WRITEON FOR JUNE 3, 2020 sister alies. Maybe you are this lucky? On June 1, 2020 my friend had a b-day and on that day 60 years ago we met. Hard to believe. We were in our early teens on a camping trip. I mean to have a friend for 60 years? Since we were 18, though, we’ve never lived in the same state at the same time. A couple of times we were even in different countries. It was only a few years ago that we actually got together when she came for her first MS visit. That was something indeed. No matter how your friendships play out, do value them and work out all those ways you can support one another! We value of course wonderful close BFFs and hope that our lives will be an enrichment one for another. Frequently, though, folks are separated either from one another or family. We are seeing that in the over 100,000 dead from ‘19’. Bless them. Maybe you watched the GRANT miniseries on the HISTORY channel this past week…or one of the replays? I found a lot of it difficult to watch and yet I learned a lot. I believe the text came from a couple of fellows from Mississippi State, Louie Gallo and David Nolen along with Prof. John Marszalek. Some of you might have met them when they came to our library in 2017. “Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant: the Complete Annotated Edition”, published by Harvard. Have you visited the Ulysses S. Grant presidential library at Mississippi State? I ran onto an idea I thought very interesting: ‘a solution to a problem changes the problem.’ How is it that we are so sure that this or that is absolutely right…when another person is clear it is not? Folks think things through, as do scientists and parents, ballplayers and kids based on their own insights and experience and sometimes even facts! Here’s a little deMello story to prove the point: “Soon after WWII a man was on a London bus and had a large parcel on his lap. The conductor asked what it was and he replied: ‘an unexploded bomb that fell in my yard. I’m taking it to the police station.’ The conductor shouted: ‘Good God man you don’t want to carry a thing like that on your lap…put it under your seat!’” (THE HEART OF THE ENLIGHTENED,Fount,1989) One thing and another…BLESSINGS.
