

LB