Storytime Tapestry Newsletter

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

December 17, 2007

Today’s Announcement

Happy Birthday Mary Ann Featherston: maryann63701@msn.com

Happy Anniversary: Barbara and Bruce Roney: busyb460@msn.com

Happy Anniversary: Pamela Blaine and wonderful Hubbie:

pamyblaine@blaines.us

Christmas is just around the corner and most of you have already started to think about Christmas gifts for this season.  Why not help out Storytime Tapestry with its ongoing commitment to provide you with free wonderful stories and poems daily by purchasing the publisher’s newest book for someone special on your holiday gift giving list this year.  Angels Watching Over Me can be published through lulu press in both hard copy and e-book.  Just click on the link:  Angels Watching Over Me

Important notice: Storytime Tapestry is a free e-zine, however donations are always needed to help with the operating expenses of running the newsletter and to keep Storytime Tapestry the quality newsletter you are so accustomed to.   You can make your donations to paypal at: winterose@videotron.ca, or if you would prefer to use the mail system contact the publisher at the same email address: winterose@videotron.ca

Today’s Stories

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 A BROWN FELT HAT AND AN OLD NIKE BACKPACK

By David Wainland

As I type out my thoughts and feelings, I am sitting with a battered brown fedora perched on the crest of my balding head, a hat much the same as you might ascribe to the fictional hero, Indiana Jones. It belonged to my son Jeremy and I can still picture the first time I saw him with it on his head. It was back in the mid-nineties and he was taking an unearned sabbatical from the University of Florida.

While Jeremy was intelligent, more so than many, upon his arrival to college he fell into a typical freshman trap and decided to assert his newfound freedoms. The result was a letter from the University in his second year suggesting he temporarily leave campus, get his act together and return after doing some heavy makeup work during the summer session.

He was disillusioned, we were angry and together both of our dreams and ambitions for him seemed to dissipate. He took a job as a waiter and talked about going back to college, but with no enthusiasm. Jeremy had the gift of gab and it was not long before someone offered him a job as a salesman in the real estate market.

Our hopes of his going back to school all but disappeared when he decided to take the job.

I did hold out one possibility though, and I made him the proverbial “Offer he couldn’t refuse.”

I had discussed it with my wife and she concurred. Perhaps he simply needed to get out in the world for a bit.

We offered him the opportunity to see part of it in an ongoing one-year adventure. We sent him to a Kibbutz in Israel for six-months and then for a month to Cairo where he lived with a business associate. Finally, he traveled back to Israel with enough cash to wander about for several months provided he took advantage of youth hostels and Hebrew University programs.

My last view of him as he left for that trip was on an escalator in Miami International. He kissed his mother goodbye, shook my hand, popped the infamous fedora on his head, turned to the moving stairs and never looked back.

The trip did wonders and upon his return, he reentered college, this time Florida Atlantic University, and he graduated. For his newest accomplishment, we allowed him a trip to wherever he wanted to go. We gave him some pocket cash and he carried a small bit of his own savings acquired while working his way as a waiter through school.

He took off on his own again wearing that now battered hat and wandered around Europe for the better part of the summer. He lived in hostels and cheap hotels while he visited Great Britain, Holland, The Check Republic and a side trip back to Israel and ended his visit in Madrid.

The following year he took off backpacking again, this time with two friends. He added Germany, Hungary, Italy and a few more I cannot recall.

When he returned from that trip, he took his hat and hung it in my office.

“Use it if you need to,” he smiled and went about building his life, finding a fianc?e and having a baby. In 2003, life caught up with him and without warning, he was lost to us forever.

I own a backpack that he helped me pick out, a grey and red Nike. It is not suitable for overnight, just for carrying my junk around while my wife and I travel. It has seen many places on its own. I have worn it from Israel to the Panama Canal and many places in between. I dutifully record the name of every stop on the canvas with a black permanent marker.

This year, in September for our forty-third anniversary, my wife and I took our first major vacation since his passing. We chose a Mediterranean cruise with stops in Italy, Turkey, Greece, France and Spain.

Of course, I wore my tattered backpack, but just to honor my son I slipped into his Indiana Jones hat and wore it everywhere, to many a place he had never been.

I may be a foolish old man, but together, the three of us Jamie, the spirit of Jeremy and I watched the sun set over Ephasis  in Turkey, the aquamarine blue of the Mykonos Bay, the Coliseum in Rome and along the Amalfi Coast of Italy.

David Wainland

david@davidwainland.com

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 NEUROSIS

Dr. Harmander Singh

"Why are you sitting alone in this dark room?” the mother asked her son.

"Please, do not disturb me,” he requested.

"What made you feel that I'm disturbing you?” she asked.

"I need solitude and you're asking me questions,” he protested.

"All right, I want you to fell that you can keep up the solitude even if you are in the crowd,” she said.

"Please Mum! I do not need your advice. Please leave me alone,” he again requested.

            His mother was unaware about his problem but she knew that her son would be able to handle the crisis by himself.

"I'm sorry. I'm going,” she said and left the room.

"Mum! Please do not mind it. I want to have peace of mind. I know that you seek to help me in everything. I regard that the society outside this home is not like you. Just tell me, please, how can I return to my normal state because, I feel I've neurosis,” he requested.

"When you eat too much, what would you do? You just walk and stroll freely. You have knowledge more than you need. Just share yourself with someone who cares for you. Never try to impress anybody just express freely.”

"Thanks a lot, Mum! Let's go to see the circus,” he requested.

            His neurosis disappeared when he laughed with others at the joke told by the joker.

Daily Moral Insight for a Peaceful Night

Is not it so peaceful to enjoy the moon at night?

Is not it a unique deepness to share our mood of moonlight with others?

Is not it great to represent the star hood of humanity?

Is not it glorious that the Sun adds more light to the moonlight?

Is not it a great blessing to see the Sunrise?

Dr. Harmander Singh

bhagouauty@gmail.com

Poetry Corner

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Please Don't Tell My Soul

Fred Hose

A Dedication in a Rather Poor Rumi Style

Last night I spoke
But had to ask my heart
Not to reply for a while.

Dear broken heart
Don't speak to me about loss
And not about your pain

Do you know
The divine light of the moon
That speaks to hearts?

Last night I fell
From a flight to the moon
To broken pain on earth.

A macabre madness came

And my red blood flowed
As you turned away.

Weren't you the star
That shone so bright for me
Measured days ago?

How did your voice
Change to that of Pharisees?
Please don't tell my soul.

Let my soul believe
That I travelled on a moonbeam
And met a spirit glow.

My heart wonders sadly
How did this light turn to gloom?
Softly asked while it sorrows.

Please don't tell my soul
All I have is my bag and path
And rows of joyful images.

Oh heart be kind
Aren't you the messenger of God?
Then please don't tell my soul.

Fred Hose

fredhose@mweb.co.za

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Readers Feedback

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Here is our Storytime Tapestry Angels: Also, I would like to thank those of you who chose to be a silent angel and gave an anonymous donation to keep Storytime Tapestry up and running.

Clara Westerfer, Mark Crider, Rosanne Catalano, Paula Booher, Kay Seefeldt, Mariane Holbrook, Mary Ellen Grisham, Louise Nomani, Sharon Bryant, Angela Walker, Hart and Helen Dowd, Keith Ready, Ginger Morgenstern, Ellie Braun-Haley, Surinder Jandu, Bob Shaw, Carol Meeks, Charlotte Hilliard, Maria Keller