SATURDAY

We'd moved to St. Louis, but the Veteran's Administration (VA) said if I
wanted to stay in queue, I'd better get myself to the appointment I'd
made at the VA medical facility in Marion, Indiana. So after working
Wednesday, May 30, 2007, I drove the five hours to Marion.

While I sat in the waiting room another man sat down beside me. We
started talking. He said he was a Marine. He still looked strong at
about 60, had sandy brown hair which was graying, and a quiet voice. His
right eye was gone and the face and skull around it were deformed
because of an obviously horrible injury. I didn't ask how or what
happened because some of us don't like to talk about or remember some
things.

What I did ask was if he was in Vietnam. He said he was.

I asked when. He said 18 months in 1967 and 1968. That's when I was
there so we began to talk about places and things. He was in recon,
which is tough and dangerous work.

We talked about the troops in Iraq and the PTSD they will face. We
talked about how loud noises still make us jump after 40 years. Recently
in a store someone dropped an empty pallet behind me that hit the
concrete floor with a very loud bang. My heart stopped -- as it always
does when I hear sounds like that. He nodded agreement.

We discussed a woman's son, back from Iraq for July 4th, 2006. He
formerly enjoyed fireworks immensely, but couldn't stand them now. That
will be a sad -- and profound -- fact of life for many people returning
after service in this war.

I asked if he made it to Danang. He said that's where they took him when
he was hit and lost his eye. That was the third time he was wounded so
it finally sent him home. I told him I might've carried him off the
chopper and taken care of him before his surgery. I was a Navy Corpsman
at Danang hospital, in the Receiving Unit.

We ran out to the choppers, took the wounded into our Quonset hut, and
tried to save their lives. We stopped bleeding, started IV's, stabilized
them enough to give them a chance to live, and prepared them for
surgery.

When it was my time to see the doctor, I told him Semper Fi and walked
away.

After seeing the doctor I came out and the Marine and I happened to walk
along side by side for a minute. He said, "Doc, if you ARE the one who
carried me and saved my life... thanks."

I just nodded and our paths parted. I hadn't felt better than that in a
long time.

That former Marine said something else very profound during our
conversation. "You never know who the drunk sitting at the bar might be,
or the homeless guy on the corner. He might have saved your life once."

He was right.


Today's Story

Kitchen Windows

In the days before dishwashers, a window was always placed above the kitchen sink.

Many a young girl envisioned herself growing up and marrying the prince of her dreams as she completed her dishwashing chores. Mothers could solve their entire child rearing problems as they sanitized their pots and pans, while gazing through the kitchen windowpane. On rare occasions, when a man could be talked into this dreaded household task, he often solved some of the world's biggest problems, studying them through the kitchen window.

Some great novels, I would venture to say, were conceived that very way. Prayers too, have been offered up to the Almighty as some stood with their hands in soapy water and their eyes on Heavenly skies. Music scores have been penned in the mind, their notes floating through the fluted space above the kitchen sink. Bridges of dreams have crossed into future realities traveling this same course.

Oh, if kitchen windows could talk, we could hear secrets known to those who hold undisclosed mysteries. We could share dreams of the world's great romantics and connect with some of the great visionaries. I'm sure we could understand the entire "whys?" of this world if these fragile visionary panes, capable of shattering even our dreams, could only communicate with us.

My children will never forget my peering through the porthole of the kitchen into the backyard. I often stood there cleaning up and watching over their backyard play, their childhood conflicts and their playful explorations. If they were doing something they shouldn't, they would glance up to see me shaking my finger, admonishing them. My smile often met their eyes when they achieved a feat they were attempting, or when I was admiring their camaraderie. With four siblings, the latter was not always attainable.

I had one association with the kitchen window that will never be forgotten.

The kids had acquired an inner tube, one of those found in the tire of an eighteen-wheel truck. Where they had acquired it, I can't recall, but they were having a ball. One child would get on one side and the other opposite them. They would then bounce up and down, kind of like a rubber teeter-totter. They were having a great time, laughing and jumping, taking turns on the makeshift trampoline.

I had been watching them for some time and could not contain myself any longer. I made a bet with my kitchen window that I could do that too. Being in my 30s didn't mean I couldn't have fun. I energetically bounced out the backdoor and ran down the steps of the deck as if I was a teenager myself.

"I want to try that," I announced to my children.

"Now, mom," my son warned, "I don't think you better." My kids were used to my eager enthusiasm, but they were also aware of some of my health problems.

"I can do that. Just watch me!" I wasn't over the hill. I still knew how to have fun.

"Well, mom, you best be careful."

"I'm fine. Come on, let's do it! You get on that side and I'll get on this side," I said to my teenage son. My two younger daughters and youngest son gleefully looked on as our cheering section. I was raring to go and not going to let those kids get one up on their mother!

The first bounce. Well, let's just say we didn't quite synchronize our jumps and I flew up into the air like a ball shot out of a cannon and landed very hard with a thump on my rump.

