1000
Marbles
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 whomever 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.
"No, 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 sack 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 focus 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.
75year 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....
"If you live to be a hundred, I want to live to be a
hundred minus one day, so I never have to live without
you." -Winnie the Pooh
