Episodes
Saturday Jan 08, 2011
If by Rudyard Kipling
Saturday Jan 08, 2011
Saturday Jan 08, 2011
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If....
by Rudyard Kipling
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream, and not make dreams your master;
If you can think, and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools;
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings, nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And, which is more, you'll be a Man, my son!
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Click on the player to hear an audio version of this piece If by Rudyard KiplingFriday Jan 07, 2011
To Raise Poultry by Mark Twain
Friday Jan 07, 2011
Friday Jan 07, 2011
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To Raise Poultry
by Mark Twain
A letter written to a Poultry Society that had conferred a complimentary membership upon the author. Written about 1870.
Seriously, from early youth I have taken an especial interest in the subject of poultry-raising, and so this membership touches a ready sympathy in my breast. Even as a schoolboy, poultry-raising was a study with me, and I may say without egotism that as early as the age of seventeen I was acquainted with all the best and speediest methods of raising chickens, from raising them off a roost by burning lucifer matches under their noses, down to lifting them off a fence on a frosty night by insinuating the end of a warm board under their heels. By the time I was twenty years old, I really suppose I had raised more poultry than any one individual in all the section round about there. The very chickens came to know my talent by and by. The youth of both sexes ceased to paw the earth for worms, and old roosters that came to crow, "remained to pray," when I passed by.
I have had so much experience in the raising of fowls that I cannot but think that a few hints from me might be useful to the society. The two methods I have already touched upon are very simple, and are only used in the raising of the commonest class of fowls; one is for summer, the other for winter. In the one case you start out with a friend along about eleven o'clock' on a summer's night (not later, because in some states-- especially in California and Oregon--chickens always rouse up just at midnight and crow from ten to thirty minutes, according to the ease or difficulty they experience in getting the public waked up), and your friend carries with him a sack. Arrived at the henroost (your neighbor's, not your own), you light a match and hold it under first one and then another pullet's nose until they are willing to go into that bag without making any trouble about it. You then return home, either taking the bag with you or leaving it behind, according as circumstances shall dictate. N. B.--I have seen the time when it was eligible and appropriate to leave the sack behind and walk off with considerable velocity, without ever leaving any word where to send it.
In the case of the other method mentioned for raising poultry, your friend takes along a covered vessel with a charcoal fire in it, and you carry a long slender plank. This is a frosty night, understand. Arrived at the tree, or fence, or other henroost (your own if you are an idiot), you warm the end of your plank in your friend's fire vessel, and then raise it aloft and ease it up gently against a slumbering chicken's foot. If the subject of your attentions is a true bird, he will infallibly return thanks with a sleepy cluck or two, and step out and take up quarters on the plank, thus becoming so conspicuously accessory before the fact to his own murder as to make it a grave question in our minds as it once was in the mind of Blackstone, whether he is not really and deliberately, committing suicide in the second degree. [But you enter into a contemplation of these legal refinements subsequently not then.]
When you wish to raise a fine, large, donkey voiced Shanghai rooster, you do it with a lasso, just as you would a bull. It is because he must choked, and choked effectually, too. It is the only good, certain way, for whenever he mentions a matter which he is cordially interested in, the chances are ninety-nine in a hundred that he secures somebody else's immediate attention to it too, whether it day or night.
The Black Spanish is an exceedingly fine bird and a costly one. Thirty-five dollars is the usual figure and fifty a not uncommon price for a specimen. Even its eggs are worth from a dollar to a dollar and a half apiece, and yet are so unwholesome that the city physician seldom or never orders them for the workhouse.
Still I have once or twice procured as high as a dozen at a time for nothing, in the dark of the moon. The best way to raise the Black Spanish fowl is to go late in the evening and raise coop and all. The reason I recommend this method is that, the birds being so valuable, the owners do not permit them to roost around promiscuously, they put them in a coop as strong as a fireproof safe and keep it in the kitchen at night. The method I speak of is not always a bright and satisfying success, and yet there are so many little articles of vertu about a kitchen, that if you fail on the coop you can generally bring away something else. I brought away a nice steel trap one night, worth ninety cents.
But what is the use in my pouring out my whole intellect on this subject? I have shown the Western New York Poultry Society that they have taken to their bosom a party who is not a spring chicken by any means, but a man who knows all about poultry, and is just as high up in the most efficient methods of raising it as the president of the institution himself. I thank these gentlemen for the honorary membership they have conferred upon me, and shall stand at all times ready and willing to testify my good feeling and my official zeal by deeds as well as by this hastily penned advice and information. Whenever they are ready to go to raising poultry, let them call for me any evening after eleven o'clock.
