Site hosted by Angelfire.com: Build your free website today!

Page 10

Odds & Ends!

Click on the picture to enlarge!

The Prairies

Nice, but a flat nothing. The middle of summer isn't too bad when the fields are bursting with wheat, and then they are a rich brilliant gold.

Click on the picture to enlarge!

Some more conglomerate loads

Just to show you the kind of loads we were into hauling.

Click on the picture to enlarge!

A Message and A Choice

A Message and A Choice.....

One day you will have just awakened, and you will be struck with a flash of insight that tells you once and for all that the past is just that--the past. It is truly over. Finished. Gone. Forever. It is then you will be left with today--only today. It will creep up on you that last night's act of love (or was it merely the popcorn and the beer?) is as blurred as the names of a hundred small towns on the way to the big city. The memories are lights in the night that flow endlessly over the dashboard across your lap and back out into the dark. It all existed but never will again. Not wasting this or any other minute will suddenly become a major issue. If you are no better in the next minute than you are right now, you are shameful. You should not be ashamed--that is the past tense, and from this second on you should choose not to allow yourself to suffer the remorse of past tenses. Each second should become an exercise in fulfillment. It must! You know that you may not do it all--accomplish it all--or become all that you can envision, but surely you must try. You must try! Men go off to wars and return with a sense of having lived life to the utmost. The excitement they felt there amidst the bullets and the blood was not the violence itself; rather, it was the sense of urgency one feels when death lurks near--that sense of now. When time becomes the enemy, there will always be the unspoken, almost indefinable urge to caress Lady Life the way only condemned men do--feeling, "I must hurry before she becomes fickle and robs me of my pleasure." But friends, the problem is that so many of us are extremists; we either ignore Lady Life, or in our haste we rape her. If we do not leave something to the world--a change, an improvement, a sharing of truths realized, a thing of beauty, a smile, a word of praise, a tear of happiness, a message of inspiration or hope, the memory of good times wrapped in the ribbons of love--then we are shameful, our lives a waste. When we pass up an opportunity to make a difference in our own or someone else's life, we automatically exile ourselves into a transparent never-never land--a state of nonbeing. Being is here and now. Becoming will elude us as well. Becoming is working toward the tomorrows. If we are choosing not to be a part of the situation--not to make our lives mean something excellent by being involved, then we can neither be nor become, and that is a shame--a waste. "I Am" means that "I Am" here and now--a part of things. The reason many of us are at odds with ourselves lies within the confines of those words. My friend, the absolute, universal truth is that I am a part of you and you, no matter who you are, are a part of me. The street in front of my house is but a continuance of the ground beneath your feet. You and I together are a part of all that is--the sky overhead, the trees, the birds, the grass, a rainbow all blue and yellow and orange, a crying child, everything that has been or will ever be--we are all a part of those things. When we attempt to be uninvolved, laws are broken, and for that a price must be paid. That price is always being at odds with ourselves because we are struggling uselessly against the oneness, the brotherhood of our lives. Once you recognize and accept that you and I are truly a part of all that is, you will see the deeper truth--all that is exists in the here and now. You will have come full circle. It is then that this thought comes home to roost; as long as we are here, we would be far better off, much happier, if we were known for what we did instead of what we could have done. The ironic part about all of this is that time will remember only the doers and achievers by name. It does not matter if their acts were good or bad--we tend to see them as separate or above the crowd because they excelled in one way or another. We must deal with their intentions, their motives, the results of their actions, as another issue. The important thought here is that reality's hard look will show us that the doers, the achievers--though appearing to be individualists--simply got in step with and took advantage of everything that surrounded them. They did those things that we remember them for in their here and now--now from their graves. The words if only were not in their vocabularies. The complete question for us is this and only this: Do we make a decision now, today, to live in our yesterdays, our tomorrows, or in the one and only day we are blessed with--this one?..... CHOICE……choice……choice!..... WHY NOT?..... We are free to make choices--decisions. So, why not? Why not try to bear in mind that you are capable of anything you want to become or attempt as long as you believe you are and are willing to go after it? Why not realize that when we envy someone else, we are really fostering a form of hidden bitterness? Do you think that when a person is born someone hands that ticket being marked PRIVILEGED LIFE ONLY? Queens and kings and princes all must at times fight for the scepters. Do you really think that when you cry and moan about your circumstances anyone will come along and hand you a PRIVILEGED LIFE pass? Why not remember that there have been hundreds before you who have earned the privileged life, and they are willing to share their secrets. All you have to do is make the decision then to seek them out and ask how they did it. When you do, why not remember that they, too, are mortals. You possess absolutely the same powers as they did and do. Above it all, my friends, you must work very hard to remember that you are as beautiful and as talented as anyone you pass in a day, and because you are here now, and because you have this life, this day, you have the opportunity to outshine the sun above! So--why not treat each person, each member of your family, each living thing, each hour, each day, each month, each year, as the last one you will ever have? Hold them up to the light…get to know them better….savor them as never before…..Why not shine your best light on them? Why not remember that whatever light you shine on them, they will reflect? They are your looking glasses--bright or dull, good or bad. The decision is yours; it's your life to make what you wish. The world and all the delightful mysterious things in it are yours to have, hold, and enjoy today! The world outside awaits your decisions.

>