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You Are Old, Father William

by

Lewis Carroll

You are old, Father William', the young man said,
'And your hair has become very white;
And yet you incessantly stand on your head --
Do you think, at your age, it is right?'

'In my youth', Father William replied to his son,
'I feared it might injure the brain;
But, now that I'm perfectly sure I have none,
Why, I do it again and again.
'
'You are old', said the youth, 'as I mentioned before,
And have grown most uncommonly fat;
Yet you turned a back-somersault in at the door --
Pray, what is the reason of that?'

'In my youth', said the sage, as he shook his grey locks,
'I kept all my limbs very supple
By the use of this ointment - one shilling the box -
Allow me to sell you a couple?'

'You are old', said the youth, 'and your jaws are too weak
For anything tougher than suet;
Yet you finished the goose, with the bones and the beak -
Pray, how did you manage to do it?'

'In my youth', said his father, 'I took to the law,
And argued each case with my wife;
And the muscular strength, which it gave to my jaw,
Has lasted the rest of my life.'

'You are old', said the youth, 'one would hardly suppose
That your eye was as steady as ever;
Yet you balanced an eel on the end of your nose -
What made you so awfully clever?'

'I have answered three questions, and that is enough,'
Said his father, 'don't give yourself airs!
Do you think I can listen all day to such stuff?
Be off, or I'll kick you downstairs!'

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Bright Space

by Dane Allred

Beginnings

You were there.

So was I.

Everyone and everything that ever was, is, or will be

Was there.

There was nothing else, no other place, and no other time except

That bright space where we all were.

All united in the peace of that bright space

Yet at once all individual.

We were content.

We were at rest in the never ending and

Never beginning

Bright space.

Every idea, every thought

To be thought was there.

There was no time because there was all time.

There was no rush because there was nowhere to go.

At peace, we rested in the blissful knowledge

Of all that was,

Of all that is,

Of all that ever will be.

But then that nagging doubt began.

What if there is something else?

Something not here now

That we could discover if we were not

Resting together in that bright space?

Something we could only discover if we

Became separate

And left the bright place

Of peace and content and rest.

Could there be more if I was not with you

And you were not with me?

What would such a something else be like?

What would make me want to leave you

And for you to leave me

That would be worth abandoning

All that we had ever known

All that we had ever been?

That was when the answer appeared.

Apart, we could be more.

Apart we would find things we could never find

If all of us remained in this peaceful, restful, contented

Bright space.

So we decided to leave.

We would have to become separate for a while

So we could experience all we couldn’t experience together.

We agreed to return and share all that we had learned

So that in our new bright space

We would have no more doubt about

What could be

What we could know

What we could become.

We promised we would remember all we would experience

When we were together again.

And then truly be at peace.

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Beginnings

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I Lit The Stage On Fire

This particular story is an adventure that I had that an audience got to share.  This is at the University of Utah a good thirty years ago.  I really only had one interesting incident that endangered my life, but also threatened the entire audience. My wife and I were in "Romeo and Juliet".  It was being performed on the main stage of the Pioneer Memorial Theatre. It's a great stage; it's got a loge; it's got a balcony; seats hundreds of patrons. The seats have the names of pioneers on the armrests, so that's why it's called the Pioneer Memorial Theatre. I'd never even been to a show in that theatre before; I didn't realize that's why it was called that.

The best news is that since it's an Equity stage, as students, we got paid - in the form of free tuition for the semester. We were acting with some really great actors I have crossed paths with again and again since then. It was a great experience and we still laugh about the night I lit the stage on fire.

Really. It was a small flame, but it was a small fire.  The audience knew it was a fire.  I knew it was a fire and had to make a decision.

I was playing Balthazar, just a small speaking part who is the servant of Romeo. I was really excited because the whole play turns on the speech I give to Romeo, telling him Juliet's dead and the audience would go completely silent anticipating how the play was about to become an incredible tragedy, caused by a simple speech by a servant who thought he was telling his master about his wife.

I felt really bad in this production for the guy playing the apothecary scene right after mine. He had memorized his part but since we were running a little bit long, cut the scene three nights before the show, and that was after all the costumes and sets had been built for this scene and I don't know how he felt, but it would have crushed me as an actor.  I'm glad my part didn't get cut.

I was playing a scene with two of the leads, Mercutio and Benvolio, Max Robinson was playing Mercutio and if you saw his performance of that you know what an exquisite thing he was able to make out of a character who dies in the second act. These are two of Romeo's best friends and as Romeo's servant I was carrying this torch with these two guys as we searched for Romeo. Now, he's slipped off to see Juliet, but we're wandering around, boisterously making our way home calling out his name.           The scenery department had built this great wall which was about 4 feet high, and we were to lean over the wall into the Capulet's orchard. The prop department had arranged for us to use live flame on stage, which is illegal now unless you have the proper training and certificates. But they had taken some gel sterno that's usually used for warming trays underneath food and stuck some in a tin can on the top of a stick. It was a great prop, and it was a little dangerous; sometimes a little smoky.

We were constantly having to refill the tin cans, and as the stuff heated up it would liquefy. So one night, as we leaned over the wall and called for Romeo, I stuck my torch on the other side of the wall to light the orchard as we searched for Romeo. The torch dipped, and the liquid sterno dropped out of the tin can into a small puddle on the floor, which would have been fine.

But it stayed lit.

Now there was a small flame; it's about 3 inches tall on the stage. We could see it; we could tell the audience could see it because there were some murmurs in the crowd. Everything got silent. We had a little short, stocky stage manager.  She was ready to run on stage with her fire extinguisher when I motioned to the other two actors to lift me over the wall. I was going to stomp on it when I got to the other side of the wall, and if I climbed the wall on my own, there was a chance the Styrofoam would fall over and maybe get on the flames.

Scott Wells was playing Benvolio and he and Max Robinson lifted me up.  They unceremoniously dumped me over the wall. I landed on my feet, and one of my feet serendipitously landed on the flame.

There had been an extended silence in the audience while this was going on. "Was it a real fire?" they're wondering. "Was it planned?"  I looked down at my foot for the flame, and seeing none, I lifted up one of feet to look at it.

The audience started to laugh, and they knew everybody was all right. I started to climb over the wall and Scott and Max grabbed me and we beat a hasty exit.

When you do a live stage production, people can listen downstairs on monitors so they know what's going on with the show.  So those listening downstairs were wondering what was so funny about Mercutio, Balthazar and Benvolio looking for Romeo. We'd never had any laughs in that part before.  We decided we didn't want to get laughs that way again.  So I made sure that every night after that my torch had as little liquid sterno in it as possible.

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CHAPTER V—THE SLEEPING WOLF

It was about this time that the newspapers were full of the daring escape of a convict from San Quentin prison. He was a ferocious man. He had been ill-made in the making. He had not been born right, and he had not been helped any by the moulding he had received at the hands of society. The hands of society are harsh, and this man was a striking sample of its handiwork. He was a beast—a human beast, it is true, but nevertheless so terrible a beast that he can best be characterised as carnivorous.

