November 29, 2004

Today's Tune (On/Off)

"Give Thanks "

From the Inside Out...
Something
for Stevie

Yes You Can!...
Leave Behind
Great Legacies

Far Horizons...
Jukkasjärvi's Ice Hotel

Untangling the Web...
What a Site!
&
Computer Ease

Holiday Ideas
Just for YOU...
Great Gift Giving

Fascinating Facts...
Horns of Plenty
for Everyone

Laughing It Off...
Computer Funnies

Web-Wize Update...
Daily Security Alerts

Joyful Lifestyles...
Alone for the
Holidays?

BE the World
You Want to See!

Goodness will often
radiate from many an
unexpected source ...
because a person
does not need to
be 'perfect' to be
Perfectly Good.

~ Chelle ~

From the Inside Out
SOMETHING FOR STEVIE

I try not to be biased, but I had my doubts about hiring Stevie. His placement counselor assured me that he would be a good, reliable busboy. But I had never had a mentally handicapped employee and wasn't sure I wanted one. I wasn't sure how my customers would react to Stevie. He was short, a little dumpy, with the smooth facial features and thick-tongued speech of Down syndrome. I wasn't worried about most of my trucker customers, because truckers don't generally care who buses tables as long as the meatloaf platter is good and the pies are homemade. The four-wheeler drivers were the ones who concerned me; the mouthy college kids traveling to school; the yuppie snobs who secretly polish their silverware with their napkins for fear of catching some dreaded "truckstop germ;" the pairs of white-shirted business men on expense accounts who think every truckstop waitress wants to be flirted with. I knew those people would be uncomfortable around Stevie, so I closely watched him for the first few weeks.

I shouldn't have worried. After the first week, Stevie had my staff wrapped around his stubby little finger, and within a month my truck regulars had adopted him as their official truckstop mascot. After that I really didn't care what the rest of the customers thought of him. He was like a 21-year-old in blue jeans and Nikes, eager to laugh and eager to please, but fierce in his attention to his duties. Every salt and pepper shaker was exactly in its place, not a bread crumb or coffee spill was visible, when Stevie got done with the table. Our only problem was convincing him to wait to clean a table until after the customers were finished. He would hover in the background, shifting his weight from one foot to the other, scanning the dining room until a table was empty. Then he would scurry to the empty table and carefully bus the dishes and glasses onto cart and meticulously wipe the table up with a practiced flourish of his rag. If he thought a customer was watching, his brow would pucker with added concentration. He took pride in doing his job exactly right, and you had to love how hard he tried to please each and every person he met. Over time, we learned that he lived with his mother, a widow who was disabled after repeated surgeries for cancer. They lived on their Social Security benefits in public housing two miles from the truckstop. Their social worker, who stopped to check on him every so often, admitted they had fallen between the cracks. Money was tight, and what I paid him was the probably the difference between them being able to live together and Stevie being sent to a group home.

That's why the restaurant was a gloomy place that morning last August, the first morning in three years that Stevie missed work. He was at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester getting a new valve or something put in his heart. His social worker said that people with Down syndrome often had heart problems at a early age, so this wasn't unexpected, and there was a good chance he would come through the surgery in good shape and be back at work in a few months. A ripple of excitement ran through the staff later that morning when word came that he was out of surgery, in recovery and doing fine. Frannie, my head waitress, let out a war whoop and did a little dance the aisle when she heard the good news. Belle Ringer, one of our regular trucker customers, stared at the sight of the 50-year-old Grandmother of four doing a victory shimmy beside his table. Frannie blushed, smoothed her apron and shot Belle Ringer a withering look.

He grinned. "Okay, Frannie, what was that all about?" he asked. "We just got word that Stevie is out of surgery and going to be okay. I was wondering where he was. I had a new joke to tell him. What was the surgery about?" Frannie quickly told Belle Ringer and the other two drivers sitting at his booth about Stevie's surgery, then sighed. "Yeah, I m glad he is going to be okay," she said, "but I don't know how he and his mom are going to handle all the bills. From what I hear, they're barely getting by as it is." Belle Ringer nodded thoughtfully, and Frannie hurried off to wait on the rest of her tables.

