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WITandWISDOM(tm) - April 27, 2006 ISSN 1538-8794 ~~~~~~~ THOUGHTS: "A hot dog at the ballgame beats roast beef at the Ritz." - Humphrey Bogart Submitted by Lorraine ~~~~~~~ SPECIAL THOUGHTS: A few years ago a fellow I'll call Bob wrote me to explain, having just lost his bride of 42 years, how profoundly he was helped by grand and spontaneous acts of kindness of strangers. In one case, he said, he was at Kinko's to make copies of the notes of love and support he had received, when he was overcome with emotion. After he began to cry, a young woman seeing his pain walked over and without a word just hugged him until he regained control. Weeks later he was at a restaurant alone and again began to cry when he thought about his wife. A waitress sat beside him and held his hand. As long as there are people like that in the world, Bob concluded, there is still hope. The great musician Pablo Casals said, "Each person has inside a basic decency and goodness. If he acts on it and listens to it, he is giving a great deal of what the world needs most. It is not complicated, but it takes courage. It takes courage for a person to listen to his own goodness and act upon it." The poet William Wordsworth put it another way, declaring that the best portion of a good person's life is the "little, nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and love." And the novelist Henry James said, "Three things in human life are important: The first is to be kind. The second is to be kind. And the third is to be kind." Think how much better the world would be and how much more gratifying your own life would be if every day each of us set out to lighten the life or brighten the day of another with simple kindness? This is Michael Josephson reminding you that character counts. © 2006 Josephson Institute of Ethics; reprinted with permission. Michael Josephson, one of the nation's leading ethicists, is the founder of the Josephson Institute of Ethics and the premier youth character education program, CHARACTER COUNTS! For further information visit http://www.charactercounts.org Source: Weekend Encounter, by Dick Innes, Copyright (c) ACTS International, 2004, http://www.actsweb.org/subscribe.php ~~~~~~~ THIS & THAT: One Saturday afternoon my wife and I and some friends had a garage sale. A large white limousine drew up to the curb, and a uniformed chauffeur got out, walked around and opened the rear door. Four beautifully attired bridesmaids, followed by a gorgeous white-gowned bride, stepped out. Our wives rushed over, and the bride explained. "We discovered we were 30 minutes early, so we decided to kill time at a garage sale." Later we were surprised to see the same limo back again. When the bride stepped out, she said, "I had to prove to you I really was going to get married, so I brought the groom to show you." Submitted by Lorraine ~~~~~~~ KEEP SMILING: My Sunday school class of kindergartners was studying the creation story. After several weeks, we were ready to review. "What did God make the first day?" I quizzed. "The second day?" They answered both questions correctly. "And what happened on the third day?" I asked. One little child, face shining with enthusiasm, exclaimed, "He rose from the dead!" Source: The Funnies, http://groups.yahoo.com/group/andychaps_the-funnies ~~~~~~~ TRIVIA: A nine-year-old girl has become the youngest female ever to hit a hole-in-one. Kate Langley, of Scotter, Lincs, hit it on the 134-yard par three first hole at a Scunthorpe course. She will be in the 2007 book of Guinness World Records after realizing she is younger by just 109 days. She has been playing less than a year reports The Sun. Kate, who has been playing for less than a year, said: "My coach told me to hit the ball harder, so I did." Source: Ananova http://www.ananova.com