In San Quentin prison he had proved incorrigible. Punishment failed to break his spirit. He could die dumb-mad and fighting to the last, but he could not live and be beaten. The more fiercely he fought, the more harshly society handled him, and the only effect of harshness was to make him fiercer. Straight-jackets, starvation, and beatings and clubbings were the wrong treatment for Jim Hall; but it was the treatment he received. It was the treatment he had received from the time he was a little pulpy boy in a San Francisco slum—soft clay in the hands of society and ready to be formed into something.

It was during Jim Hall’s third term in prison that he encountered a guard that was almost as great a beast as he. The guard treated him unfairly, lied about him to the warden, lost his credits, persecuted him. The difference between them was that the guard carried a bunch of keys and a revolver. Jim Hall had only his naked hands and his teeth. But he sprang upon the guard one day and used his teeth on the other’s throat just like any jungle animal.

After this, Jim Hall went to live in the incorrigible cell. He lived there three years. The cell was of iron, the floor, the walls, the roof. He never left this cell. He never saw the sky nor the sunshine. Day was a twilight and night was a black silence. He was in an iron tomb, buried alive. He saw no human face, spoke to no human thing. When his food was shoved in to him, he growled like a wild animal. He hated all things. For days and nights he bellowed his rage at the universe. For weeks and months he never made a sound, in the black silence eating his very soul. He was a man and a monstrosity, as fearful a thing of fear as ever gibbered in the visions of a maddened brain.

And then, one night, he escaped. The warders said it was impossible, but nevertheless the cell was empty, and half in half out of it lay the body of a dead guard. Two other dead guards marked his trail through the prison to the outer walls, and he had killed with his hands to avoid noise.

He was armed with the weapons of the slain guards—a live arsenal that fled through the hills pursued by the organised might of society. A heavy price of gold was upon his head. Avaricious farmers hunted him with shot-guns. His blood might pay off a mortgage or send a son to college. Public-spirited citizens took down their rifles and went out after him. A pack of bloodhounds followed the way of his bleeding feet. And the sleuth-hounds of the law, the paid fighting animals of society, with telephone, and telegraph, and special train, clung to his trail night and day.

Sometimes they came upon him, and men faced him like heroes, or stampeded through barbed-wire fences to the delight of the commonwealth reading the account at the breakfast table. It was after such encounters that the dead and wounded were carted back to the towns, and their places filled by men eager for the man-hunt.

And then Jim Hall disappeared. The bloodhounds vainly quested on the lost trail. Inoffensive ranchers in remote valleys were held up by armed men and compelled to identify themselves. While the remains of Jim Hall were discovered on a dozen mountain-sides by greedy claimants for blood-money.

In the meantime the newspapers were read at Sierra Vista, not so much with interest as with anxiety. The women were afraid. Judge Scott pooh-poohed and laughed, but not with reason, for it was in his last days on the bench that Jim Hall had stood before him and received sentence. And in open court-room, before all men, Jim Hall had proclaimed that the day would come when he would wreak vengeance on the Judge that sentenced him.

For once, Jim Hall was right. He was innocent of the crime for which he was sentenced. It was a case, in the parlance of thieves and police, of “rail-roading.” Jim Hall was being “rail-roaded” to prison for a crime he had not committed. Because of the two prior convictions against him, Judge Scott imposed upon him a sentence of fifty years.

Judge Scott did not know all things, and he did not know that he was party to a police conspiracy, that the evidence was hatched and perjured, that Jim Hall was guiltless of the crime charged. And Jim Hall, on the other hand, did not know that Judge Scott was merely ignorant. Jim Hall believed that the judge knew all about it and was hand in glove with the police in the perpetration of the monstrous injustice. So it was, when the doom of fifty years of living death was uttered by Judge Scott, that Jim Hall, hating all things in the society that misused him, rose up and raged in the court-room until dragged down by half a dozen of his blue-coated enemies. To him, Judge Scott was the keystone in the arch of injustice, and upon Judge Scott he emptied the vials of his wrath and hurled the threats of his revenge yet to come. Then Jim Hall went to his living death . . . and escaped.

Of all this White Fang knew nothing. But between him and Alice, the master’s wife, there existed a secret. Each night, after Sierra Vista had gone to bed, she rose and let in White Fang to sleep in the big hall. Now White Fang was not a house-dog, nor was he permitted to sleep in the house; so each morning, early, she slipped down and let him out before the family was awake.

On one such night, while all the house slept, White Fang awoke and lay very quietly. And very quietly he smelled the air and read the message it bore of a strange god’s presence. And to his ears came sounds of the strange god’s movements. White Fang burst into no furious outcry. It was not his way. The strange god walked softly, but more softly walked White Fang, for he had no clothes to rub against the flesh of his body. He followed silently. In the Wild he had hunted live meat that was infinitely timid, and he knew the advantage of surprise.

The strange god paused at the foot of the great staircase and listened, and White Fang was as dead, so without movement was he as he watched and waited. Up that staircase the way led to the love-master and to the love-master’s dearest possessions. White Fang bristled, but waited. The strange god’s foot lifted. He was beginning the ascent.

Then it was that White Fang struck. He gave no warning, with no snarl anticipated his own action. Into the air he lifted his body in the spring that landed him on the strange god’s back. White Fang clung with his fore-paws to the man’s shoulders, at the same time burying his fangs into the back of the man’s neck. He clung on for a moment, long enough to drag the god over backward. Together they crashed to the floor. White Fang leaped clear, and, as the man struggled to rise, was in again with the slashing fangs.

Sierra Vista awoke in alarm. The noise from downstairs was as that of a score of battling fiends. There were revolver shots. A man’s voice screamed once in horror and anguish. There was a great snarling and growling, and over all arose a smashing and crashing of furniture and glass.

But almost as quickly as it had arisen, the commotion died away. The struggle had not lasted more than three minutes. The frightened household clustered at the top of the stairway. From below, as from out an abyss of blackness, came up a gurgling sound, as of air bubbling through water. Sometimes this gurgle became sibilant, almost a whistle. But this, too, quickly died down and ceased. Then naught came up out of the blackness save a heavy panting of some creature struggling sorely for air.

Weedon Scott pressed a button, and the staircase and downstairs hall were flooded with light. Then he and Judge Scott, revolvers in hand, cautiously descended. There was no need for this caution. White Fang had done his work. In the midst of the wreckage of overthrown and smashed furniture, partly on his side, his face hidden by an arm, lay a man. Weedon Scott bent over, removed the arm and turned the man’s face upward. A gaping throat explained the manner of his death.

“Jim Hall,” said Judge Scott, and father and son looked significantly at each other.

Then they turned to White Fang. He, too, was lying on his side. His eyes were closed, but the lids slightly lifted in an effort to look at them as they bent over him, and the tail was perceptibly agitated in a vain effort to wag. Weedon Scott patted him, and his throat rumbled an acknowledging growl. But it was a weak growl at best, and it quickly ceased. His eyelids drooped and went shut, and his whole body seemed to relax and flatten out upon the floor.

“He’s all in, poor devil,” muttered the master.

“We’ll see about that,” asserted the Judge, as he started for the telephone.

“Frankly, he has one chance in a thousand,” announced the surgeon, after he had worked an hour and a half on White Fang.

Dawn was breaking through the windows and dimming the electric lights. With the exception of the children, the whole family was gathered about the surgeon to hear his verdict.