Since I hadn't had time to round up a busboy to replace Stevie, and really didn't want to replace him, the girls were busing their own tables that day until we decided what to do. After the morning rush, Frannie walked into my office. She had a couple of paper napkins in her hand a funny look on her face. "What's up?" I asked. "I didn't get that table where Belle Ringer and his friends were sitting cleared off after they left, and Pony Pete and Tony Tipper were sitting there when I got back to clean it off, " she said, " This was folded and tucked under a coffee cup." She handed the napkin to me, and three $20 fell onto my desk when I opened it. On the outside, in big, bold letters, was printed Something For Stevie. "Pony Pete asked me what that was all about," she said, "so I told him about Stevie and his mom and everything, and Pete looked at Tony and Tony looked at Pete, and they ended up giving me this." She handed me another paper napkin that had "Something For Stevie" scrawled on its outside. Two $50 bills were tucked within its folds. Frannie looked at me with wet, shiny eyes, shook her head and said simply, "Truckers."

That was three months ago. Today is Thanksgiving, the first day Stevie is supposed to be back to work. His placement worker said he's been counting the days until the doctor said he could work, and it didn't matter at all that it was a holiday. He called 10 times in the past week, making sure we knew he was coming, fearful that we had forgotten him or that his job was in jeopardy. I arranged to have his mother bring him to work, met them in the parking lot and invited them both to celebrate his day back. Stevie was thinner and paler, but couldn't stop grinning as he pushed through the doors and headed for the back room where his apron and busing cart were waiting. "Hold up there, Stevie, not so fast, "I said. I took him and his mother by their arms. "Work can wait for a minute. To celebrate you coming back, breakfast for you and your mother is on me. I led them toward a large corner booth at the rear of the room. I could feel and hear the rest of the staff following behind as we marched through the dining room. Glancing over my shoulder, I saw booth after booth of grinning truckers empty and join the possession.

We stopped in front of the big table; its surface covered with coffee cups, saucers and dinner plates, all sitting slightly crooked on dozens of folded paper napkins. "First thing you have to do, Stevie, is clean up this mess," I said, trying to sound stern. Stevie looked at me, and then at his mother, then pulled out one of the napkins. It had "Something for Stevie" printed on the outside. As he picked it up, two $10 bills fell onto the table. Stevie stared at the money, then at all the napkins peeking from beneath the tableware, each with his name printed or scrawled on it. I turned to his mother. "There's over $10, 000 in cash and checks on that table, all from truckers and trucking companies that heard about your problems. Happy Thanksgiving!" Well, it got real noisy about that time, with everybody hollering and shouting, and there were a few tears, as well. But you know what's funny? While everybody else was busy shaking hands and hugging each other, Stevie, with a big, big smile on his face, was busy clearing all the cups and dishes from the table... best worker I ever hired.

~By Dan Anderson, November, 1998
Read More: Stories for a Faithful Heart by Alice Gray

Yes You Can!
LEAVE BEHIND GREAT LEGACIES

One woman announced, "I intend to live forever! So far so good.." But the length of our lives is not the real issue; it's the quality and meaning that matter. Not the years in a life, but the life in the years.

When asked what he wanted to be remembered for when his life was over, Leo Buscaglia replied, "I want to be remembered as somebody who lived life fully and with passion. I've been asked to write my epitaph and I have always thought that the perfect one for my tombstone would be, 'Here lies Leo who died living.'"

I want to die living. And I want to be remembered as one who lived with purpose, joy and verve. I want to spend my time learning what goes into a whole and happy life, then building that life the best I can.

Sociologist Tony Campolo told about a study in which fifty people over the age of 90 were asked to reflect upon their lives. "If you had it to do over again," they were asked, "what would you do differently?" Though there were many answers, three responses dominated. Here they are:

First, many respondents answered, "I would reflect more." Do you ever feel that too much time is spent in "doing" and not enough spent thinking about what you are doing and why you are doing it?

Second, they said, "I would risk more." Do you think that important opportunities either have been or might be forfeited because of your fear to take a necessary risk?

Finally, they said, "I would do more things that would live on after I died." Do you feel that you are immersed in something bigger and more enduring than your own existence?

Reflect more. Risk more. Leave a legacy. These are what our elders say they would do the second time around.

But why wait for a second time around? Every new day is a second chance! Reflect more today — it will reveal to you what is truly important. Risk more today — take a chance on making that dream come alive. Get involved with something which makes a difference in this world — and a beautiful legacy is what you will leave behind.

