CRABBY OLD MAN..

When an old man died in the geriatric ward of a nursing home in North Platte , Nebraska , it was believed that he had nothing left of any value.

Later, when the nurses were going through his meager possessions, They found this poem. Its quality and content so impressed the staff that copies were made and distributed to every nurse in the hospital.

One nurse took her copy to Missouri . The old man's sole bequest to posterity has since appeared in the Christmas edition of the News Magazine of the St. Louis Association for Mental Health. A slide presentation has also been made based on his simple, but eloquent, poem.

And this little old man, with nothing left to give to the world, is now the author of this 'anonymous' poem winging across the Internet.

Crabby Old Man

What do you see nurses? .. . . . . What do you see?

What are you thinking .. .. . . when you're looking at me?

Crabby old man, . .. . . .. .. . not very wise,

Uncertain of habit .. . .. . . . . . with faraway eyes?

Who dribbles his food .. .. .. . . . . and makes no reply ..

When you say in a loud voice . . . . .. 'I do wish you'd try!'

Who seems not to notice .. . . . . the things that you do ....

And forever is losing .. .. . . .. . . . ... . A sock or shoe?

Who, resisting or not .. .. . . . . . . . . . lets you do as you will,

With bathing and feeding .. . . .. . . . ... . .The long day to fill?

Is that what you're thinking? . . . . . Is that what you see?

Then open your eyes, nurse . . . . . . you're not looking at me ..

I'll tell you who I am .... . . . . . . . ..As I sit here so still,

As I do at your bidding, .. . ... . . . as I eat at your will ..

I'm a small child of Ten . . . . . . . with a father and mother,

Brothers and sisters ... .. . . . . . . who love one another

A young boy of Sixteen . .. . . . . . with wings on his feet

Dreaming that soon now . .. . . .. . . a lover he'll meet ....

A groom soon at Twenty . .. . . . .my heart gives a leap ..

Remembering, the vows .. . . . . . that I promised to keep ...

At Twenty-Five, now . .... . . . .... . . ... . I have young of my own ....

Who need me to guide ... .. . .... . . . .And a secure happy home ..

A man of Thirty .. . . . .. . . . ... . . . My young now grown fast,

Bound to each other ... .. . . .. . ... . . . With ties that should last ...

At Forty, my young sons .. . ... . . . . ....have grown and are gone,

But my woman's beside me .. . . . . . to see I don't mourn ..

At Fifty, once more, .... . . . . . . . Babies play ' round my knee,

Again, we know children .. . .. . . ... My loved one and me ....

Dark days are upon me . ..... . . . . . . . . My wife is now dead ....

I look at the future ..... . . . . . . . . . I shudder with dread ..

For my young are all rearing . . . . . . young of their own ....

And I think of the years .. . .. . . . And the love that I've known

I'm now an old man .. .. .. . . . . . . and nature is cruel ..

Tis jest to make old age .. . . . .. .. ..look like a fool .

The body, it crumbles .. .. . . .. . . .grace and vigor, depart ....

There is now a stone ... .. . . . . .. . where I once had a heart ..

But inside this old carcass . .... . . . . ..A young guy still dwells,

And now and again .. ... .. .. . . . . .my battered heart swells

I remember the joys . .. .. . . . . .I remember the pain ....

And I'm loving and living . . . . . . . life over again ....

I think of the years ... all too few . . . . . . gone too fast ....

And accept the stark fact. . . . . . . . that nothing can last ..

So open your eyes, people . . . . . . . open and see..

Not a crabby old man ... Look closer . . . see . . . . . ME!!

Remember this poem when you next meet an older person who you might brush aside without looking at the young soul within we will all, one day, be there, too!

Wisdom..