“One broken hind-leg,” he went on. “Three broken ribs, one at least of which has pierced the lungs. He has lost nearly all the blood in his body. There is a large likelihood of internal injuries. He must have been jumped upon. To say nothing of three bullet holes clear through him. One chance in a thousand is really optimistic. He hasn’t a chance in ten thousand.”

“But he mustn’t lose any chance that might be of help to him,” Judge Scott exclaimed. “Never mind expense. Put him under the X-ray—anything. Weedon, telegraph at once to San Francisco for Doctor Nichols. No reflection on you, doctor, you understand; but he must have the advantage of every chance.”

The surgeon smiled indulgently. “Of course I understand. He deserves all that can be done for him. He must be nursed as you would nurse a human being, a sick child. And don’t forget what I told you about temperature. I’ll be back at ten o’clock again.”

White Fang received the nursing. Judge Scott’s suggestion of a trained nurse was indignantly clamoured down by the girls, who themselves undertook the task. And White Fang won out on the one chance in ten thousand denied him by the surgeon.

The latter was not to be censured for his misjudgment. All his life he had tended and operated on the soft humans of civilisation, who lived sheltered lives and had descended out of many sheltered generations. Compared with White Fang, they were frail and flabby, and clutched life without any strength in their grip. White Fang had come straight from the Wild, where the weak perish early and shelter is vouchsafed to none. In neither his father nor his mother was there any weakness, nor in the generations before them. A constitution of iron and the vitality of the Wild were White Fang’s inheritance, and he clung to life, the whole of him and every part of him, in spirit and in flesh, with the tenacity that of old belonged to all creatures.

Bound down a prisoner, denied even movement by the plaster casts and bandages, White Fang lingered out the weeks. He slept long hours and dreamed much, and through his mind passed an unending pageant of Northland visions. All the ghosts of the past arose and were with him. Once again he lived in the lair with Kiche, crept trembling to the knees of Grey Beaver to tender his allegiance, ran for his life before Lip-lip and all the howling bedlam of the puppy-pack.

He ran again through the silence, hunting his living food through the months of famine; and again he ran at the head of the team, the gut-whips of Mit-sah and Grey Beaver snapping behind, their voices crying “Ra! Raa!” when they came to a narrow passage and the team closed together like a fan to go through. He lived again all his days with Beauty Smith and the fights he had fought. At such times he whimpered and snarled in his sleep, and they that looked on said that his dreams were bad.

But there was one particular nightmare from which he suffered—the clanking, clanging monsters of electric cars that were to him colossal screaming lynxes. He would lie in a screen of bushes, watching for a squirrel to venture far enough out on the ground from its tree-refuge. Then, when he sprang out upon it, it would transform itself into an electric car, menacing and terrible, towering over him like a mountain, screaming and clanging and spitting fire at him. It was the same when he challenged the hawk down out of the sky. Down out of the blue it would rush, as it dropped upon him changing itself into the ubiquitous electric car. Or again, he would be in the pen of Beauty Smith. Outside the pen, men would be gathering, and he knew that a fight was on. He watched the door for his antagonist to enter. The door would open, and thrust in upon him would come the awful electric car. A thousand times this occurred, and each time the terror it inspired was as vivid and great as ever.

Then came the day when the last bandage and the last plaster cast were taken off. It was a gala day. All Sierra Vista was gathered around. The master rubbed his ears, and he crooned his love-growl. The master’s wife called him the “Blessed Wolf,” which name was taken up with acclaim and all the women called him the Blessed Wolf.

He tried to rise to his feet, and after several attempts fell down from weakness. He had lain so long that his muscles had lost their cunning, and all the strength had gone out of them. He felt a little shame because of his weakness, as though, forsooth, he were failing the gods in the service he owed them. Because of this he made heroic efforts to arise and at last he stood on his four legs, tottering and swaying back and forth.

“The Blessed Wolf!” chorused the women.

Judge Scott surveyed them triumphantly.

“Out of your own mouths be it,” he said. “Just as I contended right along. No mere dog could have done what he did. He’s a wolf.”

“A Blessed Wolf,” amended the Judge’s wife.

“Yes, Blessed Wolf,” agreed the Judge. “And henceforth that shall be my name for him.”

“He’ll have to learn to walk again,” said the surgeon; “so he might as well start in right now. It won’t hurt him. Take him outside.”

And outside he went, like a king, with all Sierra Vista about him and tending on him. He was very weak, and when he reached the lawn he lay down and rested for a while.

Then the procession started on, little spurts of strength coming into White Fang’s muscles as he used them and the blood began to surge through them. The stables were reached, and there in the doorway, lay Collie, a half-dozen pudgy puppies playing about her in the sun.

White Fang looked on with a wondering eye. Collie snarled warningly at him, and he was careful to keep his distance. The master with his toe helped one sprawling puppy toward him. He bristled suspiciously, but the master warned him that all was well. Collie, clasped in the arms of one of the women, watched him jealously and with a snarl warned him that all was not well.

The puppy sprawled in front of him. He cocked his ears and watched it curiously. Then their noses touched, and he felt the warm little tongue of the puppy on his jowl. White Fang’s tongue went out, he knew not why, and he licked the puppy’s face.

Hand-clapping and pleased cries from the gods greeted the performance. He was surprised, and looked at them in a puzzled way. Then his weakness asserted itself, and he lay down, his ears cocked, his head on one side, as he watched the puppy. The other puppies came sprawling toward him, to Collie’s great disgust; and he gravely permitted them to clamber and tumble over him. At first, amid the applause of the gods, he betrayed a trifle of his old self-consciousness and awkwardness. This passed away as the puppies’ antics and mauling continued, and he lay with half-shut patient eyes, drowsing in the sun.

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CHAPTER IV—THE CALL OF KIND

The months came and went. There was plenty of food and no work in the Southland, and White Fang lived fat and prosperous and happy. Not alone was he in the geographical Southland, for he was in the Southland of life. Human kindness was like a sun shining upon him, and he flourished like a flower planted in good soil.

And yet he remained somehow different from other dogs. He knew the law even better than did the dogs that had known no other life, and he observed the law more punctiliously; but still there was about him a suggestion of lurking ferocity, as though the Wild still lingered in him and the wolf in him merely slept.

He never chummed with other dogs. Lonely he had lived, so far as his kind was concerned, and lonely he would continue to live. In his puppyhood, under the persecution of Lip-lip and the puppy-pack, and in his fighting days with Beauty Smith, he had acquired a fixed aversion for dogs. The natural course of his life had been diverted, and, recoiling from his kind, he had clung to the human.

Besides, all Southland dogs looked upon him with suspicion. He aroused in them their instinctive fear of the Wild, and they greeted him always with snarl and growl and belligerent hatred. He, on the other hand, learned that it was not necessary to use his teeth upon them. His naked fangs and writhing lips were uniformly efficacious, rarely failing to send a bellowing on-rushing dog back on its haunches.

