STORYTIME TAPESTRY

The Newsletter devoted to spreading love and cultural awareness throughout the world

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Jan 26, 2006? 

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Today's Queue Stories
~**~**~**~

? MAKING WRINKLES

By: Joseph J. Mazzella

? ? ? ?  My daughter and I made a family scrap book for my dad??™s birthday this year. It was so much fun looking through all the old photo albums and seeing the pictures of my children, my mom, my dad, my grandma, my brothers, and myself through the years. It made me wonder what happened to those babies that I used to hold in my arms and to that hair that I used to have on my head. It made me wonder how many happy smiles and fun-filled laughs it took to make all those wrinkles I have on my face now. It made me wonder how our bodies can keep growing older while our joyful and loving souls never seem to age a day. Seeing all those pictures filled me with happy memories of loving times. It made me realize just how precious and wonderful our days here on Earth are and just how quickly they can go by. It helped me to see as well that life is a glorious journey that is best lived one delightful moment at a time.

? ? ? ?  I myself am looking forward to making the rest of my journey with a smile on my face, a song in my heart, and God in my soul. I myself am looking forward to a journey that is full of joy, laughter, and love. It doesn??™t matter if I make it with grey hair or with no hair. It doesn??™t matter if every smile and laugh I share on it causes my face to wrinkle a little more. It doesn??™t matter if my body keeps getting older on it, because I know that what is essential in us all never grows old and never dies.

? ? ?  May your own journey of life be a blessed one. May you rejoice in it moment by delightful moment. May you spend your days sharing your love, your years sharing your joy, and your eternity sharing your oneness with God. May you spend the rest of your life making wrinkles from the glorious smiles and wonderful laughter you share with everyone you meet.

My I introduce myself?

Saskia Nienna Streidel

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I am a woman in love. How many women were able to say the same about themselves before me? How many women are there today, thinking the same thing?

I know that there are millions and millions of women, they lived, they live, they will live. And they all thought, think and will think the same. I feel like I am a part of them. Maybe we are all reaching out for hands. Maybe we all dance together in a circle. It could be, I know that.

But still, today I feel like I am the only one who ever said: I am a woman in love.

I feel like it is special, this feeling. Like it is written for my heart. Its rhythm is the rhythm of my heart, the fluid of love is my blood, running through my venes, pulsing, hot, dark, real....

Maybe there are thousands of other women today thinking, that they are in love. Future will show that some of them were right and some of them were not. It does not matter. Today, I want to think that this feeling is mine, just mine. Just for this day! And I do not want to feel bad because of it. I want to feel that? I have the right to own this feeling. Just for today. Tomorrow, maybe, I will share it again.

May I introduce myself? I am a woman in love!

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Joseph J. Mazzella
joecool @ wirefire.com

Joe lives in West Virginia with his wife and three children. Various dogs and cats have adopted Joe and his family for their own. Joe enjoys his family, beauty, love and hearing from his email friends. Joe likes to take the time to smell the roses and enjoy the beauty around him as he goes about his daily life.

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~**~**~? 

? ? ???The Day I Evaded The Shot Thing???

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Pamela Perry Blaine

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???But Momma, I don??™t like pink medicine!????  I exclaimed.

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???It will make your tummy feel better,??? Momma insisted as she aimed that loaded spoon of Pepto-Bismol right toward my face.

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???It tastes yucky,??? I cried.? 

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It didn??™t matter how much I complained and protested Momma was quite adamant that I open my mouth and swallow the pink medicine.?  However, I still sat with my lips pressed tightly together in stubborn refusal.

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???Okay, put on your shoes, we??™ll just have to take you to the doctor then,??? Momma said without missing a beat as she slipped her coat on over her dress and reached for her purse.? 

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Momma knew I hated going to the doctor.?  It was because I was afraid of what I called, ???the shot thing???.?  The shot thing was what is better known as a hypodermic needle but who knows when the doctor might draw it out of it??™s scabbard like a sword and stab me with it!?  I had experienced it before and it felt just like that awful bee that stung me last summer.? 

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However, one look at Momma and I knew this was almost the end of the battle.?  The big showdown scene was about to begin.?  Momma was standing there with the spoon in one hand and my coat in the other.? ?  I knew there was no way that I was going to win so with great reluctance I ever so slowly opened my mouth.?  I scrunched my face up as I swallowed that spoon full of pink medicine.?  I closed my eyes tightly and held my breath as long as I could to put off tasting the disgusting liquid.? 

