I am an amateur radio operator. A few weeks ago, I was heading towards the basement with a steaming cup of coffee in my hand. What began as a1 Saturday morning,2 one of those lessons that life seems to hand you occasionally.

    When I turned up my radio for a Saturday morning swap net, I 3  an older man with a4signal and golden voice. He was telling5 he was talking with something about "a thousand marbles"

    "It sounds like you are busy with your job. Surely they pay you well but it's a6 you have to be away from home. You missed your daughter's dance recital. You see, the7 person lives about seven-five years. Now I8 75 times 52 and I came up with 3,900, which is the number of9 that the average person has in their entire lifetime. It took me until I was fifty-five years old to think about this10", he went on "and by that time I have 11 2,800 Saturdays. If I lived to be seventy-five, I only had about a thousand left to enjoy. So I went to stores to round up 1000 marbles. I put them inside a12container. Every Saturday since then, I have taken one marble out and thrown it away."

    "I found by watching the marbles13, I focused more on the really important things in life. There is nothing like watching your time run out to help get your14 straight. This morning, I took the very last marble, I think if I 15 it until next Saturday then I have been given a little extra time by life. Time is the only thing we can use in life. Bye, and I hope you can spend more time with your16" and then he17.

    I guess he gave us all a lot to think about. I had planned to work that morning, and then I was going to 18 a few friends to work on the next club newsletter.19 , I20 and woke my wife up and decided to take her and the kids to breakfast.