But there was one trial in White Fang’s life—Collie. She never gave him a moment’s peace. She was not so amenable to the law as he. She defied all efforts of the master to make her become friends with White Fang. Ever in his ears was sounding her sharp and nervous snarl. She had never forgiven him the chicken-killing episode, and persistently held to the belief that his intentions were bad. She found him guilty before the act, and treated him accordingly. She became a pest to him, like a policeman following him around the stable and the hounds, and, if he even so much as glanced curiously at a pigeon or chicken, bursting into an outcry of indignation and wrath. His favourite way of ignoring her was to lie down, with his head on his fore-paws, and pretend sleep. This always dumfounded and silenced her.

With the exception of Collie, all things went well with White Fang. He had learned control and poise, and he knew the law. He achieved a staidness, and calmness, and philosophic tolerance. He no longer lived in a hostile environment. Danger and hurt and death did not lurk everywhere about him. In time, the unknown, as a thing of terror and menace ever impending, faded away. Life was soft and easy. It flowed along smoothly, and neither fear nor foe lurked by the way.

He missed the snow without being aware of it. “An unduly long summer,” would have been his thought had he thought about it; as it was, he merely missed the snow in a vague, subconscious way. In the same fashion, especially in the heat of summer when he suffered from the sun, he experienced faint longings for the Northland. Their only effect upon him, however, was to make him uneasy and restless without his knowing what was the matter.

White Fang had never been very demonstrative. Beyond his snuggling and the throwing of a crooning note into his love-growl, he had no way of expressing his love. Yet it was given him to discover a third way. He had always been susceptible to the laughter of the gods. Laughter had affected him with madness, made him frantic with rage. But he did not have it in him to be angry with the love-master, and when that god elected to laugh at him in a good-natured, bantering way, he was nonplussed. He could feel the pricking and stinging of the old anger as it strove to rise up in him, but it strove against love. He could not be angry; yet he had to do something. At first he was dignified, and the master laughed the harder. Then he tried to be more dignified, and the master laughed harder than before. In the end, the master laughed him out of his dignity. His jaws slightly parted, his lips lifted a little, and a quizzical expression that was more love than humour came into his eyes. He had learned to laugh.

Likewise he learned to romp with the master, to be tumbled down and rolled over, and be the victim of innumerable rough tricks. In return he feigned anger, bristling and growling ferociously, and clipping his teeth together in snaps that had all the seeming of deadly intention. But he never forgot himself. Those snaps were always delivered on the empty air. At the end of such a romp, when blow and cuff and snap and snarl were last and furious, they would break off suddenly and stand several feet apart, glaring at each other. And then, just as suddenly, like the sun rising on a stormy sea, they would begin to laugh. This would always culminate with the master’s arms going around White Fang’s neck and shoulders while the latter crooned and growled his love-song.

But nobody else ever romped with White Fang. He did not permit it. He stood on his dignity, and when they attempted it, his warning snarl and bristling mane were anything but playful. That he allowed the master these liberties was no reason that he should be a common dog, loving here and loving there, everybody’s property for a romp and good time. He loved with single heart and refused to cheapen himself or his love.

The master went out on horseback a great deal, and to accompany him was one of White Fang’s chief duties in life. In the Northland he had evidenced his fealty by toiling in the harness; but there were no sleds in the Southland, nor did dogs pack burdens on their backs. So he rendered fealty in the new way, by running with the master’s horse. The longest day never played White Fang out. His was the gait of the wolf, smooth, tireless and effortless, and at the end of fifty miles he would come in jauntily ahead of the horse.

It was in connection with the riding, that White Fang achieved one other mode of expression—remarkable in that he did it but twice in all his life. The first time occurred when the master was trying to teach a spirited thoroughbred the method of opening and closing gates without the rider’s dismounting. Time and again and many times he ranged the horse up to the gate in the effort to close it and each time the horse became frightened and backed and plunged away. It grew more nervous and excited every moment. When it reared, the master put the spurs to it and made it drop its fore-legs back to earth, whereupon it would begin kicking with its hind-legs. White Fang watched the performance with increasing anxiety until he could contain himself no longer, when he sprang in front of the horse and barked savagely and warningly.

Though he often tried to bark thereafter, and the master encouraged him, he succeeded only once, and then it was not in the master’s presence. A scamper across the pasture, a jackrabbit rising suddenly under the horse’s feet, a violent sheer, a stumble, a fall to earth, and a broken leg for the master, was the cause of it. White Fang sprang in a rage at the throat of the offending horse, but was checked by the master’s voice.

“Home! Go home!” the master commanded when he had ascertained his injury.

White Fang was disinclined to desert him. The master thought of writing a note, but searched his pockets vainly for pencil and paper. Again he commanded White Fang to go home.

The latter regarded him wistfully, started away, then returned and whined softly. The master talked to him gently but seriously, and he cocked his ears, and listened with painful intentness.

“That’s all right, old fellow, you just run along home,” ran the talk. “Go on home and tell them what’s happened to me. Home with you, you wolf. Get along home!”

White Fang knew the meaning of “home,” and though he did not understand the remainder of the master’s language, he knew it was his will that he should go home. He turned and trotted reluctantly away. Then he stopped, undecided, and looked back over his shoulder.

“Go home!” came the sharp command, and this time he obeyed.

The family was on the porch, taking the cool of the afternoon, when White Fang arrived. He came in among them, panting, covered with dust.

“Weedon’s back,” Weedon’s mother announced.

The children welcomed White Fang with glad cries and ran to meet him. He avoided them and passed down the porch, but they cornered him against a rocking-chair and the railing. He growled and tried to push by them. Their mother looked apprehensively in their direction.

“I confess, he makes me nervous around the children,” she said. “I have a dread that he will turn upon them unexpectedly some day.”

Growling savagely, White Fang sprang out of the corner, overturning the boy and the girl. The mother called them to her and comforted them, telling them not to bother White Fang.

“A wolf is a wolf!” commented Judge Scott. “There is no trusting one.”

“But he is not all wolf,” interposed Beth, standing for her brother in his absence.

“You have only Weedon’s opinion for that,” rejoined the judge. “He merely surmises that there is some strain of dog in White Fang; but as he will tell you himself, he knows nothing about it. As for his appearance—”

He did not finish his sentence. White Fang stood before him, growling fiercely.

“Go away! Lie down, sir!” Judge Scott commanded.

White Fang turned to the love-master’s wife. She screamed with fright as he seized her dress in his teeth and dragged on it till the frail fabric tore away. By this time he had become the centre of interest.

He had ceased from his growling and stood, head up, looking into their faces. His throat worked spasmodically, but made no sound, while he struggled with all his body, convulsed with the effort to rid himself of the incommunicable something that strained for utterance.

“I hope he is not going mad,” said Weedon’s mother. “I told Weedon that I was afraid the warm climate would not agree with an Arctic animal.”

“He’s trying to speak, I do believe,” Beth announced.

At this moment speech came to White Fang, rushing up in a great burst of barking.

“Something has happened to Weedon,” his wife said decisively.

They were all on their feet now, and White Fang ran down the steps, looking back for them to follow. For the second and last time in his life he had barked and made himself understood.

After this event he found a warmer place in the hearts of the Sierra Vista people, and even the groom whose arm he had slashed admitted that he was a wise dog even if he was a wolf. Judge Scott still held to the same opinion, and proved it to everybody’s dissatisfaction by measurements and descriptions taken from the encyclopaedia and various works on natural history.

