***** Positive Thinking, Happy Living

I read of a New Jersey artist who capitalized on people's need to let go of the past by selling them "guilt kits." Each kit contained ten disposable brown paper bags and a set of instructions which said, "Place bag securely over your mouth, take a deep breath and blow the guilt out. Dispose of bag immediately." Amazingly, about 2,500 kits sold at $2.50 each. But perhaps not so amazing when you think of the guilt many of us carry around.

Of course, guilt serves its purpose. More than once I made a better decision so that I could look myself in the mirror without blushing.

Writer Gary Jennings said this: "Love and time, those are the only two things in all the world and all of life, that cannot be bought, but only spent."

I love that. And HOW I spend my love and time is what it is all about.

My work and interests require me to spend probably an inordinate amount of time in front of my computer. At least according to my wife Bev.

She and I were talking one day about death and funerals and what to do with each other's remains. I asked. "What will you do with my body? Burial? Cremation?"

A young ensign had nearly completed his first overseas tour of duty when he was given the opportunity to prepare his ship to "set sail." With a stream of crisp commands, he had the decks buzzing with sailors and soon the ship churned slowly out of the channel.

The ensign's efficiency was remarkable. In fact, the talk was that he had set a new record for getting the ship underway.

But his captain was not as pleased. A message delivered to the young officer read, "My personal congratulations upon completing your

Are you too old to get married? Several years ago, Jim Gorringe, 99, and Dinah Leach, 84, wedded at the St. James Rest Home in Christchurch, New Zealand. Both had been previously married and great, great grandchildren attended the ceremony.

Just before the wedding, the groom quipped, "We won't be having children."

I wonder if this is the same older couple who stopped by a pharmacy a couple months before their wedding. They told the pharmacist they wanted to get married. "Do you sell heart medication?" they asked.

He said that of course they do.

One person jokingly says she never goes to bed angry. Instead, she stays awake and plots her revenge.

As one story goes, a group of occupational soldiers hired a local boy to run errands for them. The soldiers liked to relieve stress by
playing practical jokes on the young boy. They would hide his belongings, put gum in his shoes, or send him on silly errands.

At one time, Bangkok television aired the American situation comedy LaVerne and Shirley. For whatever reason, officials there believed that a disclaimer was necessary for the Thailand audience, so this subtitle was added to each show: "The two women depicted in the following episode are from an insane asylum."

Like most parents, I taught my children to say "thank you" frequently and hoped that giving thanks might become a life habit. After all, silent gratitude isn't much use to anyone. But I think that what hoped to teach them was not simply to say thanks, but to feel it. I believe that thankful people are happy people.

The late Dr. Fulton Oursler used to tell of an old woman who took care of him when he was a child -- a woman who not only expressed
her thanks, but felt it. Anna was a former American slave who, after emancipation, was hired by the family for many years.

I will always remember Stella. Elderly, blind and living alone, one might think she should have spun long tales of hardship and misery. And I sup­pose she could have told such stories, but she made little room in her life for self-pity. She might have mentioned the deaths of friends and family, including her husband; the glaucoma that finally claimed her eyesight; the small pension on which she was forced to subsist and the arthritis that kept her home­bound in a little trailer house. And nobody could blame her had she de­spaired that she had grown so dependent on others.

"Anger blows out the lamp of the mind," said Robert Ingersoll.

It may be true. I heard a story about one woman who ran a classified ad in order to sell her brand new car. It had only 3,000 miles.

"Like new," the ad boasted. "Mint condition. $75.00."

He laughed to himself, and said, "There goes the newspaper, making another mistake." But he decided to call the number anyway and ask about it.

"Is it really brand new?"

"Yes," she replied.

"Three thousand miles?"

"Yes."

"The price?"

"Seventy-five dollars," she answered.

"Friendly fire," or fratricide, is a military term used when troops of one nation accidentally kill their own. Fratricide has tragically become a battle­field fact of life. David Foster in "Light and Life" (July 2, 1994), tells us George Washington re­ported that during the French and Indian War, 400 casual­ties resulted from soldiers who panicked and sent volley after volley into their own ranks.

His own soldiers killed Stonewall Jackson, Confederate general during the American Civil War, in 1863 as he galloped back into south­ern lines.