| Show 0 THE DANGER OF WAITING life can call play foul jokes on people some times in a large middle western city there was a grocer who worked very hard and saved his money religiously so that his old age would be provided for for 56 50 years he stuck to his grocery store he worked and saved too hard to have very much fun but he was looking forward to the day when he could retire then he 1 would have his fun he would have money and leisure and lie he would make up for all the years of hard work well he f finally retired money in the bank an all assured income a nice home everything lie he needed now he told his friends 1 I am going to enjoy life and just 24 houa hour s after he had retired he dropped lead dead I 1 if a novelist put that in a book we believe it we would say that tb things angs dont really happen that way vay and we bould accuse the novelist of straining too hard foil an all ironic ironic effect j but life takes dueer twists that are not permitted to good fiction it all happened precisely as it is described I 1 here and all we can do is admit that there are times when wisdom and prudence are horribly confounded As a matter of fact this sort of thing happens fairly often in a little different way not maev people who have prepared for a carefree and leisurely old age die just as they begin to taste their reward of course but bt they get cheated out of their dues juat the same they find that thai leisure after a lifetime of jard work is boredom they j find that they have f forgotten or gotten how to play they them f ind find that the e empty m pt y hours eau r s a are re depressing dal ap because they do d not know I 1 what to do with them they find themselves feeling that I 1 they have been put upon the shelf and they grow 10 years older in 12 months perhaps we arent meant to be too cautious deferring ones happiness to the end whon when one will have time an and A the means to take it is risky for most of us that gilded tomorrow will never dawn if we dont get our happiness 1 along the way we shall never get it at all i that is a lesson worth learning the real joy of living ai is s not something that can call be banked and drawn on at some I 1 future date it has to be taken from day to dav it is compounded usually of many little experiences the haze i i of an autumn afternoon over a flaming fla miner woodland the confiding smile of a child nestling in ones arms for a faira I 1 tale the smell of a clear wind as one trudges a along loll 1011 g a beach by blue water the sudden revelation of tenders tenderness ess in the eyes of a loved one the brief vanishing strain of a bit of music of such things is a satisfying life fabricated you cannot postpone them you cannot wait for them you must get them as you go along or you will miss the entirely standard excelsior springs missouri 0 O |