The days came and went, streaming their unbroken sunshine over the Santa Clara Valley. But as they grew shorter and White Fang’s second winter in the Southland came on, he made a strange discovery. Collie’s teeth were no longer sharp. There was a playfulness about her nips and a gentleness that prevented them from really hurting him. He forgot that she had made life a burden to him, and when she disported herself around him he responded solemnly, striving to be playful and becoming no more than ridiculous.

One day she led him off on a long chase through the back-pasture land into the woods. It was the afternoon that the master was to ride, and White Fang knew it. The horse stood saddled and waiting at the door. White Fang hesitated. But there was that in him deeper than all the law he had learned, than the customs that had moulded him, than his love for the master, than the very will to live of himself; and when, in the moment of his indecision, Collie nipped him and scampered off, he turned and followed after. The master rode alone that day; and in the woods, side by side, White Fang ran with Collie, as his mother, Kiche, and old One Eye had run long years before in the silent Northland forest.

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WHEN THE FROST IS ON THE PUNKIN

John Whitcomb Riley

When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder's in the shock,

And you hear the kyouck and the gobble of the struttin' turkey-cock,

And the clackin'; of the guineys and the cluckin' of the hens

And the rooster's hallylooyer as he tiptoes on the fence;

O it's then the times a feller is a-feelin' at his best,

With the risin' sun to greet him from a night of peaceful rest,

As he leaves the house, bareheaded, and goes out to feed the stock,

When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder's in the shock.

They's somethin kindo' harty-like about the atmusfere

When the heat of summer's over and the coolin' fall is here -

Of course we miss the flowers, and the blossums on the trees

And the mumble of the hummin'-birds and buzzin' of the bees;

But the air's so appetizin'; and the landscape through the haze

Of a crisp and sunny morning of the airly autumn days

Is a pictur' that no painter has the colorin' to mock -

When the frost is on the punkin and fodder's in the shock.

The husky, rusty russel of the tossels of the corn,

And the raspin' of the tangled leaves, as golden as the morn;

The stubble in the furries - kindo' lonesome-like, but still

A preachin' sermons to us of the barns they growed to fill;

The strawstack in the medder, and the reaper in the shed;

The hosses in theyr stalls below - the clover overhead! -

O, it sets my hart a-clickin' like the tickin' of a clock,

When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder's in the shock!

Then your apples all is gethered, and the ones a feller keeps

Is poured around the celler-floor in red and yeller heaps;

And your cider-makin's over, and your wimmern-folks is through

With their mince and apple-butter, and theyr souse and saussage, too!

I don't know how to tell it - but if sich a thing could be

As the Angels wantin' boardin', and they'd call around on me -

I'd want to 'commodate 'em - all the whole-indurin' flock -

When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder's in the shock!

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Welcome to Abundance, a program of 1001 Thanks.  This is a celebration of the good things happening in your life and the world.  I am your host, Dane Allred.  I believe you can change your life and the world by celebrating the joy, the happiness, the positive parts of this wonderful journey we call life.

In just a moment, we'll be discussing a presentation I give called “My Best Self”.  In ten parts, I document how we know when we are being our best selves.  Each of the letters of the “My Best Self” phrase represents one of the qualities which helps us be our best selves.

How  do we know if we are being our "Best Selves"?

The “M” in “My Best Self” stands for:

Makes a difference.

Now you need to know that you , individually you; the person I'm talking to right now; you do make a difference.  There is a reason you are here at this time and this place.  Someone once said it this way, “Being you is so difficult that no one in the universe has ever attempted it before.”  Now when you find the purpose for your life, you will see the difference you can make in the lives of others and in this world.  And now that I think about it, since I’ve injured myself so many times, the purpose of my life may only be to serve as a warning to others.  If I can make that difference, it may save you from stabbing yourself in the hand with a spading pitchfork, getting a free bath in the carwash, or from being stranded on a windsurfer overnight on Utah Lake.

That's why the “Y” in “My Best Self” stands for:

Yearns to be better

We all yearn to be better, to be more than we are.  We may measure our success against the successes of others, but the person we really need to be compared to is ourselves – the person we were yesterday.  Can we ask ourselves, and answer this question honestly, are we better today than yesterday?

It would seem to me that this journey of how to be better would have an ending, where we end up being our best selves, but due to the vicissitudes  of life, we become better at some things.  We lose our ability to do other things.

So your yearning to be better might need to be associated with limitation.  Like the time I saw a student do a back-flip on-stage I remembered that I could do back flips when I was young.  Now smacking my face on the stage halfway through the flip reminded me I am 30 years older and 50 pounds heavier than my back flip days.  This isn’t to say I couldn’t do back flips again, but that time may have passed.

You know what you want to be better at.  You really do, and that nagging guilt and conscience that tells you "I need to work on this"; that's what you're yearning for, and you probably also know what you need to do to get to that point.  If you aren’t sure what you want to be better at, you might want to find someone who can point out to you your talents.  Then decide how to be better; you can get a coach, take lessons, go back to school, just focus and do it.  You know what you want.  Get out there and get it done.  That's why we're blessed with all this abundance.

Now the “B” in “My Best Self” stands for:

Believes in my potential

Once you know what you want to do or what you can do, believing in your own potential is the next step.  Self-doubt has shot down many more dreams than someone saying “no” to your idea.  A lot of times we'll say no to ourself thousands of times before we actually give somebody else the opportunity to say no, in the fear that they may say "Yes".  Believe in yourself, because no one else has your potential, your goals, your vision.  Who else can accomplish what you are here to do?

The “E” in “My Best Self” stands for:

Entertains new ideas

To be your best self, you may have to entertain some new ideas.  For example, I was the first in my family to graduate from college.  That new idea gave me the opportunities I have today, and since I believed in myself and my potential, there really never was a time when I didn’t think I would graduate and be gainfully employed.  Again, there were challenges to that, called job interviews, and I did wind up working out of state for a couple of years because I had to go where the opportunities were.  But there was a time when it became a new idea to me, and I can even recall when this happened.  The ASVAB test is given by the armed services; I believe it stands for the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery.  This test  predicted I had the mechanical aptitude to be in the service.  So I got lots of mail from the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines and that's one of the reasons they give the test is so they can get recruits.  But thanks to that test, which also included an interest survey, I was told I could be a lawyer.  This new idea had never occurred to me, and once planted, I knew I could do it.  But that would involve college, and so I had to finagle my way into an AP History and AP English class.  That way I could get some college credit while I was still in high school.  Combined with the College Level Education Program tests, the CLEP tests I took in college, I tested out of a year of school.  I finished my undergraduate degree in three years.

The strange thing about this whole process is, remember, this idea led me to college, but then another new idea presented itself to me.  I enjoyed my student teaching so much; I never again wanted to be a lawyer.  That doesn’t mean you can’t be a lawyer if that idea has captured your imagination.  So be open to the new ideas that appear in your life.  Your potential is trying to get your attention.

The “S” in “My Best Self” stands for:

Strives for perfection

Once you have chosen a path, there’s no reason really not to be the very best at what you do.  Being our best selves means not being our second best self.  It doesn't mean we have to be better than somebody else but we're always striving to perfect what we do.  If we dig ditches, there may be some new technique you may discover that will change the world of ditch digging.  Search for the new ways, there's new techniques, there's new approaches.  There's always going to be a demand for those who have new innovations, and if you have that new idea, it may be time to share it with the world.  Remember, you are here for a reason.  Find it, and perfect yourself, and perfect the world.  We all need it.

