Subj:     Cute Stories (Gz)                  (Includes 7 jokes and articles)

Story Book from Blaufalkes Bonepage

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Subj:     Walking And Left Turns (S564)
          From: darrellvip on 11/11/2007

 This is a wonderful piece by Michael Gartner, editor of
 newspapers large and small and president of NBC News.  In
 1997, he won the Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing.  It
 is well worth reading, and a few good chuckles are guaranteed.

 My  father never drove a car.  Well, that's not quite right.
 I should say, I  never saw him drive a car.  He quit driving
 in 1927, when he was 25 years old, and the last car he drove
 was a 1926 Whippet.

 In  those days, he told me when he was in his 90s, to drive
 a car you had to do things with your hands, and do things
 with your feet, and look every  which way, and I decided you
 could walk through life and enjoy it or drive through life
 and miss it.  At which point my mother, a sometimes salty
 Irishwoman, chimed in: 'Oh,bull----!' she said.  'He hit a
 horse.'  'Well,' my father said, 'there was that, too.'

 So my brother and I grew up in a household without a car.
 The neighbors all had cars -- the Kollingses next door had
 a green 1941 Dodge, the VanLaninghams across the street a
 gray 1936 Plymouth, the Hopsons two doors down a black 1941
 Ford -- but we had none.

 My father, a newspaperman in Des Moines, would take the
 streetcar to work and, often as not, walk the 3 miles home.
 If he took the streetcar home, my mother and brother and I
 would walk the three blocks to the streetcar stop, meet him
 and walk home together.

 My brother, David, was born in 1935, and I was born in 1938,
 and sometimes, at dinner, we'd ask how come all the neighbors
 had cars but we had none.  'No one in the family drives,' my
 mother would explain, and that was that.  But, sometimes, my
 father would say, 'But as soon as one of you boys turns 17,
 we'll get one.'  It was as if he wasn't sure which one of us
 would turn 17 first.

 But, sure enough, my brother turned 17 before I did, so in
 1951 my parents bought a used 1950 Chevrolet from a friend
 who ran the parts department at a Chevy dealership downtown.
 It was a four-door, white model, stick shift, fender skirts,
 loaded with everything, and, since my parents didn't drive,
 it more or less became my brother's car.

 Having a car but not being able to drive didn't bother my
 father, but it didn't make sense to my mother.  So in 1952,
 when she was 43 years old, she asked a friend to teach her
 to drive.  She learned in a nearby cemetery, the place where
 I learned to drive the following year and where, a generation
 later, I took my two sons to practice driving.  The cemetery
 probably was my father's idea. 'Who can your mother hurt in
 the cemetery?'  I remember him saying more than once.

 For the next 45 years or so, until she was 90, my mother was
 the driver in the  family.  Neither she nor my father had
 any sense of direction, but he loaded up on maps -- though
 they seldom left the city limits -- and appointed himself
 navigator.  It seemed to work.  Still, they both continued
 to walk a lot.  My mother was a devout Catholic, and my
 father an equally devout agnostic, an arrangement that
 didn't seem to bother either of them through their 75 years
 of marriage.  (Yes, 75 years, and they were deeply in love
 the entire time.)

 He retired when he was 70, and nearly every morning for the
 next 20 years or so, he would walk with her the mile to St.
 Augustin's Church.  She would walk down and sit in the front
 pew, and he would wait in the back until he saw which of the
 parish's two priests was on duty that morning.  If it was
 the pastor, my father then would go out and take a 2-mile
 walk, meeting my mother at the end of the service and walking
 her home.  If it was the assistant pastor, he'd take just a
 1-mile walk and then head back to the church.  He called the
 priests 'Father Fast' and 'Father Slow.'

 After he retired, my father almost always accompanied my
 mother whenever she drove anywhere, even if he had no reason
 to go along.  If she were going to the beauty parlor, he'd
 sit in the car and read, or go take a stroll or, if it was
 summer, have her keep the engine running so he could listen
 to the Cubs game on the radio.  In the evening, then, when
 I'd stop by, he'd explain:  'The Cubs lost again.  The
 millionaire on second base made a bad throw to the million-
 aire on first base, so the multimillionaire on third base
 scored.'  If she were going to the grocery store, he would
 go along to carry the bags out -- and to make sure she
 loaded up on ice cream.

 As I said, he was always the navigator, and once, when he
 was 95 and she was 88 and still driving, he said to me,
 'Do you want to know the secret of a long life?  ''I guess
 so,' I said, knowing it probably would be something bizarre.
 'No left turns,' he said.  'What?' I asked.