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SHAKESPEARE'S SONNETS
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Click on the player to hear an audio version of this piece To Raise PoultryFriday Jan 07, 2011
Proficiency
Friday Jan 07, 2011
Friday Jan 07, 2011
Bright Space
Proficiency
by Dane Allred
There is a reason you are here.
You came here from the Bright Space
Wanting to learn all there is to learn.
I was there with you.
So was everyone who ever was, is or will be.
We decided to leave and learn on our own, separate and apart
What we could not learn staying in the Bright Space together.
You are here to learn what you can
To do what you are here to do that no one else can do.
You know what that is
That one thing
You can do, that no one else can do.
I can’t do it.
Only you.
I cannot know all things
And neither can you.
But as we work our way through our appointed sphere,
In our chosen place,
There are some very important things to learn
That only you can learn.
The talents, skills and proficiencies you have brought with you
Are perfectly designed for what you have to do.
I also have my talents and skills,
Different from you
Meant to accomplish what it is I have to do.
Finding that which we are to do is never easy,
But when you are there you will know.
A feeling of peace and belonging
A feeling of purpose and accomplishment
A knowledge that at this time, in this place,
This is what you are here to do.
Take a moment to enjoy that feeling, for then you will move from that place of certainty
Back to the doubt.
Back to the next task
On that special list
That only you are responsible for.
Then you will move on to the next thing
And the next, until you reach your final assignment.
We will all continue that work we are here to do
Until we reach our final assignment,
And finally rejoin everyone else in the Bright Space.
When all that can ever be has been
We will return and share what we have learned.
It’s time to do what only you can do.
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SHAKESPEARE'S SONNETS
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Click on the player to hear an audio version of this piece ProficiencyWednesday Jan 05, 2011
Car Crashes
Wednesday Jan 05, 2011
Wednesday Jan 05, 2011
CAR CRASHES
I was in six car accidents in the year after I got my driver’s license. I got smart after my high school car crashes and read a defensive driving book. I was a better driver, and the accident rate went down. I went six or seven years without problems until Debbie and I were driving up Little Cottonwood Canyon. A truck was pulled off to the side - the wrong side of the road - which meant it was facing us.
The fool in the truck decided to pull out just as we reached him. That meant we had two choices. Pull into the other lane or pull off the road. The truck was in my lane.
Then suddenly there was a car in the other lane. Both lanes are now full, and our only choice is the trees. This meant we had to pull off the near side of the road going about 35 miles per hour. We bounced along about 5 feet and then crashed hard into a tree. The tree limb hit the windshield and the Debbie's forehead hit the windshield. The glass from the window cut off part of her bangs, which took forever to grow back.
As I looked over to see if Debbie was okay I could see that she was bleeding. She put her hand up to her head to stop the bleeding, and I jumped out of the car and yelled at the idiots in the truck. The car in the other lane had stopped. I think they called EMS, and all I remember is the ambulance taking care of Debbie. I insisted that the guys in the truck stay, but the cop let them go while I was checking on Debbie.
Another wreck and I got to pay for it since the guy responsible was let go. My insurance was already high enough, and the guy responsible for the accident was off the hook. I wasn’t going to report it to my insurance, since that would only mean higher rates for the next few years. So I was blessed to shell out over $2000 to get the windshield replaced and weld on a new part of the frame. It was fixed in time for us to move to California, where I would be starting as a brand new teacher, and get another part-time life-risking side job – painting flagpoles.
I wish I could say I have had my last car wreck, but with my past experiences under my belt, I know I'll have to be extra careful. I'm getting to be so old that now I drive the speed limit on every road. It has a nice side effect. I no longer have to mash the brake when I see the police, and there is a nice sense of calm as you pass through the radar without a worry.
I only wish I had driven better earlier in my life. The same car that had the windshield accident was in two more before it was totaled. We were driving up the hill into Orem and it was snowing lightly. But it was snowing enough that I should have been driving slower. The Volvo in front of me had stopped in the road for some reason, and I didn't see it fast enough. I was able to swerve enough to get from behind the car, but not far enough to avoid a collision. We slid past on the passenger side, and both of the blue Volkswagen bumpers were cleanly sheared off, and we suddenly had half of a dune buggy. The impact pushed us sideways up over the sidewalk where we came to rest, and fortunately, no one was injured. I guess it's really true about Volvo's being a tough car, because when we went to inspect the damage to the other car, there was a small hole in the back panel, about the size of a dime. That was all the damage I could see. I was impressed. My insurance company was not. The company canceled me and I had to get insurance with another insurer.