An American, an Englishman and a Indian went for a hike one day. It was very hot.They were sweating and exhausted. When they came upon a small lake, they took off all their clothes and jumped into the water since it was fairly secluded. Feeling refreshed, the trio decided to pick a few berries while enjoying their "freedom". As they were crossing an open area, suddenly a group of ladies from town appeared. Unable to get to their clothes in time, the American and the Englishman quickly used their hands to cover their privates. But the Indian covered his face while they ran for cover.

After the ladies had left and the men got their clothes back on, the American and the Englishman asked the Indian why he covered his Face rather than his private parts.

The Indian replied, "I don't know about you, but in my country, it's the face that people recognize."

Facebook Fun..

If you are on Facebook, I am sure you will find this hilarious.  Hilarious, True as well as poignant.
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The 76-year-old woman walked down the hallway of Clear view Addictions Clinic, searching for the right department. She passed signs for the "Heroin Addiction Department (HAD)," the "Smoking Addiction Department (SAD)" and the "Bingo Addiction Department (BAD)." Then she spotted the department she was looking for: "Facebook Addiction Department (FAD)."

It was the busiest department in the clinic, with about three dozen people filling the waiting room, most of them staring blankly into their Blackberries and iPhones. A middle-aged man with unkempt hair was pacing the room, muttering,"I need to milk my cows. I need to milk my cows."

A twenty-something man was prone on the floor, his face buried in his hands, while a curly-haired woman comforted him.

"Don't worry. It'll be all right."

"I just don't understand it. I thought my update was LOL-worthy, but none of my friends even clicked the 'like' button."

"How long has it been?"

"Almost five minutes. That's like five months in the real world."

The 76-year-old woman waited until her name was called, then followed the receptionist into the office of Alfred Zulu, Facebook Addiction Counselor.

"Please have a seat, Edna," he said with a warm smile. "And tell me how it all started."

"Well, it's all my grandson's fault. He sent me an invitation to join Facebook. I had never heard of Facebook before, but I thought it was something for me, because I usually have my face in a book."

"How soon were you hooked?"

"Faster than you can say 'create a profile.' I found myself on Facebook at least eight times each day -- and more times at night. Sometimes I'd wake up in the middle of the night to check it, just in case there was an update from one of my new friends in India . My husband didn't like that. He said that friendship is a precious thing and should never be outsourced."

"What do you like most about Facebook?"

"It makes me feel like I have a life. In the real world, I have only five or six friends, but on Facebook, I have 674. I'm even friends with Juan Carlos Montoya."

"Who's he?"

"I don't know, but he's got 4,000 friends, so he must be famous."

"Facebook has helped you make some connections, I see."

"Oh yes. I've even connected with some of the gals from high school -- I still call them 'gals.' I hadn't heard from some of them in ages, so it was exciting to look at their profiles and figure out who's retired, who's still working, and who's had some work done. I love browsing their photos and reading their updates. I know where they've been on vacation, which movies they've watched, and whether they hang their toilet paper over or under. I've also been playing a game with some of them."

"Let me guess. Farmville?"

"No, Mafia Wars. I'm a Hitman. No one messes with Edna."

"Wouldn't you rather meet some of your friends in person?"

"No, not really. It's so much easier on Facebook. We don't need to gussy ourselves up. We don't need to take baths or wear perfume or use mouthwash. That's the best thing about Facebook -- you can't smell anyone. Everyone is attractive, because everyone has picked a good profile pic. One of the gals is using a profile pic that was taken, I'm pretty certain, during the Eisenhower Administration. "

"What pic are you using?"

"Well, I spent five hours searching for a profile pic, but couldn't find one I really liked. So I decided to visit the local beauty salon."

"To make yourself look prettier?"

"No, to take a pic of one of the young ladies there. That's what I'm using."

"Didn't your friends notice that you look different?"

"Some of them did, but I just told them I've been doing lots of yoga."

"When did you realize that your Facebooking might be a problem?"

"I realized it last Sunday night, when I was on Facebook and saw a message on my wall from my husband: 'I moved out of the house five days ago. Just thought you should know.'"

