Storytime Tapestry Newsletter

The newsletter devoted to spreading love and cultural awareness around the world.

October 2, 2006

Today’s announcements

Prayers are needed for Jene Lind:  Some of you do know and some of you don't that this month started out on a horrible note for me. I thought I had the flu and was being treated for it. Then I fell one day because my leg would no longer support me and I hurt my head. I also was taken to RE to see why I

could not walk or raise my hands. I was totally helpless but the bad

part was not being able to get a breath out and no strength to even

tell the doctors what happened. My daughter was on phone when it

happened. Called 911 and her dad and rushed right over. Think 911

beat her here but she was with me the whole time. After two days in

ICU and two recouperating with the cat scan clear of any brain problems. N0 concussions, bleeding,  no lung problems they did

some blood tests and said my potassium level was at a CRITICAL

level and they had to get it down immediately. They did this by

flushing my system. ( This they did the first night in ICU. ) By Sat,

the 16th I was sent home. I was still running a temperature, and

coughing so hard it was really causing a lot of pain. It was back

to the primary Doctor on Monday. He switched meds and put me

on augmenting and cough medicines.  Well, all this time I am running

fevers around 101.6 to 102.6. I cannot get it to go down yet. Yesterday

I went to  a Homeopathic doctor. He had diagnosed me with Acute

Bronchitis and said to stay on the meds I am on and add a couple more that is not  medicine but natural remedies.  But again today I am

still unable to move much and am hurting bad. Needless to day I am

not able to be online. I enjoy all you all's mail but have not been able to

access very much of it. So Please for a few days or until you hear from me, so NOT write. I don't want to have to put the mail block on. Jus wait till I send the good news I am back to normal.  I also ask for your prayers at this time. Jene

Now onto the good stuff!

Today’s Queue Stories

~**~**~

THAT IS GOD SAYING, "I LOVE YOU"

By: Joseph J. Mazzella

     Each of us in this life wants more than anything to be loved. We work for love. We strive for love. We make fools out of ourselves for love. We long to feel that love warming our hearts and souls. We strain our ears each day for just a whisper of those three glorious words: "I love you."

     What most of us don’t realize, however, is just how much God loves us. God is showing us and telling us how much He loves us everyday. When you see the sun rising over the mountains, feel the cool breeze kissing your face, and hear the sweet songs of birds blessing your ears that is God saying, "I love you." When you see the adoring eyes of your dog looking up at you and feel the gentle brush of your cat against your hand that is God saying, "I love you." When you hear music that uplifts your soul with joy and read words that make your heart and mind soar into the heavens that is God saying, "I love you." When you hear the laughter of children playing and feel the warm hug of your own child against you that is God saying, "I love you." When you have the loving support of your family and the wonderful kindness of your friends no matter what you are going through that is God saying, "I love you." When you find your thoughts and feelings always leading you towards growth, learning, love, and joy that is God saying, "I love you." When your life’s circumstances both good and bad help you to keep growing stronger, better, happier, and more loving each day that is God saying, "I love you."

     God is always telling you and showing you just how much He loves you. Don’t be afraid then to say, "I love you too God." Don’t be afraid to live that love in your life either. Love God with everything you have and with everything you are. Love yourself, love your neighbor, and make this whole world your neighborhood. Always remember that God is love, that life is joy, and that we are one. And always listen for the million ways that God says, "I love you."

Joe Mazzella

joecool@wirefire.com

~**~**~

Hallucinations ~ Nightmare

Norma Liles

Three years ago, I had a tough time making it back to health after dodging the bullet of death at least three times, according to my daughter who has a bsn in nursing.

I was in the hospital at the time that I refer to; recovering from surgery to seal the stoma.  I was heavily sedated with morphine to block the pain which my surgeon said was necessary due to the pain they knew I would endure.

I pray that I will never need that drug again because I was over medicated due to having it in my IV as well as my own personal pump.

I am going to try to share with you the hallucinations that bore down on me while under this drug.

In my semi-conscience state, I thought there was an annex to my room.  I would tell my daughter and she would say: "Yes, Mom, there is a room behind you," meaning the adjoining room not what I felt there was.  No reason to explain to her as at times, I was not too lucid. As best I remember, my granddaughter was going to have my daughter's first husband give her away at her upcoming wedding. 

The nonsense of this plan is that she had never met him and two; her bio father had passed away.  So that leaves us with her stepfather.

As I spoke earlier, I just knew (?) that several people were in what I will call my annex room.  I thought there were several people there that would not ordinarily be there.  I was highly argumentative and was very upset with my granddaughter for her selection of whom to give her away.  I talked to her sister but she agreed with the plan that her sister had.  I was livid with anger but to my surprise, when I looked, again, my daughter's first husband and present husband were coming through the floral arch to share the honor at the betrothal. Now how normal would that be?   Mind can play strange tricks on we mortals

In another instance, I thought that my daughter was taking me to the drugstore to supposedly get something for me but the strange thing is; I was lying in my hospital bed which she had positioned just outside the store.    My oh My?

