Thank You to My EC Top Droppers

Thank you to all who dropped on this blog, especially to my top droppers. God bless and happy blogging!

Dropper	# of drops
The Esoterical Journey	15
Jean's Musings	11
Blogoncherry	8
Wayaworld	6
HotMomma	5
Three Different Directions	4
My Heart Voice	4
Sugar Coated World	3
Life, In My Own Backyard	3
HereandNow ~*4Angel*~	3

Still Stupid After All These Years

By: KEN ARMSTRONG

Normally, my ‘stupid-stories’ are about things that happened to me in the dim and distant past. But the story which I’m going to tell you now actually only happened a little less than six months ago.

It still hurts me, both emotionally and physically, to think too much about it. Still, I hope you get a little smile from reading it.

That’s the whole point really.
* * * *

In my job, I sometimes have to go out into fields in the countryside and check out their boundaries. Six week ago, I had one such job which took me into the green green depths of County Mayo (Ireland, of course).

It was a lovely sunny afternoon as I drove out and met the very nice lady who owned the land. We had agreed to meet her elderly neighbour down the field so we both pulled on our boots and headed off together down the grassy slopes.

Soon enough, we came to a fence. It was made of barbed wire and interspersed with tall wooden posts. We had to get past it. The lady – let’s give her a name, let’s say… Mary! Right, well, ‘Mary’ inched her way through a tiny gap and left a fair scrap of her nice tweed jacket on the jagged edges of the wire.

I had my best and loudest red jacket on and I didn’t fancy tearing it so I decided to go ‘over the top’. My plan was to climb on top of one of the large wooden poles that made up the fence and then simply jump down the other side.

It didn’t work out that way.

I got up on to the pole all right. There was only room for one foot on top of it so I balanced there, one leg bent back, arms outstretched. I reckon I must have looked a bit like the Karate Kid except in Welly-Boots.

So for one graceful moment, there I was - perched in the countryside on my pole.

All was well with the world.

Then I went to jump down the other side of the fence.

Perhaps it was because Mary chose that very moment to shout, ‘Be Careful,’ at me.

Perhaps she caused the very air to become negatively charged with her concern.

Perhaps it was all simply destined to fail from the moment I mounted my pole.

Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps…

I launched myself from the top of the pole but the act of my launching caused the poorly anchored pole to fall away backwards behind me just as I departed it.

This transformed what should have been a simple leap to the ground into a graceless swan dive out into rural space.

Bear in mind I was about six feet off the ground when I parted company with the toppling pole. It felt like a long long way to fall.

On the way down I found time to realise that my chin was going to be my first point of contact with the Earth.

In a last-ditch attempt at vanity, I drew my head back to save my beloved chin.

I threw my arms out behind me too, so as to further take my lower jaw out of the impact zone.

It worked. I hit the ground chest first, head up, arms back.

I think it really was quite a remarkable show.

Mary ran up to me. ‘Are you all right?’ she gasped, "Are you all right?"

I was winded. I was as winded as a winded person can ever be winded. There was no breath in me.

But I could tell that Mary was deeply concerned. The way I was curled up clutching my chest, the poor lady was probably thinking that I was having a heart attack.

So I squeezed an answer out on my last dribble of air.

"I’m fine." I wheezed, "Fine…"

Did I mention that Mary was ‘hard of hearing’?

Mary was as ‘hard of hearing’ as the post from which I had so recently sailed forth.

She shook me a bit.

"I said are you all right?" she wailed.

I recovered, after a while. I sat up and reassured Mary that I was indeed fine.

"I WAS ONLY WINDED!!" I said, "DO YOU HEAR ME? WINDED!"

In point of fact my stupidity had earned me two cracked ribs. But I wouldn’t know that until much later. For now, I pretended to have no ill effects at all.

It was critical that I regain some of my professional manner so that I could continue on and complete my job on a calm clinical way…

…as if!

(Really, I should end this story now – I’ve written enough words, I think. A story which has, up until now, been fairly embarrassing for me to tell is about to become completely mortifying. Still, I can’t stop myself from telling it. God help me I can’t!!)

On the way back up the field, after completing our little boundary-check, we came to the same fence again.

I had reinstated the pole as best I could so the fence was once again an obstacle to be overcome. Mary went through it exactly as she had done before.

I still wanted to save my jacket so I went with ‘Plan B’.

I walked to a point midway between two posts, pushed the barbed wire down and stepped over the top of it.

I do this all the time, it’s not a problem.

But this time, when I threw my leg over the fence , I got my first inkling that all might not be quite right with my ribcage.