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After I swallowed it, I made sure to make all the appropriate gagging, coughing, and whining sounds so that Momma would be sure to know what a terrible thing she had just done to me.?  I had to swallow the medicine because I thought the alternative was too terrible.?  I just couldn??™t take a chance on a visit to the doctor.?  There was just no telling whether or not that doctor might decide to deploy ???the shot thing???.? 

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Later that day, I did get better thanks to the makers of Pepto-Bismol and my mother??™s tenacity.?  The good news was that I didn??™t have to go to the doctor nor did I have to deal with ???the shot thing???.? 

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Since that time, I??™ve often wondered if Momma was bluffing to get me to take the pink medicine or if she really would have taken me to the doctor if I had refused to take my medicine.?  I guess I??™ll never know but I do know that I never messed with Momma when she meant business because there was no way to win.? 

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I took my medicine that day and managed to save my pride by pronouncing myself the heroine of ???Act One??? of the play called My Childhood.?  This particular scene was titled, ???The Day I Evaded the Shot Thing!???

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By Pamela Perry Blaine? 

?©November 3, 2005

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Pam lives in Missouri with her husband, Michael.?  She enjoys composing music and writing stories.?  She writes "Pam's Corner" for her local newspaper, The Edina Sentinel.?  Pam and her husband are active in their church where she plays piano and he is music leader.?  They have a CD available called, "I'll Walk You Home".? ?  The title song is about her lifelong friend who died of cancer.?  You can hear this song on her website:? http://blaines.us/PamyPlace.htm
Several of her stories have been published on the internet as well as in books such as The Miracle Of Sons, 2The Heart/People Who Make A Difference,? and A Tribute To Moms.?  Her goal is to write to encourage others and to write stories for her children and grandchildren? so that stories and family history will be preserved.? 

My Website:

http://blaines.us/PamyPlace.htm
Send Pam an e-mail: pamyblaine@blaines.us? ? and let her know what you thought of her story.

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? ? ~**~**~

The Perfect Partnership . . . 30 years in the making

Keith Ready

It was a warm, humid and somewhat overcast Saturday afternoon with just over an hour left to play in the day, as I sat watching from the side line as my eldest son Simon opened the batting for his cricket team. Simon has played cricket for just on fifteen years and for many of those years he was an opening batsmen, but in recent times he has always preferred to bat lower down the order, so to open the batting is now very much out character for him. However, on this day his captain had asked him to do it and he said yes.

He and his batting partner played very well and the team got off to a flying start scoring nearly 70 runs by the end of the days play. As he left the field, I could see that he was very pleased with his efforts and I was also very proud of him.

One of the spectators sitting with me during the last hour of play made a comment about the age of Simon's bat and almost without thinking I replied that it was over thirty years old and still going strong. He replied that they don't make bats like that any more, implying that there was a certain quality about a bat that had stood the test of time.

At that very moment my mind skipped back over the years and I recalled snippets in the life of the bat, an SS Perfect Club Model made from English willow by Stuart Surridge. I had purchased it when I was a young man playing afternoon park cricket, and at that time most cricketers used the bats that their cricket club supplied in the team kit. So you can imagine how proud I was to have my very own perfect bat, equally, I had saved up to buy it, so it became a treasured possession.

The perfect bat came with its own special carry bag, complete with a small instruction booklet attached to the bat handle which included advice on how to care for the bat, the need for regular oiling with linseed oil, and the obligatory cleaning of the batting surface with light grain sandpaper to remove the red cricket ball dints and marks.

For over four years I used the perfect bat with moderate success, then work and family commitments took over and my cricket playing days came to an end. My perfect bat remained in the carry bag for around eight years, until I returned to play the indoor cricket, a shortened version of game played under lights. My perfect bat had now entered its second decade in its cricketing life and still looked as good as new, once it had been sanded, oiled and had a new batting grip.? 

During this time Simon was born and as he grew older he started to play sport, which included junior cricket and I either coached or managed every team he played for over the next twelve years. During the latter part of his junior years in cricket, Simon always had his own cricket bat, so my bat remained safely stored in the carry bag, only coming out on the rare occasion that I played a game of social cricket.