 'No left turns,' he repeated.  'Several years ago, your
 mother and I read an article that said most accidents that
 old people are in happen when they turn left in front of
 oncoming traffic.

 As you get older, your eyesight worsens, and you can lose
 your depth perception, it said.  So your mother and I
 decided never again to make a left turn.

 ''What?' I said again.

 'No left turns,' he said.  'Think about it.  Three rights
 are the same as a left, and that's a lot safer.  So we
 always make three rights.

 ''You're kidding!' I said, and I turned to my mother for
 support.

 'No,' she said, 'your father is right.  We make three
 rights.  It works.'  But then she added: 'Except when your
 father loses count.'

 I was driving at the time, and I almost drove off the road
 as I started laughing.  'Loses count?'  I asked.

 'Yes,' my father admitted, 'that sometimes happens.  But
 it's not a problem.  You just make seven rights, and you're
 okay again.

 'I couldn't resist.  'Do you ever go for 11?' I asked.

 'No,'  he said'.  If we miss it at seven, we just come home
 and call it a bad day.  Besides, nothing in life is so
 important it can't be put off another day or another week.'

 My mother was never in an accident, but one evening she
 handed me her car keys and said she had decided to quit
 driving.  That was in 1999, when she was 90.  She lived
 four more years, until 2003.  My father died the next year,
 at 102.

 They both died in the bungalow they had moved into in 1937
 and bought a few years later for $3,000.  (Sixty years
 later, my brother and I paid $8,000 to have a shower put
 in the tiny bathroom -- the house had never had one.  My
 father would have died then and there if he knew the
 shower cost nearly three times what he paid for the house.)

 He continued to walk daily -- he had me get him a treadmill
 when he was 101 because he was afraid he'd fall on the icy
 sidewalks but wanted to keep exercising -- and he was of
 sound mind and sound body until the moment he died.

 One September afternoon in 2004, he and my son went with me
 when I had to give a talk in a neighboring town, and it was
 clear to all three of us that he was wearing out, though we
 had the usual wide-ranging conversation about politics and
 newspapers and things in the news.  A  few weeks earlier,
 he had told my son, 'You know, Mike, the first hundred
 years are a lot easier than the second hundred.'

 At one point in our drive that Saturday, he said, 'You know,
 I'm probably not going to live much longer.

 'You're probably right,' I said.

 'Why would you say that?' He countered, somewhat irritated.

 'Because you're 102 years old,' I said.

 'Yes,' he said, 'you're right.'

 He stayed in bed all the next day.

 That night, I suggested to my son and daughter that we sit
 up with him through the night.

 He appreciated it, he said, though at one point, apparently
 seeing us look gloomy, he said:

 'I would like to make an announcement.  No one in this room
 is dead yet'.  An hour or so later, he spoke his last words:
 'I want you to know,' he said, clearly and lucidly, 'that I
 am in no pain.  I am very comfortable.  And I have had as
 happy a life as anyone on this earth could ever have.'

 A short time later, he died.

 I miss him a lot, and I think about him a lot.  I've wondered
 now and then how it was that my family and I were so lucky
 that he lived so long.  I can't figure out if it was because
 he walked through life, or because he quit taking left turns.'

 Life is too short to wake up with regrets.  So love the people
 who treat you right.  Forget about the one's who don't.
 Believe everything happens for a reason.  If you get a chance,
 take it.  If it changes your life, let it.  Nobody said life
 would be easy, they just promised it would most likely be
 worth it.'

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Subj:     What Goes Around Comes Around (S525)
          From: mauriceschumacher on 2/10/2007

 He almost didn't see the old lady, stranded on the side of
 the road, but even in the dim light of day, he could see
 she needed help.  So he pulled up in front of her Mercedes
 and got out.  His Pontiac was still sputtering when he
 approached her.

 Even with the smile on his face, she was worried.  No one
 had stopped to help for the last hour or so.  Was he going
 to hurt her? He didn't look safe; he looked poor and hungry.

 He could see that she was frightened, standing out there in
 the cold.  He knew how she felt.  It was that chill which
 only fear can put in you.

 He said, "I'm here to help you, ma'am.  Why don't you wait
 in the car where it's warm?  By the way, my name is Bryan
 Anderson."