A sharp pain wrenched through me.

I let go of the barbed wire in shock and the evil wire shot up and snagged me around the place where my trouser-legs tend to meet up.

I hasten to explain, there was no ‘anatomical’ difficulty here – I had baggy waterproof pants on over my ‘regular pair’ (of trousers, dear, of trousers) so I wasn’t in danger of any fate worse than death.

But I was left in a dreadfully uncomfortable position. One leg was on the ground, the other leg was dangling in the air on the other side of the fence and my trousers were totally snagged as if on the barb of a fish hook.

Try as I might, I simply could not free myself from the fence.

Not to mention that I had two newly cracked ribs.

Okay, I mentioned it.

Mary watched me struggle for what seemed like twenty-five minutes and then she apologetically asked. "Can I give you a hand?"

I had no choice.

Dear Mary got down on her knees in the field and, at face level with my snagged trousers, she tugged and wrangled and finally got my errant crotch free again.

As I told you, her elderly neighbour had agreed to walk down the field that day and meet up with us for a chat…

…he never showed up.

For these small mercies, we can only give thanks.

@Ken Armstrong 2008

About the Author:

Ken Armstrong of Ken Armstrong Writing Stuff - is a genuine blogger with a generous heart. I know that those who read his blog would agree that he is a brilliant writer; he had published countless of his plays, stories and poems, and some were featured on stage, in Ireland. I could write pages and pages of his writing accolades. Read his impressive writing resume and you'll know what I mean.

This article had been posted during the early days of this blog and some of you may not have read it , so I'm posting this again. You wouldn't want to miss this.

For more of Ken's interesting and amazing stories visit his blog at:
Ken Armstrong Writing Stuff.

While you're here, you can cast your vote for Ken and Ken Armstrong Writing Stuff

for nominations on the following Blogger's Choice Award for Year 2009

1. Best Blogging Host

2. Best Blog of all Time

Thanks for your votes. Again, thank you Ken for allowing me to re-post your article. More power and more successes for you! You deserve it!

Photo 2 by Zevotron____________________________________________________________________________________
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FREE PICTURES - IBIZA, SPAIN

LISTEN TO ONE OF THE BEST IRISH SONGS OF THE DECADE

The song Danny Boy has been a big part of my childhood days. This is because it has been and is still is my mother’s favorite song. I don’t know why she knows so many Irish songs. I have to ask her that one day. But my fond memories of those blissful days were of her singing to us Danny Boy. She has a melodious, soprano voice and every time she is requested to sing, Danny Boy would always be foremost in her list. She even composed a native song to the tune of Danny Boy, and the folks out there in the hinterlands of Kalinga learned how to sing this beautiful Irish song. I have just heard Deanna Durbin from you tube and that was exactly how my mother sang it.


My relatives from the mother side are all good singers and I would like to believe I had inherited some of this talent for singing because I can carry a tune too…lol....

There are various versions to the song and I don't know who the original singer was. Anyone who knows? Ken Armstrong, perhaps you can help us with this one? Thanks.

Listen to the song as performed by Cliff Richard and Helmut Lotti- two of the world's best singers - and be refreshed and invigorated. You have to play it twice so it would download properly. Enjoy!

Video from Siroceandeep



DANNY BOY
(Lyrics)

Oh Danny boy, the pipes, the pipes are calling
From glen to glen, and down the mountain side
The summer's gone, and all the roses dying
'Tis you, 'tis you must go and I must bide.

But come ye back when summer's in the meadow
Or when the valley's hushed and white with snow
'Tis I'll be here in sunshine or in shadow
Oh Danny boy, oh Danny boy, I love you so.

But when you come, and all the flowers are dying
If I am dead, as dead I well may be
You'll come and find the place where I am lying
And kneel and say an "Ave" there for me.

And I shall hear, though soft you tread above me.
And all my grave will warmer, sweeter be
for you will bend and tell me that you love me
and I shall sleep in peace until you come to me.

FREE PICTURES- Building construction

One Decision: 12th Story for the Inspirational Book

By: NANCY McCARROLL

Everyone has a story to tell, and listening to some of these recordings is fascinating. You can even buy a book of interviews (see last paragraph below for details).