When Simon was old enough to play senior cricket, he and I had the chance to play together in an afternoon competition for our club and it was time for my perfect bat to be taken out of its carry bag, lightly sanded, rubbed down with linseed oil and have a new batting grip fitted. Only this time Simon was using it when he batted and I used his old bat.

I can remember asking him if he wanted me to buy him a new bat, but I was quickly told that he would like to use my perfect bat, as long as I didn't mind. How could I possibly mind, my son wanted to use my perfect bat which was older than him and had been used by me on and off for well over twenty years. The fact that Simon did want to use? it has always amazed me, given that the majority of our team mates all had the latest and most up to date bats available on the market.

It was about this time that Simon changed the way he batted. He became a more attacking batsman who enjoyed his time at the batting crease and many good scores were the order of the day in the innings that he played. The great delight for me was that I was playing in the same team with him and either watching him from the side lines or on the odd occasion batting with him. On one occasion when he did not play, I had the opportunity to use my perfect bat and made my highest score of my cricketing career. As you can imagine the perfect bat got a liberal sanding and the customary oiling after that innings.

I can still vividly remember one innings that Simon played on an extremely hot, humid and very windy Saturday afternoon in February 2003 and he came very close to scoring a 100 runs, which is? better known in the cricketing world as a century or a ton. In the end exhausted from the heat, he was out just short of the score all cricketers strive for every time they bat, however, it had been a wonderful innings. Sadly on that afternoon our capital city was hit with the worst bush fires that you could imagine and hundreds of people lost their homes and all their possessions.

Coincidently, it was in the light of Simon's wonderful innings with the perfect bat and in the shadow of the bush fire disaster that launched my on going passion? for inspiring and uplifting stories and messages.

So now the perfect bat has been around for over three decades and it is still going strong, it once was mine but now in every way it belongs to Simon, although I still make sure that it is sanded and well oiled at the start of each cricket season, and a new batting grip is fitted, whenever it is required.

When I first bought the perfect bat, little did I know that it one day it would be used by my son and that I would have the honour and great pleasure of not only coaching and watching him play, but also playing with him and see him make lots of runs.

At the start of this cricket season, Simon decided to join another cricket team, but still play with the same club. Loyalty to his club has always been important to him whether it is cricket or soccer, which is a very rare quality in today's world. So as I left the cricket ground on that Saturday afternoon, I reflected that whilst I was not playing cricket with him this season, it was both timely and very appropriate for him to being playing with all his friends and mates. Over the last? fifteen years we have had many days together on the cricket field and how lucky have I been to have such an experience, as I am sure that there are very few fathers that have the opportunity to play a competitive sport like cricket with their son.

After watching him opening the batting, I also now know that each time that he goes out to bat; he takes with him not only my best wishes, support and thoughts, but also a perfect bat that once was mine, but is now his.

I have decided to rename it Simon's Stuart Surridge bat? and for me the triple S also stands for three decades. It is my greatest wish that this perfect partnership will continue well beyond his first? century in cricket, and into a fourth decade.

Inspired by Simon and the perfect bat - written by Keith Ready, a very proud father and semi-retired cricketer.

Keith Ready is an Australian based business adviser and trainer whose specialty is working
with his clients to improve top and bottom line business performance in a measurable way, through people.
Keith can be contacted via e-mail at? kready@netspace.net.au or you can visit his website at www.agiftofinspiration.com.au

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Writers Feedback

I loved the Firefly story!?  Such imagination and creative writing!?  Thanks.?  God bless, Sharlett Hunt ? 

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? SENIOR WRITERS

Chief Writer: Sharon Bryant

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? Agee, Vance;? Apted, Violet;? Baker, Kathy; Batt, Al;?  Berry, Nell; Blaine, Pamela

Boda, Ginger;? ? Buhagiar, Victor; Cassady, B.J.;?  Cavalera, Robyn; Crider, Mark;? 

Deming, Barb; Doherty, Maria; Gilbert, Robert Jr; Goodier, Steve; Halley, Ellie Braun;

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Liles, Norma; Lilly, Jodi Flesberg; Lock, Joyce; Mazzella, Joe;? Morris, Deepak;

Ojeigbe, Georgewaters;

?  Petry, Dianna Doles; Roberts, Susan;?  Shiveley, Debra; Shaw, Bob; Sims, Richard; Streidel, Saskia; Swarner, Ken; Vaknin, Sam; Verhoeff, Jan

Walker, Bill; Walker, Joe;? Warner, Gorden K; Walsh, Sue

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