"Mom, Mom, Mom, are you all right? Mom, are you okay? Here, let us help you up!"

"Just leave me alone and let me sit here for a minute," I said as I held back the tears. "I'll be fine." As the pain shot through my bottom side, I wasn't quite sure of the words I had just uttered. I felt like I may never walk again, but I had to pull my faltering self-esteem out of this mess somehow.

Eventually, when I got to my feet, an X-ray was taken. It revealed a broken tailbone. You can't put a cast on that, so I just had to endure the pain until it healed.

In the days that followed, as I stood looking out my kitchen window, I could almost hear its opaque pane mocking me, "You're not as young as you used to be. I told you so!"

"Okay, okay. Just see to it you don't tempt me with your visions of wishful thinking!"

I made a pact with the kitchen windows of the world that day: "Help me see more clearly and throw in a little wisdom while you're at it, will you? I will try to decipher dreams from reality and act accordingly. But I can't make any promises!"

--Betty King

Today's Poem

February

Still lie the sheltering snows, undimmed and white;
And reigns the winter's pregnant silence still;
No sign of spring, save that the catkins fill,
And willow stems grow daily red and bright.
These are days when ancients held a rite
Of expiation for the old year's ill,
And prayer to purify the new year's will:
Fit days, ere yet the spring rains blur the sight,
Ere yet the bounding blood grows hot with haste,
And dreaming thoughts grow heavy with a greed
The ardent summer's joy to have and taste;
Fit days, to give to last year's losses heed,
To recon clear the new life's sterner need;
Fit days, for Feast of Expiation placed!

--Helen Hunt Jackson

HeroicStories #743: 27 February 2008               www.HeroicStories.com
------------------------------------------------------------------------

Take a Moment                                            Story Editor:
by Christine Schowalter                                 Joyce Schowalter
California, USA

They say the average work commute in the USA is 24 miles daily. Well,
try commuting in Metro Los Angeles with 15 million other people, where
every mile feels like ten. Too much sitting in traffic wears your
patience thin, and after eight years, cutting people off had become
reflexive for me.

Driving home from work during rush hour in spring 2006, I was running on
fumes from sitting on the freeway. I stopped to fill up at the cheapest
nearby gas station, which is difficult to drive out of. You have to
cross a right-turn-only lane onto a major road.

During green lights, people rush by over 35 miles per hour. At red
lights, people pack in behind the light, effectively blocking any chance
to infiltrate the throng. The only way across was to gun it while
turning into your lane, crossing the right-turn lane in the process. And
I was heading home after a doctor appointment at the worst possible time
to drive, especially near five colleges with students in the midst of
finals.

After filling up I was poised to make my sudden dash for the northbound
lane, when the guy behind me started honking insistently. I glanced back
in my side mirror and saw an unshaven, bushy-haired 20-something driving
an ancient Toyota -- a college kid car. I couldn't discern what color
the paint had been; the rear windshield was covered with rock band
stickers.

No doubt he wanted to turn right and I was in his way, so I thought,
"He'll just have to wait." Though not yet 30, I didn't want to move for
this scruffy kid in a beat-up car.

Imagine my surprise when I saw the kid, complete with torn up jeans and
rock band T-shirt, jump out of his car, jog up to my rear end, grab the
gas cap sitting on my trunk  lid, twist it in place, close the gas flap,
and jog back to his car.

It only took a moment. I was floored, and ashamed. I got a goofy grin
and started waving to him energetically, but I don't know if he saw,
because he was turning right. Even better, people in the northbound and
right-turn lanes, whose attention had been grabbed by the honking,
paused in their scramble and let me out.

For a year since, whenever I'm at that gas station pulling out, I think
about that guy. Was he on his way to final exams? Did he make it in
time? He could've just handed me the cap. It seemed so much to do for an
ungrateful stranger.

I now make a conscious effort to let people into traffic, and I've seen
those people let other people in -- all thanks to that thoughtful
college kid. That's one person's small, conscious act of kindness
spreading geometrically -- making busy, preoccupied people take a
moment, wake up, and think beyond themselves. A little bit sure does go
a long way!

Today's Story

The Dog Next Door

My 18-month-old son, Adam, called from the front porch. "Look, Mama! Doggie." I dropped what I was doing and stuck my head out the door. Brandy, our next door neighbor's 11-year-old golden retriever, was over again. "Scat!" I said, scooping up Adam and brushing the dog hair off his T-shirt and shorts.

Brandy's owner had died about a month earlier. The woman's family emptied the house, and a real estate agent stuck a "For Sale" sign in the front yard. But the family had overlooked the old golden, Brandy. For weeks, she'd been sniffing around the neighborhood, living on scraps and handouts.

It wasn't that I disliked dogs or anything like that, I just didn't think about them much. I never had a dog growing up and never thought to get one.

Brandy loped off and I stayed out on the porch with Adam. The phone rang and I ducked inside to take the call. When I came back out, Adam was gone. I scoured the yard, front and back, then the basketball court and the public pool down the block. No trace of him. My worry built to panic. I ran home and called the police, then my husband. Please, Lord, keep Adam safe until we find him.

