A Thousand 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
hand 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 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."

HAVE A GREAT WEEKEND AND MAY ALL SATURDAYS BE SPECIAL!