So how?  How do we do this?  This is where the next step applies.

The “T” in “My Best Self” stands for:

Trusts in the Creative

This is where your higher power, if it's God, Allah, Vishnu, even just a concept of supreme being or creator, even if you have no religious tradition, I believe you can connect with your creative side; this has been called inspiration or the muses.  As you seek new ideas, trust in your inner creativity to connect with this higher power.  It'll give you an inspiring, new or creative idea.

Where did that idea come from, is what we need to ask ourselves?  If you think it came from you, that’s fine with me, but I believe each of us is a channel for the creative process to manifest itself in this universe.  If you talk to authors, lyricists, musicians, dancers, choreographers, and other creative people, you'll often hear of the process of creativity described as a collaboration and sometimes even just "notation-taking".  The end result is often much different than anticipated by the artist, and this creativity is an exciting chance for you to connect with whatever it is that guides our creativity.

Now I'll give you an example.  I once wrote a murder mystery which was hi-jacked by one of the minor characters.  It was supposed to be about a high school teacher, but instead the teacher ends up being a minor character in the plot and the local police officer actually becomes the hero and center of the story.  Writing is an amazing process which I enjoy immensely, but I would never take all the credit for what I write.  It’s not just me.  I will never take the credit for the collaboration I have as I create, and I don’t know how; I don't know why it works, but I am grateful to receive the help because most of the time I really need it.

So if you'll just trust that creative ideas will come to you; ways and means to implement the reasons, the ideas, the purposes you have for being here; I actually believe it will be manifest in your life.  I know it sound really short-sighted to say it in such a simple way, but I really have no other way to describe it besides, "Go out and do it.  Try it and see if it works for you."

The “S” in “My Best Self” stands for:

Succeeds and celebrates success

This second "S" may seem like a contradiction.  If we credit a higher power with help in creativity, why would we celebrate a success that is not wholly ours?  Think about the last person you tried to compliment.  Did they accept the praise, or did they try to deflect it?  Celebrating success means taking credit for the successes you've had up to this point.  You need to think about what has led you to this point.  There is a string of success trailing behind you.  To deny those minor and major victories cheapens the work you've done so far in this life.  Remember, to be alive and kickin' today when there's people in this world who weren't alive and kickin' this morning when they tried to wake up.  These are victories we need to celebrate along the way.

Reward yourself and accept that praise.  Even if you don't believe it, just say, “Thank you.”  That small validation really goes a long way to help you on your way to your future success.  We don't want to deny the compliments of other people.  It's a really bad human tendency.  If we can accept compliments and give compliments, I think celebration of those successes are very, very good.  If I can just figure out a way to stop celebrating my successes with food, I'll be in really good shape.    When I have a success, that's one of my favorite things to do; is to buy something and eat it.

The “E” in “My Best Self”, the second "E", stands for:

Expects great things to happen

An expectation of success is really key to achievement.  Self-doubt short circuits the path you need to follow to make ideas succeed, and doubts usually involve some kind of past failures.

So rather than doubt yourself, think about this phrase.  When they say “Today is the first day of the rest of your life”, this means this new day is the only day given to you to use.  This day.  You can’t access tomorrow yet, and to let the past shackle today is to deny the miracle of waking up another day.

So expect some great things.  There's a reason you woke up today.  Expect that great things will manifest themselves in your life.  Write them down.  Contemplate them.  Improve them.  Expect those things, and do things in your life to make them happen.

The “L” in “My Best Self” stands for:

Learns from everyone

Without a human connection, and without admitting that we can learn from everyone, I think you have sold short your biggest asset in this universe.  If it was just me, if it was just you that was here to do stuff, there wouldn't be a reason for all these other people.

I know there are people who think they know it all.  I think this is a really sad attitude, because  I have learned something from every person I have ever met, if I was paying attention.  Now if I’m not paying attention, I might miss one of the major lessons about to be given to me that day.

For the last few days, it's been my great blessing to notice many other people succeeding with what some people would call a handicap.  These are people who are "handicapable" if that's your choice of words.

I'm not sure why all of these people were presented to me this week, but in an amazing collection of “coincidences”, the dozen people I saw during this last week inspired me to think about how blessed my life really is.

I have full use of all of my limbs; which may surprise some of you who have listened to my “adventures”.  My health is good.  I have a good diet.  I have access to medication.  I have  doctors if I need them.  And again, we take more things for granted each day than anyone in the ancient world ever could have imagined.  It’s time to start paying attention and learn from the person standing in front of us.

What can we learn?  What's the lesson being taught by the words, actions and life of the people we meet each day?  Some of them may just be negative lessons, and we'll determine that's something we don't want to be in our life. Have we learned what they are trying to teach us?  I believe they must be in our lives for some reason.  This includes people you may  not be happy are in your life.  Let’s take some time and learn from them and maybe we can get on to the next lesson.

To get a little less serious for a second here, I'm going to summarize "My Best Self" by going to the “F” in “My Best Self”.  I'm not sure why it came out this way, but the "F" in "My Best Self" stands for:

Fearlessly forges forcefully forward

I really believe the old axiom, "If you're not moving forward, you're going backward,"  so fearlessly forge forcefully forward.

While the frequent use of the letter “F” may be the only thing you notice about the last part of “My Best Self”, this may be one of the most important parts.  Fear really is something that paralyzes us into inaction.  We're afraid to approach someone; we're afraid to try a new idea; we're afraid to do whatever it is that's causing that fear.  Fear paralyzes us into that inaction, and how can we be our best self if we are unable to act on the ideas we are given?

Here's a few other "F" words to try and help you understand how to forge fearlessly and forcefully forward.

Ferociously facilitates foresighted, foundational, futuristic, flawless focus; forever.

Which to me means don't get distracted.  There's plenty of things in this world to help us be distracted.  Surprisingly, a lot of those things tend to be on television, and on our computer, and on the Internet, and on the radio.  Focus and don't get distracted.

I also believe furthermore, feverishly factoring future fundamentally feeble-minded frugality is important.  We realize that everyone in the world does have a budget and you're going to have to understand what's available to you; what you can do and can't do because of frugality; maybe the frugality of somebody else; maybe your own frugality.  Maybe our income is only limited by the amount of money we think we should make.  Maybe our potential is only limited by the potential we feel we really have.

Also, I think some "F"'s that would help us are

we "Foresees favorable feedback which fosters fertile futures."

I really seriously believe in being positive.  It really is more than just my blood type.  If you're positive, and you think about  favorable, fertile futures, I think those things tend to manifest themselves in your life if you'll give them a chance to take root.

Negativity, doubt, all of those things can really short circuit a lot of this process.

I think you should "forecast fumbling, fanatical, fixated ferocity from formidable factionaries."

To me that just means,  anticipate some opposition.  Be glad for that opposition, because unless we bounce our ideas off someone else and they make us defend what we're thinking about embracing in our lives; maybe their feedback is really what we need.  But again, we are not going to let their negativity stop us from doing what we need to do.

