| Prior Date | Back to Archive Index | Next Date |
|
WITandWISDOM(tm) - September 27, 2000 ~~~~~~~ THOUGHTS: We need to learn to set our course by the stars, not by the lights of every passing ship. - Omar Nelson Bradley Source: Inspire, Copyright (c) 2000 Information Advantage Corporation, www.infoadvn.com/inspire/ via http://www.witandwisdom.org ~~~~~~~ SPECIAL THOUGHTS: When we feel we have nothing left to give And we are sure that the song has ended When our day seems over and the shadows fall And the darkness of night has descended, Where can we go to find the strength To valiantly keep on trying, Where can we find the hand that will dry The tears that the heart is crying? There's but one place to go and that is to God And, dropping all pretense and pride, We can pour out our problems without restraint And gain strength from Him at our side, And together we stand at life's crossroads And view what we think is the end But God has a much bigger vision And He tells us it's only a bend For the road goes on and is smoother And the "pause in the song" is a rest And the part that's unsung and unfinished Is the sweetest and richest and best So rest and relax and grow stronger Let go and let God share your load Your work is not finished or ended, You've just come to a "bend in the road." THE END OF THE ROAD IS BUT A BEND IN THE ROAD By Helen Steiner Rice Source: The Motivation Mailer, motivational_mailer- subscribe@topica.com via http://www.witandwisdom.org ~~~~~~~ THIS & THAT: As for many young men in the dawning eighteenth century, life on land was not agreeable to Alexander Selkirk. Back home in Scotland it seemed he was always in some sort of trouble. Indeed, parish records show that he was cited more than once for misbehavior in church. In May of 1703, Alex, now 27, said goodbye to all that and joined a privateering (pirates for hire) expedition to the South Seas. Sixteen months later the ship came to a small island 400 miles off the coast of Chile. The island was named for Juan Fernandez, the sixteenth century mariner who had discovered it and had tried unsuccessfully to colonize it. Anyway, there was Alex, 28 years old, the appointed sailing master of the privateer. As the ship was about to leave, Alex and the captain got into an argument. Tempers flared; Alex gathered his possessions and demanded to be put ashore. He was. "Now what do you say?" he shouted from the shore. "You don't dare sail without me!" But the captain standing on the bridge ignored Alex and issued the command to hoist anchor. Alex's dramatic ploy had backfired. Having considered himself indispensable, he was now wading out to his armpits, calling after the ship, pleading for the captain's forgiveness. But the stubborn captain had sailed away, never to return. Thus began the real-life legend of the Goat-Man of Juan Fernandez. For the explorer Fernandez, upon evacuating the island two centuries before, had left a few goats behind. The goats would multiply, thrive. And because they did, abandoned Alexander Selkirk stayed alive. The wild goats provided meat and milk and skins for clothing. Those he tamed became his friends. Four years and four months would pass before Alex was rescued. He barely remembered how to speak. He returned to England and became page-one news. Books were written about him, including one by Alex himself. For Alexander Selkirk, the imperiled privateer, the Scottish seaman whose temper got him stranded on a dot of soil in the Pacific - the Goat-Man of Juan Fernandez - was the flesh-and-blood model for fiction author Daniel Defoe. He was the original, the real-life, Robinson Crusoe. From "More of Paul Harvey's The Rest of the Story" by Paul Aurandt, Bantam Books Source: Bits & Pieces, September 14, 1995, Copyright (c) Economic Press, Inc., www.epinc.com via http://www.witandwisdom.org ~~~~~~~ KEEP SMILING: A diet is when you have to go to some length to change your width. Source: Awesome Quotes, www.coolnewsletters.com via http://www.witandwisdom.org ~~~~~~~ TRIVIA: In the early part of the last century, Robert Garst from the big city of Coon Rapids, Iowa, traveled thousands of miles trying to promote a new hybrid corn to farmers. The new corn, developed by Henry A. Wallace, a former U.S. vice president and farm magazine publisher, met with great resistance. Farmers had planted the same kind of corn for generations and Garst soon learned they weren't ready for a change. They told him, "We're not going to waste our money on that!" Garst felt the hybrid corn would start a revolution if he could just get started. In desperation he decided if he couldn't sell it, he'd give it away. So he packed as much of the corn as he could in seven-pound bags and gave it free to any farmer who would promise to plant it. The trial plots broke tradition and those farmers became his greatest sales team. They were enthused with the product and Garst was on his way to amassing a fortune of over $50 million. By Neil Eskelin in Neil Eskelin's Daily Jump Start(tm), Copyright (c) 2000, www.neileskelin.com via http://www.witandwisdom.org |