unknown Author

Years ago, in a small fishing village in Holland, a young boy taught the world about the rewards of unselfish service. Because the entire village revolved around the fishing industry, a volunteer rescue team was needed in cases of emergency. One night the winds raged, the clouds burst and a gale force storm capsized a fishing boat at sea. Stranded and in trouble, the crew sent out the S.O.S. The captain of the rescue rowboat team sounded the alarm and the villagers assembled in the town square overlooking the bay. While the team launched their rowboat and fought their way through the wild waves, the villagers waited restlessly on the beach, holding lanterns to light the way back.

An hour later, the rescue boat reappeared through the fog and the cheering villagers ran to greet them. Falling exhausted on the sand, the volunteers reported that the rescue boat could not hold any more passengers and they had to leave one man behind. Even one more passenger would have surely capsized the rescue boat and all would have been lost.

Frantically, the captain called for another volunteer team to go after the lone survivor. Sixteen-year-old Hans stepped forward. His mother grabbed his arm, pleading, "Please don’t go. Your father died in a shipwreck 10 years ago and your older brother, Paul, has been lost at sea for three weeks. Hans, you are all I have left."

Hans replied, "Mother, I have to go. What if everyone said, ‘I can’t go, let someone else do it?’ Mother, this time I have to do my duty. When the call for service comes, we all need to take our turn and do our part." Hans kissed his mother, joined the team and disappeared into the night.

Another hour passed, which seemed to Hans’ mother like an eternity. Finally, the rescue boat darted through the fog with Hans standing up in the bow. Cupping his hands, the captain called, "Did you find the lost man?" Barely able to contain himself, Hans excitedly yelled back, "Yes, we found him. Tell my mother it’s my older brother, Paul!"

      by: Unknown (him again)


Read this, and let it really sink in... Then, choose how you start your day tomorrow...

Jerry is the kind of guy you love to hate. He is always in a good mood and always has something positive to say. When someone would ask him how he was doing, he would reply, "If I were any better, I would be twins!" He was a unique manager because he had several waiters who had followed him around from restaurant to restaurant.

The reason the waiters followed Jerry was because of his attitude. He was a natural motivator. If an employee was having a bad day, Jerry was there telling the employee how to look on the positive side of the situation.

Seeing this style really made me curious, so one day I went up to Jerry and asked him, I don't get it! You can't be a positive person all of the time. How do you do it?" Jerry replied, "Each morning I wake up and say to myself, Jerry, you have two choices today. You can choose to be in a good mood or you can choose to be in a bad mood.

I choose to be in a good mood. Each time something bad happens, I can choose to be a victim or I can choose to learn from it. I choose to learn from it. Every time someone comes to me complaining, I can choose to accept their complaining or I can point out the positive side of life. I choose the positive side of life.

"Yeah, right, it's not that easy," I protested. "Yes, it is," Jerry said. "Life is all about choices. When you cut away all the junk, every situation is a choice. You choose how you react to situations. You choose how people will affect your mood. You choose to be in a good mood or bad mood. The bottom line: It's your choice how you live life."

I reflected on what Jerry said. Soon thereafter, I left the restaurant industry to start my own business. We lost touch, but I often thought about him when I made a choice about life instead of reacting to it.

Several years later, I heard that Jerry did something you are never supposed to do in a restaurant business: he left the back door open one morning and was held up at gun point by three armed robbers. While trying to open the safe, his hand, shaking from nervousness, slipped off the combination. The robbers panicked and shot him. Luckily, Jerry was found relatively quickly and rushed to the local trauma center. After 18 hours of surgery and weeks of intensive care, Jerry was released from the hospital with fragments of the bullets still in his body.

I saw Jerry about six months after the accident. When I asked him how he was, he replied, "If I were any better, I'd be twins. Wanna see my scars?" I declined to see his wounds, but did ask him what had gone through his mind as the robbery took place. “The first thing that went through my mind was that I should have locked the back door," Jerry replied. "Then, as I lay on the floor, I remembered that I had two choices: I could choose to live or I could choose to die. I chose to live."

"Weren't you scared? Did you lose consciousness?" I asked. Jerry continued, "...the paramedics were great. They kept telling me I was going to be fine. But when they wheeled me into the ER and I saw the expressions on the faces of the doctors and nurses, I got really scared. In their eyes, I read 'he's a dead man.'

I knew I needed to take action." " What did you do?" I asked. "Well, there was a big burly nurse shouting questions at me," said Jerry. "She asked if I was allergic to anything. 'Yes,' I replied. The doctors and nurses stopped working as they waited for my reply. I took a deep breath and yelled, 'Bullets!' Over their laughter, I told them, 'I am choosing to live. Operate on me as if I am alive, not dead.'"

Jerry lived thanks to the skill of his doctors, but also because of his amazing attitude. I learned from him that every day we have the choice to live fully. Attitude, after all, is everything. 
 
Positive thinking the the first step towards a happy life.

Attitude is everything

If everyone  applies  just these, the whole world will live in happiness

J.T. Knoll is a writer, speaker and prevention and wellness coordinator at Pittsburg State University. He also operates Knoll Wellness Training & Consulting in Pittsburg. He can be reached at 231-0499 or This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

PITTSBURG — Oh my love, my darling, I've hungered for your touch. — Righteous Brothers, “Unchained Melody”

For my money, there’s nothing that’s brings forth the depths of romantic love like a good love song. So with Valentine’s Day just a couple of days off, I thought I’d share lyrics from a few of my favorites and invite you to guess the titles and recording artists. (Should be no problem once you start singing along.) Answers at the column's end.

