Good morning my friends. What a beautiful day yesterday was for us to be able to spend part of it to help our friends, Bill and Lorrie Hudspeth, celebrate their recent marriage. It was good to see many of our facebook friends for the first time and to see everyone happy. My good friend and often partner in laughter, Stephen Brooks, serenaded the couple very admirably with his beautiful singing. I told Vickie as we left the event that I surely wished that I could sing like Stephen. I sound sort of like a wounded crow that had stayed on the highway too long and got his neck run over by a speeding car. I found a quote of an old sage, Ralph Waldo Emerson, who just about summed up what I believe the meaning of success really is for me. I have tried my best to live by those lofty credos and have somewhat succeeded to have done most of them, except for that thing about a garden patch. Pleas read what old Ralph had to say: To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty, to find the best in others; to leave the world a little better; whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is the meaning of success. Ralph Waldo Emerson. I think that Mr. Emerson, a regular wordsmith, said it just about as eloquently as the meaning of success really is. I got to thinking about names when I thought of the wise man known for his insightful way of seeing things. You know, there is a lot to say about names. I wonder if old Ralph would have been remembered as well if we would have just called him Ralph Emerson instead of Ralph Waldo Emerson. Same thing for old Henry Longfellow, it just wouldn’t have been the same, just add that Wadsworth in there and you have a great poet…Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. What about me, lots of folks used to call me “Whitey” because of my white hair…somehow, Whitey Ketchie just didn’t sound right, either. “Cotton” is not my given name but I’d rather be called Cotton than Polyester because Polyester would have been too hard to spell for a little kid. My first cousin married a man from Pennsylvania years ago and for a long time, he was the only foreigner I knew. Anybody who wasn’t from Shepherds was a foreigner to me when I was a little barefooted boy raised in the country north of Mooresville. Anyway, I was never happy with my real name and wasn’t cutting back-flips about being called Cotton, ether. Well, when my cousin’s husband, Glenn, told me that he went to school with a boy named Ralph Waldo Emerson Dunkleburger, I started to feel a little better. I sort of shut up about my name after that and tried my best to get used to it, but it wasn’t until I got to high school and the girls thought that the name, Cotton, was kind of cute that I pretty much got over it. Well, I stayed up late watching the rest of the D-Day presentation on the History Channel and took some Tylenol about 11:30, ergo, I slept until almost 5:00 this morning and I am running over an hour late this morning, so with that, I have to wind this post up. It’s time to study my Sunday school lesson and get to the gallery before church. Have a great day my friends and don’t forget to find something that will make you laugh and then spread the laughter with friends and strangers alike, God Bless!!
Posted on: Sun, 08 Jun 2014 10:25:17 +0000
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