I think that things like this fascinate future feckless, feeble-minded, fickle, fawning, full-blooded freaks.

If you can make it interesting I think there's are a lot of people who are going to try to find out what's going on with that.  For some reason, things that are interesting give us some distraction, but also give us some enjoyment.  So, I can't think of another reason why, as I was pursuing one of my great distractions this week, cruising around on YouTube, why a website called Brainiac would explode watermelons with dynamite in slow motion to classical music.  It was very interesting to watch, but again, there's a lot of things people will watch just because they want to see it.

We're talking about "My Best Self" and focusing on finally the "F" of "My Best Self".  This program is meant to emphasize the positive and I hope we're having a good time today raising your spirits on Abundance with Dane Allred.  Today we've been talking about "My Best Self" and we are about to finish up what is the "F" in "My Best Self".  I've been tossing around a few "F" words, but not the kind you're thinking of.

I think that if you are your "Best Self" you would frequently foster formal, full on, full out, full-tilt, full-circle, full blown, full-bore, forward-looking freedom for faithful fellows.

What that all means is I think you would really encourage others.  If "Your Best Self" is not encouraging the ideas of other people, I'm not sure that is "Your Best Self".

We've already discussed distractions so you do need to factor frequent fantasies from fumbling, flabbergasted fools. Watch for those fantasies, don't let them distract you.

Fanatically feature familiar face-to-face fictions, which means you may need to tell your story to somebody over and over again to help inspire them.  We used that word inspire earlier in the program and if you think about the way we use the word inspiration, we not only use "inspire" and "expire" as a way to describe breathing in and breathing out.

But, a breath of fresh air, "inspiration", can be something that comes and rejuvenates us.

So make sure you are inspiring and rejuvenating those people who are supporting you.  Fervently, fervidly, foster fantasy, fluency, faithfulness, familiarity, fastidiousness, fearlessness, fortitude, forgiveness, felicity, friendliness, functionality, and forthrightness in those friendly followers.  In other words, help them be their best selves.

Even though I don't like to get into negative talk too much, I would ask you to forbid fright, fumbling, fear, fatalism, fuming, foreswearing, forsaking, feigning, frustration, flouncing, fleering, flashiness, forlornness, fraudulence, flippancy, frailty, flattery, foolishness, and fearfulness.

I believe those all short-circuit your reason for being here.

As we sit and talk about our best self, I'm going to finish up explaining maybe why some of my adventures might seem really foolhardy to some of you out there.  In future editions of Abundance we'll be discussing how to be our best self, but I would discuss just briefly why it is maybe you can dismiss all the things I talk about because when you have no brain you have no pain.

I flunked the same English class twice, and that's another reason why you could say, "Well, this guy can't even pass an English class, I'm not sure why I'm listening to him."

But this may be the best reason for you to go ahead and discount any of this that may be inspiring to you, but you don't really want to go act on it.

I used to be the victim of frequent sinus infections.  I would go in to the doctor once or twice a year and get some antibiotics.  The doctor wanted to try and figure out what was exactly wrong with my sinuses.

I wouldn't recommend this because it really has changed  my life.  If the doctor asks to x-ray your head, put some serious thought into that.

What he had me do was tip my head back, my chin up in the air, and he took an x-ray of the top of my skull.  If you feel up above your eyebrows, your sinuses go to about that part of your head.  If you've had a sinus headache, you've had pain right there, and you know what I'm talking about. They're pictured on television with all of these sinus remedies and all the different kinds of things that can help you with those.  I have to tell you that I am personally acquainted with nearly every kind of anti-histamine and allergy medications ever been made.

Once the doctor took this picture, he came back shaking his head.  He had this picture in his hand of my skull, and he said, "This is the picture of your sinuses."

And I said, "Well, what's wrong?"

He said, "Well, you know how most people have sinuses up to their eyebrows?"  He said, "You've got sinuses all the way up to your receding hairline", which explained quite a bit.

I mean if you think about it, if you've got more sinuses, then you're going to have more sinus infections, more ability to gather all kinds of the nasty stuff that gives us infections.  But the reason I'm really not going to encourage you to have your doctor inform you about your own head x-rays.

Think about this.  I have extra sinuses, and I don't have a fantastically huge head, so logical reasoning follows that I think  I have less brains than everybody else, too, because there's only so much space up there.

Stabbing yourself in the hand, getting stuck on a windsurfer in the middle of Utah Lake, skiing down a mountain-side on rocks, skiing down a mountainside in snow without any skiing instruction, and all the various ways I've hurt myself probably have good reason now.  If you think about that, it doesn't take much brain to throw yourself into the air and flip your body around and land on your cheekbone because somebody you saw is doing a back flip and you "used could do those, too".  I "used could", too .

As we think about our abilities and freedoms, I really want you to think about what you need to accomplish this week.   Confront those fears you have about doing those things. I need you to go out and find all the reasons we have to be thankful for this abundant life.  I believe you can change your life and the world by celebrating that joy, that happiness and those positive parts of this wonderful journey we call life.

Abundance is a way to emphasize what we like in our life.  We want to eliminate the negativity and pessimism; we're really trying to accentuate the positive.

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My Best Self

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The lion finds out how valuable a small friend can be, in this retelling of the Aesop fable.  Dane Allred has rewritten and narrates this version of the fable.

The Lion and the Mouse

by Dane Allred

As the King of the Forest, the Lion knew he needed the help of no one. He could hunt and capture his own food, send invaders away from his territory, and have whatever he wanted. After a long day of hunting, the Lion was hot and tired, so he relaxed under a large tree, stretched out and fell asleep.

The mice who lived under the tree in the deep roots heard a snoring sound from above. They cautiously crept out of their home and saw the Lion, the King of the Beasts was sleeping, just inches away from them! At first, they were frightened since they knew the Lion ruled this part of the jungle, and no one dared challenge his authority. After creeping slowly closer, the mice realized the Lion was sound asleep.

At first, one of the bravest mice reached out and touched the Lion. Then he ran back to his brothers and sisters, who laughed at his foolishness. When they realized the Lion was still deep in sleep, all of the mice began to climb and play on the Lion.

As the bravest mouse tickled the whiskers of the great Lion and he awoke with a start. The mice scattered, but the Lion was quick and slapped his paw over the brave little mouse. Squeaking with his little voice as the Lion pinched his tail and lifted the mouse towards his mouth, the mouse said, “Great King of the Jungle, you do not want to eat me!! I am such a little mouse. “

The Lion laughed, but the mouse was still dangling over the large mouth of the Lion.

“I know, “said the mouse quickly. “Spare my life now and I will repay this debt by saving your life.”

This made the Lion laugh even louder. “You cannot save me, the master of this land. You are such a little mouse and I need hope from no one. You have given me a great laugh, and since I have had a good long day of hunting, my stomach is full, and such a little morsel as you, well, it is not worth the trouble even to chew you up.” He dropped the mouse and went back to sleep.

The mouse ran back to his home, grateful to be alive.

As the Lion slept, hunters walked by and wondered at their good fortune to see a lion asleep under a tree. They threw a net over the Lion quickly.

The Lion struggled under the net, and could not believe he was being captured by these little humans. But there were too many of them, and soon he found himself tied to the tree. The men left to find a cage for the lion.

