The Life and Death of Eddie the Donator - by R.F. Fuddy Daddy

 The Life and Death of Eddie the Donator
 by R.F. Fuddy Daddy
Bulletin Board

St. Paul Pioneer Press (7/22/2015) 
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I grew up in a small town in western Wisconsin in the 1940s and 1950s. For our baseball games, we needed almost every kid in town.

One of them was Eddie. Eddie was tall, very thin and had poor eyesight. He couldn't run or jump because he had what seemed to be a frozen spine. Nothing went his way. The song lyrics 'If it weren't for bad luck, I'd have no luck at all' fit Eddie to a T.

In his teens, he got into a lot of fights. We nicknamed him The Donator because he lost blood as well as fights.

Even when he bought a car, things went wrong. To celebrate his purchase, he bought a 16-gallon keg of beer and put it in the back seat. He and a couple of his friends then drove around the area all afternoon and part of the evening. After dark, they decided to tap the keg, which was still in the back seat. The result was about 14 gallons of foam, which filled the car. After they 'defoamed' the car, they drove around again, got into an accident and totaled the vehicle. He had forgotten to insure the car, so he ended the day with no beer and no car.

About this time, the Vietnam war was heating up, and Eddie was drafted. We could never figure out how he passed the physical. He was 6-foot-3, 125 pounds, no muscle, couldn't run or jump and was half-blind.

I still remember the day my brother called me and said Eddie was being sent to Vietnam. I also remember the sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach.

My brother and I went to D.C. to see him some years ago.

He's on the wall at the Vietnam Memorial, along with about 58,000 other young men killed in another useless war.
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Watch the Grass Grow - by Raymond Beyda

Watch the Grass Grow

 by Raymond Beyda *

A New York City bond broker, trying to take advantage of the downturn in stock prices, is running a series of commercials on the radio.

The owner of the firm tells a story about people who were enthusiastic about skyrocketing stock prices that refused to listen to any discussion about investing in conservative, slow moving bonds. They said buying bonds was about as exciting as "watching the grass grow".

"Watching the grass grow is better than watching the house burn down", was the quick-witted reply the broker gave to his prospective clients.

In today's world everyone is speed-oriented. Snail mail, the traditional written word delivered by the postal service to one recipient at a time has dropped drastically in volume because so many people prefer e-mail, which is 24/7, multi-address capable. Production schedules for new products have been trimmed to the bone to meet the demands of impatient customers. Hospitals have reduced the allowable time for a stay to a day or less in most cases. Even our educational institutions offer accelerated programs to complete degree requirements in less time than what could have been imagined just a few years ago.

When G-d created the World, most things were created in a mature fully grown state. Then the reproductive process began with each creation producing an immature offspring that took years to develop. Trees grew from seeds, elephants from infants, giant eagles from small eggs etc. Each creation grew from inception to maturity. The growth was a slow, day-by-day progression imperceptible to the human eye. Even if one watched the grass one could not see it grow.

People have to learn that there are things that need time in order to develop properly. There must be a process to ferment grape juices into wine rapidly but even so It will not produce wine as fine as the old fashioned technique. Some things just have to develop slowly.

Many people are robbing our youth of the time they need to grow into mature adults. Exposure to media, pushy parents and educators and social contacts push our children into the fast lane and prevent growth in the natural imperceptible way. G-d could have made it so that newborns were fully developed but He did not.

Today, when rushing at the speed of light in your business, in your personal growth or in your training of your offspring -- stop. It only takes a minute to put on the brakes -- ever so lightly -- to give your charge the proper amount of time to develop.

Sit back and watch the grass grow. 

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 * Rabbi Raymond Beyda - www.torah.org/learning