Police combed the neighborhood. Amid the sirens and commotion of voices, I heard another sound: a dog barking.

"It's coming from the woods," one of my neighbors said. We followed the barking to a wooded cliff overlooking a creek. There we found my son, flush up against the trunk of a tree just inches away from the edge of the cliff, fast asleep. Brandy had pressed herself against him. I picked Adam up and leaned down to pat Brandy. She sank down on her side, panting. She must have been holding Adam there for hours!

I thanked the police and brought a safe and sound Adam back to our house. Brandy too. She hesitated a moment on our doorstep, no doubt remembering the times I'd shooed her away.

"Come on, girl," I said. "This is your home now." Brandy stepped in, and once she saw she was really welcome, she eased herself onto an old throw rug in the hallway, as if she knew that spot was now hers. She closed her eyes. Her breathing deepened. Her whiskers twitched as she slept. She'd done an incredible thing and I wondered if she knew it. She might have saved my son's life. She'd certainly touched mine in a way no animal ever had. What a shame a dog like Brandy was abandoned. Were there more out there like her?

I learned about other homeless goldens and took them in, and found homes for many more. It's become a kind of calling for me. Those with disabilities, the old, the blind, the sick, have a special place in my heart. A place I'd never known I had until Brandy opened it.

--Sara Whalen

Today's Poem

Morning at the Window

They are rattling breakfast plates in basement kitchens,
And along the trampled edges of the street
I am aware of the damp souls of housemaids
Sprouting despondently at area gates.

The brown waves of fog toss up to me
Twisted faces from the bottom of the street,
And tear from a passer-by with muddy skirts
An aimless smile that hovers in the air
And vanishes along the level of the roofs.

--T.S. Eliot

Today's Story

The Dog Next Door

My 18-month-old son, Adam, called from the front porch. "Look, Mama! Doggie." I dropped what I was doing and stuck my head out the door. Brandy, our next door neighbor's 11-year-old golden retriever, was over again. "Scat!" I said, scooping up Adam and brushing the dog hair off his T-shirt and shorts.

Brandy's owner had died about a month earlier. The woman's family emptied the house, and a real estate agent stuck a "For Sale" sign in the front yard. But the family had overlooked the old golden, Brandy. For weeks, she'd been sniffing around the neighborhood, living on scraps and handouts.

It wasn't that I disliked dogs or anything like that, I just didn't think about them much. I never had a dog growing up and never thought to get one.

Brandy loped off and I stayed out on the porch with Adam. The phone rang and I ducked inside to take the call. When I came back out, Adam was gone. I scoured the yard, front and back, then the basketball court and the public pool down the block. No trace of him. My worry built to panic. I ran home and called the police, then my husband. Please, Lord, keep Adam safe until we find him.

Police combed the neighborhood. Amid the sirens and commotion of voices, I heard another sound: a dog barking.

"It's coming from the woods," one of my neighbors said. We followed the barking to a wooded cliff overlooking a creek. There we found my son, flush up against the trunk of a tree just inches away from the edge of the cliff, fast asleep. Brandy had pressed herself against him. I picked Adam up and leaned down to pat Brandy. She sank down on her side, panting. She must have been holding Adam there for hours!

I thanked the police and brought a safe and sound Adam back to our house. Brandy too. She hesitated a moment on our doorstep, no doubt remembering the times I'd shooed her away.

"Come on, girl," I said. "This is your home now." Brandy stepped in, and once she saw she was really welcome, she eased herself onto an old throw rug in the hallway, as if she knew that spot was now hers. She closed her eyes. Her breathing deepened. Her whiskers twitched as she slept. She'd done an incredible thing and I wondered if she knew it. She might have saved my son's life. She'd certainly touched mine in a way no animal ever had. What a shame a dog like Brandy was abandoned. Were there more out there like her?

I learned about other homeless goldens and took them in, and found homes for many more. It's become a kind of calling for me. Those with disabilities, the old, the blind, the sick, have a special place in my heart. A place I'd never known I had until Brandy opened it.

--Sara Whalen

Today's Poem

Morning at the Window

They are rattling breakfast plates in basement kitchens,
And along the trampled edges of the street
I am aware of the damp souls of housemaids
Sprouting despondently at area gates.

The brown waves of fog toss up to me
Twisted faces from the bottom of the street,
And tear from a passer-by with muddy skirts
An aimless smile that hovers in the air
And vanishes along the level of the roofs.

Kidney links NYC childhood friends (AP)
from Yahoo! News: Odd News
AP - Two grade-school friends from New York City who are now connected by more than shared memories are recovering after one gave the other a kidney.
news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080301/ap_on_fe_st/odd_kidney_buddies

Her American flag sticker got a salute
www.mlive.com/news/chronicle/index.ssf?/base/news-0/1204317920175030.xml&coll=8