The Lion could not understand how all of this had happened so quickly. He roared a loud roar, and the brave little mouse emerged again from under the tree.

“Little mouse!” roared the Lion. “Men have captured me. What am I to do?”

The mouse crawled bravely up the rope and said, “I promised to save your life, and I am happy to chew through this rope so you may go free. But who thought I would be able to repay the debt so soon!!”

The mouse chewed so quickly, the Lion was free in an instant.

The lion turned to his new little friend, and said “You have taught me a great lesson this day.”

“What is that?” said the mouse.

The mighty lion said, “Little friends can be great friends.”

The Lion and the Mouse, as adapted by Dane Allred.

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The Lion and the Mouse

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Welcome to Abundance, a program of 1001 Thanks.  This is a celebration of the good things happening in your life and the world.  I am your host, Dane Allred.  I believe you can change your life and the world by celebrating the joy, the happiness, the positive parts of this wonderful journey we call life.

I thought today on Abundance we would go ahead and try and define what I think Abundance is -- a couple of words pop into my mind as I try and decide what my life philosophy is and how it's reflected in the things that I do and the things that I say.

I think the Abundance I'm speaking of in this life has a lot to do with compassion for other people, their situations, for all kinds of things that happen in the world and especially for people whose are in circumstances beyond their control.  I think a lot of times that can be helped with humor, and you know humor plays a big part in my life.

I also believe tolerance and forgiveness are excellent ways to make the more abundant life happen in your neck of the woods.

Today, as we talk about Abundance, you may be wondering what does Dane Allred mean when he says "Abundance".

Well, to me, my life is full.  I have an abundance of what many cultures have defined as a full life.  For peoples of the past to imagine our lives would have been impossible.

Think of this.  Most of us have never spent a day in hunger.  When we sleep at night, many of us sleep soundly and securely.  We spend lifetimes that are two, three and four times longer than our ancestors.  We have luxuries unknown in the past.

I am blessed with having a loving wife and children as well as a supportive extended family.  My wife and daughters have opportunities denied to woman since the beginning of civilization.  As a people, we can move freely anywhere we choose;  we can choose where we live; we can choose where we work, and to me, in this world of abundance, it seems our opportunities are only limited by our creativity.

One of the measures of abundance is modern technology and if you think about it, most of the modern technology that we have today are marvels which would have been like miracles to anyone from the past.  For example, I communicate with my family on a cellular phone, which means if my mother is on a boat on a lake and she has her phone, I can contact her.  I can ask how the fishing is today. Think of all the things a modern day cellular phone can do, just by itself.  It has a calendar; it has games; it receives and sends instant messages.  I can compose my thoughts; I can write with a stylus or a small keyboard; those important ideas are preserved; instead in the past maybe lost forever.  On my phone I can access the internet.  I can contact Google or Wikipedia for instant answers to my questions and I don’t have to ask somebody else, and I don't have to go to the library, or continue in ignorance.  The world really is at my fingertips, and not many of us really appreciate the fact that we have such an abundance of information in our reach, but maybe it is because there is so much that we are kind of overloaded.

I don’t fear the dreaded diseases of the past, wondering if they are going to take me or my family without warning.  Even when my wife was diagnosed with stage four bone cancer fifteen years ago, the best treatments available were used since I am part of a risk-pool, and so insurance provides the money for the cures.  Now she lives today because we live in this modern world.

Another example, My sister was spared with a liver transplant.  I am the beneficiary of several types of modern medications which regulate my blood pressure, my allergies and even the size of my prostate.  And I know that may be too much information, but if you consider the state of medicine even two centuries ago, blood-letting was the most common and most popular treatment for ailments, and for those who are unfamiliar with the process, blood-letting means you probably have too much blood; let's let some out and see if you get better.

Just think about the marvels of the modern world.  I can speed across counties and states.  I can fly to other nations in hours if I wish, instead of counting the journeys in days or months.  Now, I have visited places in the world most of the present population of the world today will only be able to read about, even if they can read.  I intend to visit many more.

I am also a citizen of a country which protects the rights of all, not just a selected few.  So I think freedoms are part of our abundance. I have been given opportunities that somebody in my social position would never have been given in other times and other countries.

Because of college scholarships and grant monies that is paid for by taxes, I was able to go to college, and now I'm a high school and college teacher.

Now I am able because of those opportunities to earn a good living for my family. I pay taxes.  I support my government, the police, the military, the public services, public education, and I am so blessed to live in a place where I can say and I can write what I wish without government censorship.

So, when we talk about Abundance, it's not just the things we have, the freedoms we enjoy, but also, the ability we have to make a difference.

Believe it or not, I am actually really grateful for work.  Many of us in the modern day define ourselves by our work. I'd be a much different person without my opportunity to work and satisfying day of work is one of the most rewarding parts of my life, and it's because I enjoy my work and I hope you do something that you enjoy, too.

So, basically, as we look at the abundance of the world and the universe, I'm only limited by my imagination how I want to spend my life.  I have leisure time unimagined even by kings of the past.  I enjoy work so much I have invented other work for myself.  I buy and sell things on eBay.  I have thousands of satisfied customer ratings.  I teach part-time at a local university.  I've written an online public speaking course.  I've written quotations books, mystery novels, an auto-biography of the fifty ways I've injured myself.  I have a website.

I have time, because of our modern economy and the shortened work day, I am able to perform things like a one-man show of Mark Twain and Charles Dickens.  I regularly post on a website read by hundreds of thousands of people every day.  I'm paid to perform in commercials, movies, stage plays and musicals and I've been in over 30 movies and more than 70 stage productions.  I've been in world premiere shows.  I've sung on an original cast album.  I've won awards as a gardener, a poet, a teacher.

I've run three marathons and lots of footraces.  I was privileged to run the Olympic Flame for the 2002 Winter Olympics.  With all the other careers I've had in life as flower and package deliverer.  I've been a gas station attendant.  Most of my life has been spent teaching high school and college students.

And I cannot read the list of these opportunities that I have been given in my life without wondering why I have been blessed when others, and millions and hundreds of millions and billions of others of people live lives of poverty and oppression, sometimes only because they were born halfway around the world from here.

So I know that one of my life’s purposes is to proclaim my thanks for all my blessings.  I'm going to concentrate on the positive and to do otherwise would really be to be an ungrateful recipient of all this bounty.

And that's what really led me to create this show, Abundance, and I have a list of 1001 thanks.  It's the 1001 things I have listed that remind me why I should keep a positive attitude and try to inspire others to see the good in the world, instead of focusing on the negative.

My life hasn't been a bed of roses.  I could complain about my aches and pains.  Like I said, I've written a book about the fifty ways I've injured myself, and I didn't do this to catalog the misery of my short fifty years on the planet.  It's to remind me I am still alive and kicking. I should be grateful for every day that I have been given and I hope to inspire in you this same optimism, to help you realize the bounty of this corner of the universe.  Together there really is nothing we cannot accomplish.

I am not here to urge you to ignore the problems of your life, or the problems of the world.  But I seriously believe carping, negativism and blaming will never solve anything.  So join me on this journey to document our thanks.

Next time -- My Best Self

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What is Abundance?

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The Road Not Taken

by Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

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