"What did you do?"

"What else? I unfriended him of course!"

Sweet Tea..

A woman goes to the doctor, beaten black and blue.

Doctor: "What happened?"

Woman: "Doctor, I don't know what to do. Every time my husband comes home drunk he beats me to a pulp."

Doctor: "I have a real good medicine for that. When your husband comes home drunk, just take a glass of sweet tea and start swishing it in your mouth but don't swallow. Just keep swishing and swishing until he goes to bed and is asleep."

Two weeks later the woman comes back to the doctor looking fresh and reborn.

Woman: "Doctor, that was a brilliant idea. Every time my husband came home drunk, I swished with sweet tea. I swished and swished, and he didn't touch me!"

Doctor: "You see how much keeping your mouth shut helps?"

Two Kids In The Hospital..

Two little kids are in a hospital lying on gurneys next to each other,

outside the operating room.

The first kid leans over and asks,

"What are you in here for?"

The second kid says,

"I'm in here to get my tonsils out and I'm a little nervous."

The first kid says,

"You've got nothing to worry about.

I had that done when I was four.

They put you to sleep and when you wake up

they give you lots of Jell-O and ice cream.

It's a breeze"

The second kid then asks,

"What are you here for?"

The first kid says,

"A circumcision."

The second kid says,

"Whoa, good luck, buddy.

I had that done when I was born.

Couldn't walk for a year."

Inner Peace..

If you can start the day without caffeine,

If you can always be cheerful, ignoring aches and pains,

If you can resist complaining and boring people with your troubles,

If you can eat the same food every day and be grateful for it,

If you can understand when your loved ones are too busy to give you any time,

If you can take criticism and blame without resentment,

If you can conquer tension without medical help,

If you can relax without liquor,

If you can sleep without the aid of drugs,

Then you have Probably acheived Inner Peace.

Life's Struggles..

A man found a cocoon of an emperor moth. He took it home so that he could watch the moth come out of the cocoon. On the day a small opening appeared, he sat and watched the moth for several hours as the moth struggled to force the body through that little hole.

Then it seemed to stop making any progress. It appeared as if it had gotten as far as it could and it could go no farther. It just seemed to be stuck. Then the man, in his kindness, decided to help the moth, so he took a pair of scissors and snipped off the remaining bit of the cocoon. The moth then emerged easily.

But it had a swollen body and small, shriveled wings. The man continued to watch the moth because he expected that, at any moment, the wings would enlarge and expand to be able to support the body, which would contract in time. Neither happened! In fact, the little moth spent the rest of its life crawling around with a swollen body and shriveled body and shriveled wings. It never was able to fly.

What the man in his kindness and haste did not understand was that the restricting cocoon and the struggle required for the moth to get through the tiny opening was the way of forcing fluid from the body of the moth into its wings so that it would be ready for flight once it achieved its freedom from the cocoon. Freedom and flight would only come after the struggle. By depriving the moth of a struggle, he deprived the moth of health.

Sometimes struggles are exactly what we need in our life. If we were to go through our life without any obstacles, we would be crippled.

We would not be as strong as what we could have been. Give every opportunity a chance, leave no room for regrets.

The Passion of Cricket!!

These pictures say more than a thousand words!

http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2011/04/cricket_passion.html

Career Choice..

India Wins ICC Cricket World Cup 2011

Congratulations to the Indian team and every Indian fan!

Nine things, that will dissappear......

