Thoughts For The Day From Papa ‘a

Good Morning All & Happy Monday!

It looks like another beautiful Autumn day is in store in Spokane!  Most of the leaves are off the trees, a sure sign that Winter is not too far off in the distance.  Don’t you just love the seasons?  What’s your favorite?  Spring & Autumn run a close race for that distinction, in my humble opinion, although a good case can be made for Summer & Winter too!  Each season has its unique attributes, don’t you think?

However, there’s one thing I don’t like about Autumn…the end of daylight savings time.  What do you think?  It seems silly to have to go back and forth from Spring to Autumn with time changes…particularly when the time change results in darkness coming so early in the day in Autumn.  What’s up with that???  I’m part of the “Every day is daylight savings day” movement.  How about you?

 

Happy Birthday to friends Stephanie in Georgia and Kathryn in Yakima (Kathryn is the mother of dear, long-time friend Elizabeth and a vibrant woman who invests in relationships with others…a good example to follow…plus she lives her life with enthusiasm and thinks young!).  Happpy Birthday wishes also go to actor Matthew McConaughey, who turns 50 today; to former AT&T CEO Edward Whitacre, Jr., who is 78 today; to actress Loretta Swit of “M.A.S.H.” fame, who turns 82 today; and to actress Doris Roberts of “Remington Steele” & “Everyone Loves Raymond” fame, who is 89 today.  Here’s to all of you!

Prayers are lifted up for our dear friend Sheena who is struggling with a rather mysterious medical condition.  May God give wisdom and discernment to her health care providers in the days ahead and that Sheena is restored to good health soon.  Sheena is a lovely woman and we’ve been privileged to get to know her in recent times.  Here’s to Sheena!

 

A banner/poster of a Moose, my very favorite animal, hangs on the wall in one of the examination rooms of my mom’s primary physician.  It’s entitled “Advice from a Moose” and reads as follows:

“Think big

Spend time in the woods

Eat plenty of greens

Hold your head up high

Stay on track

Keep your nose clean

It’s O.K. to be a little wild!”

There’s a lot of wisdom in the Moose’s list of suggestions, don’t you think?

 

The October 26th-27th edition of “The Wall Street Journal” featured “Notes of the Notables.”  One of the featured notables, writer Nora Ephron of “Sleepless In Seattle” fame, concludes her last book “I Remember Nothing:  And Other Reflections” with a list of things she’d miss, and others she wouldn’t, when she was gone (she died of leukemia in 2012).  Here area few:

She anticipated no longer having to deal with dry skin, bras, the sound of vacuums or e-mail (which she listed twice).  What she had no desire to say goodbye to:  her kids and husband, Spring, waffles, fireworks, laughs, the view out her window and reading in bed.  She listed three types of dinners—including those “with friends in cities where none of us lives”—and wrapped it up, as all good meals should end, with “pie.”

 

Here is the word for the day:

Surfeit (sir-fit):  An overabundant or excessive amount of something…eat or drink to excess.

 

Here are some thoughts for the day:

“Golf fans want to know:  Is all the apparent niceness on the PGA Tour for real?  What are the game’s best really like—who is truly nice and therefore most deserving of our applause?  Whose endorsement-friendly smile continues even when the cameras are turned off?  Who is nice to the locker-room attendant, the valet driver, the sales rep, the hackers in the pro-am?  Who is generous, modest, grounded?  Who is grateful for the riches life has brought them?  Who treats people nice whoever they are ?  Who remembers your name?

True nice is alive and well on the PGA Tour, alongside plenty of true grit.

The likes of Rickie Fowler and Rory McIlroy demonstrate that true nice isn’t fake or manipulative or self-serving.  Neither is it naive, gullible, weak.  True nice knows that there are tough decisions to be made—sometimes you just have to say no—but it knows to execute them nicely.  True nice is not incompatible with success; it’s not true that nice guys finish last…”

—John Barton, “In Search Of Our Better Selves:  It’s The Small Acts Of Kindness We Remember & That Make Us Feel Human.”  Golf Digest, November, 2019, page 61.

 

“I was born in Swindon…a place that always looked west.  I found that wherever I go I love to have a room with a view of the western sky.  My late brother and I, when we were small, had a room at the back of the house that overlooked the sunset; and both for he and I it was kind of magical.”

—Justin Hayward, British musician & member of “The Moody Blues”

 

I imagine all of us have a place that we think of as our “happy place.”  For me, it’s The Tana House near Glacier Park.  Where is your “happy place”?  Carole King’s “Back To Canaan” speaks about a happy place for her:

“Green fields and rolling hills…Room enough to do what we will

Sweet dreams of yestertime are running through my mind, of a place I left behind

Been so long…I can’t remember when

I’ve been to Canaan and I want to go back again

Been so long…I’m living till then

‘Cause I’ve been to Canaan and I won’t rest until I go back again.

 

Though I’m content with my self, sometimes I long to be somewhere else

I try to do what I can, but with our day-to-day demands, we all need a promised land

 

And it’s been so long…I can’t remember when

I’ve been to Canaan and I want to go back again

Been so long….I’m living till then

‘Cause I’ve been to Canaan and I won’t rest until I go back again

 

Oh, I want to be there in the wintertime

With a fireplace burning to warm me

And you to hold me when it’s stormy

 

Been so long…I can’t remember when

I’ve been to Canaan and I want to go back again

Been so long…I’m living till then

‘Cause I’ve been to Canaan and I won’t rest until I go back again.”

—Carole King, “Been To Canaan”