 Well, all she had was a flat tire, but for an old lady,
 that was bad enough.  Bryan crawled under the car looking
 for a place to put the jack, skinning his knuckles a time
 or two.  Soon he was able to change the tire.  But he had
 to get dirty and his hands hurt.

 As he was tightening up the lug nuts, she rolled down the
 window and began to talk to him.  She told him that she
 was from St. Louis and was only just passing through.  She
 couldn't thank him enough for coming to her aid.

 Bryan just smiled as he closed her trunk.  The lady asked
 how much she owed him.  Any amount would have been all
 right with her.  She already imagined all the awful
 things that could have happened had he not stopped.  Bryan
 never thought twice about being paid.  This was not a job
 to him.  This was helping someone in need, and God knows
 there were plenty, who had given him a hand in the past.
 He had lived his whole life that way, and it never occurred
 to him to act any other way.

 He told her that if she really wanted to pay him back, the
 next time she saw someone who needed help, she could give
 that person the assistance they needed, and Bryan added,
 "And think of me."

 He waited until she started her car and drove off.  It had
 been a cold and depressing day, but he felt good as he
 headed for home, disap p earing into the twilight.

 A few miles down the road the lady saw a small cafe.  She
 went in to grab a bite to eat, and take the chill off
 before she made the last leg of her trip home.  It was a
 dingy looking restaurant.  Outside were two old gas pumps.
 The whole scene was unfamiliar to her.  The waitress came
 over and brought a clean towel to wipe her wet hair.  She
 had a sweet smile, one that even being on her feet for the
 whole day couldn't erase.  The lady noticed the waitress
 was nearly eight months pregnant, but she never let the
 strain and aches change her attitude.  The old lady
 wondered how someone who had so little could be so giving
 to a stranger.  Then she remembered Bryan.

 After the lady finished her meal, she paid with a hundred
 dollar bill.  The waitress quickly went to get change for
 her hundred dollar bill, but the old lady had slipped
 right out the door.  She was gone by the time the waitress
 came back. The waitress wondered where the lady could be.
 Then she noticed something written on the napkin.

 There were tears in her eyes when she read what the lady
 wrote: "You don't owe me anything.  I have been there too.
 Somebody once helped me out, the way I'm helping you.  If
 you really want to pay me back, here is what you do: Do
 not let this chain of love end with you."

 Under the napkin were four more $100 bills.

 Well, there were tables to clear, sugar bowls to fill, and
 people to serve, but the waitress made it through another
 day.  That night when she got home from work and climbed
 into bed, she was thinking about the money and what the
 lady had written.  How could the lady have known how much
 she and her husband needed it?  With the baby due next
 month, it was going to be hard....

 She knew how worried her husband was, and as he lay
 sleeping next to her, she gave him a soft kiss and
 whispered soft and low, "Everything's going to be all
 right. I love you, Bryan Anderson."

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Subj:     Jenny's Pearls (S521b)
          From: Joke-of-the-Day.com on 1/14/2007

 The cheerful girl with bouncy golden curls was almost five.
 Waiting with her mother at the checkout stand, she saw them:
 a circle of glistening white pearls in a pink foil box. "Oh
 please, Mommy. Can I have them? Please, Mommy, please!"

 Quickly the mother checked the back of the little foil box.
 "A dollar ninety-five.  If you really want them, I'll think
 of some extra chores for you and in no time you can save
 enough money to buy them for yourself.  As soon as Jenny got
 home, she emptied her penny bank and counted out 17 pennies.
 After dinner, she did more than her share of chores and she
 went to the neighbor and asked Mrs. McJames if she could pick
 dandelions for ten cents.

 On her birthday, Grandma did give her another new dollar bill
 and at last she had enough money to buy the necklace.  Jenny
 loved her pearls.  They made her feel dressed up and grown up.
 She wore them everywhere -- Sunday school, kindergarten, even
 to bed.  The only time she took them off was when she went
 swimming or had a bubble bath.  Mother said if they got wet,
 they might turn her neck green.

 Jenny had a very loving daddy and every night when she was
 ready for bed, he would stop whatever he was doing and come
 upstairs to read her a story.  One night when he finished the
 story, he asked Jenny, "Do you love me?"

 "Oh yes, Daddy. You know that I love you."  "Then give me your
 pearls."  "Oh, Daddy, not my pearls.  But you can have Princess
 -- the white horse from my collection.  The one with the pink
 tail.  Remember, Daddy?  The one you gave me.  She's my
 favorite."

