English: The Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) at Kapiolani Medical Center in Honolulu, Hawaii (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Ordinarily, I would not do or recommend doing something like this to a heart patient but since they reported that he was going to be just fine, was actually feeling better than he had felt in a long time, and was only in the intensive care unit being observed for just a few more hours …I took the opportunity with his family to have some fun and cheer him up!
Here’s The Story
One evening I received a frantic call asking me for a ride to the hospital about dinner time. I said okay and made a record dash 25 miles to pick up a friend of a friend who was worried because her dad was rushed to the hospital with heart problems.
When we got there we found out that the news had been a bit delayed. Walking into the waiting area I noticed there was about 20 people, all of his closest relatives!
They had just started letting them go into the intensive care unit in groups of 2 to see him. The nurse come out and said he was doing well, they opened up a blockage in his something or other and the worst part is over.
After the 2nd group come out the man’s wife said “My gosh with all of these people going in and out they have no idea who is who” and a brother chimed in “we should send a stranger back to see what happens.” I said I’ll go! and then as we were talking we decided to make it seem like the patient may be having memory problems!
I went in with the sister as the next group. As we were going back we shared details only someone close to him would know.
I went in with a look of concern on my face picturing him as one of my oldest friends. As I shook his hand I said ” How are ya Ron… I stopped by yesterday but no one was home. Paula told me you were there but you must have been sleeping… I guess we can’t go to the turkey shoot tomorrow after all”
The poor man went from a greeting he would give a stranger to a confused terror while still holding my hand in a firm grip. The wheels were turning in his mind. I could see the questions going across his face as he looked at his sister and then looked at me tightening his grip as if to squeeze the memory out. Then with a look of defeat, he looks at his sister and says I don’t know this man turning our handshake towards her as if to show her who he was talking about.

Promptly I winced my face and said in an exaggerated mouthing whisper across the bed to the sister ” He doesn’t know who I am!!! OUCH!” .  She said ” Really? He has been over to your house dozens of times…heck I even know Stuart!” The poor man was about to lose his sanity and start getting excited so we told him it was a joke, insisted that it was his brothers idea, and laughter ensued especially pulling this one getting by the nurses, since this was an intensive care room. The family cheered our success as we recounted our story to them in the waiting room. Then we told the brother…for some reason he wants to see you next!! Oh well at least we were close to an intensive car room in case he got strangled for the joke!

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Image via Wikipedia

Everyone has a song but most people are afraid to sing it, mention it, or even dare to dream about it. So they listen while other people sing their own songs and never get heard. I’m no musician but I wish that I would take the time to be one because my song rocks hard and sets me free just from writing it on paper. My challenge is…What’s your song?

Here it is :

I WILL BE FREE

I am a man born of circumstance

I have dealt with the life given to me

Never once have I fell…. and not crawled out of the living hell

that sometimes life has handed to me

Now you’re standing there with that shitty grin

and you think that you’ve got it all over me

Well I’m not your chump or anybody’s punk…

and  I will always be free!

- I’ll stand and deliver

- My soul will fly free

- Can’t make me shiver

- My soul will fly free

All your fucking rules

say what I can not do

but I’m telling you…

I will be free

Though- you-beat-me-down-

and- you- brow- beat- me…

I will be free

-I will stand and deliver

-my soul will fly free

-can’t make me shiver

-my soul will fly free

‘Cause I’m a man of circumstance…

I have dealt with the life handed to me

Never once have I fell

and not crawled out of the living hell…

That sometime life has handed to me.

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Image via Wikipedia

Edging my way with ice underneath far above the crumbled rock below

I feel as though I may fall if  I move yet I press on

I felt so overwhelmed when I was low

staring up to the endless top

Yet I stepped on

Up I go it’s so cold now

I feel the want to stop

but if I do I know that I’ll quit

And  I may never reach the top

Oh how I wish that I was laying on a beach with warm sand

and the thunderous sound of water crashing close at hand

But I am climbing up farther than ever before

and I ‘d bet that the seagulls on that beach would see me and soar

Just a little bit further and I’ll reach the top

I must not drift off for I fear it  may cause me to stop

But the kids are playing on that nice warm beach

And the top has been too far of a travel and out of my reach

Focus! I must press on

Climbing the last step I now stand

on something that I could not explain how grand

but the world seems small from where I do now perch

the top is mine…no longer do I search

beaches could not compare to the sweetness of this thin air

I am so high above the ground that many will never be

most people will not have this view

they will have to settle for a beach by the sea.

