Ray’s Daily
September 20, 2021
Keep your eyes on the stars and your feet on the ground.
Theodore Roosevelt
I hope you had a good weekend. It’s now time to make it a good week. I am not sure what I am going to do but I know I will avoid conflict and ill will. I am too old to waste time in the doldrums so I will try to spend my time appreciating life rather then letting it pass me by.
Here is a story about how folks can find happiness, while I won’t hug a cow, I will hug life.
Hugging Life
It was time to break free. I needed to run away and this seasonal change here in Pennsylvania, offered the best place to go. It’s time for the Bloomsburg Fair.
I don’t know if you can call it running away since it is only an hour away from my home. But once I cross through ‘Gate 5’ and enter the fair grounds, I cross over into another world. The loudspeaker offers background music barely audible over the sounds of people talking, carnival game hucksters and food venders vying for your attention.
I belong here. I don’t know if I have it in my blood or not, but I always wanted to have a small food stand and travel in my off season from fair to fair selling goodies. Perhaps one day. It certainly isn’t a priority in my life. Perhaps it should be. After I’m there awhile, I need to get away to a quiet spot on the fair grounds. Most of the time I can find that any where the farm animals are kept.
They need the quiet. Milk production goes down in the dairy barns I am told if there is too much ruckus. So I go there to find peace with the cows, goats, horses, pigs and yes, the turkeys. You’d think being this close to ‘Thanksgiving’ they’d be a little on edge, but they are not.
It was in the dairy barn where I found my oasis this time. I so admire the young folks who tend to farm animals. I think they have a greater appreciation for life. They participate in it firsthand. I’ve watched a young boy help bring a calf into the world and I have seen a young girl walk her prize cow through the line of animals for sale, knowing that her job is done and it’s time for it to leave home. It must be difficult.
My favourite scene is to come across a young person lying in the hay asleep among the cows that have settled down for a rest. There, with their heads nestled in a small soft spot along side their favorite cow, I have seen them in a much deserved sleep. Perhaps better at rest there than in their own bed. I had the pleasure of speaking with a young teenage farm girl at rest today.
‘You look so comfortable,’ I said to her.
‘Oh I am,’ she said. ‘Life makes it comfortable for me.’
‘You mean being a farm girl?’
‘No, Life! That’s the name of my cow,’ she said smiling as she stroked the cows side.
‘I thought they called cows Betsy and Elsie. Why did you call her Life?’
‘I discovered life again here. It was the only sensible name that came to mind,’ she said.
‘I had been raised in the big city and really hated it. Then we moved to the country. Kinda running away from it all. I think my parents called it a mid-life crisis,’ she said laughing.
‘Boy, I can relate to that. I’ve been in one since birth,’ I said.
‘It was on the farm that I learned to love life again. I was there when Life was born. It was so exciting. My whole outlook on the world changed. So I named her Life. Now, I can say I really love Life,’ she said.
‘How incredible. You know I write stories and I am always trying to get people to embrace life. To wake up each day expecting the best from it. But they all too often go to bed with so much bad stuff in their soul, and on their mind, that they wake up miserable and expect it to only get worse from there. All too often it does, just because that’s all they choose to see in that otherwise perfectly beautiful day,’ I told her.
‘That’s too bad. They need to see a cow born, a chicken hatch. I guess they need to wake up early and hug life!’ she said laughing.
‘When was the last time you hugged Life?’ she asked me.
‘I am sorry to say even I have had trouble doing that lately,’ I said.
‘Come here!’ she said.
Then standing up and stepping aside she said, ‘Go ahead… hug Life!’
I paused for a moment and dropping all thoughts of looking silly, I did. I hugged a cow.
Written by Bob Perks
~~~
Not how long, but how well you have lived is the main thing.
Seneca
~~~
Health nuts are going to feel stupid someday, lying in hospitals dying of nothing.
~~~
A cowboy rode into town and stopped at the saloon for a drink. Unfortunately, the locals always had a habit of picking on newcomers. When he finished, he found his horse had been stolen.
He comes back into the bar, handily flips his gun into the air, catches it above his head without even looking and fires a shot into the ceiling. He yelled with surprising forcefulness “Who stole my horse?”
No one answered. “I’m gonna have another beer and if my horse ain’t back outside by the time I’m finished, I’m gonna do what I dun back in Texas and I don’t want to have to do what I dun back in Texas!”
Some of the locals shifted restlessly. He had another beer, walked outside, and his horse was back! He saddled up and started to ride out of town. The bartender wandered out of the bar and asked, “Say partner, what happened in Texas?”
The cowboy turned back and said, “I had to walk home!”
~~~
A conference is a gathering of important people who singly can do nothing, but together can decide that nothing can be done.
Fred Allen
~~~
A retired four-star general ran into his former orderly, also retired, in a Manhattan bar and spent the rest of the evening persuading him to come work for him as his valet.
“Your duties will be exactly the same as they were in the Army,” the general said. “Nothing to it-you’ll catch on again fast.”
Next morning promptly at eight o’clock, the ex-orderly entered the ex-general’s bedroom, pulled open the drapes, gave the general a gentle shake, strode around the other side of the bed, spanked his employer’s wife on her bottom and said, “OK, sweetheart, it’s back to the village for you.”
~~~
“There will always be two kinds of people: those who say what they think, and those who keep their friends.”
~~~
A man brings some very fine material to a tailor and asks him to make a pair of pants. When he comes back a week later, the pants are not ready. Two weeks later, they still are not ready. Finally after 6 weeks, the pants are ready. The man tries them on. They fit perfectly. Nonetheless, when it comes to pay, he cannot resist a jibe at the tailor.
You know, he says it tool God only six days to make the world. And it took you six weeks to make just one pair of pants.
Ahhh says the tailor But look at this pair of pants, and then look at the world.
~~~
Never argue with an idiot. They drag you down to their level then beat you with experience.
~~~
The boss returned from lunch in a good mood and called the whole staff in to listen to a couple of jokes he had picked up. Everybody but one woman laughed uproariously. Used to having a better audience, his good mood quickly faded.
“What’s the matter?” grumbled the boss. “Can’t you get the joke?”
“I don’t have to laugh,” she said. “I’m quitting Friday.”
~~~
Do stuff. Be clenched, curious. Not waiting for inspiration’s shove or society’s kiss on your forehead. Pay attention. It’s all about paying attention. Attention is vitality. It connects you with others. It makes you eager. Stay eager.
Susan Sontag
~~~
Management is not responsible for duplicates from previous dailies. The editor is somewhat senile.
Ray’s Daily has been sent for more than twenty years to people who want to start their day on an upbeat. If you have system overload because of our daily clutter, let me know and I will send you the information via mental telepathy. If you have not been getting our daily you can request to be added by e-mailing me at raykiwsp@comcast.net. Back issues are posted at http://rays-daily,com/ currently there are hundreds of readers from around the world.
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