At the hospital

Some of you are aware that I volunteer at a local hospital where I live, and I was thinking of that when I got up this morning.  Occasionally I've shared stories here that are not my own, and this is one of those. This has been floating around on the internet, and I have no idea who wrote it, but please read on for a moving tale.
 

"Two men, both seriously ill, occupied the same hospital room. One man was allowed to sit up in his bed for an hour each afternoon to help drain the fluid from his lungs. His bed was next to the room's only window. The other man had to spend all his time flat on his back. The men talked for endless hours.

"They spoke of their wives and families, their homes, their jobs, their involvement in the military service, and where they had been on vacation.

 

"Every afternoon when the man in the bed by the window could sit up, he would pass the time by describing to his roommate all the things he could see outside the window. The man in the other bed began to live for those one hour periods where his world would be broadened and enlivened by all the activity and color of the world outside.

 

"The window overlooked a park with a lovely lake. Ducks and swans played on the water while children sailed their model boats. Young lovers walked arm in arm amidst flowers of every color and a fine view of the city skyline could be seen in the distance. As the man by the window described all this in exquisite detail, the man on the other side of the room would close his eyes and imagine the picturesque scene.

 

"One warm afternoon the man by the window described a parade passing by. Although the other man couldn't hear the band, he could see it in his mind's eye as the gentleman by the window portrayed it with descriptive words.

 

"Days and weeks passed.

 

"One morning, the day nurse arrived to bring water for their baths only to find the lifeless body of the man by the window, who had died peacefully in his sleep. She was saddened and called the hospital attendants to take the body away.

 

"As soon as it seemed appropriate, the other man asked if he could be moved next to the window. The nurse was happy to make the switch, and after making sure he was comfortable, she left him alone.

 

"Slowly, painfully, he propped himself up on one elbow to take his first look at the real world outside. He strained to slowly turn to look out the window beside the bed. It faced a blank wall!

 

"The man called the nurse and asked her what could have compelled his deceased roommate who had described such wonderful things outside this window. The nurse responded that the man was blind and could not even see the wall.

 

She said, 'Perhaps he just wanted to encourage you.'"

Great story, huh? As I said, the author of this is unknown. You may have even read it before, but I think it is worth seeing again. I was very moved when I first read this story, and I hope it touches you as well.  Do share this with others too. That's what encouragement is all about.

Flowerful days

Who can look at a colorful bunch of flowers and not be happy?  There is something very cheery about the image whether it is in a cut floral arrangement or a garden in back of our house or a pretty planting by the side of the street we are walking on.  Flowers are happy images.

 

I'll bet you cannot tell me every place where there is a flower between your home and your workplace.  Can you think where the closest garden is to where you are right now?  How about a florist - do you know where there is one?  Even our parks are places where there are beautiful flowers and plants for us to enjoy.

 

If you are at a reception or at a church service or at a funeral or a wedding, do you notice the flowers that might be around you?  People place them there for a reason.  Flowers brighten up our lives!  Take notice of them and be happy.

Smile, what's the use of crying?

One of my favorite song lyrics says "Smile, what's the use of crying?"  Indeed.  Charles Chaplin, John Turner, and Geoffrey Parsons gave us something very special in that song they wrote.  I can almost hear it right now.  I love Petula Clark's version, and even Michael Jackson's,  but the best known of course is from Nat King Cole.

Song lyrics can change our mood, and so it's those happy words that I want to hear the most of!  Our little road trip from San Francisco has features a lot of happy songs and a lot of singing.  I'm even getting a little hoarse. (Chaplin, by the way did the music and the words came from Turner and Parsons).  You certainly can't go wrong when the title is Smile!  Smiling is just about the happiest thing a person can do! 

The last three simple lines of that song really say it so well! 
 

Smile, what's the use of crying?

You'll find that life is still worthwhile

If you just smile

Better to give than to receive

I look at every single day as a wonderful gift, and don't get me wrong, receiving gifts can be quite nice, but I truly believe that it is better to give than to receive.  Think of the warm feeling.  Think of the smile you see.  I could go on and on.

I'm sure you have given a gift to someone before. The one thing I love about giving though is that it never has to be a material thing. Giving can be more than a pretty wrapped box.  I think that so many times we believe that whenever we hear the term “give” it automatically relates to material things - even expensive things.  Giving time (like when you volunteer at a charity or when you read a story to a child or when you help pick up trash along the beach), is just one example of a non-material kind of gift.

