LOVED ONE'S LOST

LAST UPDATE:  Wednesday, 21. January 2009 04:47 PM -0500    PAGE HITS

A friend who lives by a three-word philosophy: "Seize the moment."
Just  possibly, she may be the wisest woman on this planet. Too many people
put off  something that brings them joy just because they haven't thought
about it,  don't have it on their schedule, didn't know it was coming or
are too rigid  to depart from their routine.

I got to thinking one day about all those  women on the Titanic who passed
up dessert at dinner that fateful night in an  effort to cut back. From then
on, I've tried to be a little more  flexible.

How many women out there will eat at home because their husband  didn't
suggest going out to dinner until after something had been  thawed? Does
the word "refrigeration" mean nothing to you?

How  often have your kids dropped in to talk and sat in silence while you
watched  Jeopardy! On television?

I cannot count the times I called my sister and  said, "How about going to
lunch in a half hour?" She would gasp and stammer,  "I can't. I have
clothes on the line. My hair is dirty. I wish I had known  yesterday, I had
a late breakfast, it looks like rain." And my personal  favorite: "It's Monday."
She died a few years ago. We never did have  lunch together.

Because Americans cram so much into their lives, we tend  to schedule our
headaches. We live on a sparse diet of promises we make to  ourselves when
all the conditions are perfect.

We'll go back and visit  the grandparents when we get Stevie
toilet-trained.  We'll entertain when we  replace the living-room carpet.
We'll go on a second honeymoon when we  get two more kids out of college.

Life has a way of accelerating, as we  get older. The days get shorter, and
the list of promises to ourselves gets  longer. One morning, we awaken, and
all we have to show for our lives is a  litany of "I'm going to," "I plan
on" and "Someday, when things are settled  down a bit."

When anyone calls my 'seize the moment' friend, she is open  to adventure
and available for trips. She keeps an open mind on new ideas.  Her enthusiasm
for life is contagious. You talk with her for five minutes,  and you're ready
to trade your bad feet for a pair of Roller blades and skip  an elevator for
a bungee cord.

My lips have not touched ice cream in  10 years. I love ice cream. It's
just that I might as well apply it  directly to my hips with a spatula and
eliminate the digestive process. The  other day, I stopped the car and
bought a triple-decker. If my car had hit an  iceberg on the way home, I
would have died happy.

Now...go on and have  a nice day. Do something you WANT to...not something
on your SHOULD DO  list.

If you were going to die soon and had only one phone call you could  make,
whom would you call and what would you say? And why are you  waiting?
 

IN LOVING MEMORY
 

Maurice John Miles

Born on May 4th, 1967 in Waupun, Wisconsin.  He died April 30th from Asthma complications.

UNCLE VINCENT CLARK

1915 - 2000

Vincent Wilber Clark was born on November 24th, 1915 in Iowa.  He died on September 28th, 2000 in San Damis, California.   He was one of five Uncles that played the roll of "Dad" to me after my Dad left our family.

I remember the day he came over to our house and he had two jars of "some kind of chemical", a one pound coffee can and a stick.  He told me he had something special to show me and started to open one of the jars. He poured a little of the first substance in the coffee can.  Then he poured about an equal amount of the second substance and began to stir them together in the coffee can. After a couple minutes of stirring he told me to put my hands around the can.   So I did not knowing what to expect.  What I felt was heat, and he was getting hotter and hotter to the point where I had to let go.  I asked him what make the can hot.  He said it was the chemical reaction taking place inside the can.  I looked into the can and there was a white foam growing inside the can.  He kept growing and growing until it started to spill over the edges of the coffee can. Then all of a sudden it stopped growing. Uncle Vincent told me that we had to wait a while and let it cool.  Once it was cool, he picked it up, turned it over and pulled off the coffee can.  What he had made was a Styrofoam mushroom and I thought that was the neatest thing since color cartoons.  I kept the mushroom in my bedroom for many years.

I will miss you a lot Uncle Vincent.   See you someday in Heaven.