I was derided as a believer “in Santa Claus” for my faith when I was young.  Let me now weigh the results on my critic’s scale.  Of course, neither of us will possess anything, since you can’t take it with you.  But I’ll have lived among the children of God, making mostly loyal friends who didn’t count my possessions.  My wife remained true, my friends forgiving, and I had the spiritual (mental) rewards and consolations of faith when we both faced the adversities that come to all.

He, on the other hand, if he turned down all the comforts offered to those who sometimes say yes to faith, had the stress of achieving comforts the unbeliever must have.  He had the plethora of friends who are in it for gain, the friendship of those who didn’t care one dot for his welfare except for how it affected them.  If he lived his beliefs, he died alone.

What can I say but a prayer for his soul?

We lose so much of life when we do things subconsciously, that is without appreciation or gratitude.  At noon today, I was eating some baby back ribs out of the refrigerator and some barbecue sauce.  Now Loretta had boiled those back ribs for two hours, and had bought us some special Jack Daniels barbecue sauce.  Eaten separately (as I might in a subconscious manner) they’d be pallid, unimpressive, but together, what a feast!  I mean even out of the refrigerator.

But life and many things therein are given to us, free.  So are the people who make it what it is.  But I know whom to thank – there’s first of all the author of it all (everything has a cause, right?) and then there’s Loretta.  Thanks, Loretta.

I look forward to that, since now, when I move my legs slowly to get out of the car, I remember those days on the basketball court when I out-jumped my opponent at the tip to start a game for the glory of St. Mary’s High School. But I believe that one day that agility will return. Yes, it is a belief that has given us Western Civilization today, as it was that confidence in the brotherhood of Judeo-Christianity that enabled us to put a man on the moon.

The strength in my legs is fading, the twilight goes into night, the fall recedes into winter, but a new day, a new year, and a new strength will return. Some call it faith; I call it the nature of things God gave us. Scientists at Yale have brought a dead pig’s brain back to life, and if they can do it, the Son of Man can orchestrate something better with God, his Father.

She was ten years old, left in the library, and she gave the librarian the book she’d selected. “I’d like to read it, but I’m dyslexic. I can’t read.” The librarian was a woman like what somebody would have to tell you. A woman like that can’t be picked out of a crowd.

The librarian opened the child’s book. “Here,” she said, “let’s sit down at the library table and start right here. Do you know what sound this letter makes?” They proceeded through that sentence and finished the paragraph. “Can you come here every Saturday morning? Say about nine o’clock?”

“You mean you’ll teach me?” The girl was outside of her normal world with joy. Does she remember now that she’s an adult and loves to read mysteries, say two or three a month? You bet she does, and maybe doesn’t even realize she met up with one in a million women that morning.

My WWII friend, Armand, told me about his older brother, Curly, who was a tough Bronx kid. Nobody wanted to tangle with him. The director of a debt-collection agency saw this right away, and hired Curly as a collector to go see people who weren’t paying up.

One day Curly knocked on a door with a malfunctioning doorbell. The door opened, and there stood a young mother with a newborn in her arms and two older children behind her. “Are you Mrs. Alvarez?” Curly asked.

“Yes,” came the hesitant reply.

“You haven’t paid your rent for five months,” Curly stated in a tough voice, and the woman shrank back.

“I have three children; my husband left me, and I can’t even buy food.”

Curly looked at her, astounded, and then reached for his left pocket and took out his wallet.

When he reported back to his boss, the boss asked, “How did it go with Alvarez this morning?”

Curly was silent. Then he said, “I went to the grocer’s, and bought her and the children some food.”

“What? You must be stupid! That woman has a husband who makes more than you do.”

“You call me stupid?” Curly was in his element. He cocked his fist and the next moment the boss was stretched out on the floor.