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English: Cliff Diver, MAZATLAN (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

My heart beats hard and I lose my will

set to the motion that I now feel

harder and harder, the noise comes

down to the bottom

here I come

will I still live when this time will stop

or did I take my last breath at the top

breathe… I must breathe its the only chance I’ve got

feel my legs…I can not

flying with force and shear raw power

not knowing now if this is my final hour

…So much I have left undone

I got to breathe…try to stay loose

can’t breathe its like I’m caught in a noose

A sudden thunderous crash but I’m alright

I’m shaking inside from sheer panic and fright

The crisis is over

No it was not my finest hour

yet it was as fine as that one will be

for I faced my fear today and it did not get me.

-2zpoint (an adrenaline junkie)

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Perfection (Photo credit: unloveablesteve)

Perfection to some is the perfect day,

yet to others it is finding the perfect way.

Some say it is having things at the perfect time,

or it is best seen from being at the front of the line.

Most like to tell of those that play on a different level

or draw things so that others emotions can revel.

But perfection is what the best strive for and falling short makes us strive for more.

The one thing that perfection does is that it gives every one something to shoot for.

And those who would fall short are always in the best of company, for we all do,

because the best of us all are humbled too.

Trying is the only way to tell

and there is no limit on how many times to fail.

Perfection will come at the end of the day when you view yourself and say:

I did my best and gave it my all… and today,

I could not ask for more.

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English: Close-up picture of billiard balls (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Quite a few years ago I was a very good pool(billiards) player and have slowly started taking it up again.
Yesterday, I enter a pool tournament and the competition was fierce. As I was playing, many of the players seen me as serious competition and played very defensively.
When a player plays defensively they shoot the cue ball in such a way that it makes it very difficult for their opponent to make a shot just in case they miss what their shooting at and sometimes they shoot this way without any intent on making a shot. If they are successful and their opponent cannot even see the ball that needs to be shot in next it is called a “hook” shot.
I was beating players and playing very well.
After beating three players, I found myself playing a very well dressed woman who looked to be in her sixties and she seemed very determined to beat me. I watched her try to make every shot as though it was her last. She had a professional cue stick, a silk glove to make the cue stick slide across her hand better, and a very competitive nature.
During the beginning of the first game in race to win five games, she hooked me three times in a row! So by the third time I said to her “Gosh! I didn’t know I was playing a HOOKER! ” and she quipped “Well a girls got to do what a girls got to do!” so I said popped off ” Well at least your honest about it!” and we both laughed. We carried the banter on through the match until I finally I beat her in the end. She told me that I could tell the lady that put the tournament on that I was the winner and I said “okay “. That is when I decided to tease her one more time! I said in a very very loud voice, one loud enough that the woman could hear me CLEARLY across the room “YEAH CHEETAH I BEAT THE HOOKER!!!”. Cheetah, the tournament host, turned a deep red, grabbed my arm, and hurried me outside and said with laughing breathless exclamation ” Stuart don’t you know that she’s a preacher’s wife? !!!” I rolled my eyes and sighed and said joking ” That figures! Now I ‘m sure I’m going straight to hell! ” . The preaches wife was laughing hysterically at all my banter and now I knew why…the laugh way on me. We had a historically great time especially my new friend the hooker (pool hooker that is!).
And the moral to this story… If your going to tease others you’d better be prepared to laugh at yourself  because it sometimes comes right back at you in unpredictably unimaginable ways!

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English: White peach and its cross section isolated on a white background (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

As the warm breeze blows,

and the Sun‘s kisses come

the newness quickly goes

until the ripeness touches some.

Plucked from it’s place… the most perfect choice

with a golden yellow treasure

that’s true description has no voice.

The sweetest of pleasures nature has to taste,

guarded only by a fuzzy soft skin.

To devour in a moment of haste

would be such a sin.

In many ways, love is like a peach

often wasted in sin

Devoured in moments of haste

Guarded only by soft skin

And why not?

It is some of the sweetest pleasure nature has to taste

and when you’re in it… it’s description has no voice.

Because it is a treasure

and only in it’s time and place is that love the perfect choice.

When it ripens …it touches all

kissing those that feel it with the warmth of the Sun.

Making lovers sway in the warm breeze of days that are done.

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At first I was mad and ready to fight…and to be honest it still grates on me a little now. I felt bad, not for what I said but for the way I was perceived. I would never let any of them know that it bothered me as much as it did but I was alone after the other guys left and I felt like I would probably be fired when the owner came in the next day but before one of the drivers left  he stayed and talked to me for a while, Johnny is his name.