At one particular time, I thought that we (?) patients were going to go shopping at Wal-Mart’s while I was in my bed.  The next thing that I knew, my bed and I were sitting in a warehouse with me wondering what 'they' would say when I didn't return to my room.

For some reason, I thought I was in a mental ward but no one would or would not reassure me that I was not.  From this point on, I pray that I am never put in this position, again!!

NormaLee Liles

hoopla214@yahoo.com

Norma is an Ohio native, senior citizen; happy in her own skin, loves the Lord God Almighty, her family, her friends and her computer; pretty much in that order! Her hobbies include reading, writing poetry, stories, a few songs; loves to sing; and prefers southern gospel music. She is retired from the busines world where she worked as a data entry operator/supv; is number nine of ten children; is looking fwd

to her next birthday which will welcome #77. (Oct)

Her writings have been featured on: Starfish, Driftwood, Sandollar, Morning Spirit Lift, Prayer of God, Jan Karon, American Poetry Writer's League, Lucy's Inspiration, Faithful Hope reading room, Poetry of Today, Hope in Him, Bonnie's Place, America will remember, News Moose, Penworm Prayer Warriors, Angels on Earth, Canadian Memorial page, Eternal Ink, Heartcatcher and senior writer for Storytime_Tapestry.

~**~**~

My First Venomous Snake

Mike Firesmith

I don't think there was a time in my life when I didn't realize that I was different from other people it was just a question of degree. Even at five years old there was this dawning of an idea that the rest of the human world might not know as much as I do about some subjects. I also leaned that personal ignorance can be painful. This is something that we all discover as children. I was once chasing my sister with a water hose when the hose ran out. It flipped me just as neatly as you please and I would up slamming into the earth face first. Heavy objects fall and cause pain. Hot objects burn when touched. Animals display unhappiness by causing you to bleeds. (claws and affect) . These are all lessons we learn the hard way. What we discover later and more obliquely, is that because other people are ignorant, that too can cause pain.


My first memory of a snake is a Eastern Diamondback Rattlesnake that was pushing six feet long. I couldn't have been more than four at the time. It was a monster in every sense of the word to a child that young. It was twice as long as I was tall. I remember being so close to it that I could see the snake's pupils dilate when someone shined a flashlight on it. My father, who was a forester, would try to catch the biggest rattler that he could find, and he found plenty of them.


I remember the box that he kept them in. It was a eighteen inch wooden cube with a glass front, not Plexiglas, but real glass, thin and fragile. The top had a latch but my father didn't include a lock until later on. There for a while he didn't have to worry about us kids getting too close to the snakes he caught. After a while, fascination kicked in but hard too.


I felt drawn towards these creatures, these seriously deadly animals that struck terrible fear into my mother, my sisters, and some grown men. I would stand in front of the box and stare at an Eastern Diamondback that if it bit me would have killed me outright. But they were, and still are, animals of incredible beauty. The patterns of their colors were, and still are, some of the most beautiful colors that nature has ever intended. There are deep dark brown colors, yellow colors, black that separates the two and hues between not found anywhere, on any other creature, not the way that those scales show. The color of a rattlesnake blends and blurs. The colors come in each individual scale like living pixels. Rattlesnakes are the living sunrises of the earth. The noise of the rattle filled my ears as if I was falling deep under some sort of magical spell. These were kindred spirits, I felt deep within, and forever there would be a bond. I remember thinking that if I took one out of the box, it would know I meant it no harm, and would not bite me.

I never acted upon that impulse, no.



Even at five I realized that this was beyond me, these creatures. I realized that they were bigger, much faster, and stronger. A six foot diamondback can deliver onto a grown human enough venom to kill that person before anything can be done to succor their life. In terms of venom delivery, a grown Eastern Diamondback rattlesnake is one of the most deadly snakes to inhabit this earth. Even as a kid, this was not information that I could ignore.


But I still wanted to catch snakes. I had caught rat snakes and green snakes and king snakes, but I knew there was very little to this. There were adults, in particular grown women, who would flee from me in terror were I carrying a snake, and this is a heady drug for a five year old, yea. Although there were always consequences to such actions the very idea that I might possibly have snake in hand was enough to give some adults pause when approaching me. As a five year old in South Georgia there was no way that I could garner any respect but I could carry with me a foot long piece of fear if I could lay hands on a snake.