1. The Post Office. Get ready to imagine a world without the post office. They are so deeply in financial trouble that there is probably no way to sustain it long term. Email, Fed Ex, and UPS have just about wiped out the minimum revenue needed to keep the post office alive. Most of your mail every day is junk mail and bills.
2. The Check. Britain is already laying the groundwork to do away with checks by 2018. It costs the financial system billions of dollars a year to process checks. Plastic cards and online transactions will lead to the eventual demise of the check. This plays right into the death of the post office. If you never paid your bills by mail and never received them by mail, the post office would absolutely go out of business.
3. The Newspaper. The younger generation simply doesn't read the newspaper. They certainly don't subscribe to a daily delivered print edition. That may go the way of the milkman and the laundry man. As for reading the paper online, get ready to pay for it. The rise in mobile Internet devices and e-readers has caused all the newspaper and magazine publishers to form an alliance. They have met with Apple, Amazon, and the major cell phone companies to develop a model for paid subscription services.
4. The Book. You say you will never give up the physical book that you hold in your hand and turn the literal pages. I said the same thing about downloading music fromiTunes. I wanted my hard copy CD. But I quickly changed my mind when I discovered that I could get albums for half the price without ever leaving home to get the latest music. The same thing will happen with books. You can browse a bookstore online and even read a preview chapter before you buy. And the price is less than half that of a real book. And think of the convenience! Once you start flicking your fingers on the screen instead of the book, you find that you are lost in the story, can't wait to see what happens next, and you forget that you're holding a gadget instead of a book.
5. The Land Line Telephone. Unless you have a large family and make a lot of local calls, you don't need it anymore. Most people keep it simply because they've always had it. But you are paying double charges for that extra service. All the cell phone companies will let you call customers using the same cell provider for no charge against your minutes.
6. Music.. This is one of the saddest parts of the change story. The music industry is dying a slow death. Not just because of illegal downloading. It's the lack of innovative new music being given a chance to get to the people who would like to hear it. Greed and corruption is the problem. The record labels and the radio conglomerates are simply self-destructing. Over 40% of the music purchased today is "catalog items," meaning traditional music that the public is familiar with. Older established artists. This is also true on the live concert circuit. To explore this fascinating and disturbing topic further, check out the book, "Appetite for Self-Destruction" by Steve Knopper, and the video documentary, "Before the Music Dies."
7. Television. Revenues to the networks are down dramatically. Not just because of the economy. People are watching TV and movies streamed from their computers. And they're playing games and doing lots of other things that take up the time that used to be spent watching TV. Prime time shows have degenerated down to lower than the lowest common denominator. Cable rates are skyrocketing and commercials run about every 4 minutes and 30 seconds. I say good riddance to most of it. It's time for the cable companies to be put out of our misery.. Let the people choose what they want to watch online and through Netflix.
8. The "Things" That You Own. Many of the very possessions that we used to own are still in our lives, but we may not actually own them in the future. They may simply reside in "the cloud." Today your computer has a hard drive and you store your pictures, music, movies, and documents. Your software is on a CD or DVD, and you can always re-install it if need be. But all of that is changing. Apple, Microsoft, and Google are all finishing up their latest "cloud services." That means that when you turn on a computer, the Internet will be built into the operating system. So, Windows, Google, and the Mac OS will be tied straight into the Internet. If you click an icon, it will open something in the Internet cloud. If you save something, it will be saved to the cloud. And you may pay a monthly subscription fee to the cloud provider. In this virtual world, you can access your music or your books, or your whatever from any laptop or handheld device. That's the good news. But, will you actually own any of this "stuff" or will it all be able to disappear at any moment in a big "Poof?" Will most of the things in our lives be disposable and whimsical? It makes you want to run to the closet and pull out that photo album, grab a book from the shelf, or open up a CD case and pull out the insert.
9. Privacy. If there ever was a concept that we can look back on nostalgically, it would be privacy. That's gone. It's been gone for a long time anyway. There are cameras on the street, in most of the buildings, and even built into your computer and cell phone. But you can be sure that 24/7, "They" know who you are and where you are, right down to the GPS coordinates, and the Google Street View. If you buy something, your habit is put into a zillion profiles, and your ads will change to reflect those habits. And "They" will try to get you to buy something else. Again and again.

 All we will have that can't be changed are Memories.