1) “I’ve got sunshine on a cloudy day. An when it’s cold outside, I’ve got the month of May.” Every time I hear these opening lines I’m transported back to high school, 1964, transistor radios, 1106 Drive In, ball games, draggin’ the gut, and dreamy, teenage love.

2) “Romeo loved Juliet. Juliet she felt the same. When he put his arms around her, he said, ‘Julie, baby, you’re my flame.’” Shakespeare created the most lasting image of young love of all time in Romeo and Juliet. A sultry female singer put this song on the charts in 1958 and had lovers all over the country snapping their fingers and loosening their collars.

3) “Worry. Why do I let myself worry? Wondering, what in the world did I do?” Another talented female sang this ballad by Willie Nelson, about the confusion and heartache of breaking up. It made #2 on the charts in 1962.

4) “I'm, I'm so in love with you. Whatever you want to do. Is all right with me. 'Cause you make me feel, so brand new. And I want to spend my life with you.” This one, from 1972, features not only being deeply in love in the present but has a plea to keep it going. You may have heard President Obama sing the opening lines in a broadcast from the Apollo Theater in January.

5) “Some day, when I'm awfully low. When the world is cold, I will feel a glow just thinking of you.” This sweet love ballad has been covered by many artists over the years, but my favorite, for its subtle phrasing, was recorded this legendary song stylist and actor (not to mention 1940s teen idol) in 1964.

6) “Somewhere in her smile she knows, that I don't need no other lover. Something in her style that shows me. I don't want to leave her now. You know I believe and how.” Speaking of teen idols, this tender song, recorded in 1969, was called, by none other than Frank Sinatra, one of the best love songs ever written.

7) “If she's bad he can't see it. She can do no wrong. Turn his back on his best friend if he put her down.” This 1966 song gives credence to the phrase “Love is blind.” I used to sing it (eyes closed) with “The Soul Inspiration,” in the late 1960s at area teen towns, fraternity parties, and an occasional bar.

8) “I just can't fit. Yes, I believe it's time for us to quit. When we meet again, introduced as friends, please don't let on that you knew me when…” This heartbreaker, first released in 1966, is by the artist who’s been called the finest songwriter of my generation. Pretty prolific as well; over 450 songs released.

9) “Those happy hours that we once knew, though long ago, they still make me blue. They say that time heals a broken heart. But time has stood still since we've been apart.” This one brings memories of late nights, eating chicken at the Idle Hour after the dance at the Tower Ballroom. It’s a country western tune that’s been covered by many, but nobody, in my opinion, came close to this artist’s bluesy version in a 1962 crossover album.

10) “Do the chairs in your parlor seem empty and bare? Do you gaze at your doorstep and picture me there? Is your heart filled with pain? Shall I come back again? Tell me dear,” Every time I hear this song I sigh twice. First a sigh of sadness, then of joy. Sadness to feel the pangs of unrequited love. Joy to experience a song so beautifully written and soulfully sung. They don’t get any better than this; recorded in 1960.

11) “When you're down and out, when you're on the street, when evening falls so hard, I will comfort you.” The east coast duo that wrote and recorded this song of love and friendship tapped into something deep. A young singer-songwriter told me just last week in my kitchen that he couldn’t believe it wasn’t an old gospel song re-recorded by them. It was a #1 hit on an album of the same name in 1971.

12) “Put your sweet lips a little closer to the phone. Let's pretend that we're together, all alone. I'll tell the man to turn the juke box way down low,” This is a late-night, sweet-talking, country, love song extraordinaire. Recorded in 1959, the song, written by Joe and Audrey Allison, was inspired after the couple was having difficulty communicating by telephone. Audrey had a soft voice and was unable to speak up so her husband could adequately hear her, so Joe would have his wife place the receiver closer to her mouth. (Another example of what’s lost these days to texting.)
 
Answers: 1) “My Girl” - The Temptations; 2) “Fever” – Peggy Lee; 3) “Crazy” – Patsy Cline: 4) “Let’s Stay Together” – Al Green; 5) “The Way You Look Tonight” – Frank Sinatra; 6) “Something” – The Beatles; 7) “When a Man Loves a Woman” – Percy Sledge; 8) “Just Like a Woman” – Bob Dylan; 9) “I Can’t Stop Loving You” – Ray Charles; 10) “Are You Lonesome Tonight?” – Elvis Presley; 11) “Bridge Over Troubled Water” – Simon & Garfunkel; 12) “He’ll Have To Go” – Jim Reeves.

From metro.co.uk:




A disabled man from Darlington has been arrested after he gave a lift to a friend on his mobility scooter while three times over the alcohol limit.

Nigel Lee Drummond was arrested after he was recorded by surveillance cameras weaving erratically through the streets of Darlington at 8mph after he and his friend left a local bar.

But because scooters do not count as cars under normal drink driving laws, Drummond was arrested under an obscure Victorian law – which bans being drunk in charge of a carriage.

Police warned that, while mobility scooters don’t go very fast, they can still pose a hazard to pedestrians and other road users. PC Kevin Salter of Darlington Police commented: ‘He was very drunk.’

Drummond was given a six-month conditional discharge and ordered to pay £65 costs.