 "That's okay, Honey.  Daddy loves you.  Good night."  And he
 brushed her cheek with a kiss.  About a week later, after the
 story time, Jenny's daddy asked again, "Do you love me?"
 "Daddy, you know I love you." "Then give me your pearls."

 "Oh Daddy, not my pearls.  But you can have my babydoll.  The
 brand new one I got for my birthday.  She is so beautiful and
 you can have the yellow blanket that matches her sleeper."

 "That's okay.  Sleep well.  God bless you, little one.  Daddy
 loves you."  And as always, he brushed her cheek with a gentle
 kiss.  A few nights later when her daddy came in, Jenny was
 sitting on her bed with her legs crossed Indian-style.  As he
 came close, he noticed her chin was trembling and one silent
 tear rolled down her cheek.

 "What is it, Jenny?  What's the matter?"  Jenny didn't say
 anything but lifted her little hand up to her daddy.  And
 when she opened it, there was her little pearl necklace.
 With a little quiver, she finally said, "Here, Daddy.  It's
 for you."

 With tears gathering in his own eyes, Jenny's kind daddy
 reached out with one hand to take the dime-store necklace,
 and with the other hand he reached into his pocket and pulled
 out a blue velvet case with a strand of genuine pearls and
 gave them to Jenny.  He had them all the time.  He was just
 waiting for her to give up the dime-store stuff so he could
 give her genuine treasure.

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Subj:     The Famous Paper Clips (S507)
          From: Joke-Of-The-Day-Mail.com on 10/12/2006

 Georgia, a friend of my wife's, was recently divorced and
 trying to raise her two sons when the Gulf War broke out.
 She heard about soldiers in the service who had no family
 and needed pen pals.  Letters addressed to "Any Soldier"
 were distributed by commanding officers who noticed any
 soldiers getting little or no mail.  Georgia wrote to 25
 such soldiers almost daily, most of them men.

 Keeping up with 25 pen pals on a daily basis almost consumed
 Georgia's time and talents.  She sent poems, little stories,
 and words of hope and encouragement.  When there were time
 constraints, she would write one letter and copy it for
 everyone.  Greetings were sent whenever she knew about a
 special event, like a birthday.

 One day, Georgia received a letter from a soldier that was
 depressed and discouraged.  She pondered as to how she could
 help lift his spirits.  It was then that she noticed that at
 work there were paper clips of various colors.  Georgia took
 one of the yellow paper clips and photo copied it in the
 palm of her hand.  She sent this picture with the paper clip
 with the following message: "This yellow paper clip that you
 see in my hand represents a hug that I am sending to you.
 You can carry this paper clip in a pocket or anywhere, and
 whenever you feel down, you can just touch and hold it and
 know that somebody cares about you, and would give you a hug
 if she were there."  Georgia sent a copy of this picture
 along with a paper clip and the message to each of her other
 correspondents.  After the war ended, Georgia received one
 of the pictures of her hand holding the yellow paper clip,
 and on the back were over 150 signatures of people that had
 been given her "hug."

 During the years, Georgia named other paper clips.  Pink
 came to mean a kiss, green was for good luck, and so on.
 Years later, Georgia was giving a class as part of a seminar
 for positive thinking.  She shared with the members of the
 class her paper clip symbolism, and made a bracelet of
 multicolored paper clips for each of them.  One of the
 women exclaimed, "So you're the one!"  The class member
 told Georgia that she was visiting her brother and needed
 something to hold papers together.  She had noticed a
 yellow paper clip on the refrigerator held there with a
 magnet.  She borrowed the paper clip for her papers.  When
 the brother saw it, he grabbed it and scolded her, and
 told her never to touch the yellow paper clip again.  Now
 she knew why.

 No one will never know how far her message has spread,
 nor how many lives have been touched by a simple yellow
 paper clip.

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Subj:     The Boy Who Wouldn't Die (S505)
          From: Joke-Of-The-Day-Mail.com on 9/25/2006

 The little country schoolhouse was heated by an old-fashioned,
 pot-bellied coal stove.  A little boy had the job of coming to
 school early each day to start the fire and warm the room
 before his teacher and his classmates arrived.

 One morning they arrived to find the schoolhouse engulfed in
 flames.  They dragged the unconscious little boy out of the
 flaming building more dead than alive.  He had major burns
 over the lower half of his body and was taken to a nearby
 county hospital.  From his bed the dreadfully burned, semi-
 conscious little boy faintly heard the doctor talking to his
 mother.  The doctor told his mother that her son would surely
 die - which was for the best, really - for the terrible fire
 had devastated the lower half of his body.

