Mirth and joking, as long as they are not at someone’s expense, are God-given human attributes that spell happiness.  One of the funny stories about us oldsters is about the doctor who asked his 85-year-old patient, Annabel, if she and her husband still had intercourse.  She said, “Wait a minute.”

She then proceeded to the waiting room, where her husband sat, and called out, “Henry, do we still have intercourse?”

“If I told you once I’ve told you a thousand times,” came the reply, “We have Blues Cross.  That’s Blue Cross and Blue Shield.”

Sometimes, when a friend tells a doubtful story, we decide to give him “the benefit of the doubt.”  It’s an expression that means we will believe him on the basis of his past performances.

When we pray, how often do we give God the benefit of the doubt?  Isn’t it something we could do more often?  After all, it surely is not the first favor we have asked.  And do we realize there’s a waiting time for a prayer to be answered?

A child whose requests are immediately answered becomes spoiled.  Our heavenly Father knows this and more.  We don’t, at times.

I am so grateful that the good Lord has provided me with the needs of life so that I have time to appreciate the beauty of his creation.  As an amateur artist in my early life, I not only came to admire clouds, spring flowers, paintings by Raphael, Michelangelo, music by Rossini, Verdi, Franz Gruber, the women in the popular and fashion magazines (yes, some actresses, despite worldly foibles, are attractive physically) and these were all the results of His evolution and creation.

But enough; we know we are in a world of beauty.  Do we show the respect all this deserves?  We take too much for granted.  Not only do we have these things and people for a lifetime, but the good Lord sent his only Son to bring us an eternity of it.  Many are the nay sayers, but their voices are weak compared to the centuries of our civilization.

Going up to the 68^th floor by elevator was a ride (I used to think it was the 86^th), and as boys we were delighted to spend the time putting straps on the Certina watches destined for the PXs (Post Exchanges or U.S. Army stores).  The room in which we worked gave a fantastic view of the city.

Outside, in the hall, if you stood against the wall by the elevator, you could feel the wall moving away from your back on a windy day.  What kind of office was this?  Well, the Swiss watch importing business was good right after WWII, and my Dad wanted a known location.

So we were in what was then the world’s tallest building, known as the Empire State Building.  The influx of Swiss watches was soon offset by another influx, that of inexpensive Japanese watches, so my father later economized on office space.

A TRUE “LORD OF THE FLIES”

But it turned out just the opposite.  The six boys from a Tongan Catholic school were rescued in 1966 after having survived for fifteen months on the uninhabited island of ‘Ata, all still alive and healthy.  They even set the broken leg of one of their members.

This outcome, unlike that of William Golding’s fiction story, shows what humankind can accomplish, given the right education.  The story was covered by the journalist Rutger Bregman, in The Guardian, an Australian newspaper.  The six boys had decided to go on a spree in a stolen sailboat (they contradicted their training) , were shipwrecked during a storm, and were luckily able to swim to the abandoned island of ‘Ata.  They caught rain in coconut shells, and fish, to survive.  They organized someone to watch the fire, and the coastline, and it finally paid off for them, unlike for Golding’s less civilized boys.

Their rescuer was Peter Warner, the free-spirited son of an Australian millionaire.  I don’t know if he got the lesson of these boys’ education.