[Humor] 1,000 marbles

Mon Nov 13 16:47:47 PST 2006

Ramona passes this one along.

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 garage 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 whom-ever 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. It's too bad you  missed your daughter's "dance recital" he
continued. "Let  me tell you something that has helped me keep 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 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 that 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. This is a 75
Year old Man, 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.  And hey, can we stop at a toy
store while we're out?  I need to buy some marbles.