The interviews result in a three to four minute verbal story. To give myself some structure in preparation for telling my story, I wrote this, which I have titled "ONE DECISION." It is factual, and I have taken out close to forty years of emotion in order to capsulize what I want to say in this message. Here is my NPR story:

one of Nancy's oil paintings

This is about a decision made after the birth of my physically handicapped daughter in 1970. The doctors attending to her in her first hours of life gave her father and me the decision of either doing no medical intervention with her death imminent within a few painful months, or to immediately begin intensive medical treatment. The physicians left the room with this question to be answered by us, young people in college, working, never having planned on being parents, much less to a child with grave problems.

We were advised there was no guarantee of success in any way relating to her quality of life. My husband’s inclination was to let nature take its course and not intervene medically: we were young and we were not through with our formal education, and since she probably never walk, her life would be very difficult for all of us. (I was a sophomore in college, and we were both taking as many classes and working as many hours as we could to help defray student loans and living expenses.)

But the path we chose, and the decision made, was to start trying to save her life immediately. We decided to let the doctors do what they could for her.

And she lived. And she grew up, although most of her adolescent and adult years were spent hospitalized due to shunt malfunctions and systemic infections.

There are more than a few ironies in this story. One was that Julie’s father and I both DID finish our educations (he got a PhD and I have a Master’s degree). So her life did not hamper that goal. And another irony is that Julie’s father died of cancer over twenty years ago, while Julie is still living today.

Which is not to say that over the years, her life has been extremely happy or in any way carefree. She has had over one hundred surgeries relating to complications brought on by her birth defect. She has been depressed to the point of trying to end her own life; she had virtually no childhood friends her own age.

In a few weeks, Juliet is facing another very serious operation. She has been in bed the better part of three years with skin ulcerations and infections. But in spite of the heartache, there have been positive, bittersweet successes…

1: She has worked for as a receptionist and lived alone, using public transportation to get her to and from work while in a wheelchair;

2: Julie completed high school and then college with a four year degree -- this in spite of many long months of hospitalization;

3 : Julie has resided independently both as a single and married woman;

4: Julie has maintained an eleven year long, loving marriage to a man having the same handicap of spina bifida;

5: She moved across country from her native state, and then she and her husband built their handicap accessible home five years ago on land which her husband purchased many years ago as an investment;

6: She (and her husband) are members of a strong faith-based Christian community. I’m told they are of spiritual importance in that church group;

7: Julie aspired to be a journalist, worked at a local newspaper as a college intern and had several sequential articles published. She currently writes to the editor of her local newspaper in South Carolina, expresses her opinions (especially about the problems that handicapped people encounter), and has had her letters published in the Charlotte Observer;

8: She and her husband are the loving owners of an eight year old frisky Yorkshire terrier;

9: Julie is a loving, generous, stubborn, sweet person with an amazing coping mechanism of denial.

She has become the person she is, in part, because of caring adults coming into her life by way of a loving family, excellent medical care, good surrogate fathers, a decent education, mental health assistance, the religious community, paid caregivers, and adult friends. And her own will to live and thrive are, of course, part of her essence.

And so all this has happened, at great financial and emotional expense. Her determinism and desire to keep living came out of ONE DECISION years ago to proceed with medical intervention. Julie's life has played out in far reaching ways that I cannot fathom. But it MUST have been the right decision to try and stave off hydrocephalous and infection in those first hours after her birth, because all of the lives she has touched have been significantly, and I believe positively, changed by knowing Juliet.

In a nutshell, this story is about perseverance and love, and how each person's life is important and part of the structure behind the doors where we live. Maybe more than a few will find it a valuable listen.

A compilation of NPR Story Corps stories can be purchased here.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR


Nancy McCarroll is a woman of many talents. She is a Master's Degree holder in Health Administration and had also earned her Baccalaureate Degree in Rehabilitation Counseling. She's an artist, and a generous woman who volunteers a lot of her time to local community services, like the NPR Corps, from which this article was derived.

WOW! Isn't she amazing?

Her blog, "Arts, Crafts and Favorites," features some of her works of art. Yes, she dabs in watercolor and oil, and you know what? she also plays in National Scrabble Tournaments abroad.
Read her complete profile in this link.

ENTRECARD MARKET : My Call for Articles for an Upcoming Inspirational Book

This is a call for articles , short stories, poems, essays, drawings for a book. I am still in the process of gathering Inspirational Stories from Bloggers all over the World. I will be compiling them in August into one self - published book.

If your contribution is accepted, your article will be published in my blog and in the book, and you'll be given one complimentary copy of the book where your article appears(for free). You'll still own the copyright to your written material.

I will be awarding 5,000 EC credits to contributors.

I still need 9 articles, so folks I'm eagerly waiting for your contributions.
Here's my Market listing at Entrecard. To know more, watch the video below.