I wasn't involved in the final accident of the Volkswagen, but I will describe its infamous ending, because it was one of the first times my daughter Tia got to go to the emergency room. Debbie was going to her folks house and as she pulled out at a four way stop only about 8 blocks from their house, some old guy ran the stop sign and t-boned them. Glass shattered all over Tia and she got to get checked out for cuts at the hospital. I was waiting for them in Ogden to celebrate Tia's first birthday. I guess that is one birthday we will never forget, although I doubt she remembers anything about it.
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Click on the player to hear an audio version of this piece Car CrashesTuesday Jan 04, 2011
John Wayne
Tuesday Jan 04, 2011
Tuesday Jan 04, 2011
Character Central John Wayne
Leo
Character Central, home of the formerly famous, this is Leo speakin’.
Dane
Could I speak to Marion Morrison please?
Leo
Who?
Dane
The Duke?
Leo
No dukes, here, buddy. Oh, you mean John Wayne!
Dane
Yes! Could I speak to John Wayne, please?
Leo
That’s gonna cost ya.
Dane
Could we put this on the Bill Gates card, please?
Leo
Oh, is this dat Abundance guy again?
Dane
Yes, this is Dane Allred.
Leo
No, that guy who is always talkin’ about all the good things he sees in life?
Dane
Yes, that’s me. Dane Allred
Leo
No, that ain’t right.
Dane
I do talk about 1001 things I’m thankful for.
Leo
That’s the guy. Mr. 1001 Thanks.
Dane
Yes, that’s me. Dane Allred.
Leo
No, that still ain’t right. But I’ll go get Marion.
(off-phone)
Johnny – Dukey baby. It’s Bill Gates on the phone for you.
Dane
No, it’s not Bill Gates. We just use the card I found…
John Wayne
This is the Duke speaking…
Dane
John Wayne!! It is such a pleasure to speak to you. I’ve really enjoyed every movie I’ve ever seen you in.
John Wayne
Well, I’ll tell you pilgrim, there are some things a man just can’t run away from.
Dane
You are a classic American icon.
John Wayne
I`m an American actor. I work with my clothes on. I have to. Riding a horse can be pretty tough on your legs and elsewheres.
Dane
Yes, that could be painful.
John Wayne
When you come slam bang up against trouble, it never looks half as bad if you face up to it.
Dane
You do have a great attitude. Thanks for sharing it with our listeners.
John Wayne
Well, I’ve always said, when the road looks rough ahead, remember the Man Upstairs and the word Hope. Hang onto both and tough it out.
Dane
That’s exactly the kind of thing I was hoping you would say.
John Wayne
I won’t be wronged, I won’t be insulted, and I won’t be laid a hand on. I don’t do these things to other people, and I require the same from them.
Dane
Another good piece of advice.
John Wayne
Get off your horse and drink your milk.
Dane
I’m sorry?...
John Wayne
Life is tough, but it's tougher when you're stupid.
Dane
Stupid?
John Wayne
Talk low, talk slow and don't say too much.
Dane
Am I talking too fast?
John Wayne
You can`t whine and bellyache because somebody else got a good break and you didn`t.
Dane
I’m sorry if you think I’m whining…
John Wayne
A man's got to do what a man's got to do.
Dane
Um, yes. Mr. Wayne, is there a way you would like to be remembered?
John Wayne
I would like to be remembered, well . . . the Mexicans have a phrase, "Feo fuerte y formal". Which means he was ugly, strong and had dignity.
Dane
Ugly? Really?
John Wayne
I have tried to live my life so that my family would love me and my friends respect me. The others can do whatever the hell they please.
Dane
Again, good advice. Any advice for the future?
John Wayne
Tomorrow is the most important thing in life. Comes into us at midnight very clean. It's perfect when it arrives and it puts itself in our hands. It hopes we've learned something from yesterday.
Dane
Very good. I hope we have learned something today. Any advice about women from the manliest man of American film?
John Wayne
I've had three wives, six children and six grandchildren and I still don't understand women.
Dane
Yes, Abraham Lincoln said a woman was the only thing he was afraid of that he knew wouldn’t hurt him.
John Wayne
Courage is being scared to death... and saddling up anyway.
Dane
I guess there is no answer for the fear.
John Wayne
All battles are fought by scared men who’d rather be someplace else.
Dane
I can’t believe you only received one Oscar for Best Actor.
John Wayne
You can’t eat awards -- nor, more to the point, drink ‘em.
Dane
Hard living and hard drinking.
John Wayne
I never trust a man that doesn`t drink.
Dane
John Wayne, thank you so much for being with us today.
John Wayne
A man ought to do what he thinks is right.
Dane
That’s right, and again, thank you for speaking with us from Character Central.
LITERATURE OUT LOUD
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LITERATURE OUT LOUD -- see and hear great literature Audio narrations with synchronized visual text
The Complete Collection of
SHAKESPEARE'S SONNETS
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