Saturday, June 14, 2008

A Cool Breeze

It is Saturday afternoon and I am sitting here at the kitchen table with the window open and a nice North breeze is coming through the window. It is amazing how relaxing a simple breeze can be. My Dad, Corky, taught me along time ago to enjoy the simple things.

I will never forget a life lesson he taught Kurt and I years ago in North Carolina. The three of us were driving up to Mount Mitchell, the highest elevation point east of the Mississippi, when Dad pulled the van off to the side of the road. There was a small dirt pull off that we parked in. The three of us got out and walked up to the guardrail. It was a beautiful day out. Carolina blue sky, a few passing clouds, warm sun on your face. We all stood there just looking out into this valley below us. All you could see was green, until you got to the bottom of the valley and there sat a wonderful blue lake reflecting the blue sky and green trees. Time seemed to slow as we just took in the wonderment of it all.

Dad bent down and picked up a medium size rock and tossed it up in the air and caught it. He did this a couple of times. I looked over at him and he just had this look of deep thought on his face. Dad took a deep breath and said this to us:

"Sons, this rock represents you. And all this, (pointing out to the valley, lake, trees, mountains etc.) represents the world."

He took that rock and threw it out into the valley. We heard the rock hit a tree and then a faint second hit and then nothing.

He then said,"You only have one chance in your life to make an impact that the whole world can hear. Make sure when you get that chance, that as many people as possible will hear it. Make it mean something, make it change themselves for the better."

I will never forget this life lesson. I know my opportunity to make some noise has not past. I look forward to it though. This really isn't what I had in mind to write when I started, but what I wrote was what I was suppose to write today.......

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