The Cottonmouth that I caught the other day was just over a foot long. That was about the size of the one I spotted on day in a dried up pond near my house when I was five. I knew the snake would be long gone by the time that I went to the house, got something to catch it with, and got back, but I felt like if I made the effort that was worth something. So I went home, got a metal minnow bucket with a lid that fastened, and went back to the pond. The Cottonmouth was still there! I took a stick and chased it around until it went into the minnow bucket and then used the stick to close the lid.


*click* I had just caught my first venomous snake!



Now in my mind I had done a deed worth much renown. I had captured a venomous snake, and done it safely. I carried the minnow bucket home to show my father that I too was a snake catcher. I was following in his footsteps! I was very nearly a man at this point in time. Walking back to the house with the snake I felt as if I was traveling through the very heart of Africa with a fifty foot long cobra.



When I got home my parents were entertaining company in the living room. Better and better! This way everyone will be aware of my skills. I put the minnow bucket down on the floors and proclaimed myself a mighty hunter. The company being entertained was the preacher and his wife. His wife was a pale and ghastly looking woman who was prone to fits of hysterics. Unknown to me, there was just about nothing on earth that frightened her more than a snake. Had I had Satan himself in that bucket it would not have had such a dramatic affect on the woman. Known to me but ignored, was the fact that my own mother was terrified of snakes. I assumed that if my father caught snakes with impunity, so could I.


An assumption was about to slam headlong, and violently, into reality.



Like twin herpephobic banshees, my mother and the preacher's wife screamed in unison. It was a sound unlike any other I had ever heard in my life. The sound of the terrorized women brought my sisters running, sent the preacher's wife running, and set my mother to doing a little dance in one place, just before her feet kicked in and she, too fled. But my sisters were coming in through the same door the preacher's wife was fleeing out of and they all collided into a pile on the floor which made the poor woman scream louder ( who would have though it possible, really?) and that caused my sisters to begin screaming also. The snake and I were the only two beings frozen in time. I realized that I had made a very serious error in judgment, and there would be no escape.




There was, in fact, none.




The snake was summarily executed. He got off easy, the lucky bastard. If I sit the wrong way to this day I can still feel the bruises. I was grounded until Hell froze over, my mother's heart rate went back down, or someone somewhere, thought it was funny.


It was a very long time before I saw daylight again.


Take Care,
Mike

~**~**~

Poetry Section

~**~**~

Diamonds are Forever

By Georgewaters Ojeigbe – Lagos, Nigeria

gojiegbe@jhplc.com

Diamonds are forever

Men are memories

We are unseen

It’s hard to understand man’s nature

Diamonds are forever

Men are like candles

In a little while the light goes off

He now becomes part of history

Diamonds are forever

Men adore it; fix it on, trade on it

Yet men are blown out of existence like dust on a pan

He sizes to feel, to dream and to love

Diamonds are forever

It is a precious stone

A glittering object

Men leave behind a great lump of memories

We are like shadows, at night it disappears

Our achievements rules from generation to generation

Diamonds has only one value; beauty

It’s forever

~**~**~

I WANT TO BE REMEMBERED WITH SMILES  (September 2006)

By Georgewaters Ojeigbe – Lagos, Nigeria

gojiegbe@jhplc.com

Today I remembered Loren Moore

Smiles came upon my face as soon as his memories came back afresh

I loved those clowning stories of his

I loved those comical explanation of his

I smiled gently and thought of a world were no one shall ever grow old

A place where no sickness will ever have power over us

A place where no demarcation can separate lands

Even though I had no opportunity meeting the person Loren Moore

Yet his memories lingers on and on as they came through Storytime Tapestry

I want to also be remembered with smiles

Let my days make people happy and forget their sorrows

May I have the hands to shake people on the road

May I have the chin to smile greatly to beggars on the streets

May I have the heart to sympathize with them that morn

May I have the bold heart to rejoice with they that rejoice

May I not be selfish with love

May I have the spirit of sharing?

If I ever hurt you please let me know

For the days are short and we only have love and joy as our greatest gift

This world is just for a short while; the light shall soon go off

~**~**~

~Evolving~

Mary Dees

Blooming pink,

Fresh morning dew.

Beauty captured,

In a sunrise hue.

Sweet breath of night,

Tree limb swishes.

Leaves of red,

Autumn's kisses.

Shades of grey,

Creeping in.

Winter cold,

Around the bend.

Sun tucked away,

Or so it seems.

Giving way,

To summer dreams.

By Mary M.Dees

marlena7694@yahoo.com

Readers Feedback

Dear Hartson,

     This column was of special interest to me (although all your columns are interesting) because I'm Jewish and even I didn't know some of the things you list here (and I go to temple every year during the High holy days).  Maybe if I spent more time there I would know this stuff...ant=yway great column and I'm looking forward to reading future columns by you.

Sincerely,

David Fox

Storytime Tapestry subscriber

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