“I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by.”
-Douglas Adams (author of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy)

Miscellaneous Quotes---1998: "'You grow up the day you have your first real laugh--at yourself.'
---Ethel Barrymore"

There is a story circulating about Clarence Jordan, author of the Cotton
Patch New Testament translation and founder of the interracial Koinonia farm
in Americus, Georgia. He was getting a red-carpet tour of another minister's
church. With pride the minister pointed to the rich, imported pews and
luxurious decoration. As they stepped outside, darkness was falling, and a
spotlight shone on a huge cross atop the steeple.

"That cross alone cost us ten thousand dollars," the minister said with a
satisfied smile.

"You got cheated," said Jordan. "Times were when Christians could get them
for free."

Cell phone hangs up on drunken dialers | CNET News.com

Just another sign the apocalypse is upone us.

Refdesk.com - Thought-of-the-Day Archive: "'The art of progress is to preserve order amid change and to preserve change amid order.' - Alfred North Whitehead"

Dick Staub:
Staublog -
To Be Understood.: "So join me in praying the Prayer of Saint Francis.

Lord, make me an instrument
Of thy peace, where there is hatred,
Let me sow love;
Where there is injury, pardon;
Where there is doubt, faith;
Where there is despair, hope;
Where there is darkness, light;
And where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master, grant that
I may not so much seek
To be consoled as to console;
To be understood as to understand;
To be loved as to love;
For it is in giving that we receive,
It is in forgiving that we
Are forgiven, and it is in dying
That we are born to eternal life.
"

The Writer's Almanac: "Poem: 'The Longly-Weds Know' by Leah Furnas, from To Love One Another © Grayson Books. Reprinted with permission.

The Longly-Weds Know

That it isn't about the Golden Anniversary at all,
But about all the unremarkable years
that Hallmark doesn't even make a card for.

It's about the 2nd anniversary when they were surprised
to find they cared for each other more than last year

And the 4th when both kids had chickenpox
and she threw her shoe at him for no real reason

And the 6th when he accidentally got drunk on the way
home from work because being a husband and father
was so damn hard

It's about the 11th and 12th and 13th years when
they discovered they could survive crisis

And the 22nd anniversary when they looked
at each other across the empty nest, and found it good.

It's about the 37th year when she finally
decided she could never change him

And the 38th when he decided
a little change wasn't that bad

It's about the 46th anniversary when they both
bought cards, and forgot to give them to each other

But most of all it's about the end of the 49th year
when they discovered you don't have to be old

to have your 50th anniversary!!!!"

The Writer's Almanac

Poem: "In the Middle" by Barbara Crooker, from Yarrow © 1998 and printed by permission from the author.

In the Middle

of a life that's as complicated as everyone else's,
struggling for balance, juggling time.
The mantle clock that was my grandfather's
has stopped at 9:20; we haven't had time
to get it repaired. The brass pendulum is still,
the chimes don't ring. One day you look out the window,
green summer, the next, and the leaves have already fallen,
and a grey sky lowers the horizon. Our children almost grown,
our parents gone, it happened so fast. Each day, we must learn
again how to love, between morning's quick coffee
and evening's slow return. Steam from a pot of soup rises,
mixing with the yeasty smell of baking bread. Our bodies
twine, and the big black dog pushes his great head between;
his tail is a metronome, 3/4 time. We'll never get there,
Time is always ahead of us, running down the beach, urging
us on faster, faster, but sometimes we take off our watches,
sometimes we lie in the hammock, caught between the mesh
of rope and the net of stars, suspended, tangled up
in love, running out of time.