radioham

'Count your marbles'

This was sent to me and it is very good food for the mind. It is a radio
amateur story but I am sure we can substitute our own hobbies in there.

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 focussed 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.

So there

The moral of the story is clear. Don't lose your marbles and you'll live
forever!


jim