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 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 whomever 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 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 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.'