 

I recently watched a video where two young guys bought several bunches of bananas, bottled water, and gathered some clothing that they no longer wore and they took those items out and gave them to homeless men in the streets.  The smiles from the recipients proven how wonderful this giving was.  Not a huge amount of money was spent - that wasn't the point.  It was giving - pure giving.  It was people caring about others.

 

You really can't get much better than that!

The Declaration - ALL of it

It's a holiday today, Independence Day.  I think most people know the significance of this day, but how many of you have actually read the Declaration of Independence?  Many are familiar with a line in the second paragraph "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal."  The other words are significant too.  How about this?  Before you go about your business on this holiday, take a moment to read the full text, which I am sharing here below, and then do something that all Americans would be proud of!

When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. — And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.

(Signed)

New Hampshire:

Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton

Massachusetts:

John Hancock, Samuel Adams, John Adams, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry

Rhode Island:

Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery

Connecticut:

Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver Wolcott

New York:

William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris

New Jersey:

Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark

Pennsylvania:

Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, John Morton, George Clymer, James Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson, George Ross

Delaware:

Caesar Rodney, George Read, Thomas McKean

Maryland:

Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas Stone, Charles Carroll of Carrollton

Virginia:

George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Nelson, Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton

North Carolina:

William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn

South Carolina:

Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr., Arthur Middleton

Georgia:

Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton

Hero Headquarters

This space could easily be hero headquarters, because I certainly write here a lot about heroes. I've asked about your heroes and said what I think it takes. I have written about a number of folks that I think are heroes. I've even quoted the wise words of Jason Chu, who in his song Marvels said "We become heroes because of what makes us human." What more than is there to say?

Well our ideas of a hero are not all the same. A hero to you might not be one to me. Lately I have seen more and more heroes and that is something to celebrate. That wonderful human factor - that love of good and decency.  We all are capable of doing something heroic.  It doesn't mean we have to pull someone from a burning building or out of a car wreck.  We don't have to thwart an armed robbery or help an old lady who just had her purse snatched, to be a hero.  Each of us can be heroes in our own way.

The many activists who stand up for justice and equality belong in this category too.  The unconditional love - the "making a difference" kind of people:  heroes.  There seem to be more and more folks coming out and changing the world.  You can be a hero too!  You can make a difference.  Perhaps you already are.  I'd love to hear about it in the comments below.  Tell me about the heroes in your life!

colored water

I can remember as a youngster being in the supermarket with my mom and seeing the drinking fountains (remember them?) labeled "white" and "colored." I had no idea this was racial - I thought the water was white or colored! Naturally I wanted to drink the colored one. A woman witnessed this and scolded my mother for letting me drink where "those people" had put their mouths. My mother explained it all later, but it was several years later before I really understood.

Or do I understand? Why should someone drink from a certain fountain and not from another, just because of their race? Well the answer of course is that they shouldn't. Separate drinking fountains are illegal now, but sadly, we still have racial prejudice - I see examples most every day even now in 2025.

The whole drinking water thing apparently hit home with many.  Diane Bass, the mother of entertainer Lance Bass, wrote an essay several years ago which I just read the other day and in it she recalls her drinking fountain moment.  With her grandmother screaming at her to stop drinking from the "wrong" fountain, Bass writes "When I looked at the fountain it had the word "Colored" on it and she told me I had to drink out of another one. I was only 6 years old but I knew something was just not right about that."

Many of my friends are Asian and one time I was out with several other guys, all of whom are Asian. A group of white guys came upon us and started yelling at me "Why aren't you with your own kind?" They even chased after us, and since we were outnumbered, their senseless prejudice was not in the forefront of our minds - we simply wanted to get out of there safely.

I see the same kind of bias against lgbtq people often. I've been very fortunate and haven't been the victim of individual attacks, but all the laws that ban same sex marriage or that allow prejudice against lgbtq people in the workplace or anywhere else, are certainly attacks. They are saying I am not quite as good as someone else.

In all my years and will all that I have seen, the prejudicial treatment of people based on their membership - or perceived membership - in a certain group or category, just doesn't make sense to me, and yet it continues.

Is a world with true equality too much for me to hope for? Can we put aside all prejudice and discrimination? Will bigotry ever be completely erased? What do YOU think?