Saturday, September 29, 2012
Thursday, September 27, 2012
Famous Quotes
Sometimes, when I look at my children, I say to
myself, 'Lillian, you should have remained a virgin..'
- Lillian Carter (mother of Jimmy Carter)
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I had a rose named after me and I was very flattered.
But I was not pleased to read the description in the catalog: - 'No good in a
bed, but fine against a wall.'
- Eleanor Roosevelt
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Last week, I stated this woman was the ugliest woman I
had ever seen. I have since been visited by her sister, and now wish to
withdraw that statement..
- Mark Twain
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The secret of a good sermon is to have a good
beginning and a good ending; and to have the two as close together as possible
- George Burns
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Santa Claus has the right idea. Visit people only once
a year.
- Victor Borge
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Be careful about reading health books. You may die of
a misprint.
- Mark Twain
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By all means, marry. If you get a good wife, you'll
become happy; if you get a bad one, you'll become a philosopher.
- Socrates
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I was married by a judge. I should have asked for a
jury.
- Groucho Marx
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My wife has a slight impediment in her speech. Every
now and then she stops to breathe.
- Jimmy Durante
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I have never hated a man enough to give his diamonds
back.
- Zsa Zsa Gabor
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Only Irish coffee provides in a single glass all four
essential food groups: alcohol, caffeine, sugar, and fat.
- Alex Levine
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My luck is so bad that if I bought a cemetery, people
would stop dying.
- Rodney Dangerfield
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Money can't buy you happiness .... But it does bring
you a more pleasant form of misery.
- Spike Milligan
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Until I was thirteen, I thought my name was SHUT UP .
- Joe Namath
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I don't feel old. I don't feel anything until noon.
Then it's time for my nap.
- Bob Hope
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I never drink water because of the disgusting things
that fish do in it..
- W. C. Fields
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We could certainly slow the aging process down if it
had to work its way through Congress.
- Will Rogers
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Don't worry about avoiding temptation. As you grow
older, it will avoid you.
- Winston Churchill
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Maybe it's true that life begins at fifty .. But
everything else starts to wear out, fall out, or spread out..
- Phyllis Diller
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By the time a man is wise enough to watch his step,
he's too old to go anywhere.
- Billy Crystal
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And the cardiologist's diet: - If it tastes good, spit
it out.
Thursday, September 6, 2012
Old Guy and a Bucket of Shrimp
This is a true story. Hope you appreciate it and want to pass it along. A bit of American history, worth reading:
It
happened every Friday evening, almost without fail, when the sun resembled a
giant orange and was starting to dip into the blue ocean. Old Ed came strolling
along the beach to his favorite pier. Clutched in his bony hand was a bucket of
shrimp. Ed walks out to the end of the pier, where it seems he almost has the
world to himself. The glow of the sun is a golden bronze now.
Everybody's gone, except for a few joggers on the beach. Standing out on the end of the pier, Ed is alone with his thoughts...and his bucket of shrimp. Before long, however, he is no longer alone. Up in the sky a thousand white dots come screeching and squawking, winging their way toward that lanky frame standing there on the end of the pier.
Before
long, dozens of seagulls have enveloped him, their wings fluttering and
flapping wildly. Ed stands there tossing shrimp to the hungry birds. As he
does, if you listen closely, you can hear him say with a smile, 'Thank
you. Thank you.'
In
a few short minutes the bucket is empty. But Ed doesn't leave. He stands there
lost in thought, as though transported to another time and place. And old
Ed quietly makes his way down to the end of the beach and on home.
If
you were sitting there on the pier with your fishing line in the water, Ed
might seem like 'a funny old duck,' as my dad used to say. Or, 'a guy who's a
sandwich shy of a picnic,' as my kids might say. To onlookers, he's just
another old codger, lost in his own weird world, feeding the seagulls with a
bucket full of shrimp.
To
the onlooker, rituals can look either very strange or very empty. They can seem
altogether unimportant .... maybe even a lot of nonsense. Old folks often do strange
things, at least in the eyes of Boomers and Busters. Most of them would
probably write Old Ed off, down there in Florida.
That's too bad. They'd do well to know him better.
His
full name: Eddie Rickenbacker. He was a famous hero back in
World War I. On one of his flying missions across the Pacific, he and his
seven-member crew went down. Miraculously, all of the men survived, crawled out
of their plane, and climbed into a life raft.
Captain Rickenbacker and his crew floated
for days on the rough waters of the Pacific. They fought the sun. They fought
sharks. Most of all, they fought hunger. By the eighth day their rations ran
out. No food. No water. They were hundreds of miles from land and no one knew
where they were.
They needed a miracle. That afternoon they had a simple devotional service and prayed for a miracle. They tried to nap. Eddie leaned back and pulled his military cap over his nose. Time dragged. All he could hear was the slap of the waves against the raft. Suddenly, Eddie felt something land on the top of his cap. It was a seagull!
Old
Ed would later describe how he sat perfectly still, planning his next move.
With a flash of his hand and a squawk from the gull, he managed to grab it and
wring its neck. He tore the feathers off, and he and his starving crew made a
meal - a very slight meal for eight men - of it. Then they used the intestines
for bait. With it, they caught fish, which gave them food and more
bait.......and the cycle continued. With that simple survival technique, they
were able to endure the rigors of the sea until they were found and rescued
(after 24 days at sea...).
Eddie Rickenbacker lived many years beyond that ordeal, but he never forgot the sacrifice of that first life-saving seagull... And he never stopped saying, 'Thank you.' That's why almost every Friday night he would walk to the end of the pier with a bucket full of shrimp and a heart full of gratitude.
Reference:
Max
Lucado, "In The Eye of the Storm", pp..221, 225-226)
PS:
Eddie started Eastern Airlines.
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