Johnny has been burnt over most of his body and was diagnosed terminal cancer and 3 months to live… 2 years ago! And Johnnie told me he knows he cusses too much, chews tobacco, and will occasionally drink a beer but it is not anything that the lord would not forgive. He says that he might not go to church every Sunday but he talks to Jesus regularly. I look at him and he is simply an inspiration to anyone living and I think to myself that he has got something, I don’t know what, but. it seems to me, the only thing he clings to is his faith. He’ll tell his story tirelessly to be an inspiration because he knows like he knows he knows in his own heart that this must be what he is here for and, If asked, he would take a blood test today and it would show him to be cancer free.

After Johnny left, I talked to Jesus myself and I told him I was sorry for all the things I do wrong, asked him to help me convey myself better to others so that they would understand what I am saying without taking me the wrong way, then said I know I suck at these things but you know, if anybody does, I am trying to be a better friend, son, and father, then I wished him a good night and got in my truck, turned the key and my radio started blaring these words:

The song Carry On My Wayward Son by Kansas on a station not programmed into my preset buttons:

Carry on my wayward son
There’ll be peace when you are done
Lay your weary head to rest
Don’t you cry no more

Once I rose above the noise and confusion
Just to get a glimpse beyond this illusion
I was soaring ever higher
But I flew too high

Though my eyes could see I still was a blind man
Though my mind could think I still was a mad man
I hear the voices when I’m dreaming
I can hear them say

{Refrain

Masquerading as a man with a reason
My charade is the event of the season
And if I claim to be a wise man, well
It surely means that I don’t know

On a stormy sea of moving emotion
Tossed about I’m like a ship on the ocean
I set a course for winds of fortune
But I hear the voices say

{Refrain
No!

Carry on, you will always remember
Carry on, nothing equals the splendor
The center lights around your vanity
But surely heaven waits for you

Carry on my wayward son
There’ll be peace when you are done
Lay your weary head to rest
Don’t you cry (don’t you cry no more)

I laughed and thought to myself…Jesus has a heck of a great sense of humor!

And as I went into the owners office today everything was as though I was talking to an old friend…and the rest of my day went the same way. So if you need someone to talk to Jesus is a great someone. The funny thing is I’m not that religious and usually feel out of sorts talking about those things because I don’t know what the religious extremist are trying to do…control me or force me to think their way. I can not… but I have to say that after my conversation with Jesus I felt better and my situation was better . For those things I am thankful. I know that I am not alone. Peace be with you all.

And in case you might be wondering what that Kansas song sounds like:

Bath Time Smooches (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

If everyone had just a few smiles more
would anyone feel like going to war?
Would the bitter be as hard to take…
or a friend quite so hard to make?
Could the sad be less so…
Could anguish be let go…
with a few smiles more?
Love might be sweeter.
A mess might seem a little neater…
and who would take games serious enough to be a cheater?
…with a few smiles more.
Life comes to us the way we take it.
But I believe that it would be half as poor…
with a few smiles more.

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Happy older couple in black and white (Photo credit: Ryan Smith Photography)

Let me take you back…

to what seems now like myth,

back to the days when the best stories started with…

Once upon a time…

back to the days…

when till death do you part

really connected a couples heart.

A time when life and dreams were simple…

and the news didn’t shock us so.

Satisfaction came in the little things…

like sitting with loved ones in front porch swings,

or sitting with grandpa drinking peanuts and Coke.

The ways of the past now seem so cliché

and look at the prices we now pay.

Remember how good it feels to be in a time…

without too much reason or rhyme.

When simple things like boxes were fun.

We played in the rain and made mud pies…

and old men were swapping fishing lies.

It all seems now like it is in a land far far away

and happily ever after is only what we used to say…

because we wont settle for what our parents had.

We strive for better all the time…

and never once feel that less is more…

or feel that it is okay if we’re poor…

We just live life in a reckless way

shocking ourselves and each other every day.

Running away from being cliché’

We hit the day at a pace from which we can’t stray!

Because if we do…Oh parish the thought!

We’ll lose our chance! That one shot!

That shot at something that came so easy to our grand parents.

The ones who stayed TOGETHER for fifty years…

happily ever after till death did they part.

If we don’t run we wont have a chance!…not one shot! at a life like those stories

the ones they used to read us…

back when life was simple.

It seems like a land far far away…

A time when happily ever after was not just something they used to say…

It seems like a myth from the past that we all strive for at a break neck pace…

striving to be unique yet still searching for what others found easily without the chase…

our own… fairytale endings.

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