Like Leo Buscaglia, I want to live fully and with passion. And if all my plans don't work out as I had hoped, I'm still betting that I will have more fun!

Edwin Hubbel Chapin once said, "Every action of our lives touches on some chord that will vibrate in eternity." That is the definition of a legacy. Wouldn't you love to do something that might strike a beautiful chord that will "vibrate in eternity"?

I've discovered something about legacies ... generous people leave great legacies. I read about a couple in Canada who stopped to help a motorist who had run out of gasoline. It was a regular occurrence in their part of rural Canada. After they got him on his way, they bought a new fuel can, scratched their initials on it, filled it with petrol and stored it in the trunk of their car.

A few months later they again stopped to assist a stranded motorist. But this time they GAVE him their gas can and told him to fill it up, keep it with him and pass it along to the next motorist he sees who has run out of fuel.

Though they never expected to see their can again, in a couple of years they spotted it being passed along to a grateful motorist on the road. They recognized it several more times over the years, and each time they asked its owner where it had come from. They ascertained that the can had traveled across the continent at least two times!

They never intended to leave a legacy. When they bought the fuel can they never dreamed that their action might strike chords that could vibrate in eternity. But that container may still be traveling around the country!

And it might not seem like a big thing, but many motorists have been saved by the generosity of complete strangers who stop to help. Then each in turn has taken the container, re-filled it, and diligently looked, perhaps for days or weeks, for an opportunity to pass it along. Good will generated by a humble can of fuel has no doubt been multiplied many times in countless ways, striking beautiful chords that vibrate forever.

It's true — generous people leave great legacies. Even that small piece of yourself you generously give away may thrive in surprising ways throughout eternity.

By Steve Goodier © 2004 www.LifeSupportSystem.com

..POSITIVE NEWS WEEKLY™
... sharing inspirational stories, motivational quotes, links and
positive resources to help you make your life ... the life of your dreams!

Holiday Ideas Just for YOU
GREAT GIFT GIVING

SOUL TALK STORIES Roger King's Books, CD's & Posters for All Ages A fresh approach to using our conscious mind to dissolve old limiting beliefs we hold unconsciously, that no longer serve us. Plus Roger & Linda's New eBook: Making Love with Passionate Thoughts This book helps us grow positively from the years of pain to experience our lives with intimacy and compassion. Come See Our Holiday Gifts & Goodies

Magic of Intention Finally, a book that explains the power of Intention and helps you create your own Success by Intention: Read and listen to the reviews Karin Janin, Author and Creativity Life Coach Presents: MAGIC OF INTENTION Motivational Book for Success Now! and Magic of Intention Circle of Success Bracelet Combine the two and you will see your heart's desire manifesting... Visit Karin's Store Today Circle of Success Bracelet Our Magic of Intention Bracelet helps bring to you the: Unbroken Circle of Success

Steve's Books Make Wonderful Gifts: One Minute Can Change a Life - Joy Along the Way - Riches of the Heart Lessons of the Turtle and Many More .... Available HERE at Life Support System.com

Fascinating Facts
HORNS OF PLENTY FOR EVERYONE

WHAT DOES THE CORNUCOPIA SYMBOLIZE? FIND OUT HERE:

ROFFNAR
Rolling On The Floor For No Apparent Reason

ROFLAHMS
Rolling On the Floor Laughing And Holding My Sides

ROFLASTC
Rolling On the Floor Laughing And Scaring The Cat (or ROFLASTD = The Dog)

ROFLSTCIIHO
Rolling On The Floor Laughing Scaring The Cat If I Had One

ROFLMHOWTIME
Rolling On Floor Laughing My Head Off With Tears In My Eyes

ROFLASAOTP
Rolling On Floor Laughing And Spitting All Over The Place

ROFLHOLCCF
Rolling On Floor Laughing Hysterically Out Loud Collecting Cat Fur (or ROFLHOLCDF = Dog Fur)

ROFLUTS
Rolling On Floor Laughing Unable to Speak

ROFLACGU
Rolling On Floor And Can't Get Up

ROFLMHOAY
Rolling On Floor Laughing My Head Off At You

ROFLSHIPMP
Rolling On Floor Laughing So Hard I Peed My Pants

ROFLAM
Rolling On Floor Laughing At Myself

ARCHIVES:..

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