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WITandWISDOM(tm) - May 12, 2003 ISSN 1538-8794 ~~~~~~~ THOUGHTS: "The best leader is the one who has sense enough to pick good men to do what he wants done, and self-restraint enough to keep from meddling with them while they do it." - Theodore Roosevelt Source: Quotes of the Day, mailto:rheamo@centurytel.net?subject=Subscribe_Quotes_of_the_Day ~~~~~~~ SPECIAL THOUGHTS: Amy Waldroop was about to realize her dream of having a carefree, normal life. She was about to graduate from Villa Park (California) High School and attend UCLA on a scholarship. Then she was called into a school administrator's office, where she was told social workers were planning to remove her younger siblings from their grandmother's home. Suddenly, Waldroop found herself flooded with memories of her chaotic childhood. It was a weird, frightening world of living in cars and motels, of being shuttled from foster family to foster family, and - when nobody wanted Amy, her sister, and three brothers - to a juvenile detention center. On that day, toward the end of her senior year, Amy made a decision: she would take care of her three younger brothers and sister herself. She was only 17 years old. "There's no way I'm going to let them grow up that way," she told officials. She petitioned the juvenile court to become her siblings' legal guardian, and two days after her high school graduation, she received the guardianship. For her brothers and sister, there would be no more living with strangers in strange homes. Today Amy is single-handedly raising her three brothers - Adam, Joey, and Tony. And the piece of paper she treasures most is a Mother's Day card signed by all the boys. It reads: "Thank you, Amy, for being the mother that we don't have." So, rather than despairing over a difficult situation, try viewing pain as a challenging life force that's pushing you toward greater wisdom and deeper sensitivity. Remind yourself that you can use pain to experience livelier living. By Victor M. Parachin, Tulsa, Oklahoma Source: Signs of the Times, Copyright (c) November 2002, Pacific Press, http://www.signstimes.com Submitted by Dale Galusha ~~~~~~~ THIS & THAT: Did you know that the British Government has had cats on its payroll for more than a hundred years? It seems that the British postal system had a problem in the mid-1800s. Mice were eating the mail! The postal employees tried poison and traps, but the mice continued to nibble on the nation's important papers. In 1868 the secretary of the post office, in London, ordered that three cats be hired to tackle the problem at a weekly wage of fourpence. "But," said the secretary, "if the number of mice is not reduced in six months, the cats are to be fired." The cats went to work. The number of rats and mice was so drastically reduced that the secretary gave his approval to hire additional cats. Even now there are cats working at the post offices in London, but the pay has improved considerably. One of the highest-paid mouse hunters is Kojak, a tailless employee who earns one pound and eight shillings per week. His boss says that "most weeks Kojak leaves a couple of rats and an array of mice on my desk." Source: Glimpses of God's Love by James A. Tucker and Priscilla Tucker, Copyright (c) 1983 by Review and Herald Publishing Association, http://isbn.nu/0767904249 Submitted by Nancy Simpson ~~~~~~~ KEEP SMILING: I dropped off my wife at the hairstylist and she was supposed to call me when she was ready to be picked up. She must have dialed a wrong number, she reported later. She called, and a man said "Hello," to which she cheerfully said, "Come and get me!" The man said, "Are you sure? This is Mitchell's funeral home." From: Reader's Digest, http://www.readersdigest.com/ Source: Joke For Your Day, mailto:baldmark@myexcel.com?subject=Subscribe_Joke_For_Your_Day ~~~~~~~ TRIVIA: Little Rock, Arkansas (AP): A 40-foot-long replica of the human colon is winding its way through Little Rock to educate people on the dangers of colon cancer. The "Colossal Colon" is designed for children and adults to crawl through, and allows visitors to see different stages of the disease, from polyps to full-blown cancer. Part of the National Cancer Education Tour, the exhibit was created in honor of Amanda Sherwood Roberts, who died from the disease last year. Organizers hope that the exhibit will get people thinking about a part of the body that is usually not discussed. "We're trying to educate as many people as we can so nobody has to go through what we had to go through," said Amanda's father, Bernie Sherwood. Source: White Board News, http://www.joeha.com/whiteboard/ |