 But the brave boy didn't want to die. He made up his mind
 that he would survive.  Somehow, to the amazement of the
 physician, he did survive.  When the mortal danger was past,
 he again heard the doctor and his mother speaking quietly.
 The mother was told that since the fire had destroyed so
 much flesh in the lower part of his body, it would almost be
 better if he had died, since he was doomed to be a lifetime
 cripple with no use at all of his lower limbs.

 Once more the brave boy made up his mind.  He would not be a
 cripple.  He would walk.  But unfortunately from the waist
 down, he had no motor ability.  His thin legs just dangled
 there, all but lifeless.

 Ultimately he was released from the hospital.  Every day his
 mother would massage his little legs, but there was no feeling,
 no control, nothing.  Yet his determination that he would walk
 was as strong as ever.

 When he wasn't in bed, he was confined to a wheelchair.  One
 sunny day his mother wheeled him out into the yard to get
 some fresh air.  This day, instead of sitting there, he threw
 himself from the chair.  He pulled himself across the grass,
 dragging his legs behind him.

 He worked his way to the white picket fence bordering their
 lot.  With great effort, he raised himself up on the fence.
 Then, stake by stake, he began dragging himself along the
 fence, resolved that he would walk.  He started to do this
 every day until he wore a smooth path all around the yard
 beside the fence.  There was nothing he wanted more than to
 develop life in those legs.

 Ultimately through his daily massages, his iron persistence
 and his resolute determination, he did develop the ability
 to stand up, then to walk haltingly, then to walk by himself
 - and then - to run.  He began to walk to school, then to
 run to school, to run for the sheer joy of running.  Later
 in college he made the track team.

 Still later in Madison Square Garden this young man who was
 not expected to survive, who would surely never walk, who
 could never hope to run - this determined young man, Dr.
 Glenn Cunningham, ran the world's fastest mile!  (This is
 not an urban legend, but a real story)

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Subj:     The Kite (S499)
          From: Joke-Of-The-Day-Mail.com on 8/14/2006

 The boy was very young.  It was his time flying a kite, so
 his father helped him and after several attempts the kite
 was in the air.  The boy ran and let out more string, and
 soon the kite was flying high.  The little boy was so
 excited; the kite was beautiful.  Eventually there was no
 more string left to allow the kite to go higher.  The boy
 said to his father:

 "Daddy, let's cut the string and let the kite go; I want
 to see it go higher and higher."

 His father said, "Son, the kite won't go higher if we cut
 the string."

 "Yes, it will," responded the little boy.  "The string is
 holding the kite down; I can feel it."  The father handed
 a pocket knife to his son.  The boy cut the string.  In a
 matter of seconds the kite was out of control.  It darted
 here and there and finally landed in a broken heap.  That
 was difficult for the boy to understand.  He felt certain
 the string was holding the kite down.

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Subj:     Little Girl Lost At Concert (S488c)
          From: Joke-Of-The-Day-Mail.com on 5/26/2006

 A mother wished to encourage her small girl's interest in
 the piano and so took her a local concert featuring an
 excellent pianist.  In the entrance foyer the mother met
 an old friend and the two stopped to talk.  The little
 girl was keen to see inside the hall and so wandered off,
 unnoticed by her mother.  The girl's mother became
 concerned when she entered the hall and could see no sign
 of her daughter.

 Staff were notified and an announcement was made asking
 the audience to look out for the little lost girl.  With
 the concert due to start, the little girl had still not
 been found.  In preparation for the pianist's entrance,
 the curtains drew aside, to reveal the little girl sitting
 at the great piano, focused in concentration, quietly
 picking out the notes of 'Twinkle Twinkle Little Star'.

 The audience's amusement turned to curiosity when the
 pianist entered the stage, walked up to the little girl,
 and said "Keep playing."

 The pianist sat down beside her, listened for a few seconds,
 and whispered some more words of encouragement.  He then
 began quietly to play a bass accompaniment, and then a few
 bars later reached around the little girl to add more
 accompaniment.  At the end of the impromptu performance
 the audience applauded loudly as the pianist took the
 little girl back to her seat to be reunited with her mother.
 The experience was inspirational for everyone, not least
 the small girl.

 It takes just a few moments to make somebody's day, to
 help someone with their own personal aims and dreams,
 especially someone who looks up to you for encouragement
 and support.

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Smiley questions from flovilla on 9/19/2005

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